Uncommon Descent Contest: Is there any progress in the study of human evolution?

The skulls Cuozzo was working with had intact jaws were you could see the full sockets in the skull and where the jaws must have attached. This skull has neither an intact jaw nor an intact socket, and it's not a Neanderthal skull so I don't know why this is even relevant. tragic mishap

Tragic, as to, 'He concluded the jaws had not been fitted properly', you may find this site, which is complete with graphs, very interesting; “Dr. Leakey produced a biased reconstruction (of 1470/ Homo Rudolfensis) based on erroneous preconceived expectations of early human appearance that violated principles of craniofacial development,” Dr. Timothy Bromage http://www.geneticarchaeology.com/research/Mans_Earliest_Direct_Ancestors_Looked_More_Apelike_Than_Previously_Believed.asp bornagain77

Also I would note that my above theory contains at least two testable predictions. 1. Neandarthal DNA will have the unmutated, non-European version of SLC24A5, but will otherwise closely resemble European DNA. 2. Africans, especially those with the darkest skin, will have mutated versions of regulatory genes involved in the melanin pathway leading to over expression of melanin. tragic mishap

Casey Luskin, coincidentally, has a article up on Neanderthals; Does Giberson and Collins' Neanderthal Argument Demonstrate "Common Ancestry"? http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/05/does_giberson_and_collins_nean046541.html bornagain77

A creationist dentist by the name of Jack Cuozzo went to France and was able to study these skulls using his dental expertise. He concluded the jaws had not been fitted properly in their sockets for many of the old, so-called pre-human fossils. He also had an interesting theory that because human beings lived very long lives before and shortly after the Flood, the shape of their jaws and skulls would have been affected by the extra several hundred years of chewing. Chewing creates a lot of force and therefore stress on the jaw and skull, which in turn promotes bone growth in the facial features. I would recommend reading his book, if you can look past what I consider to be paranoid delusions about authorities in France coming after him and his family. http://www.amazon.com/Buried-Alive-Startling-Untold-Neanderthal/dp/0890512388/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1305302198&sr=1-1 tragic mishap

Indium: I am simply reporting that the ape-man interpretation of Neanderthals was objected to, by the then leading expert, as noted. My own view on the lot is already above. Namely, Hooton has the issue pegged. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

kf This was not my question. In fact I am very surprised that you seem to easily accept the wisdom of experts from the 19th century! When did Virchow say that and how many Neanderthal remains had been found at this time? How many have been found by now? How did he explain the shape of the skull? And, again, wouldn´t rickets be easily detectable from the bones? Just compare this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Neanderthalensis.jpg with typical rickets images (see above for an example). Out of interest: Did you want to write some more or is the "G" at the end of your post just a typo or something? Indium

Indium, The Rickets diagnosis is due to Virchow, who was an expert. G kairosfocus

Wouldn´t rickets be easy to detect in the structure, shape and and strength of the bones etc? http://www.medcyclopaedia.com/Home/library/radiology/chapter14/14_9.aspx Indium

Last reference should look like this: 5. Gibbons A (April 2007). “European skin turned pale only recently, gene suggests”. Science 316 (5823): 364. So sue me for copying and pasting. tragic mishap

Have you ever seen a more beautiful synthesis of creationism, evolution and intelligent design? :D I think I deserve to win just for that. tragic mishap

Neanderthals were most likely an ancient human population with a disease called rickets. Rickets is caused by a deficiency of Vitamin D, which is either consumed or synthesized in a human being's skin through the help of UV radiation. The primary symptom of rickets disease is skeletal deformation. Melanin, the skin pigment shared by all human beings, absorbs UV radiation and has been shown to be produced as a result of the DNA damage caused by UV radiation and is the probable cause of "tanning." [1] Thus we have a designed response system to too much sunlight. Melanin appears to be produced in the skin for the purpose of limiting damage from UV radiation. However, too little UV radiation would result in a vitamin D deficiency. Could there be mutational responses in the melanin pathway to too much or too little sunlight as well? Neanderthals lived in modern Northern Europe and are said to have migrated from Africa. Regardless of where they were from, it now seems likely that Neanderthals were dark skinned and as a result were unable to synthesize enough vitamin D as children. Perhaps it was because of the post-Flood climate which creationists believe consisted of a little ice age, particularly in northern latitudes such as the Neanderthals' habitat. Regardless of how it happened, there is widespread agreement the Flood radically changed the earth's climate. We know today at least northern climates are far less sunny than that which existed in Africa and the Nile delta, the Fertile Crescent, the Hindus River and the Yangtze River, the birthplaces of the non-white modern races. The result of this lack of sunshine was rampant rickets in this ancient human population which evolutionists have misinterpreted as non-human because of their skeletal deformations. Another result was the profligacy, apparently through natural selection, of a mutation in a gene called SLC24A5 shared by all modern Europeans. It is a gene involved in the synthesis of melanin, the famous skin pigment, whose level of expression in various human populations has been one of the causes of so much racial strife in history. Did this mutation create something new? According to Michael Behe’s First Rule of Adaptive Evolution, the mutation was unlikely to create any new information and probably simply broke SLC24A5 and thus reduced expression of melanin in ancient Europeans. [2][3][4] One study even suggested the mutation occurred as little as six to twelve thousand years ago. [5] This mutation would have allowed a higher percentage of UV radiation to enter the skin and facilitate vitamin D synthesis, allowing these humans to live healthy lives in a less sunlit region where darker skinned Neanderthals could not. Human beings have a DNA repair mechanism designed specifically to deal with the type of mutation caused by UV radiation, but too much UV radiation would overload even this designed mechanism, causing unsustainable skin mutation rates. This may have led to further mutations, such as broken regulatory genes, allowing greater expression of melanin in populations exposed to more sun, such as Africa. Either way, the original human population was probably brown, and deleterious mutations the cause of variation in either direction, with the selective pressure of the level of sun exposure playing a key role in modern racial diversity. Neanderthals were our ancestors, but one of them developed a key mutation in SLC24A5 radically reducing his susceptibility to vitamin D deficiency and rickets. Natural selection rapidly favored the individuals within the Neanderthal population with this key advantage leading to white skin in all modern Europeans. 1. Agar N, Young AR (April 2005). "Melanogenesis: a photoprotective response to DNA damage?". Mutation research 571 (1-2): 121–32. 2. Behe MJ (Dec 2010). “Experimental evolution, loss-of-function mutations, and ‘the first rule of adaptive evolution’”. Q Rev Biol. 85(4):419-45. 3. Lamason RL, Mohideen MA, Mest JR, Wong AC, Norton HL, Aros MC, Jurynec MJ, Mao X, Humphreville VR, Humbert JE, Sinha S, Moore JL, Jagadeeswaran P, Zhao W, Ning G, Makalowska I, McKeigue PM, O'donnell D, Kittles R, Parra EJ, Mangini NJ, Grunwald DJ, Shriver MD, Canfield VA, Cheng KC (December 2005). "SLC24A5, a putative cation exchanger, affects pigmentation in zebrafish and humans". Science 310 (5755): 1782–6. 4. Ginger RS, Askew SE, Ogborne RM, Wilson S, Ferdinando D, Dadd T, Smith AM, Kazi S, Szerencsei RT, Winkfein RJ, Schnetkamp PP, Green MR (February 2008). "SLC24A5 encodes a trans-Golgi network protein with potassium-dependent sodium-calcium exchange activity that regulates human epidermal melanogenesis". J. Biol. Chem. 283 (9): 5486–95. 5. Gibbons A (April 2007). "American Association of Physical Anthropologists meeting. European skin turned pale only recently, gene suggests". Science 316 (5823): 364. tragic mishap

