Humans descended from ape-like creatures? A skeptical look at the fossil record

_{Denyse O'Leary

September 28, 2013

Human evolution}

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From the new special edition of science and culture mag Salvo on science and faith:

Casey Luskin asks,”Has Science Shown That We Evolved from Ape-like Creatures?

It is not uncommon for evolutionary scientists like Wetherington (even those who teach at Christian universities) to be adamant about the evidence in favor of human evolution. Digging into the technical literature, however, we find a situation that’s starkly different from the one presented by Wetherington and many other evolutionary scientists who engage in public debates.

A closer look at the literature shows that hominin fossils generally fall into one of two categories—ape-like species or human-like species (of the genus Homo)—and that there is a large, unbridged gap between them. Despite the claims of many evolutionary paleoanthropologists, the fragmented hominin fossil record does not document the evolution of humans from ape-like precursors. In fact, scientists are quite sharply divided over who or what our human ancestors even were. Newly discovered fossils are often initially presented to the public with great enthusiasm and fanfare, but once cooler heads prevail, their status as human evolutionary ancestors is invariably called into question. More.

Comments

1. (b) Tattersall also contends that language and the capacity for symbolic thought are unique to Homo sapiens - indeed, he thinks they appeared tens of thousands of years subsequent to the appearance of Homo sapiens. On this point, however, I think he is mistaken. There's an excellent 2013 article by Dediu and Levinson, titled, "On the antiquity of language: the reinterpretation of Neandertal linguistic capacities and its consequences", which argues that the capacity for human language goes back to Heidelberg man. Here is the timeline proposed by the authors, who adduce several converging pieces of cultural evidence to support their case that Heidelberg man and Neandertal man were both capable of language:
H. heidelbergensis and immediate successors were adept tool users, likely fashioned aerodynamic javelins, brought down large game, possibly used red ochre presumably for symbolic purposes, were regular fire users and perhaps buried the dead. They dispersed throughout Western Europe and the bulk of skeletal material comes from Atapuerca in Spain, dating to ~500 thousand years ago (kya).... The Neandertals had a complex stone tool technology (the Mousterian) that required considerable skill and training, with many variants and elaborations (see Klein, 2009: 485ff). They sometimes mined the raw materials at up to 2 meters depth (Verri et al., 2004). Their stone tools show wear indicating usage on wood, suggesting the existence of a wooden material culture with poor preservation, such as the carefully shaped javelins made ~400 kya from Germany (Thieme, 1997). Tools were hafted with pitch extracted by fire (Roebroeks and Villa, 2011). Complex tool making of the Mousterian kind involves hierarchical planning with recursive sub-stages (Stout, 2011) which activates Broca's area just as in analogous linguistic tasks (Stout and Chaminade, 2012). The chain of fifty or so actions and the motor control required to master it are not dissimilar to the complex cognition and motor control involved in language (and similarly takes months of learning to replicate by modern students). The Neandertals managed to live in hostile sub-Arctic conditions (Stewart, 2005). They controlled fire, and in addition to game, cooked and ate starchy foods of various kinds (Henry et al., 2010; Roebroeks and Villa, 2011). They almost certainly had sewn skin clothing and some kind of footgear (Sorensen, 2009). They hunted a range of large animals, probably by collective driving, and could bring down substantial game like buffalo and mammoth (Conard and Niven, 2001; Villa and Lenoir, 2009). Neandertals buried their dead (Pettitt, 2002), with some but contested evidence for grave offerings and indications of cannibalism (Lalueza-Fox et al., 2010). Lumps of pigment—presumably used in body decoration, and recently found applied to perforated shells (Zilhao et al., 2010)—are also found in Neandertal sites. They also looked after the infirm and the sick, as shown by healed or permanent injuries (e.g., Spikins et al., 2010), and apparently used medicinal herbs (Hardy et al., 2012). They may have made huts, bone tools, and beads, but the evidence is more scattered (Klein, 2009), and seemed to live in small family groups and practice patrilocality (Lalueza-Fox et al., 2010).
Taken together, I think there can no longer be any reasonable doubt that the Neandertals, and presumably Heidelberg man as well, were fully rational and capable of using language. Where Dediu and Levinson go wrong, I would contend, is in arguing that this evidence for an ancient origin of language supports the hypothesis that it evolved gradually. That's a pure supposition on their part. To be continued...vjtorley_{September 30, 2013
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Hi bornagain77, Thank you very much for your thoughtful comments above (#39). I'd like to make a few points in response. 1. Distinctness of Homo sapiens. You quote anthropologist Ian Tattersall as remarking that "[e]ven allowing for the poor record we have of our close extinct kin, Homo sapiens appears as distinctive and unprecedented." A few points: (a) If you place the skull of Heidelberg man (Homo sapiens's presumed predecessor) alongside a skull of modern man, the differences between the two look pretty startling (see here for a good example, taken from a very well-argued article by Melissa Cain Travis). However, the Heidelberg man skull in her illustration is an extreme example: it's the Kabwe skull (formerly known as Rhodesian man). Other skulls of Heidelberg man look more modern - for instance, this skull of Petralona man (now thought to be 350,000 years old, not 120,000, 200,000 or 700,000 as once claimed). The Steinheim skull , which is 250,000 years old, also looks similar to Homo sapiens. So I'd be wary of saying that Homo sapiens is absolutely unprecedented in the fossil record. To be continued...vjtorley_{September 30, 2013
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What’s really confusing is that you get different family trees when you look at genetic data (for example FOXP1, FOXP2, FOXP3). In science, when things don’t make sense, you’re supposed to look for new, more encompassing ideas, rather than picking the one that is most compatible with your preconceptions, world view, or morality.
