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Evangelical scientists getting it wrong…

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Stop the presses. No, wait. Geologist and fossil digger Casey Luskin offers some thoughts on William Lane Craig’s In Quest of the Historical Adam:

Evangelical intellectuals often assume that challenging evolution is what brings disrepute upon the church. Even some evangelical leaders push this view, hoping to bully evangelicals into staying silent about doubts about Darwin. But recent debates over Adam and Eve have turned this stereotype on its head. Over the past decade it has been evangelical scientists who embraced mainstream evolutionary ideas and told the church that they must reject 2,000-year-old doctrines on Adam and Eve, that got the science wrong. This led to nearly a decade of leading theistic evolutionists wrongly pushing the idea that Adam and Eve as historical individuals are false. Only after Darwin-doubting scientists in the intelligent design camp were willing to challenge the status quo did the truth become clear that science has not refuted Adam and Eve.

Evangelical Christians who continue to embrace evolutionary ideas in the absence of confirming evidence continue to bet on the wrong horse, and threaten to repeat these mistakes. This is the moral of the story over recent debates over Adam and Eve — and it isn’t emphasized by Craig because he still thinks it is unwise to challenge biological evolution. Indeed, Craig continues to rely upon BioLogos arguments that pseudogenes are “broken” and non-functional junk DNA that we share with apes, thereby demonstrating our common ancestry. Those arguments are increasingly contradicted by evidence presented in highly authoritative scientific papers which find that pseudogenes are commonly functional, and they ought not be assumed to be genetic “junk.” In relying upon dubious evolutionary arguments that are increasingly refuted by the technical literature, Craig may be repeating the very mistake that led previous evangelicals to think Adam and Eve did not exist.

Casey Luskin, “Coming Attraction: My Review of William Lane Craig’s In Quest of the Historical Adam” at Big Think (November 9, 2021)

Luskin intends a multi-part series on the topic.

Some of us definitely believe in the Historical Adam. Who else, we ask you, could possibly be the ancestor of the Historical Jesus?

