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Stone tools now dated to 3.3 million years ago

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From ScienceDaily:

The discovery is the first evidence that an even earlier group of proto-humans may have had the thinking abilities needed to figure out how to make sharp-edged tools. The stone tools mark “a new beginning to the known archaeological record,” say the authors of a new paper about the discovery, published today in the leading scientific journal Nature.

“The whole site’s surprising, it just rewrites the book on a lot of things that we thought were true,” said geologist Chris Lepre of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Rutgers University, a co-author of the paper who precisely dated the artifacts.

The tools “shed light on an unexpected and previously unknown period of hominin behavior and can tell us a lot about cognitive development in our ancestors that we can’t understand from fossils alone,” said lead author Sonia Harmand, of the Turkana Basin Institute at Stony Brook University and the Universite Paris Ouest Nanterre.

Hominins are a group of species that includes modern humans, Homo sapiens, and our closest evolutionary ancestors. Anthropologists long thought that our relatives in the genus Homo — the line leading directly to Homo sapiens — were the first to craft such stone tools. But researchers have been uncovering tantalizing clues that some other, earlier species of hominin, distant cousins, if you will, might have figured it out. More.

Of course, the unconfronted real story is that human paleo groupings are probably artificial. Class, discuss.

Revolutionary stone tools found in India “much earlier than thought,” 385 kya

Stone tools confirmed from 3.4 mya?

See also: Human evolution, the skinny

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Comments
Zachriel, how does one infer "nebulous design"?Mung
May 31, 2015
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Mung: Yes. We would infer design. And then look for additional artifacts that also indicate design True, why would we do that? To provide more data in order to answer the questions how, who , when and why. Questions which ID eschews.velikovskys
May 31, 2015
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Mung: We would infer design. Not some nebulous design, but a human or human-like cause. Mung: Then maybe even look for an intelligent designer. Not some nebulous "intelligent designer", but a human-like artisan. We would look for footprints; so unlike ID.Zachriel
May 31, 2015
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Zachriel: As you say it strongly resembles a human artifact, that would suggest a human or human-like designer. Yes. We would infer design. And then look for additional artifacts that also indicate design [how would we know?]. Then maybe even look for an intelligent designer.Mung
May 31, 2015
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Timaeus: You claim to have great knowledge of science We've never made such a claim. Timaeus: So if we found an alarm clock on one of the moons of Neptune, we could not infer that it was designed, even though we could not answer the who, how, when, etc.? As you say it strongly resembles a human artifact, that would suggest a human or human-like designer. And, indeed, we would then begin a search for the designer, including other artifacts, evidence of manufacture, habitation, etc; so unlike ID.Zachriel
May 31, 2015
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Zachriel wrote: "Not having even the slightest evidence connecting the supposed artifact to the artisan and the art, having absolutely nothing scientific to say about the artisan and the art, undermines any scientific claim that the object is an artifact." I wonder. So if we found an alarm clock on one of the moons of Neptune, we could not infer that it was designed, even though we could not answer the who, how, when, etc.? The scientist who discovered the alarm clock would be powerless to say that the clock was the product of design rather than chance or natural laws? He would be duty-bound to spend his research life trying to explain away the existence of the clock in terms of random associations of metals? If you discovered such a clock, what would your reaction be? You claim to have great knowledge of science (though I've yet to see you demonstrate any knowledge in any field of science that an average reader of Scientific American couldn't quickly acquire), so tell us how a scientist would approach it. As far as I can tell, most opponents of ID think that a scientist would say, and should say: "Given infinite universes, there is bound to be a planet somewhere where a clock comes into existence without any design or designer." Is that the "scientific" explanation of why the clock is there? Do you think that if Isaac Newton or Robert Boyle found a clock on Neptune's moon, they would explain it by design, or by infinite universes?Timaeus
May 30, 2015
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Zachriel, whatever, I rest my case. I am more than satisfied that the unbiased reader can see that you have no evidence to support your case, but only the usual bluff and bluster.bornagain77
May 27, 2015
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bornagain77: Zachriel saying something nests within a group does not scientifically establish, as much as you may imagine it to be so, that one species can evolve into another species within that arbitrary grouping. The grouping is not arbitrary, but based on objectively observable traits. The nested hierarchy is consistent with branching descent. In any case, that wasn't the issue, but whether there was a progression in tool utilization among primates. That you change the subject when pressed suggests the weakness of your position.Zachriel
May 27, 2015
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Zachriel saying something nests within a group does not scientifically establish, as much as you may imagine it to be so, that one species can evolve into another species within that arbitrary grouping. To prove that one kind of species can evolve into a fundamentally different kind of species within the same overarching group, scientifically, you need empirical evidence. And that is where your poverty is exposed yet again. You simply have no empirical evidence that it is possible to change one kind of species into another kind of species by unguided material processes (or even by guided material processes). Shoot, you cannot even provide empirical evidence that it is possible to change one protein of one function into a similar protein of a different function by unguided material processes if the change includes more than 6 neutral mutations:
More from Ann Gauger on why humans didn’t happen the way Darwin said - July 2012 Excerpt: Each of these new features probably required multiple mutations. Getting a feature that requires six neutral mutations is the limit of what bacteria can produce. For primates (e.g., monkeys, apes and humans) the limit is much more severe. Because of much smaller effective population sizes (an estimated ten thousand for humans instead of a billion for bacteria) and longer generation times (fifteen to twenty years per generation for humans vs. a thousand generations per year for bacteria), it would take a very long time for even a single beneficial mutation to appear and become fixed in a human population. You don’t have to take my word for it. In 2007, Durrett and Schmidt estimated in the journal Genetics that for a single mutation to occur in a nucleotide-binding site and be fixed in a primate lineage would require a waiting time of six million years. The same authors later estimated it would take 216 million years for the binding site to acquire two mutations, if the first mutation was neutral in its effect. Facing Facts But six million years is the entire time allotted for the transition from our last common ancestor with chimps to us according to the standard evolutionary timescale. Two hundred and sixteen million years takes us back to the Triassic, when the very first mammals appeared. One or two mutations simply aren’t sufficient to produce the necessary changes,, in the time available. At most, a new binding site might affect the regulation of one or two genes. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/more-from-ann-gauger-on-why-humans-didnt-happen-the-way-darwin-said/ Science & Human Origins: Interview With Dr. Douglas Axe (podcast on the strict limits found for changing proteins to other very similar proteins) - July 2012 http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2012-07-24T21_33_53-07_00 The Real Barrier to Unguided Human Evolution - Ann Gauger - April 25, 2012 Excerpt: Their results? They calculated it would take six million years for a single base change to match the target and spread throughout the population, and 216 million years to get both base changes necessary to complete the eight base binding site. Note that the entire time span for our evolution from the last common ancestor with chimps is estimated to be about six million years. Time enough for one mutation to occur and be fixed, by their account. To be sure, they did say that since there are some 20,000 genes that could be evolving simultaneously, the problem is not impossible. But they overlooked this point. Mutations occur at random and most of the time independently, but their effects are not independent. (Random) Mutations that benefit one trait (are shown to) inhibit another (Negative Epistasis; Lenski e-coli after 50,000 generations). http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/04/the_real_barrie058951.html
Zach, For you to pretend that you have a viable mechanism in neo-Darwinism to explain the origin of humans is beyond ludicrous. And is a prime example of how dishonest you are personally willing to be to the scientific evidence at hand to protect your a priori atheistic bias. Well, regardless of how much you wish that there was no rhyme of reason for your existence, the evidence itself states that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Moreover, there is even strong evidence that you are made in the image of God. https://uncommondescent.com/human-evolution/stone-tools-now-dated-to-3-3-million-years-ago/#comment-566517 Most people would consider being made in the image of God to be a very good thing, instead of fighting it tooth and nail as you do, (even severely twisting the evidence to try to force it to fit your desired conclusion, instead of dealing with the evidence forthrightly).bornagain77
May 27, 2015
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bornagain77: therefore, using your Darwinian logic, the dolphin brain must have come from the human brain which came from the monkey brain. Dolphins nest with cetaceans, not primates. bornagain77: The evidence that Casey Luskin provided, and I referenced, shows that monkeys are capable of making simple stone tools by flaking Did we miss the reference? We saw a video of bonobos knapping stone tools only after being taught by humans, but not monkeys.Zachriel
May 27, 2015
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"Yet, a monkey brain has more switches than all computers on Earth." so does dolphin brain which is bigger than the human brain,,
side by side picture - dolphin brain compared to human brain https://animalconsciousnessconferenceharvard.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/dolphin-brain1.png?w=451
therefore, using your Darwinian logic, the dolphin brain must have come from the human brain which came from the monkey brain. All completely by unguided material processes of course. as to: "as the evidence you yourself provided, we do see a progression in tool-capabilities in the primate line leading to humans." The evidence that Casey Luskin provided, and I referenced, shows that monkeys are capable of making simple stone tools by flaking, similar to those that were discovered, thus contradicting the claim that some hypothetical, (i.e. imaginary), ape-man species must have made the simple stone tools. Only in your imagination is there a progression from simple tools that some 'exceptional' ape made to the skyscraper that is represented by human intelligence. Moreover, leading experts in the field trying to figure out where and how human intelligence evolved disagree with your imagination that there is a progression from animal intelligence to human intelligence. Perhaps you should write those experts, since they believe in Darwinism anyway, and tell them of your conclusion that there is a progression instead of arguing on a blog with someone who considers you a intellectually dishonest liar?