Do I submit my entry here? tragic mishap

Of related note; there is a mysterious 'higher dimensional' component to life: The predominance of quarter-power (4-D) scaling in biology Excerpt: Many fundamental characteristics of organisms scale with body size as power laws of the form: Y = Yo M^b, where Y is some characteristic such as metabolic rate, stride length or life span, Yo is a normalization constant, M is body mass and b is the allometric scaling exponent. A longstanding puzzle in biology is why the exponent b is usually some simple multiple of 1/4 (4-Dimensional scaling) rather than a multiple of 1/3, as would be expected from Euclidean (3-Dimensional) scaling. http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~drewa/pubs/savage_v_2004_f18_257.pdf “Although living things occupy a three-dimensional space, their internal physiology and anatomy operate as if they were four-dimensional. Quarter-power scaling laws are perhaps as universal and as uniquely biological as the biochemical pathways of metabolism, the structure and function of the genetic code and the process of natural selection.,,, The conclusion here is inescapable, that the driving force for these invariant scaling laws cannot have been natural selection." Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, What Darwin Got Wrong (London: Profile Books, 2010), p. 78-79 https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/evolution/16037/#comment-369806 4-Dimensional Quarter Power Scaling In Biology - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/5964041/ Though Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini rightly find it inexplicable for 'random' Natural Selection to be the rational explanation for the scaling of the physiology, and anatomy, of living things to four-dimensional parameters, they do not seem to fully realize the implications this 'four dimensional scaling' of living things presents. This 4-D scaling is something we should rightly expect from a Intelligent Design perspective. This is because Intelligent Design holds that ‘higher dimensional transcendent information’ is more foundational to life, and even to the universe itself, than either matter or energy are. This higher dimensional 'expectation' for life, from a Intelligent Design perspective, is directly opposed to the expectation of the Darwinian framework, which holds that information, and indeed even the essence of life itself, is merely an 'emergent' property of the 3-D material realm. Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries. - Elizabeth Barrett Browning ------------- God is God (HD Version) - Steven Curtis Chapman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8u1in165g4 bornagain77

Mrs O'Leary: When it comes to our understanding of our relationship to the Neanderthals, I think Hooton said it best, back in the 1930's - 40's:

Put not your faith in reconstructions. Some anatomists model reconstructions of fossil skulls by building up the soft parts of the head and face upon a skull cast and thus produce a bust purporting to represent the appearance of the fossil man in life. When, however, we recall the fragmentary condition of most of the skulls, the faces usually being missing, we can readily see that even the reconstruction of the facial skeleton leaves room for a good deal of doubt as to details. To attempt to restore the soft parts is an even more hazardous undertaking. The lips, the eyes, the ears, and the nasal tip leave no clues on the underlying bony parts. You can, with equal facility, model on a Neanderthaloid skull the features of a chimpanzee or the lineaments of a philosopher. These alleged restorations of ancient types of man have very little, if any, scientific value and are likely only to mislead the public. [Earnest Albert Hooton, Up from the Ape (NY: Macmillan, 1946), p. 329.]

The reasons for all the different diverse and contrary views you highlight --

"In [one current] version of the very long-running human evolution soap opera (Ewen Callaway, Nature News, 9 May 2011), we didn’t kill the Neanderthals; they died before we got there. (Episode 4440). In a different episode, they were our squeezes and in-laws – which is probably why we killed them. Anyway, they weren’t as stupid as they pretended, either"

. . . is quite obvious: we were not there, we have no reliable and generally accepted record form those who were there, and the evidence we do have is probably still far too fragmentary to produce a truly trustworthy and reliable account. Thus, our state of -- let's be honest -- confusion. So, if "understanding" is taken to hinge on credible, reliable, accurate knowledge -- so that a misunderstanding is not properly an understanding -- we do not properly understand the Neanderthals today, we did not truly understand them a quarter century ago, and we most likely will not properly understand them in another twenty or thirty years. So, our best stance would be epistemological humility. We have evidence of a race of men who were stronger than we are [especially in the arms and hands], perhaps may lave looked a bit odd (though "with a bath and a business suit" they may have passed without comment on a New York Subway), and are no longer with us. Beyond that, all is up in the air. No wonder Wikipedia inadvertently testifies to the gaps in our ability to reconstruct the remote past thusly:

For some time, scientists have debated whether Neanderthals should be classified as Homo neanderthalensis or "Homo sapiens neanderthalensis", the latter placing Neanderthals as a subspecies of Homo sapiens. Some morphological studies support that Homo neanderthalensis is a separate species and not a subspecies. Others, for example University of Cambridge Professor Paul Mellars, say "no evidence has been found of cultural interaction" and evidence from mitochondrial DNA studies have been interpreted as evidence Neanderthals were not a subspecies of H. sapiens, though more recent genomic evidence showed otherwise . . .