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BA77 -- good to see you.Silver Asiatic
May 20, 2022
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And although the evidence from the fossil record, genetics, and population genetics, is far more damning to Darwinian ‘narratives’ of human evolution than Darwinists are willing to honestly admit to the general public, the one place that even leading Darwinists themselves honestly admit that they have no clue how a particularly unique human trait could have possibly evolved is with human language. In 2014, an impressive who’s who list and leading Darwinian scientists, who specialize in this area of language research, issued a paper in which they honestly admitted that they have “essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,,”
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).) Luskin comments: “It’s difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts.” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/leading_evoluti092141.html
The reason why this honest confession by leading Darwinian scientists is so interesting to look at is that it is language in and of itself, which is profoundly ‘abstract’ in its foundational essence, that allows humans to communicate their ‘abstract’ thoughts to one another. Yet it is abstract thought, in and of itself, that demonstrates that, as Dr. Egnor puts it, “We are more different from apes than apes are from viruses.,,,”
The Fundamental Difference Between Humans and Nonhuman Animals – Michael Egnor – November 5, 2015 Excerpt: Human beings have mental powers that include the material mental powers of animals but in addition entail a profoundly different kind of thinking. Human beings think abstractly, and nonhuman animals do not. Human beings have the power to contemplate universals, which are concepts that have no material instantiation. Human beings think about mathematics, literature, art, language, justice, mercy, and an endless library of abstract concepts. Human beings are rational animals. Human rationality is not merely a highly evolved kind of animal perception. Human rationality is qualitatively different — ontologically different — from animal perception. Human rationality is different because it is immaterial. Contemplation of universals cannot have material instantiation, because universals themselves are not material and cannot be instantiated in matter.,,, It is a radical difference — an immeasurable qualitative difference, not a quantitative difference. We are more different from apes than apes are from viruses.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/11/the_fundamental_2100661.html
Moreover, it is this unique human ability to understand, communicate, create, and more specifically, to infuse immaterial information into material substates, that has allowed humans, (directly contrary to the ‘red in tooth and claw’ thinking of Darwinists), to become ‘masters of the planet’.
“Speech is 95 percent plus of what lifts man above animal! Physically, man is a sad case. His teeth, including his incisors, which he calls eyeteeth, are baby-size and can barely penetrate the skin of a too-green apple. His claws can’t do anything but scratch him where he itches. His stringy-ligament body makes him a weakling compared to all the animals his size. Animals his size? In hand-to-paw, hand-to-claw, or hand-to-incisor combat, any animal his size would have him for lunch. Yet man owns or controls them all, every animal that exists, thanks to his superpower: speech.” —Tom Wolfe, in the introduction to his book, ‘The Kingdom of Speech’
That humans should master the planet due to his unique ability to communicate information is completely contrary to the ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking that undergirds Darwinian thought. Although humans are fairly defenseless creatures in the wild compared to other creatures, such as lions, bears, sharks, etc.., nonetheless, humans have, completely contrary to Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest’ thinking, managed to become masters of the planet, not via brute force, but simply by our unique ability to create and communicate immaterial information and also to, more specifically, infuse immaterial information into material substrates in order to create, i.e. intelligently design, objects that are extremely useful for our defense, basic survival in procuring food, furtherance of our knowledge, and also merely for our pleasure. What is more interesting still about the fact that humans have a unique ability to understand and create information, and have come to ‘master the planet’ through the ‘top-down’ infusion of immaterial information into material substrates, is the fact that, due to advances in science, both the universe and life itself, are now found to be ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis.
“The most fundamental definition of reality is not matter or energy, but information–and it is the processing of information that lies at the root of all physical, biological, economic, and social phenomena.” – Vlatko Vedral – Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, and CQT (Centre for Quantum Technologies) at the National University of Singapore, and a Fellow of Wolfson College – a recognized leader in the field of quantum mechanics.
It is hard to imagine a more convincing scientific proof that we are ‘made in the image of God’, than finding that both the universe and life itself are ‘information theoretic’ in their foundational basis, and that we, of all the creatures on earth, uniquely possess an ability to understand and create information, and have come to ‘master the planet’, not via brute force as is presupposed in Darwinian thought, but precisely because of our ability to infuse immaterial information into material substrates.
Acts 3:15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
Perhaps a more convincing proof that we are made in the image of God could be if God Himself became a man, walked on water, healed the sick, raised the dead, and then defeated death on a cross. And that just so happens to be precisely the proof that is claimed within Christianity.
Shroud of Turin: From discovery of Photographic Negative, to 3D Information, to Quantum Hologram – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-TL4QOCiis The evidence for the Shroud’s authenticity keeps growing stronger. (Timeline of facts) – November 08, 2019 What Is the Shroud of Turin? Facts & History Everyone Should Know – Myra Adams and Russ Breault https://www.christianity.com/wiki/jesus-christ/what-is-the-shroud-of-turin.html Jesus Christ as the correct “Theory of Everything” – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpn2Vu8–eE
Verse:
Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Supplemental note: besides Darwinists trying to undermine the Theistic belief in human exceptionalism with their false ‘narrative’ of human evolution, the second place that Darwinists try to undermine human exceptionalism is with the Copernican Principle. Yet, the Copernican principle is now shown, from our very best scientific theories, to be a false assumption.
,,, despite the fact that virtually everyone, including the vast majority of Christians today, presently hold that the Copernican Principle is unquestionably true, (and therefore concede the necessary premise of the Principle of Mediocrity to atheists), the fact of the matter is that the Copernican Principal is now shown, via our most powerful theories in science, (i.e. quantum mechanics and general relativity), to be a false assumption. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/mike-keas-on-the-myth-that-a-big-universe-is-a-problem-for-religion/#comment-738443
bornagain77
November 11, 2021