Common descent is a fact. It's taught in nearly all schools and universities around the world. 99.9% of scientists support it. The mainstream textbooks have chapters on common descent which you will never be able to get rid of because the evidence is rock solid (you never quote these textbooks). Every year there are countless scientific papers offering new evidence for it. I see no reason to invoke a conspiracy. The evidence is real. The only people who deny it are religious people. If the Bible had not been written you would have no problem with accepting the evidence for common descent. If you spent a week honestly looking at the evidence you would accept it. You guys talk about wanting design to get more mainstream recognition then you would need to accept common descent if that is ever to happen. All this talk about YEC kinds or a global flood is embarrassing and puts you in a camp of pseudoscience. The older evolutionary "design" theorists who were all theists such as Edward Drinker Cope, Samuel Butler, Henry Fairfield Osborn, Teilhard De Chardin, Henri Bergson, Hans Driesch and Pierre Lecomte du Noüy all accepted common descent. The biologist St. George Jackson Mivart author of On the genesis of species (one of the best anti-Darwinian books I have ever read) accepted the fact of common descent and was a Catholic. Frank B. Salisbury a plant physiologist (and a Mormon!) author of brilliant book "The Case for Divine Design" accepts the fact of common descent.... so what is the problem? Why are you equating common descent with atheism?TheisticEvolutionist_{September 30, 2013
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In the following video Paul Giem deals with the objections to Casey Luskin's work in 'Science and Human Origins' on the fossil record: Science and Human Origins--Objections (Part 3) 7-27-2013 by Paul Giem - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07eo83l_yMQ&list=UUaBAwmf0uZeTYejbXpXV7VQbornagain77_{September 30, 2013
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wd400 I am the author of that UD post. I stopped working on human genomic comparison when some said there were doubts that the human genome was obtained, at least partially, from the scaffold of the chimp one. I don't like to waste my time working on faked data.niwrad_{September 30, 2013
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What's to notice? The UD post really does estimate the the human and chimp genomes have 98.5% identity when talking about SNPs. I don't think there is anything very magical about that number, but it's true. I do think that post is funny, but no one wants to talk about thatwd400_{September 29, 2013
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TheisticEvolutionist concluded:
This is utterly confusing stuff! I will stick with Occam’s razor. Common descent does it for me.
What's really confusing is that you get different family trees when you look at genetic data (for example FOXP1, FOXP2, FOXP3). In science, when things don't make sense, you're supposed to look for new, more encompassing ideas, rather than picking the one that is most compatible with your preconceptions, world view, or morality. Mung questioned:
I just can’t for the life of me understand why there was common descent after the flood but not before it. And if there was common descent before the flood, why isn’t it reflected in the fossils?
How would it be reflected in the fossils? Surely one can easily create any sequence of supposed descent based on morphology, which is notoriously unreliable. Imagine a world populated with animals that have genomes with large genetic variability potentials (such as the dog/wolf rather than the tiger). It's easy if you try. Now imagine environmental challenges and the culling of traits (a loss of information) through natural selection. Instead of a continuous spectrum of genetic variation in a "kind" of animal, there are now *large gaps* between what we now term "species." Here's an example of what I mean. Imagine that after severe selection pressure due to environmental changes, the dog/wolf "kind" left is limited to great danes, wolves, and chihuahuas. From the "fossil record," you might assume that they had a common ancestor, when in fact, ALL their ancestors were common. Or, alternatively, you might order these as an evolutionary progression based on the paucity of fossils: chihuahuas, wolves, and then great danes, when no such progression occurred. I contend that the genetic data favors the large genome interpretation over evolutionary fantasies. And don't claim that ERVs help, since they produce contradictory family trees. WD400 chortled:
I see no one has a reply to the fact UD’s own post confirms the 98.5% identity between human and chimp genomes…
But WD400 failed to see that Bornagain77 produced the following information:
Comprehensive Analysis of Chimpanzee and Human Chromosomes Reveals Average DNA Similarity of 70% – by Jeffrey P. Tomkins – February 20, 2013 Excerpt: For the chimp autosomes, the amount of optimally aligned DNA sequence provided similarities between 66 and 76%, depending on the chromosome.