We do not even know enough to decide whether our Neanderthal cousins are of the same species as us! So, we would be well advised to keep an open mind on the subject of our understanding of our relationship to Neanderthals, and -- remembering that the Neanderthals started out as our first candidate ape-men -- more broadly on the many confidently projected claims on human evolution. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

DrREC, you have made a number of suggestions that common ancestry is born out by genetic similarity evidence even though gaping holes are now found in your evidence. DrREC, perhaps again your need to take your own medicine; 'At some point, you have to ask yourself whether you don’t believe something because it hasn’t been demonstrated properly, or whether you don’t believe it because you don’t want to.’ ==== As Casey Luskin pointed out in this podcast, a couple of days ago, the 'genetic similarity' evidence is not nearly as conducive to Darwinisn as what neo-Darwinists would prefer for us 'unwashed masses' to believe; Primate Phylogenetics Challenge Darwin's Tree of Life - Casey Luskin - May 9, 2011 - On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin reports on a new study showing a very tangled phylogenetic tree for primate. Listen in as Luskin shows how researchers trying to create a primate phylogenetic tree are finding it isn't as easy as they'd hoped. http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/player/web/2011-05-09T16_32_00-07_00 As to neo-Darwinists giving us 'unwashed masses' the straight scoop on what the genetic differences really are, I want to call attention to this study; This following article, which has a direct bearing on the 98.8% genetic similarity myth, shows that over 1000 'ORFan' genes, that are completely unique to humans and not found in any other species, and that very well may directly code for proteins, were stripped from the 20,500 gene count of humans simply because the evolutionary scientists could not find corresponding genes in primates. In other words evolution, of humans from primates, was assumed to be true in the first place and then the genetic evidence was directly molded to fit in accord with their unproven assumption. It would be hard to find a more biased and unfair example of practicing science! Human Gene Count Tumbles Again - 2008 Excerpt: Scientists on the hunt for typical genes — that is, the ones that encode proteins — have traditionally set their sights on so-called open reading frames, which are long stretches of 300 or more nucleotides, or “letters” of DNA, bookended by genetic start and stop signals.,,,, The researchers considered genes to be valid if and only if similar sequences could be found in other mammals – namely, mouse and dog. Applying this technique to nearly 22,000 genes in the Ensembl gene catalog, the analysis revealed 1,177 “orphan” DNA sequences. These orphans looked like proteins because of their open reading frames, but were not found in either the mouse or dog genomes. Although this was strong evidence that the sequences were not true protein-coding genes, it was not quite convincing enough to justify their removal from the human gene catalogs. Two other scenarios could, in fact, explain their absence from other mammalian genomes. For instance, the genes could be unique among primates, new inventions that appeared after the divergence of mouse and dog ancestors from primate ancestors. Alternatively, the genes could have been more ancient creations — present in a common mammalian ancestor — that were lost in mouse and dog lineages yet retained in humans. If either of these possibilities were true, then the orphan genes should appear in other primate genomes, in addition to our own. To explore this, the researchers compared the orphan sequences to the DNA of two primate cousins, chimpanzees and macaques. After careful genomic comparisons, the orphan genes were found to be true to their name — they were absent from both primate genomes. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080113161406.htm The sheer, and blatant, shoddiness of the science of the preceding study should give everyone who reads it severe pause whenever, in the future, someone tells them that genetic studies have proven evolution to be true. If the authors of the preceding study were to have actually tried to see if the over 1000 unique ORFan genes of humans may actually encode for proteins, instead of just written them off because they were not found in in other supposedly related species, they would have found that there is ample reason to believe that they may very well encode for biologically important proteins: A survey of orphan enzyme activities Abstract: We demonstrate that for ~80% of sampled orphans, the absence of sequence data is bona fide. Our analyses further substantiate the notion that many of these (orfan) enzyme activities play biologically important roles. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/8/244 Dr. Howard Ochman - Dept. of Biochemistry at the University of Arizona Excerpt of Proposal: Although it has been hypothesized that ORFans might represent non-coding regions rather than actual genes, we have recently established that the vast majority that ORFans present in the E. coli genome are under selective constraints and encode functional proteins. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/proteins-fold-as-darwin-crumbles/#comment-358868 Moreover the 'anomaly' of unique ORFan genes is found in every new genome sequenced: Widespread ORFan Genes Challenge Common Descent – Paul Nelson – video with references http://www.vimeo.com/17135166 As well, completely contrary to evolutionary thought, these 'new' ORFan genes are found to be just as essential as 'old' genes for maintaining life: Age doesn't matter: New genes are as essential as ancient ones - December 2010 Excerpt: "A new gene is as essential as any other gene; the importance of a gene is independent of its age," said Manyuan Long, PhD, Professor of Ecology & Evolution and senior author of the paper. "New genes are no longer just vinegar, they are now equally likely to be butter and bread. We were shocked." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101216142523.htm New genes in Drosophila quickly become essential. - December 2010 Excerpt: The proportion of genes that are essential is similar in every evolutionary age group that we examined. Under constitutive silencing of these young essential genes, lethality was high in the pupal (later) stage and (but was) also found in the larval (early) stages. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6011/1682.abstract I would like to reiterate that evolutionists cannot account for the origination of even one unique gene or protein, much less the over one thousand completely unique ORFan genes found distinctly imbedded within the 20,000 genes of the human genome: Could Chance Arrange the Code for (Just) One Gene? "our minds cannot grasp such an extremely small probability as that involved in the accidental arranging of even one gene (10^-236)." "Estimating the Prevalence of Protein Sequences Adopting Functional Enzyme Folds” 2004: - Doug Axe ,,,this implies the overall prevalence of sequences performing a specific function by any domain-sized fold may be as low as 1 in 10^77, adding to the body of evidence that functional folds require highly extraordinary sequences." As to any actual similarity there are between any two genomes, Evolutionists were recently completely surprised by this genetic study of kangaroos: Kangaroo genes close to humans Excerpt: Australia's kangaroos are genetically similar to humans,,, "There are a few differences, we have a few more of this, a few less of that, but they are the same genes and a lot of them are in the same order," ,,,"We thought they'd be completely scrambled, but they're not. There is great chunks of the human genome which is sitting right there in the kangaroo genome," I'm just left wondering exactly where evolutionists should place the kangaroos on their cartoon drawings that show man evolving from apes. But then again Casey Luskin did a audio podcast showing how marsupial embryonic development severely compromises the genetic argument for common ancestry from a completely different angle: Marsupial Embryos Challenge Common Ancestry – Casey Luskin - audio podcast http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/2011-02-09T16_33_21-08_00 In fact embryonic development is now found to be unique for each mammalian species as well: The mouse is not enough - February 2011 Excerpt: Richard Behringer, who studies mammalian embryogenesis at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas said, “There is no ‘correct’ system. Each species is unique and uses its own tailored mechanisms to achieve development. By only studying one species (eg, the mouse), naive scientists believe that it represents all mammals.” http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57986/ etc.. etc... etc... bornagain77