Leading Evolutionary Scientists Admit We Have No Evolutionary Explanation of Human Language – December 19, 2014 Excerpt: Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,, (Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, “The mystery of language evolution,” Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 5:401 (May 7, 2014).) It’s difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/leading_evoluti092141.html A scientist looks again at Project Nim – Trying to teach Chimps to talk fails Excerpt: “The language didn’t materialize. A human baby starts out mostly imitating, then begins to string words together. Nim didn’t learn. His three-sign combinations – such as ‘eat me eat’ or ‘play me Nim’ – were redundant. He imitated signs to get rewards. I published the negative results in 1979 in the journal Science, which had a chilling effect on the field.” http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2011/07/19/a_scientist_looks_again_at_project_nim Darwin’s mistake: explaining the discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds. – 2008 Excerpt: Over the last quarter century, the dominant tendency in comparative cognitive psychology has been to emphasize the similarities between human and nonhuman minds and to downplay the differences as “one of degree and not of kind” (Darwin 1871).,,, To wit, there is a significant discontinuity in the degree to which human and nonhuman animals are able to approximate the higher-order, systematic, relational capabilities of a physical symbol system (PSS) (Newell 1980). We show that this symbolic-relational discontinuity pervades nearly every domain of cognition and runs much deeper than even the spectacular scaffolding provided by language or culture alone can explain,,, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18479531
bornagain77
May 27, 2015
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bornagain77: And yet only one of us maintains that unguided material processes can create such unfathomed complexity. Your position is that there is a "gargantuan leap", and for evidence pointed to the fact the human brain has more switches than all computers on Earth. Yet, a monkey brain has more switches than all computers on Earth. In addition, as the evidence you yourself provided, we do see a progression in tool-capabilities in the primate line leading to humans.Zachriel
May 27, 2015
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"Bonobo brain has more switches than all computers on Earth" And yet only one of us maintains that unguided material processes can create such unfathomed complexity. To quote you: "Ignoring the point doesn’t make it go away." Moreover, the integrated complexity of even the 'simplest' cell doesn't get any easier for Darwinists to ignore the extreme sophistication of:
To Model the Simplest Microbe in the World, You Need 128 Computers - July 2012 Excerpt: Mycoplasma genitalium has one of the smallest genomes of any free-living organism in the world, clocking in at a mere 525 genes. That's a fraction of the size of even another bacterium like E. coli, which has 4,288 genes.,,, The bioengineers, led by Stanford's Markus Covert, succeeded in modeling the bacterium, and published their work last week in the journal Cell. What's fascinating is how much horsepower they needed to partially simulate this simple organism. It took a cluster of 128 computers running for 9 to 10 hours to actually generate the data on the 25 categories of molecules that are involved in the cell's lifecycle processes.,,, ,,the depth and breadth of cellular complexity has turned out to be nearly unbelievable, and difficult to manage, even given Moore's Law. The M. genitalium model required 28 subsystems to be individually modeled and integrated, and many critics of the work have been complaining on Twitter that's only a fraction of what will eventually be required to consider the simulation realistic.,,, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/to-model-the-simplest-microbe-in-the-world-you-need-128-computers/260198/ "To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometres in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the portholes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings with find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity. We would see endless highly organized corridors and conduits branching in every direction away from the perimeter of the cell, some leading to the central memory bank in the nucleus and others to assembly plants and processing units. The nucleus of itself would be a vast spherical chamber more than a kilometer in diameter, resembling a geodesic dome inside of which we would see, all neatly stacked together in ordered arrays, the miles of coiled chains of the DNA molecules. A huge range of products and raw materials would shuttle along all the manifold conduits in a highly ordered fashion to and from all the various assembly plants in the outer regions of the cell. We would wonder at the level of control implicit in the movement of so many objects down so many seemingly endless conduits, all in perfect unison. We would see all around us, in every direction we looked, all sorts of robot-like machines. We would notice that the simplest of the functional components of the cell, the protein molecules, were astonishingly, complex pieces