Now, in a previous post, Querius noted that published results of comparisons included the observation that cats also share 70% and bananas share 50% of the human genome. Once can hope that WD400 might take notice of these facts as well . . .Querius_{September 29, 2013
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Of related interest, Paul Geim has done a video covering Casey Luskin's work in 'Science and Human Origins' on the fossil record (Casey Luskin) Human Origins and the Fossil Record (3) 6-22-2013 by Paul Giem - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IupTLxMkiSw&list=UUaBAwmf0uZeTYejbXpXV7VQ The first two parts of the 5 part series are here: (Ann Gauger) Science and Human Origins (1) 6-8-2013 by Paul Giem - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-gyNn8IO-o&list=UUaBAwmf0uZeTYejbXpXV7VQ (Doug Axe) Darwin's Little Engine that Couldn't (2) 6-15-2013 by Paul Giem http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgHAgoKA56g&list=UUaBAwmf0uZeTYejbXpXV7VQ Of note: I believe there is also a part 4 and 5 to the series in the playlist also of interest is Paul Giem does another video (5 parts) on covering the objections that were raised against "Science and Human Origins". Here is part 1: Science and Human Origins--Objections (Part 1 of 5) 7-13-2013 by Paul Giem http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3YfH3IPO3g&list=UUaBAwmf0uZeTYejbXpXV7VQ Also of interest is that Paul Geim has just recently (yesterday) started a new series on Meyer's book 'Darwin's Doubt': Darwin's Doubt - Paul Giem - video uploaded 9-28-2013 - (Part 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wB4GKzmWCA&list=UUaBAwmf0uZeTYejbXpXV7VQbornagain77_{September 29, 2013
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OT: Don't Mess With ID - Paul Giem - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JeYJ29-I7obornagain77_{September 29, 2013
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Are they using Mendel's Accountant?Mung_{September 29, 2013
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To know that you'd have to know how their model worke (the paper doesn't seem to be available). The fact these guys think tens of millions of substitutions are require for human evolution doesn't fill me with confidence about their abilities...wd400_{September 29, 2013
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sixthbook, I'd prefer not to have to spend my time correcting YEC nonsense, but each side has it's faithful. Isn't that ironic?
I think it’s fundamentally different from how Haldane’s dilemma affects macroevolution because the YEC model has all the information already there in the original kind, the evolution model doesn’t.
The dilemma is the same for both. Worse for the YEC scenario, as I said. It doesn't depend on the source of the "information" or whether it was "front-loaded" or it originated on the fly. The problem is spreading it through the population, and if one is going to accept the Darwinian model at this point (microevolution) they are relying on the Darwinian mechanism. They are basically saying God put the info there and then it was hands off, which is just silly. The model is one of mathematical probabilities, and unless you're going to let God alter the probabilities, you still are faced with the same problem. As ReMine put it, you have to out-reproduce the alternatives. Were these members of the population that had these special gifts particularly "fruitful"? What I'd really like to see is the model that shows how this post-flood diversification by microevolution supposedly worked. btw, I'm perfectly happy with God did it. His continuing activity in the creation is no problem for me.Mung_{September 29, 2013
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wd400 @53: Ah, I see. You'll forgive me if I missed it I hope. I tend to quickly scroll through most of ba77's link-fests. I've made clear in the past my opinion of debate by link-flooding but BA and I have agreed to disagree. :) Yes, I wonder where they get their figures. But I would be surprised of they did not have at least some basis for them. Here's what I found even more interesting:
Using realistic parameter settings we only observe a few hundred selection-induced beneficial fixations after 300,000 generations (6 million years).
So ReMine appears to be vindicated.Mung_{September 29, 2013
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We've often heard of the overwhelming evidence for evolution -- the mountain of evidence. Well, I've looked into a site called talkorigins.org for the evidence it has for human evolution. So I've put together a little comparison here at http://ayearningforpublius.wordpress.com/2013/09/27/the-form-and-quality-of-the-evidence/ Other than a good deal of text at talkorigins.org, and more pictures of skulls I fail to see the mountain.ayearningforpublius_{September 29, 2013
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Mung: "And for those YEC’s such as yourself who believe in post-flood microevoluton (if I read you correctly) you run into a far worse version of Haldane’s dilemma than would any evolutionist. As far as I am concerned you may as well believe in post-flood continuing special creation." Doesn't Haldane's dilemma refer to the problems with fixation of new mutations? I'm pretty sure the post flood rapid speciation just requires a "front loaded" genome that becomes less diverse and more specific as it speciates from the kind on the ark to the species we know today. I think it's fundamentally different from how Haldane's dilemma affects macroevolution because the YEC model has all the information already there in the original kind, the evolution model doesn't.sixthbook_{September 29, 2013
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Mung, I mean exactly the question Rupe and Sanford set out to answer: We then perform large-scale experiments to examine the feasibility of the ape-to-man scenario over a six million year period. ... This is significant because the ape-to-man scenario requires tens of millions of selective nucleotide substitutions in the human lineage." There are only "tens of millions" of nucleotide substitutions in the human lineage, so Rupe and Sanford are either unaware of that fact, or think all of them are the result of selection. Hard to think which option is more favourable. I see no one has a reply to the fact UD's own post confirms the 98.5% identity between human and chimp genomes...wd400_{September 29, 2013
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To back up niwrad's position of
Evolutionist universal common descent (UCD) is all species from an unique common ancestor (UCA), via reproduction and unguided transformistic macroevolution. Reasonable limited LCD is all species from a set of different kinds/families (roughly as that on the ark) via reproduction and microevolution. I believe in this reasonable LCD. No problem about that. What is absurd is evolutionist UCD from a unique self-replicator, all the way down, by means of RM+NS only.