DrREC, as to the objection, that is sure to come from some materialists, that we have no 'proof' for anything in the human body that is capable of transitioning from this temporal realm to the 'higher dimensional' 'eternal' realm,,, i.e. that we have no proof for a 'eternal soul',,, notes; Information and entropy – top-down or bottom-up development in living systems? A.C. McINTOSH Excerpt: It is proposed in conclusion that it is the non-material information (transcendent to the matter and energy) that is actually itself constraining the local thermodynamics to be in ordered disequilibrium and with specified raised free energy levels necessary for the molecular and cellular machinery to operate. http://journals.witpress.com/journals.asp?iid=47 Quantum entanglement holds together life’s blueprint - 2010 Excerpt: “If you didn’t have entanglement, then DNA would have a simple flat structure, and you would never get the twist that seems to be important to the functioning of DNA,” says team member Vlatko Vedral of the University of Oxford. http://neshealthblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/quantum-entanglement-holds-together-lifes-blueprint/ Quantum Information/Entanglement In DNA & Protein Folding - short video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5936605/ Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time - March 2011 Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html It is very interesting to note that quantum entanglement, which conclusively demonstrates that ‘information’ in its pure 'quantum form' is completely transcendent of any time and space constraints, should be found in molecular biology on such a massive scale, for how can the quantum entanglement 'effect' in biology possibly be explained by a material (matter/energy) 'cause' when the quantum entanglement 'effect' falsified material particles as its own 'causation' in the first place? (A. Aspect) Appealing to the probability of various configurations of material particles, as Darwinism does, simply will not help since a timeless/spaceless cause must be supplied which is beyond the capacity of the material particles themselves to supply! To give a coherent explanation for an effect that is shown to be completely independent of any time and space constraints one is forced to appeal to a cause that is itself not limited to time and space! i.e. Put more simply, you cannot explain a effect by a cause that has been falsified by the very same effect you are seeking to explain! Improbability arguments of various 'special' configurations of material particles, which have been a staple of the arguments against neo-Darwinism, simply do not apply since the cause is not within the material particles in the first place! Yet it is also very interesting to note, in Darwinism's inability to explain this 'transcendent quantum effect' adequately, that Theism has always postulated a transcendent component to man that is not constrained by time and space. i.e. Theism has always postulated a 'eternal soul' for man that lives past the death of the body. Further notes: The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings - Steve Talbott Excerpt: Virtually the same collection of molecules exists in the canine cells during the moments immediately before and after death. But after the fateful transition no one will any longer think of genes as being regulated, nor will anyone refer to normal or proper chromosome functioning. No molecules will be said to guide other molecules to specific targets, and no molecules will be carrying signals, which is just as well because there will be no structures recognizing signals. Code, information, and communication, in their biological sense, will have disappeared from the scientist’s vocabulary. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-unbearable-wholeness-of-beings further notes: I find it extremely interesting, and strange, that quantum mechanics tells us that instantaneous quantum wave collapse to its 'uncertain' 3-D state is centered on each individual observer in the universe, whereas, 4-D space-time cosmology (General Relativity) tells us each 3-D point in the universe is central to the expansion of the universe. These findings of modern science are pretty much exactly what we would expect to see if this universe were indeed created, and sustained, from a higher dimension by a omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal Being who knows everything that is happening everywhere in the universe at the same time. These findings certainly seem to go to the very heart of the age old question asked of many parents by their children, “How can God hear everybody’s prayers at the same time?”,,, i.e. Why should the expansion of the universe, or the quantum wave collapse of the entire universe, even care that you or I, or anyone else, should exist? Only Theism offers a rational explanation as to why you or I, or anyone else, should have such undeserved significance in such a vast universe: Psalm 33:13-15 The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men. From the place of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works. The Mathematics Of Higher Dimensionality – Gauss & Riemann – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/6199520/ 3D to 4D shift - Carl Sagan - video with notes Excerpt from Notes: The state-space of quantum mechanics is an infinite-dimensional function space. Some physical theories are also by nature high-dimensional, such as the 4-dimensional general relativity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VS1mwEV9wA Intelligent Design - The Anthropic Hypothesis http://lettherebelight-77.blogspot.com/2009/10/intelligent-design-anthropic-hypothesis_19.html bornagain77