of molecular machinery, each one consisting of about three thousand atoms arranged in highly organized 3-D spatial conformation. We would wonder even more as we watched the strangely purposeful activities of these weird molecular machines, particularly when we realized that, despite all our accumulated knowledge of physics and chemistry, the task of designing one such molecular machine – that is one single functional protein molecule – would be completely beyond our capacity at present and will probably not be achieved until at least the beginning of the next century. Yet the life of the cell depends on the integrated activities of thousands, certainly tens, and probably hundreds of thousands of different protein molecules. We would see that nearly every feature of our own advanced machines had its analogue in the cell: artificial languages and their decoding systems, memory banks for information storage and retrieval, elegant control systems regulating the automated assembly of parts and components, error fail-safe and proof-reading devices utilized for quality control, assembly processes involving the principle of prefabrication and modular construction. In fact, so deep would be the feeling of deja-vu, so persuasive the analogy, that much of the terminology we would use to describe this fascinating molecular reality would be borrowed from the world of late twentieth-century technology. What we would be witnessing would be an object resembling an immense automated factory, a factory larger than a city and carrying out almost as many unique functions as all the manufacturing activities of man on earth. However, it would be a factory which would have one capacity not equalled in any of our own most advanced machines, for it would be capable of replicating its entire structure within a matter of a few hours. To witness such an act at a magnification of one thousand million times would be an awe-inspiring spectacle.” Michael Denton PhD., Evolution: A Theory In Crisis, pg.328 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/on-the-impossibility-of-replicating-the-cell-a-problem-for-naturalism/
bornagain77
May 27, 2015
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bornagain77: Human brain has more switches than all computers on Earth Bonobo brain has more switches than all computers on EarthZachriel
May 27, 2015
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bornagain77: The plurality of you never honestly discusses the sheer impossibility of unguided material processes generating the unfathomably complex human brain Ignoring the point doesn't make it go away. By the way, the bonobo brain is also 'unfathomably' complex.Zachriel
May 27, 2015
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"We didn’t discuss how the process occurred," The plurality of you never honestly discusses the sheer impossibility of unguided material processes generating the unfathomably complex human brain: Human brain has more switches than all computers on Earth - November 2010 Excerpt: They found that the brain's complexity is beyond anything they'd imagined, almost to the point of being beyond belief, says Stephen Smith, a professor of molecular and cellular physiology and senior author of the paper describing the study: ...One synapse, by itself, is more like a microprocessor--with both memory-storage and information-processing elements--than a mere on/off switch. In fact, one synapse may contain on the order of 1,000 molecular-scale switches. A single human brain has more switches than all the computers and routers and Internet connections on Earth. http://news.cnet.com/8301-27083_3-20023112-247.html as to: "there is an obvious progression" Only in your imagination! Simple tool use is widespread Octopus tool use https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mgv_sm-_dY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlh0cS2tf24bornagain77
May 27, 2015
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bornagain77: Moreover, your belief in monkeys randomly transitioning into some type of ape/man like creature, i.e. ‘Early hominins’, by unguided material processes, is even more imaginary than your belief that monkeys possess some type of human, symbolic/information, intelligence. We didn't discuss how the process occurred, just noted that there is an obvious progression.Zachriel
May 27, 2015
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You are merely imagining a progression in intelligence where there is none. Birds exhibit greater capacity at fashioning simple tools than 'exceptional' apes. Moreover, your belief in monkeys randomly transitioning into some type of ape/man like creature, i.e. 