,,, Yet from an old earth perspective, Dr. Behe found that the 'Edge of Evolution' fell where YEC's had deduced it to be before Dr. Behe from a different method of reasoning, and line of evidence, than Dr. Behe had used:
A review of The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism by Michael J. Behe Excerpt: So Michael Behe comes to the grand conclusion to his survey: ‘Somewhere between the level of vertebrate species and class lies the organismal edge of Darwinian evolution’ (p. 201). A diagram illustrates this (p. 218), which he reproduces on the page facing the title page of the book (figure 2). Interestingly, the creationist study of baraminology (defining the limits of the original created kinds, or baramins, of Genesis 1) has arrived at conclusions consistent with Behe’s proposition, using a different approach based on hybridization criteria, where possible, combined with morphology, etc.4 In fact, in 1976 creationist biologist Frank Marsh proposed that the created kinds (baramins) were often at the level of genus or family, although sometimes at the level of order.5 http://creation.com/review-michael-behe-edge-of-evolution
More evidence for 'top down' common descent comes from the fossil record and also from what is known as 'Dollo's law'. There is actually ample evidence in the fossil record to infer that the principle of Genetic Entropy has been rigidly obeyed over the course of the history of life on this earth. The following article is important in that it shows the principle of Genetic Entropy being obeyed in the fossil record by Trilobites, over the 270 million year history of their life on earth (Note: Trilobites are one of the most prolific 'kinds' found in the fossil record with an extensive worldwide distribution. They appeared abruptly at the base of the Cambrian explosion with no evidence of transmutation from the 'simple' creatures that preceded them, nor is there any evidence they ever produced anything else besides other trilobites during the entire time they are found in the fossil record).
The Cambrian's Many Forms Excerpt: "It appears that organisms displayed “rampant” within-species variation “in the ‘warm afterglow’ of the Cambrian explosion,” Hughes said, but not later. “No one has shown this convincingly before, and that’s why this is so important.""From an evolutionary perspective, the more variable a species is, the more raw material natural selection has to operate on,"....(Yet Surprisingly)...."There's hardly any variation in the post-Cambrian," he said. "Even the presence or absence or the kind of ornamentation on the head shield varies within these Cambrian trilobites and doesn't vary in the post-Cambrian trilobites." University of Chicago paleontologist Mark Webster; article on the "surprising and unexplained" loss of variation and diversity for trilobites over the 270 million year time span that trilobites were found in the fossil record, prior to their total extinction from the fossil record about 250 million years ago. http://www.terradaily.com/reports/The_Cambrian_Many_Forms_999.html
In fact, the loss of morphological traits over time, for all organisms found in the fossil record, was/is so consistent that it was made into a 'scientific law':
Dollo's law and the death and resurrection of genes: Excerpt: "As the history of animal life was traced in the fossil record during the 19th century, it was observed that once an anatomical feature was lost in the course of evolution it never staged a return. This observation became canonized as Dollo's law, after its propounder, and is taken as a general statement that evolution is irreversible." http://www.pnas.org/content/91/25/12283.full.pdf+html
A general rule of thumb for the 'Deterioration/Genetic Entropy' of Dollo's Law as it applies to the fossil record is found here:
Dollo's law and the death and resurrection of genes ABSTRACT: Dollo's law, the concept that evolution is not substantively reversible, implies that the degradation of genetic information is sufficiently fast that genes or developmental pathways released from selective pressure will rapidly become nonfunctional. Using empirical data to assess the rate of loss of coding information in genes for proteins with varying degrees of tolerance to mutational change, we show that, in fact, there is a significant probability over evolutionary time scales of 0.5-6 million years for successful reactivation of silenced genes or "lost" developmental programs. Conversely, the reactivation of long (>10 million years)-unexpressed genes and dormant developmental pathways is not possible unless function is maintained by other selective constraints; http://www.pnas.org/content/91/25/12283.full.pdf+html
And seeing as Darwinian processes cannot account for the origination of new genes and proteins (Axe) or anatomical features (Behe) but can account for the loss of genes and anatomical features quite readily (Sanford) then you can see a picture start to emerge from the fossil data that is consistent to what we are finding in our direct observational evidence. Dr. Hunter puts the pattern this way:
Evolutionists Are Losing Ground Badly: Both Pattern and Process Contradict the Aging Theory – Cornelius Hunter - July 2012 Excerpt: Contradictory patterns in biology include the abrupt appearance of so many forms and the diversity explosions followed by a winnowing of diversity in the fossil record. It looks more like the inverse of an evolutionary tree with bursts of new species which then die off over time. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/07/evolutionists-are-losing-ground-badly.html
I have a few more examples I could give from the fossil record, but suffice it for now to say that this picture is far more coherent to the evidence we have, especially concidering the Cambrian Explosion, than neo-Darwinism isbornagain77_{September 29, 2013
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Mung I wrote "roughly as that on the ark" to give an idea of the set. I leave un-predicated the history time questions (YEC or OEC) because I consider more important the mechanisms of creation.niwrad_{September 29, 2013
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I thought I saw someone claiming that there was no evidence for common descent in the fossil record. If you ask me that belief is incoherent, and that’s what I was seeking to point out.
I first learnt some of the evidence for common descent in a book called "Evolution and Christians" by Philip Gilbert Fothergill. It's an old book published in 1961 but it was written by a biologist who was also a Catholic and he had no problem with accepting common descent. There should be no dispute between religion and science. Religious books should not be read literally!TheisticEvolutionist_{September 29, 2013
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niwrad:
Reasonable limited LCD is all species from a set of different kinds/families (roughly as that on the ark) via reproduction and microevolution. I believe in this reasonable LCD. No problem about that.