DrREC you ask: 'why don’t you briefly tell me (in your own words) what the data showing mass–energy equivalence and quantum mechanics lead to a “highest dimension/eternal dimension” is?' notes: Reflections on the 'infinite transcendent information' framework, as well as on the 'eternal' and 'temporal' frameworks: The weight of mass becomes infinite at the speed of light, thus mass will never go the speed of light. Yet, mass would disappear from our sight if it could go the speed of light, because, from our non-speed of light perspective, distance in direction of travel will shrink to zero for the mass going the speed of light. Whereas conversely, if mass could travel at the speed of light, its size will stay the same while all other frames of reference not traveling the speed of light will disappear from its sight. Moreover time, as we understand it, would come to a complete stop at the speed of light. To grasp the whole 'time coming to a complete stop at the speed of light' concept a little more easily, imagine moving away from the face of a clock at the speed of light. Would not the hands on the clock stay stationary as you moved away from the face of the clock at the speed of light? Special Relativity - Time Dilation and Length Contraction - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSRIyDfo_mY ,,,Yet, even though light has this 'eternal' attribute in regards to our temporal framework of time, for us to hypothetically travel at the speed of light, in this temporal universe, will still only get us to first base as far as quantum entanglement, or teleportation, is concerned. That is to say, traveling at the speed of light only gets us to the place where time, as we understand it, comes to complete stop for light, i.e. gets us to the eternal, 'past and future folding into now', framework of time. This higher dimension, 'eternal', inference for the time framework of light is warranted because light is not 'frozen within time' yet it is shown that time, as we understand it, does not pass for light. "I've just developed a new theory of eternity." Albert Einstein - The Einstein Factor - Reader's Digest "The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass." Richard Swenson - More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 12 Light and Quantum Entanglement Reflect Some Characteristics Of God - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4102182 It is very interesting to note that this strange higher dimensional, eternal, framework for time, found in special relativity, finds corroboration in Near Death Experience testimonies: 'In the 'spirit world,,, instantly, there was no sense of time. See, everything on earth is related to time. You got up this morning, you are going to go to bed tonight. Something is new, it will get old. Something is born, it's going to die. Everything on the physical plane is relative to time, but everything in the spiritual plane is relative to eternity. Instantly I was in total consciousness and awareness of eternity, and you and I as we live in this earth cannot even comprehend it, because everything that we have here is filled within the veil of the temporal life. In the spirit life that is more real than anything else and it is awesome. Eternity as a concept is awesome. There is no such thing as time. I knew that whatever happened was going to go on and on.' Mickey Robinson - Near Death Experience testimony 'When you die, you enter eternity. It feels like you were always there, and you will always be there. You realize that existence on Earth is only just a brief instant.' Dr. Ken Ring - has extensively studied Near Death Experiences It is also very interesting to point out that the 'light at the end of the tunnel', reported in many Near Death Experiences(NDEs), is also corroborated by Special Relativity when considering the optical effects for traveling at the speed of light. Please compare the similarity of the optical effect, noted at the 3:22 minute mark of the following video, when the 3-Dimensional world 'folds and collapses' into a tunnel shape around the direction of travel as an observer moves towards the 'higher dimension' of the speed of light, with the 'light at the end of the tunnel' reported in very many Near Death Experiences: Traveling At The Speed Of Light - Optical Effects - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5733303/ The NDE and the Tunnel - Kevin Williams' research conclusions Excerpt: I started to move toward the light. The way I moved, the physics, was completely different than it is here on Earth. It was something I had never felt before and never felt since. It was a whole different sensation of motion. I obviously wasn't walking or skipping or crawling. I was not floating. I was flowing. I was flowing toward the light. I was accelerating and I knew I was accelerating, but then again, I didn't really feel the acceleration. I just knew I was accelerating toward the light. Again, the physics was different - the physics of motion of time, space, travel. It was completely different in that tunnel, than it is here on Earth. I came out into the light and when I came out into the light, I realized that I was in heaven.(Barbara Springer) Also, hypothetically traveling at the speed of light in this universe would be instantaneous travel for the person going at the speed of light. This is because time does not pass for them, yet, and this is a very big ‘yet’ to take note of; this ‘timeless’ travel is still not instantaneous and transcendent to our temporal framework of time, i.e. Speed of light travel, to our temporal frame of reference, is still not completely transcendent of our framework since light appears to take time to travel from our perspective. Yet, in quantum teleportation of information, the ‘time not passing’, i.e. ‘eternal’, framework is not only achieved in the speed of light framework/dimension, but is also ‘instantaneously’ achieved in our temporal framework. That is to say, the instantaneous teleportation/travel of information is instantaneous to both the temporal and speed of light frameworks, not just the speed of light framework. Information teleportation/travel is not limited by time, nor space, in any way, shape or form, in any frame of reference, as light is seemingly limited to us. Thus ‘pure transcendent information’ is shown to be timeless (eternal) and completely transcendent of all material frameworks. Moreover, concluding from all lines of evidence we have now examined; transcendent, eternal, infinite information is indeed real and the framework in which ‘It’ resides is the primary reality (highest dimension) that can exist, (in so far as our limited perception of a primary reality, highest dimension, can be discerned). "An illusion can never go faster than the speed limit of reality" Akiane - Child Prodigy - Music video - http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4204586 Logic also dictates 'a decision' must have been made, by the 'transcendent, eternal, infinite information' from the primary timeless (eternal) reality 'It' inhabits, in order to purposely create a temporal reality with highly specified, irreducible complex, parameters from a infinite set of possibilities in the proper sequential order. Thus this infinite transcendent information, which is the primary reality of our reality, is shown to be alive by yet another line of evidence besides the necessity for a ‘first mover’ to explain quantum wave collapse. The First Cause Must Be A Personal Being - William Lane Craig - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/4813914 As a side light to this, leading quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger has followed in John Archibald Wheeler's footsteps (1911-2008) by insisting reality, at its most foundational level, is 'information'. "It from bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom - at 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, that things physical are information-theoretic in origin." John Archibald Wheeler Why the Quantum? It from Bit? A Participatory Universe? 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 - a leading expert in quantum teleportation: http://www.metanexus.net/Magazine/ArticleDetail/tabid/68/id/8638/Default.aspx etc.. etc.. bornagain77

Relax Doc, clearly my comment was addressing materialism...since I said as much. Given that you are not a materialist, perhaps your response can be explained by some need other than the one to be reasonable. Upright BiPed