'Early hominins', by unguided material processes, is even more imaginary than your belief that monkeys possess some type of human, symbolic/information, intelligence. No where is the unconstrained imagination of Darwinists more blatantly displayed than the infamous 'lucy' fossil "The australopithecine (Lucy) skull is in fact so overwhelmingly simian (ape-like) as opposed to human that the contrary proposition could be equated to an assertion that black is white." Lord Solly Zuckerman - Chief scientific advisor to British government and leading zoologist Lucy Makeover Shouts a Dangerously Deceptive Message About Our Supposed Ancestors by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell on October 5, 2013 Excerpt: Australopithecus afarensis is extinct. Its bones suggest it was not identical to living apes, but it did have much in common with them. Many have assessed the skeletal pieces of the various afarensis and possible afarensis fossils that have been found. Overall, these skeletal parts reveal an animal well-adapted to arboreal life. Its wrist bones also suggest it was a knuckle-walker. Reconstructions of its pelvis demonstrate its so-called “bipedal” gait was nothing like a human being’s upright gait. In fact, it is only the evolutionary wish to impute a bipedal gait to this animal that marches its fossils upright across the pages of the evolutionary story. https://answersingenesis.org/human-evolution/lucy/lucy-makeover-shouts-a-dangerously-deceptive-message-about-our-supposed-ancestors/ Lucy - The Powersaw Incident - a humorous video showing how biased evolutionists can be with the evidence - 32:08 mark of video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI4ADhPVpA0&feature=player_detailpage#t=1928 Here is an anatomically correct reconstruction of Lucy Lucy - a correct reconstruction - picture https://cdn-assets.answersingenesis.org/img/articles/campaigns/lucy-exhibit.jpg Other 'Lucy' fossils have been found since the 'powersaw incident' that show that Lucy could not have possibly walked upright. A Look at Lucy’s Legacy by Dr. David Menton and Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell on June 6, 2012 Excerpt: Other analyses taking advantage of modern technology, such as those by Christine Berge published in 199425 and 201026 in the Journal of Human Evolution, offer a different reconstruction allowing for a unique sort of locomotion. Berge writes, “The results clearly indicate that australopithecine bipedalism differs from that of humans. (1) The extended lower limb of australopithecines would have lacked stabilization during walking;,,, Lucy’s bones show the features used to lock the wrist for secure knuckle-walking seen in modern knuckle-walkers. https://answersingenesis.org/human-evolution/lucy/a-look-at-lucys-legacy/ Lucy, the Knuckle-walking abomination? by Dr. David Menton and Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell on October 24, 2012 Excerpt: We would submit that the anterior migration of the afarensis foramen magnum occurred not deep in the evolutionary history of humanity but quite possibly sometime after 1992 in the laboratory. https://answersingenesis.org/human-evolution/lucy/lucy-the-knuckle-walking-abomination/ My Pilgrimage to Lucy’s Holy Relics Fails to Inspire Faith in Darwinism Excerpt: ---"We were sent a cast of the Lucy skeleton, and I was asked to assemble it for display,” remembers Peter Schmid, a paleontologist at the Anthropological Institute in Zurich.,,, "When I started to put [Lucy’s] skeleton together, I expected it to look human,” Schmid continues “Everyone had talked about Lucy as being very modern, very human, so I was surprised by what I saw.” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/my_pilgrimage_to_lucys_holy_re.htmlbornagain77
May 27, 2015
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bornagain77: Yep, no gargantuan leap in understanding contextual information there. You said there was no progression, which is clearly not the case.Zachriel
May 27, 2015
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Simple stone tools to stone monuments? Yep, no gargantuan leap in understanding contextual information there. Well by golly, I guess 'exceptional' bonobos may just beat the Chinese to the moon after all. :) Do you think bonobos will use humans as test creatures for their rockets?bornagain77
May 27, 2015
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bornagain77: only in your imagination is ‘progression’ seen. Monkeys use stone tools, but don't fashion them. Bonobos normally don't fashion stone tools, but exceptional bonobos can be taught to do so. Early hominins systematically fashioned stone tools. More modern hominins built stone monuments. That's a progression parallel to the posited evolutionary progression.Zachriel
May 27, 2015
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Zach, only in your imagination is 'progression' seen. Unfortunately for you, science does not derive its proof from what you, and other Darwinists, imagine to be true, but it derives its proof from actual empirical evidence. And as leading researchers admitted, in regards to actual empirical evidence you, and other Darwinists, are in poverty towards empirically making your case for the gradual appearance of human intelligence: "We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved." supplemental notes:
A scientist looks again at Project Nim - Trying to teach Chimps to talk fails Excerpt: "The language didn't materialize. A human baby starts out mostly imitating, then begins to string words together. Nim didn't learn. His three-sign combinations - such as 'eat me eat' or 'play me Nim' - were redundant. He imitated signs to get rewards. I published the negative results in 1979 in the journal Science, which had a chilling effect on the field." http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2011/07/19/a_scientist_looks_again_at_project_nim Young Children Have Grammar and Chimpanzees Don't - Apr. 10, 2013 Excerpt: "When you compare what children should say if they follow grammar against what children do say, you find it to almost indistinguishable," Yang said. "If you simulate the expected diversity when a child is only repeating what adults say, it produces a diversity much lower than what children actually say." As a comparison, Yang applied the same predictive models to the set of Nim Chimpsky's signed phrases, the only data set of spontaneous animal language usage publicly available. He found further evidence for what many scientists, including Nim's own trainers, have contended about Nim: that the sequences of signs Nim put together did not follow from rules like those in human language. Nim's signs show significantly lower diversity than what is expected under a systematic grammar and were similar to the level expected with memorization. This suggests that true language learning is -- so far -- a uniquely human trait, and that it is present very early in development. "The idea that children are only imitating adults' language is very intuitive, so it's seen a revival over the last few years," Yang said. "But this is strong statistical evidence in favor of the idea that children actually know a lot about abstract grammar from an early age." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130410131327.htm On the lack of evidence that non-human animals possess anything remotely resembling a theory of mind’ - 2007 Abstract After decades of effort by some of our brightest human and non-human minds, there is still little consensus on whether or not non-human animals understand anything about the unobservable mental states of other animals or even what it would mean for a non-verbal animal to understand the concept of a 'mental state'. In the present paper, we confront four related and contentious questions head-on: (i) What exactly would it mean for a non-verbal organism to have an 'understanding' or a 'representation' of another animal's mental state? (ii) What should (and should not) count as compelling empirical evidence that a non-verbal cognitive agent has a system for understanding or forming representations about mental states in a functionally adaptive manner? (iii) Why have the kind of experimental protocols that are currently in vogue failed to produce compelling evidence that non-human animals possess anything even remotely resembling a theory of mind? (iv) What kind of experiments could, at least in principle, provide compelling evidence for such a system in a non-verbal organism? (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 362, 731-744, doi:10.1098/rstb.2006.2023) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17264056 Darwin's mistake: explaining the discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds. - 2008 Excerpt: Over the last quarter century, the dominant tendency in comparative cognitive psychology has been to emphasize the similarities between human and nonhuman minds and to downplay the differences as "one of degree and not of kind" (Darwin 1871).,,, To wit, there is a significant discontinuity in the degree to which human and nonhuman animals are able to approximate the higher-order, systematic, relational capabilities of a physical symbol system (PSS) (Newell 1980). We show that this symbolic-relational discontinuity pervades nearly every domain of cognition and runs much deeper than even the spectacular scaffolding provided by language or culture alone can explain,,, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18479531 Language study offers new twist on mind-body connection - Feb. 2, 2014 Excerpt: The results show that speech perception automatically engages the articulatory motor system, but linguistic preferences persist even when the language motor system is disrupted. These findings suggest that, despite their intimate links, the language and motor systems are distinct. "Language is designed to optimize motor action, but its knowledge consists of principles that are disembodied and potentially abstract," the researchers concluded. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-02-language-mind-body.html Dogs Succeed While Chimps Fail at Following Finger Pointing: Chimpanzees Have Difficulty Identifying Object of Interest Based On Gestures - Feb. 8, 2012 Excerpt: The fact that chimpanzees do not understand communicative intentions of others, suggests that this may be a uniquely human form of communication. The dogs however challenge this hypothesis. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120208180251.htm Origin of Soulish Animals: Excerpt: Bolhuis and Wynne contrast the cognitive capacities of birds and primates.,,, Evidently, certain bird species exhibit greater powers of the mind than do apes. http://www.reasons.org/OriginofSoulishAnimals Origin of the Mind: Marc Hauser - Scientific American - April 2009 Excerpt: "Researchers have found some of the building blocks of human cognition in other species. But these building blocks make up only the cement footprint of the skyscraper that is the human mind",,, http://www.wjh.harvard.edu?/~mnkylab/publications/rec?ent/mindSciAm.pd etc.. etc..
bornagain77
May 27, 2015
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BA77,
So for that matter is the fact that mathematical objects such as a Lie Group or a differentiable manifold have the power to interact with elementary particles or accelerating forces.