I thought I saw someone claiming that there was no evidence for common descent in the fossil record. If you ask me that belief is incoherent, and that's what I was seeking to point out. Whether you believe in pre-flood LCD or post-flood LCD there's no reason that I can think of that either or both would not be reflected in the fossil record. And for those YEC's such as yourself who believe in post-flood microevoluton (if I read you correctly) you run into a far worse version of Haldane's dilemma than would any evolutionist. As far as I am concerned you may as well believe in post-flood continuing special creation.Mung_{September 29, 2013
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What ark? If it existed why haven't they found it by now ;)TheisticEvolutionist_{September 29, 2013
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TheisticEvolutionist #41
if you reject common descent, then can you explain what your scientific replacement is? Are you saying God created millions or billions of species? At different intervals?
My answer: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/life-project-architecture/niwrad_{September 29, 2013
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Mung Evolutionist universal common descent (UCD) is all species from an unique common ancestor (UCA), via reproduction and unguided transformistic macroevolution. Reasonable limited LCD is all species from a set of different kinds/families (roughly as that on the ark) via reproduction and microevolution. I believe in this reasonable LCD. No problem about that. What is absurd is evolutionist UCD from a unique self-replicator, all the way down, by means of RM+NS only.niwrad_{September 29, 2013
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bornagain77 if you reject common descent, then can you explain what your scientific replacement is? Are you saying God created millions or billions of species? At different intervals?
All YEC's believe in common descent from a few critters on an ark. It's amazing to me that they so no evidence of common descent in the fossils. But I suppose that if you believe that all fossils were caused by the flood ... I just can't for the life of me understand why there was common descent after the flood but not before it. And if there was common descent before the flood, why isn't it reflected in the fossils?Mung_{September 29, 2013
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Thus the more correct picture of the universe, that is brought to us by our best understanding in physics, is to state that God, in his infinite power, ‘creates’ the universe every 10^-43 Planck time for each unique point of conscious observation in the universe. Philosophers refer to this as God ‘sustaining’ the universe. But as to the creation of life on earth, I hold a much more reserved ‘top down’ position of disparity preceding diversity that is held by Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig.
This is utterly confusing stuff! I will stick with Occam's razor. Common descent does it for me :)TheisticEvolutionist_{September 29, 2013
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"In short: there’s plenty of room here for intelligent engineering of the human body." - vjtorley Dr. Torley of course means capitalised 'Intelligent Engineering' just like he means when he hypothesizes a capitalised 'Intelligent Designer.' Torley is usually very clear on this and has explained why in the past. If he were consistent in this thread, the capitalisation of 'Intelligent Engineering/Engineer' would still hold. Of course, I agree with Torley re: "disagree with Casey’s claim." So do the majority of the RCC's scientists. So do most thoughtful persons today, outside of mainly fundamentalists in USA, Turkey, Australia, etc. I'd be glad to see Torley take a stronger stand against such fundamentalism and anti-intellectualism in between his English language classes. Likewise, most thoughtful persons disagree with Dr. Torley's PHILOSOPHICAL defenses of IDism and the bad theology of IDism (which of course, IDists duplicitly claim not to be about theology *at all*!). "I think the fossil evidence for the fact of human evolution is strong" - vjtorley Why not invite MSc lawyer Luskin here to discuss it? That Torley goes out of his way to say he is 'very respectful' of Luskin suggests that Torley wouldn't actually tell Casey to his face that his grasp of the relevant science is lacking or that he had been deceived by IDists or YECists (or probably both). That's why Torley is still safely part of the IDM, even from the other side of the world in a country where he doesn't know a single IDist like himself.Gregory_{September 29, 2013
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actually TheisticEvolutionist, if I read you correctly, you hold to "almost" a purely deterministic universe, but that position is false:
Lecture 11: Decoherence and Hidden Variables - Scott Aaronson Excerpt: "Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists who think the world sprang into existence on October 23, 4004 BC at 9AM (presumably Babylonian time), with the fossils already in the ground, light from distant stars heading toward us, etc. But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!" http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec11.html
Thus the more correct picture of the universe, that is brought to us by our best understanding in physics, is to state that God, in his infinite power, 'creates' the universe every 10^-43 Planck time for each unique point of conscious observation in the universe. Philosophers refer to this as God 'sustaining' the universe. But as to the creation of life on earth, I hold a much more reserved 'top down' position of disparity preceding diversity that is held by Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig: A. L. Hughes's New Non-Darwinian Mechanism of Adaption Was Discovered and Published in Detail by an ID Geneticist 25 Years Ago - Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig - December 2011 Excerpt: The original species had a greater genetic potential to adapt to all possible environments. In the course of time this broad capacity for adaptation has been steadily reduced in the respective habitats by the accumulation of slightly deleterious alleles (as well as total losses of genetic functions redundant for a habitat), with the exception, of course, of that part which was necessary for coping with a species' particular environment....By mutative reduction of the genetic potential, modifications became "heritable". -- As strange as it may at first sound, however, this has nothing to do with the inheritance of acquired characteristics. For the characteristics were not acquired evolutionarily, but existed from the very beginning due to the greater adaptability. In many species only the genetic functions necessary for coping with the corresponding environment have been preserved from this adaptability potential. The "remainder" has been lost by mutations (accumulation of slightly disadvantageous alleles) -- in the formation of secondary species. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/12/a_l_hughess_new053881.html But even this 'top down' position may be far to generous to power of Darwinian processes as is noted here: Orphan Genes (And the peer reviewed 'non-answer' from Darwinists) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zz6vio_LhY Genes from nowhere: Orphans with a surprising story - 16 January 2013 - Helen Pilcher Excerpt: When biologists began sequencing genomes they discovered up to a third of genes in each species seemed to have no parents or family of any kind. Nevertheless, some of these "orphan genes" are high achievers (are just as essential as 'old' genes),,, But where do they come from? With no obvious ancestry, it was as if these genes appeared out of nowhere, but that couldn't be true. Everyone assumed that as we learned more, we would discover what had happened to their families. But we haven't-quite the opposite, in fact.,,, The upshot is that the chances of random mutations turning a bit of junk DNA into a new gene seem infinitesmally small. As the French biologist Francois Jacob wrote 35 years ago, "the probability that a functional protein would appear de novo by random association of amino acids is practically zero".,,, Orphan genes have since been found in every genome sequenced to date, from mosquito to man, roundworm to rat, and their numbers are still growing. http://ccsb.dfci.harvard.edu/web/export/sites/default/ccsb/publications/papers/2013/All_alone_-_Helen_Pilcher_New_Scientist_Jan_2013.pdf and here: Proteins and Genes, Singletons and Species - Branko Kozuli? PhD. Biochemistry Excerpt: Horizontal gene transfer is common in prokaryotes but rare in eukaryotes [89-94], so HGT cannot account for (ORFan) singletons in eukaryotic genomes, including the human genome and the genomes of other mammals.,,, The trend towards higher numbers of (ORFan) singletons per genome seems to coincide with a higher proportion of the eukaryotic genomes sequenced. In other words, eukaryotes generally contain a larger number of singletons than eubacteria and archaea.,,, That hypothesis - that evolution strives to preserve a protein domain once it stumbles upon it contradicts the power law distribution of domains. The distribution graphs clearly show that unique domains are the most abundant of all domain groups [21, 66, 67, 70, 72, 79, 82, 86, 94, 95], contrary to their expected rarity.,,, Evolutionary biologists of earlier generations have not anticipated [164, 165] the challenge that (ORFan) singletons pose to contemporary biologists. By discovering millions of unique genes biologists have run into brick walls similar to those hit by physicists with the discovery of quantum phenomena. The predominant viewpoint in biology has become untenable: we are witnessing a scientific revolution of unprecedented proportions. http://vixra.org/pdf/1105.0025v1.pdf Of Note: Branko Kozulic is on the editorial team of BioComplexity http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/about/editorialTeamBio/23bornagain77_{September 29, 2013
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bornagain77 if you reject common descent, then can you explain what your scientific replacement is? Are you saying God created millions or billions of species? At different intervals?TheisticEvolutionist_{September 29, 2013
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supplemental note to Jonathan M.'s link:
Human/Ape Common Ancestry: Following the Evidence - Casey Luskin - June 2011 Excerpt: So the researchers constructed an evolutionary tree based on 129 skull and tooth measurements for living hominoids, including gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and humans, and did the same with 62 measurements recorded on Old World monkeys, including baboons, mangabeys and macaques. They also drew upon published molecular phylogenies. At the outset, Wood and Collard assumed the molecular evidence was correct. “There were so many different lines of genetic evidence pointing in one direction,” Collard explains. But no matter how the computer analysis was run, the molecular and morphological trees could not be made to match15 (see figure, below). Collard says this casts grave doubt on the reliability of using morphological evidence to determine the fine details of evolutionary trees for higher primates. “It is saying it is positively misleading,” he says. The abstract of the pair’s paper stated provocatively that “existing phylogenetic hypotheses about human evolution are unlikely to be reliable”.[10] http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/following_the_evidence_where_i047161.html#comment-9266481
Here is a later summary of Luskin's work:
How do Theistic Evolutionists Explain the Fossil Record and Human Origins? - Casey Luskin - September 14, 2012 Excerpt: In six recent articles (see the links at right), I have argued that the fossil record does not support the evolution of ape-like species into human-like species. Rather, hominin fossils generally fall into two distinct groups: ape-like species and human-like species, with a large, unbridged gap between them.,,, Third, not all paleontologists agree with Kidder that the lack of transitional fossils is simply the result of the unsophisticated (and all-too-easy) excuse the fossil record is poor. Consider what paleontologist Niles Eldredge and paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersal (who are both committed evolutionists) co-wrote in a book on human origins: "The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real: the gaps we see reflect real events in life's history -- not the artifact of a poor fossil record." (Niles Eldredge and Ian Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution, p. 59 (NY: Columbia University Press, 1982).) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/09/how_do_theistic_1064301.html
bornagain77_{September 29, 2013
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Well Dr. Torley, it seems that Tattersall disagrees with your assessment,
"A number of hominid crania are known from sites in eastern and southern Africa in the 400- to 200-thousand-year range, but none of them looks like a close antecedent of the anatomically distinctive Homo sapiens…Even allowing for the poor record we have of our close extinct kin, Homo sapiens appears as distinctive and unprecedented…there is certainly no evidence to support the notion that we gradually became who we inherently are over an extended period, in either the physical or the intellectual sense." Dr. Ian Tattersall: - paleoanthropologist - emeritus curator of the American Museum of Natural History - (Masters of the Planet, 2012)