"DrREC, do you disagree that e=mc2 and quantum mechanics points to a higher and highest dimension? If you do, I think that would be one tough row for you to hoe against the empirical evidence we now have. But why would you fight against such clear evidence for a ‘eternal dimension’ in the first place???" As the risk of totally derailing this thread, why don't you briefly tell me (in your own words) what the data showing mass–energy equivalence and quantum mechanics lead to a "highest dimension/eternal dimension" is? As for the second part of your post, genetic mixing with other hominids isn't related to common ancestry with other apes. One detects interbreeding, the other common ancestry. But anyway, the 98.8% number PREDATES the human or chimp genome projects, when limited gene sets were available. Comparing coding or noncoding DNA found 1.1, or 1.3% difference respectively. Importantly, gorillas show about 1.6% difference, and orangutans 3.1%, and so on. All good, all consistant with evolution, and completely borne out in this analysis. "Single-nucleotide substitutions occur at a mean rate of 1.23 between copies of the human and chimpanzee genome, with 1.06% or less corresponding to ?xed divergence between the species." Now, the 70% number comes in because of a wrong assumption that bases from shotgun sequencing that were unaligned at the time of the DRAFT genome are unique. This couldn't be further from the truth. They often are repetitive sequences that align with multiple regions, and couldn't be confidently placed. If you go to Ensembl, these 'unaligned' regions are down to less than 5% now. You could also BLAST (align) them with the human genome. Betcha get about 98% identity with something in the human genome. But the exact assignment is a bit ambiguous. The other % are some insertions, deletions, and genuine differences of a few percent. So maybe not 98.8% at final count, but a very high percentage. It is critical to always say what the % identity is of! Now, for the "Eighty percent of proteins are different between humans and chimpanzees." This would be better stated that 30% of human an chimp proteins are identical, and the rest have a difference of one or 2 (out of hundreds to thousands of amino acids). This isn't an 70% difference-it is a less than 1% difference in 70% of genes. Considering SNPs occur about 1 in 1000 base pairs, I could argue humans are non-identical in almost all genes at the nt level (and very many at the amino acid level). Heck-there isn't even a single human genome. No single one sequenced yet has the full compliment of genes! http://www.genome.gov/Pages/Research/DIR/Chimp_Analysis.pdf DrREC

HMMM DrREC, do you disagree that e=mc2 and quantum mechanics points to a higher and highest dimension? If you do, I think that would be one tough row for you to hoe against the empirical evidence we now have. But why would you fight against such clear evidence for a 'eternal dimension' in the first place???,,, Regardless of my puzzlement as to why you fight against such a wondrous thing, the main point I have to address is that you have accused me of playing favoritism with this 'genetic mixing' evidence. But have I really played favoritism??? DrREC, let's add a little backdrop to this 'genetic mixing' evidence that you have put so much faith in.,,, Until very recently, for many years neo-Darwinists used 'genetic similarity' evidence to argue that we were 98.8% similar to chimps. We were assured that we were merely hairless apes. No matter what evidence was brought up against the neo-Darwinists they would slam us with the 98.8% number!!! Yet it turned out that there was SEVERE CHERRY PICKING (seeing what you want to see) in order to arrive at that 98.8% number. Huge swaths of DNA were ignored. There was much rearranging, much deleting of repeated sequences etc.. etc.. Yet, when finally corrected for the cherry picking of neo-Darwinists it was found that,,, Chimpanzee? 10-10-2008 - Dr Richard Buggs - research geneticist at the University of Florida ...Therefore the total similarity of the genomes could be below 70%. http://www.idnet.com.au/files/pdf/Chimpanzee.pdf Moreover when a more thorough testing of genetic similarity was done, minus the cherry picking, it was found that; Chimps are not like humans - May 2004 Excerpt: the International Chimpanzee Chromosome 22 Consortium reports that 83% of chimpanzee chromosome 22 proteins are different from their human counterparts,,, The results reported this week showed that "83% of the genes have changed between the human and the chimpanzee—only 17% are identical—so that means that the impression that comes from the 1.2% [sequence] difference is [misleading]. In the case of protein structures, it has a big effect," Sakaki said. http://cmbi.bjmu.edu.cn/news/0405/119.htm Chimp chromosome creates puzzles - 2004 Excerpt: However, the researchers were in for a surprise. Because chimps and humans appear broadly similar, some have assumed that most of the differences would occur in the large regions of DNA that do not appear to have any obvious function. But that was not the case. The researchers report in 'Nature' that many of the differences were within genes, the regions of DNA that code for proteins. 83% of the 231 genes compared had differences that affected the amino acid sequence of the protein they encoded. And 20% showed "significant structural changes". In addition, there were nearly 68,000 regions that were either extra or missing between the two sequences, accounting for around 5% of the chromosome.,,, "we have seen a much higher percentage of change than people speculated." The researchers also carried out some experiments to look at when and how strongly the genes are switched on. 20% of the genes showed significant differences in their pattern of activity. http://www.nature.com/news/1998/040524/full/news040524-8.html Eighty percent of proteins are different between humans and chimpanzees; Gene; Volume 346, 14 February 2005: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15716009 +80% different DrREC!!! Am I seeing just what I want to be true DrREC or is the fact that neo-Darwinists sold us a 98.8% 'bill of goods' completely lost on you? ,,,If the 80% difference is not bad enough DrREC, it is found that proteins are severely intolerant to change!!! Severe Limits to Darwinian Evolution: - Michael Behe - Oct. 2009 Excerpt: The immediate, obvious implication is that the 2009 results render problematic even pretty small changes in structure/function for all proteins — not just the ones he worked on.,,,Thanks to Thornton’s impressive work, we can now see that the limits to Darwinian evolution are more severe than even I had supposed. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/10/severe_limits_to_darwinian_evo.html#more Stability effects of mutations and protein evolvability. October 2009 Excerpt: The accepted paradigm that proteins can tolerate nearly any amino acid substitution has been replaced by the view that the deleterious effects of mutations, and especially their tendency to undermine the thermodynamic and kinetic stability of protein, is a major constraint on protein evolvability,, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19765975 When Theory and Experiment Collide — April 16th, 2011 by Douglas Axe Excerpt: Based on our experimental observations and on calculations we made using a published population model [3], we estimated that Darwin’s mechanism would need a truly staggering amount of time—a trillion trillion years or more—to accomplish the seemingly subtle change in enzyme function that we studied. http://biologicinstitute.org/2011/04/16/when-theory-and-experiment-collide/ Thus DrREC, you are sitting here lecturing me on playing favoritism with this (by their own admission) fairly questionable 'genetic mixing' evidence. Genetic mixing sequences that were gathered under neo-Darwinian presuppositions that the researchers had coming in!!! And DrREC, even though this evidence is certainly not that strong, and even though we have been severely burnt by this whole line of 'genetic similarity' reasoning in the past, we are just suppose to forget all that and accept this as conclusive evidence??? No DrREC, I will not forget the way I have been severely lied to in the past! DrREC, you said it most appropriately here,,, 'At some point, you have to ask yourself whether you don’t believe something because it hasn’t been demonstrated properly, or whether you don’t believe it because you don’t want to.' So DrREC are you at that point yet?? --- What If by Nichole Nordeman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6LGSzNW9xU bornagain77