I've seen this quote go by a number of times, and can't help but think it's a bizarre thing to say. These structures were invented in part to be useful in physical models, so it's not that surprising that they can be used to predict the behavior of physical systems. How can you verify this "interaction"? Do ellipses "interact" with the planets ensuring that they move in (approximately) elliptical orbits? Does the number e "interact" with atoms in a sample of a radioactive isotope, forcing it to decay exponentially?daveS
May 27, 2015
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bornagain77: The following experts hold that the appearance of human intelligence was sudden and was not arrived at gradually as Zachriel and other neo-Darwinists would like to imagine That's funny. You post links showing monkeys who can use stone tools, exceptional bonobos who can knap stone tools when taught by humans, and of course, early hominins who knapped stone tools in a systematic manner. That looks like a progression of technical ability.Zachriel
May 27, 2015
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Zach claims: "(monkeys) don’t knap stone tools" and yet: Stone-toolproduction&utilization.wmv - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Rd5A8qYCs Casey Luskin May 26, 2015 – video – living apes making simple stone tools http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/05/were_paleoanthr096341.htmlbornagain77
May 27, 2015
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of supplemental note: The following experts hold that the appearance of human intelligence was sudden and was not arrived at gradually as Zachriel and other neo-Darwinists would like to imagine:
Leading Evolutionary Scientists Admit We Have No Evolutionary Explanation of Human Language - December 19, 2014 Excerpt: Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,, (Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, "The mystery of language evolution," Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 5:401 (May 7, 2014).) It's difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/leading_evoluti092141.html Evolution of the Genus Homo – Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences – Ian Tattersall, Jeffrey H. Schwartz, May 2009 Excerpt: “Unusual though Homo sapiens may be morphologically, it is undoubtedly our remarkable cognitive qualities that most strikingly demarcate us from all other extant species. They are certainly what give us our strong subjective sense of being qualitatively different. And they are all ultimately traceable to our symbolic capacity. Human beings alone, it seems, mentally dissect the world into a multitude of discrete symbols, and combine and recombine those symbols in their minds to produce hypotheses of alternative possibilities. When exactly Homo sapiens acquired this unusual ability is the subject of debate.” http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202
Of related interest: Alfred Russel Wallace, co-discoverer of natural selection, held that man's ability to do math was proof that man had a 'soul':
"Nothing in evolution can account for the soul of man. The difference between man and the other animals is unbridgeable. Mathematics is alone sufficient to prove in man the possession of a faculty unexistent in other creatures. Then you have music and the artistic faculty. No, the soul was a separate creation." Alfred Russel Wallace - An interview by Harold Begbie printed on page four of The Daily Chronicle (London) issues of 3 November and 4 November 1910.
And indeed there is very good reason to infer that our ability to do mathematics is proof for a 'soul'. David Berlinski, with his characteristic wit, gets this 'soul' point across very clearly:
An Interview with David Berlinski - Jonathan Witt Berlinski: There is no argument against religion that is not also an argument against mathematics. Mathematicians are capable of grasping a world of objects that lies beyond space and time …. Interviewer:… Come again(?) … Berlinski: No need to come again: I got to where I was going the first time. The number four, after all, did not come into existence at a particular time, and it is not going to go out of existence at another time. It is neither here nor there. Nonetheless we are in some sense able to grasp the number by a faculty of our minds. Mathematical intuition is utterly mysterious. So for that matter is the fact that mathematical objects such as a Lie Group or a differentiable manifold have the power to interact with elementary particles or accelerating forces. But these are precisely the claims that theologians have always made as well – that human beings are capable by an exercise of their devotional abilities to come to some understanding of the deity; and the deity, although beyond space and time, is capable of interacting with material objects. http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/found-upon-web-and-reprinted-here.html
Of related interest to mathematics being proof of the soul: It is also interesting to note that 'higher dimensional' mathematics had to be developed before Einstein could elucidate General Relativity, or even before Quantum Mechanics could be elucidated;
The Mathematics Of Higher Dimensionality – Gauss and Riemann – video https://vimeo.com/98188985 The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences - Eugene Wigner - 1960 Excerpt: We now have, in physics, two theories of great power and interest: the theory of quantum phenomena and the theory of relativity.,,, The two theories operate with different mathematical concepts: the four dimensional Riemann space and the infinite dimensional Hilbert space, http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc/MathDrama/reading/Wigner.html