Thus there is at least one expert who does not hold to your thinking. I'm sure many more references, supporting abruptness, can be found in these articles defending his thesis from Paul McBride:
Read Your References Carefully: Paul McBride's Prized Citation on Skull-Sizes Supports My Thesis, Not His - Casey Luskin - August 31, 2012 Excerpt of Conclusion: This has been a long article, but I hope it is instructive in showing how evolutionists deal with the fossil hominin evidence. As we've seen, multiple authorities recognize that our genus Homo appears in the fossil record abruptly with a complex suite of characteristics never-before-seen in any hominin. And that suite of characteristics has remained remarkably constant from the time Homo appears until the present day with you, me, and the rest of modern humanity. The one possible exception to this is brain size, where there are some skulls of intermediate cranial capacity, and there is some increase over time. But even there, when Homo appears, it does so with an abrupt increase in skull-size. ,,, The complex suite of traits associated with our genus Homo appears abruptly, and is distinctly different from the australopithecines which were supposedly our ancestors. There are no transitional fossils linking us to that group.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/read_your_refer_1063841.html McBride Misstates My Arguments in Science and Human Origins - Casey Luskin September 5, 2012 Excerpt: At the end of the day, I leave this exchange more confident than before that the evidence supports the abrupt appearance of our genus Homo. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/09/mcbride_misstat063931.html
Frankly Dr. Torley I am surprised that you, whom I've come to respect so much in regards to scrutiny of the molecular data, would cling so tightly to evidence that has been so ripe for fraudulent abuse in the past.
Hominid Hype and the Election Cycle - Casey Luskin - September 2011 Excerpt: Ignoring fraudulent fossils like Piltdown man, the last 50 years have seen a slew of so-called human ancestors which initially produced hype, and were later disproven. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/09/hominid_hype_and_the_election_050801.html
For instance Dr. Torley, I noticed you, in your references, relied heavily upon homo erectus evidence to support your claim for gradual transition, but this particular line of evidence that you rely on has been notoriously ripe for abuse:
Hominids, Homonyms, and Homo sapiens - 05/27/2009 - Creation Safaris: Excerpt: Homo erectus is particularly controversial, because it is such a broad classification. Tattersall and Schwartz find no clear connection between the Asian, European and African specimens lumped into this class. “In his 1950 review, Ernst Mayr placed all of these forms firmly within the species Homo erectus,” they explained. “Subsequently, Homo erectus became the standard-issue ‘hominid in the middle,’ expanding to include not only the fossils just mentioned, but others of the same general period....”. They discussed the arbitrariness of this classification: "Put together, all these fossils (which span almost 2 myr) make a very heterogeneous assortment indeed; and placing them all together in the same species only makes any conceivable sense in the context of the ecumenical view of Homo erectus as the middle stage of the single hypervariable hominid lineage envisioned by Mayr (on the basis of a much slenderer record). Viewed from the morphological angle, however, the practice of cramming all of this material into a single Old World-wide species is highly questionable. Indeed, the stuffing process has only been rendered possible by a sort of ratchet effect, in which fossils allocated to Homo erectus almost regardless of their morphology have subsequently been cited as proof of just how variable the species can be." By “ratchet effect,” they appear to mean something like a self-fulfilling prophecy: i.e., “Let’s put everything from this 2-million-year period into one class that we will call Homo erectus.” Someone complains, “But this fossil from Singapore is very different from the others.” The first responds, “That just shows how variable the species Homo erectus can be.” http://creationsafaris.com/crev200905.htm#20090527a
Moreover, when researchers tried to verify any particular scenario for human evolution to the molecular level, the whole thing artificial construction came crashing down:
Human Origins, and the Real Reasons for Evolutionary Skepticism - Jonathan M. - December 9, 2012 Excerpt: "Cladistic analysis of cranial and dental evidence has been widely used to generate phylogenetic hypotheses about humans and their fossil relatives. However, the reliability of these hypotheses has never been subjected to external validation. To rectify this, we applied internal methods to equivalent evidence from two groups of extant higher primates for whom reliable molecular phylogenies are available, the hominoids and paionins. We found that the phylogenetic hypotheses based on the craniodental data were incompatible with the molecular phylogenies for the groups. Given the robustness of the molecular phylogenies, these results indicate that little confidence can be placed in phylogenies generated solely from higher primate craniodental evidence. The corollary of this is that existing phylogenetic hypotheses about human evolution are unlikely to be reliable." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/human_origins_a1067181.html
And if one thinks that scientists would never abuse such a wide open classification system, as was noted by Tattersall with homo erectus, to advance their pet theory for human evolution, let Phillip Johnson disabuse you of that notion:
What I saw about the fossil record again,, was that Gould and Eldridge were experts in the area where the animal fossil record is most complete. That is marine invertebrates.,, And the reason for this is that when,, a bird, or a human, or an ape, or a wolf, or whatever, dies,, normally it does not get fossilized. It decays in the open, or is eaten by scavengers. Things get fossilized when they get covered over quickly with sediments so that they are protected from this natural destructive process. So if you want to be a fossil, the way to go about it is to live in the shallow seas, where you get covered over by sediments when you die,,. Most of the animal fossils are of that kind and it is in that area where the fossil record is most complete. That there is a consistent pattern.,, I mean there is evolution in the sense of variation, just like the peppered moth example. Things do vary, but they vary within the type. The new types appear suddenly, fully formed, without an evolutionary history and then they stay fundamentally stable with (cyclical) variation after their sudden appearance, and stasis (according) to the empirical observations made by Gould and Eldridge. Well now you see, I was aware of a number of examples of where evolutionary intermediates were cited. This was brought up as soon as people began to make the connection and question the (Darwinian) profession about their theory in light of the controversy. But the examples of claimed evolutionary transitionals, oddly enough, come from the area of the fossil record where fossilization is rarest. Where it is least likely to happen. Archaeopteryx would be the prime example. Its a bird so we expect it to rarely be fossilized. Yet it has been exhibit number one in the Darwinian case. There's nothing else around it. Unlike those marine invertebrates. So you can tell a story of progressive evolution that might not work out at all if you saw through the whole body of things around it. Likewise with the ape-men. That is another area where fossilization is very rare. And where the bones of humans and apes are rather similar anyway. So (someone) can find a variant ape bone, its pretty easy to give it a story about how it is turning into a human being. If you tell the story well enough, and successfully, you get your picture on the cover of National Geographic and you become rich and famous. This could effect your judgement. One of the things that amused me is that there are so many fossil candidates for human ancestry, and so very, very, few that are candidates for ancestors of the great apes. There should be just as many (if not more) but why not? Well any economist can give you the answer to that. Human ancestors have a great American value so they are produced at a much greater rate. Now these were also grounds to be suspicious with what was going on. That there was obviously so much subjectivity. ,, The Standard explanation for why the fossil record is not more supportive of Darwinian expectations than it is, if you find that out at all (that the fossil record does not fit Darwinian expectation), is that there are so few fossils, (thus) most things aren't fossilized. That is why (we are told by Darwinists) that the fossil record has so many gaps. Not that the theory has many gaps but that the fossil record has so many gaps. Yet that is odd if the problem is the greatest where the fossil record is most complete and if the confirming examples are found where fossils are rarest. that doesn't sound like it could be the explanation. - Phillip Johnson - April 2012 - audio/video (15:00 minute mark?) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJDlBvbPSMA&feature=player_detailpage#t=903s
A few notes on that abuse:
“We have all seen the canonical parade of apes, each one becoming more human. We know that, as a depiction of evolution, this line-up is tosh (i.e. nonsense). Yet we cling to it. Ideas of what human evolution ought to have been like still colour our debates.” Henry Gee, editor of Nature (478, 6 October 2011, page 34, doi:10.1038/478034a), Paleoanthropology Excerpt: In regards to the pictures of the supposed ancestors of man featured in science journals and the news media Boyce Rensberger wrote in the journal Science the following regarding their highly speculative nature: "Unfortunately, the vast majority of artist's conceptions are based more on imagination than on evidence. But a handful of expert natural-history artists begin with the fossil bones of a hominid and work from there…. Much of the reconstruction, however, is guesswork. Bones say nothing about the fleshy parts of the nose, lips, or ears (or eyes). Artists must create something between an ape and a human being; the older the specimen is said to be, the more apelike they make it.... Hairiness is a matter of pure conjecture." http://conservapedia.com/Evolution#Paleoanthropology "National Geographic magazine commissioned four artists to reconstruct a female figure from casts of seven fossil bones thought to be from the same species as skull 1470. One artist drew a creature whose forehead is missing and whose jaws look vaguely like those of a beaked dinosaur. Another artist drew a rather good-looking modern African-American woman with unusually long arms. A third drew a somewhat scrawny female with arms like a gorilla and a face like a Hollywood werewolf. And a fourth drew a figure covered with body hair and climbing a tree, with beady eyes that glare out from under a heavy, gorilla-like brow." “Behind the Scenes,” National Geographic 197 (March, 2000): 140
One can see that 'artistic license' for human evolution being played out on the following site.
10 Transitional Ancestors of Human Evolution by Tyler G., March 18, 2013 http://listverse.com/2013/03/18/10-transitional-ancestors-of-human-evolution/
Please note, on the preceding site, how the sclera (white of the eye), a uniquely human characteristic, was brought in very early on, in the artists' reconstructions, to make the fossils appear much more human than they actually were, even though the artists making the reconstructions have no clue whatsoever as to what the colors of the eyes, of these supposed transitional fossils, actually were. Dr. Torley, given the punctuated nature of the rest of the fossil record, and the history, as well as incentive, for fraudulent abuse of the human fossil record, I simply cannot fathom how you don't exercise some of the same skepticism towards it as you have done towards the molecular evidence in the past. It seems to me to be a severe disconnect in the way you evaluate the evidence, with a much tighter scrutiny exercised at the molecular level, with the direct observational evidence we have, than you exercise for this far less reliable historical evidence that is so ripe for abuse by imaginative story telling:
“No fossil is buried with its birth certificate. That, and the scarcity of fossils, means that it is effectively impossible to link fossils into chains of cause and effect in any valid way... To take a line of fossils and claim that they represent a lineage is not a scientific hypothesis that can be tested, but an assertion that carries the same validity as a bedtime story—amusing, perhaps even instructive, but not scientific.” - Henry Gee, In Search of Deep Time: Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life
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