Upright, I don't know if anything I said is worse than completely changing the topic! I could agree with you entirely, that abiogenesis was improbable, that first genomes were designed. It wouldn't change my discussion on recent human evolution with bornagain one bit. "uhmmm…what was the question?" Indeed. DrREC

"At some point, you have to ask yourself whether you don’t believe something because it hasn’t been demonstrated properly, or whether you don’t believe it because you don’t want to." I come across this sensation quite often in dealing with materialist. Inside the genome of every living thing is a linear sequence of repeating digital symbols that is used to encode the information required to animate inanimate matter into living tissue. There is only one verifiable source for a linear digital sequence of symbols which encodes information. uhmmm...what was the question? Upright BiPed

So I’ll ask again: Is there a specific point (some failing in the data) you’d like to discuss?

I hope you're prepared for another barrage of quotes. Mung

bornagain77, Skepticism is healthy. As is humility when looking at the data. At some point, you have to ask yourself whether you don't believe something because it hasn't been demonstrated properly, or whether you don't believe it because you don't want to. Considering how readily you jump on things you want to be true (e.g. quantum mechanics or E=MC^2 as a transcendent higher ‘eternal’ dimension) versus things you don't want to be true, I sense a bit of a double standard in approaching the data. So I'll ask again: Is there a specific point (some failing in the data) you’d like to discuss? DrREC

DrREC, as I said, You can bet the farm on the test as if you want, but I find much room for doubt in your confidence for these tests! ,,, 'appear to have succeeded.' (in controlling the contamination) is a far cry from conclusive DrREC. bornagain77

"DrREC, News and Views article??? Perhaps you meant this Journal of Biology paper????" ---------- Just so you know, peer reviewed articles do not take the form of Q&A. This is an interview. The conclusions, despite these reservations, and your quoting around them are: "This seems quite a subtle test - Might these results be explained by human contamination? Probably not." "Green et al. and Reich et al. made great efforts to control for these effects, and appear to have succeeded. " "On the basis of the data and analyses presented by Green et al. and Reich et al., it appears that a simple out of Africa hypothesis with no admixture does not give the full picture of human origins." Is there a specific point you'd like to discuss? DrREC

DrREC, News and Views article??? Perhaps you meant this Journal of Biology paper???? Q&A: Who is H. sapiens really, and how do we know? Excerpt: The main problem in dealing with ancient DNA is the dearth of genetic material. The Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes could not be sequenced to a higher coverage not because of a lack of money or time, but because of a lack of DNA extract; the three bones from Vindija Cave and the one from Denisova Cave have been completely hollowed out to produce the genomes reported. Ancient DNA sequencing typically shows a much high error rate than observed in modern DNA. Errors in the reported genome can be caused by degradation of the DNA from the environment or by sequencing error. In ancient DNA samples, deamination of cytosine residues causes C to have the chemical properties of T, and G to have the chemical properties of A. As a result, the Neanderthal draft genome shows an abnormally large number of C-> T and G-> A substitutions, the vast majority of which are errors. In sequencing the Denisovan samples, this deamination was chemically reversed, allowing the C and G residues to be sequenced correctly. This, together with the drier and cooler climate at Denisova Cave, resulted in DNA samples that were about ten times less damaged. Sequencing error can also be a problem, as the error rate of new-generation sequencing is only slightly lower than the divergence between humans and Neanderthals. However, this problem will hopefully disappear as new-generation sequencing technology becomes more accurate and the discovery of new samples allows for deeper coverage. That sounds serious - How confident can we be of any interpretation if the sequencing error rate and the divergence are that close? The statistical analysis of the Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes was designed with the limitations of the data in mind. A paper by Durand et al. argues that the ABBA-BABBA test for admixture is not sensitive to confounding factors, such as human or Neanderthal demographic history, sequencing error or damage to the DNA, as long as the H1 and H2 samples were processed in the same way. However, one source of concern is the possibility of a shared error structure caused by DNA sequencing methods. Current sequencing technology is highly temperamental, and the frequency and type of sequencing errors in the final data depend on many factors, such as sample preparation, the type of sequencing machine, contamination from local conditions and reagents, and sequencing coverage. If the error structures of the archaic DNA and one of the modern human DNA samples are similar to each other for one of many reasons, the ABBA-BABA test could report admixture when it did not in fact occur. Even a very small proportion of shared errors could cause a strong effect on the ABBA-BABA statistic. For example, small effects that we typically tend to ignore, such as shared contamination of reagents between the samples, could cause artifactual evidence of admixture. Green et al. and Reich et al. made great efforts to control for these effects, and appear to have succeeded. However, the issues of errors in next-generation sequencing data, particularly for ancient DNA, and their consequences for current and future inference of low levels of admixture remain a critical issue that is likely to be the focus of much future research. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/9/20 You can bet the farm on that DrREC, but it hardly inspires confidence in me! bornagain77