The reason why it is so interesting to find that the foundation of our temporal reality is described by higher dimensional mathematics is that it gives compelling evidence for the Theist's contention that the universe was created in a 'top down' fashion from a higher dimension:
Dr. Quantum in Flatland - 3D in a 2D world – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWyTxCsIXE4 Psalm 113:5-7 Who is like the LORD our God, Who is enthroned on high, Who humbles Himself to behold The things that are in heaven and in the earth? He raises the poor from the dust And lifts the needy from the ash heap,…
Also of interest to being 'made in the image of God', the three Rs, reading, writing, and arithmetic, i.e. the unique ability to process information inherent to man, are the very first things to be taught to children when they enter elementary school. And yet it is this information processing, i.e. reading, writing, and arithmetic that is found to be foundational to life:
Signature in the Cell by Stephen Meyer - video clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVkdQhNdzHU
As well, as if that was not 'spooky enough', information, not material, is found to be foundational to physical reality:
"it from bit” Every “it”— every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits. “It from bit” symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has a bottom—a very deep bottom, in most instances, an immaterial source and explanation, that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment—evoked responses, in short all matter and all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe." – Princeton University physicist John Wheeler (1911–2008) (Wheeler, John A. (1990), “Information, physics, quantum: The search for links”, in W. Zurek, Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information (Redwood City, California: Addison-Wesley)) Excerpt: In conclusion, it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows. Thence the question why nature appears quantized is simply a consequence of the fact that information itself is quantized by necessity. It might even be fair to observe that the concept that information is fundamental is very old knowledge of humanity, witness for example the beginning of gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word." Anton Zeilinger - Why the Quantum? It from Bit? A Participatory Universe? Quantum physics just got less complicated - Dec. 19, 2014 Excerpt: Patrick Coles, Jedrzej Kaniewski, and Stephanie Wehner,,, found that 'wave-particle duality' is simply the quantum 'uncertainty principle' in disguise, reducing two mysteries to one.,,, "The connection between uncertainty and wave-particle duality comes out very naturally when you consider them as questions about what information you can gain about a system. Our result highlights the power of thinking about physics from the perspective of information,",,, http://phys.org/news/2014-12-quantum-physics-complicated.html
It is hard to imagine a more convincing proof that we are made 'in the image of God', and that we do indeed have a soul as even Alfred Wallace himself contended, than finding that both the universe and life itself are 'information theoretic' in their basis, and that we, of all the creatures on earth, uniquely possess an ability to understand and create information. I guess a more convincing evidence could be that God Himself became a man, defeated death on a cross, and then rose from the dead to prove that He was God. But who has ever heard of such convincing evidence as that?
Shroud of Turin - Carbon 14 Test Proven False - video https://vimeo.com/126080645
bornagain77
May 27, 2015
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Simianus Habilis, Zak.Axel
May 27, 2015
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bornagain77: Monkeys Use Stones to Crack Open Nuts Heh. Your previous argument was that they weren't tools. Now, you're arguing they are tools, but so what. Monkeys use tools, but don't knap stone tools. However, an exceptional, trained bonobo can. Bonobos diverged from the human line about 4-7 million years ago, so it is consistent with the finding of a tool-producing 'factory' about 3.3 million years ago.Zachriel
May 27, 2015
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And, as the video, and pictures, Casey cited indicate, monkeys are the best explanation for the primitive design patterns in the rocks. Although the following video is not as good as Casey's referenced video, here is another video of monkeys using rocks as tools: On Assignment: Monkeys Use Stones to Crack Open Nuts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B_pYUuE_b4 Moreover, crows are shown to be more sophisticated in their tool use than monkeys: Tool use in the New Caledonian Crow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcvbgq2SSyc Crows, smarter than you think: John Marzluff at TEDxRainier https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fiAoqwsc9gbornagain77
May 27, 2015
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bornagain77: Were Paleoanthropologists Too Eager to Detect Design in Ancient “Stone Tools”? The tools were found with the flakes from knapping, so there's clear evidence the stones were intentionally fashioned. The researchers also undertook an experimental program to replicate the process by which the tools were manufactured, supporting the use of both passive hammer and bipolar techniques. See Harmand et al., 3.3-million-year-old stone tools from Lomekwi 3, West Turkana, Kenya, Nature 2015.Zachriel
May 27, 2015
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