bornagain77- The data from the Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes seem pretty good. There are entire papers on physical and statistical tests of the validity of the data. For example, they looked for Human mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA to verify non-contamination. Perhaps most interestingly, the results are geographically consistent. Neanderthal contributions are found in Europeans, but not sub-Saharan Africans. Denisovan contributions are found in some Asians, but not Europeans or Africans. Both are consistent with the known range and migration patterns of the species. Your citations really don't do anything to make me consider otherwise. You have a News and Views article that considers the issues, and concludes the data looks valid. Then a NYT article quoting an anthropologist stating the anthropological record is incomplete, so lacks support for overlap in the time suggested. Two more irrelevant references to anthropology and carbon dating, which have nothing to do with the genomic data. Then onto critiques whose subjects are million of years prior to what is being asked in the original post. Irrelevant. DrREC

semi OT: How to Fill In Missing Fossils: Imagine Them - Quote from author of article; "If you visualize evolutionary relationships in the form of branching diagrams and then plot them on a time scale, new patterns begin to emerge, with gaps in the fossil record suddenly filling rapidly.” http://www.creationsafaris.com/crev201105.htm#20110509a ,,, here is a blunt observation of what evolutionists appear to be doing with the evidence,,,, "But what is the basis for the human evolution thesis put forward by evolutionists? It is the existence of plenty of fossils on which evolutionists are able to build imaginary interpretations. Throughout history, more than 6,000 species of ape have lived, and most of them have become extinct. Today, only 120 species live on the earth. These 6,000 or so species of ape, most of which are extinct, constitute a rich resource for the evolutionists to build imaginary interpretations with." http://www.darwinismrefuted.com/origin_of_man.html bornagain77

DrREC, contrary to your personal beliefs the 'interbreeding' evidence is a far cry from being certain. i.e. here is much disagreement within the scientific community from those who question just how much weight should be given to this new 'genetic mixture' evidence that was gathered in a fairly complex way. A complex way that appears to be ripe for error and misinterpretation: Q&A: Who is H. sapiens really, and how do we know? - March 2011 Excerpt: If the error structures of the archaic DNA and one of the modern human DNA samples are similar to each other for one of many reasons, the ABBA-BABA test could report admixture when it did not in fact occur. Even a very small proportion of shared errors could cause a strong effect on the ABBA-BABA statistic. For example, small effects that we typically tend to ignore, such as shared contamination of reagents between the samples, could cause artifactual evidence of admixture. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/9/20 Signs of Neanderthals Mating With Humans - May 2010 Excerpt: "But the new analysis, which is based solely on genetics and statistical calculations, is more difficult to match with the archaeological record. There is much less archaeological evidence for an overlap between modern humans and Neanderthals at this time and place.,, Geneticists have been making increasingly valuable contributions to human prehistory, but their work depends heavily on complex mathematical statistics that make their arguments hard to follow. And the statistical insights, however informative, do not have the solidity of an archaeological fact." They are basically saying, ‘Here are our data, you have to accept it.’ But the little part I can judge seems to me to be problematic, so I have to worry about the rest,” he said. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/science/07neanderthal.html Moreover, even other evidence is not near as solid as it once was thought,,, Neanderthals did not shop at prehistoric Tiffany's - October 2010 Excerpt: The key finding is that as you dig down through the layers of sediment in the Grotte du Renne, the age of the remains does not increase as you would expect. Instead, the ages of the different objects are all over the place, suggesting that remains from different eras have got mixed up together.,,, This leads Higham to suggest that a key piece of evidence for Neanderthal sophistication has fallen. http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2010/10/neanderthals-did-not-shop-at-s.html Animals Can Skew Archaeological Dates - October 2010 Excerpt: “Animals push human tools into ground—and back in time, study says,” was a subtitle of a report in National Geographic News. This factor could cause mis-dating of stone tools and other artifacts, “making them seem older than they really are—in some cases, thousands of years older,” experiments have demonstrated.,, “To our amazement,” lead author Metin Eren said, “the disturbance was much greater than we had anticipated.” “Trampling could even create the illusion of ancient sites where none really existed,”,, Is this a minor matter? Anthropologist Julien Riel-Salvatore of the University of Colorado Denver said, “Pretty much any open-air site located near a water source will potentially be very seriously affected by some of these conclusions.” http://www.creationsafaris.com/crev201010.htm#20101006b ---------- further notes: Evolution of the Genus Homo - Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences - Tattersall, Schwartz, May 2009 Excerpt: "Definition of the genus Homo is almost as fraught as the definition of Homo sapiens. We look at the evidence for “early Homo,” finding little morphological basis for extending our genus to any of the 2.5–1.6-myr-old fossil forms assigned to “early Homo” or Homo habilis/rudolfensis." http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202 Man is indeed as unique, as different from all other animals, as had been traditionally claimed by theologians and philosophers. Evolutionist Ernst Mayr http://www.y-origins.com/index.php?p=home_more4 “Something extraordinary, if totally fortuitous, happened with the birth of our species….Homo sapiens is as distinctive an entity as exists on the face of the Earth, and should be dignified as such instead of being adulterated with every reasonably large-brained hominid fossil that happened to come along.” Anthropologist Ian Tattersall (curator at the American Museum of Natural History) Though the authors of the 'Evolution of the Genus Homo' paper appear to be thoroughly mystified by the fossil record, they never seem to give up their blind faith in evolution despite the disparity they see first hand in the fossil record. In spite of their philosophical bias, I have to hand it to them for being fairly honest with the evidence though. I especially like how the authors draw out this following 'what it means to be human' distinction in their paper: "although Homo neanderthalensis had a large brain, it left no unequivocal evidence of the symbolic consciousness that makes our species unique." -- "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." bornagain77

bevets- I think the question was: "Do you think we understand the human-Neanderthal relationship better than we did twenty-five years ago? In what ways?" Considering Sir Keith died 50+ years ago, I'm not sure that quote is germane. I would say the Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes have changed the understanding of the Human-Hominid relationship. It appears humans interbred with them, and that some human populations have relics of this meeting in their genome. That some, but not all humans have these genes supports proposed migration patterns. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v468/n7327/full/nature09710.html http://www.eva.mpg.de/neandertal/ DrREC

I am firmly convinced that no theory of human evolution can be regarded as satisfactory unless the revelations of Piltdown are taken into account. ~ Arthur Keith bevets