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Moreover, this failure of the reactive materialistic explanations of Darwinists to account for biological form occur at a much lower level than DNA itself. In the following article entitled 'Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics', which studied the derivation of macroscopic properties from a complete microscopic description, the researchers remark that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, The researchers further commented that their findings challenge the reductionists' point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description."
Quantum physics problem proved unsolvable: Gödel and Turing enter quantum physics - December 9, 2015 Excerpt: A mathematical problem underlying fundamental questions in particle and quantum physics is provably unsolvable,,, It is the first major problem in physics for which such a fundamental limitation could be proven. The findings are important because they show that even a perfect and complete description of the microscopic properties of a material is not enough to predict its macroscopic behaviour.,,, "We knew about the possibility of problems that are undecidable in principle since the works of Turing and Gödel in the 1930s," added Co-author Professor Michael Wolf from Technical University of Munich. "So far, however, this only concerned the very abstract corners of theoretical computer science and mathematical logic. No one had seriously contemplated this as a possibility right in the heart of theoretical physics before. But our results change this picture. From a more philosophical perspective, they also challenge the reductionists' point of view, as the insurmountable difficulty lies precisely in the derivation of macroscopic properties from a microscopic description." http://phys.org/news/2015-12-quantum-physics-problem-unsolvable-godel.html
And indeed, advances in quantum biology have now shown that Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, are not even on the correct theoretical foundation in order to properly understand biological life in the first place:
Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology – Part II – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSig2CsjKbg
Moreover, even if biological form was not an irresolvable dilemma for the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinists, and even if DNA were 98.5% similar instead of being 85% similar as it it is turning out to be, the mathematics of population genetics, (which is supposedly a strong suit for Darwinists), would still prove that the supposed 'designer substitute' of Natural Selection is grossly inadequate to account that 1.5% genetic difference.
The waiting time problem in a model hominin population – 2015 Sep 17 John Sanford, Wesley Brewer, Franzine Smith, and John Baumgardner Excerpt: The program Mendel’s Accountant realistically simulates the mutation/selection process,,, Given optimal settings, what is the longest nucleotide string that can arise within a reasonable waiting time within a hominin population of 10,000? Arguably, the waiting time for the fixation of a “string-of-one” is by itself problematic (Table 2). Waiting a minimum of 1.5 million years (realistically, much longer), for a single point mutation is not timely adaptation in the face of any type of pressing evolutionary challenge. This is especially problematic when we consider that it is estimated that it only took six million years for the chimp and human genomes to diverge by over 5 % [1]. This represents at least 75 million nucleotide changes in the human lineage, many of which must encode new information. While fixing one point mutation is problematic, our simulations show that the fixation of two co-dependent mutations is extremely problematic – requiring at least 84 million years (Table 2). This is ten-fold longer than the estimated time required for ape-to-man evolution. In this light, we suggest that a string of two specific mutations is a reasonable upper limit, in terms of the longest string length that is likely to evolve within a hominin population (at least in a way that is either timely or meaningful). Certainly the creation and fixation of a string of three (requiring at least 380 million years) would be extremely untimely (and trivial in effect), in terms of the evolution of modern man. It is widely thought that a larger population size can eliminate the waiting time problem. If that were true, then the waiting time problem would only be meaningful within small populations. While our simulations show that larger populations do help reduce waiting time, we see that the benefit of larger population size produces rapidly diminishing returns (Table 4 and Fig. 4). When we increase the hominin population from 10,000 to 1 million (our current upper limit for these types of experiments), the waiting time for creating a string of five is only reduced from two billion to 482 million years. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4573302/
Moreover, Dr. John Sanford has also done yeoman’s work showing exactly how the mathematics of population genetics falsifies Darwinian evolution rather than confirming it. Specifically, Dr. Sanford has now also shown that. when realistic rates of detrimental to beneficial mutations are taken into consideration, then the mathematics of populations genetics also falsifies Fisher’s erroneous assumption that fitness must always increase:
Geneticist Corrects Fisher’s Theorem, but the Correction Turns Natural Selection Upside Down – December 22, 2017 | David F. Coppedge A new paper corrects errors in Fisher’s Theorem, a mathematical “proof” of Darwinism. Rather than supporting evolution, the corrected theorem inverts it. Excerpt: The authors of the new paper describe the fundamental problems with Fisher’s theorem. They then use Fisher’s first principles, and reformulate and correct the theorem. They have named the corrected theorem The Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection with Mutations. The correction of the theorem is not a trivial change – it literally flips the theorem on its head. The resulting conclusions are clearly in direct opposition to what Fisher had originally intended to prove.,,, The authors of the new paper realized that one of Fisher’s pivotal assumptions was clearly false, and in fact was falsified many decades ago. In his informal corollary, Fisher essentially assumed that new mutations arose with a nearly normal distribution – with an equal proportion of good and bad mutations (so mutations would have a net fitness effect of zero). We now know that the vast majority of mutations in the functional genome are harmful, and that beneficial mutations are vanishingly rare. The simple fact that Fisher’s premise was wrong, falsifies Fisher’s corollary. Without Fisher’s corollary – Fisher’s Theorem proves only that selection improves a population’s fitness until selection exhausts the initial genetic variation, at which point selective progress ceases. Apart from his corollary, Fisher’s Theorem only shows that within an initial population with variant genetic alleles, there is limited selective progress followed by terminal stasis.,,, The authors observe that the more realistic the parameters, the more likely fitness decline becomes. https://crev.info/2017/12/geneticist-corrects-fishers-theorem/
Dr. John Sanford, whose credentials in genetics are impeccable, has analyzed the mathematics of population genetic inside and out, and, time and time again, Dr. Sanford and company have found that the mathematics of population genetics, (coupled with real time empirical evidence), falsifies Darwin’s theory rather than confirming it.
Dr. John Sanford – Links to Selected Papers https://www.logosresearchassociates.org/john-sanford John Sanford Gives Lecture At NIH On Mutations And Human Health – 2018 https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/john-sanford-gives-lecture-at-nih-on-mutations-and-human-health/
Thus, the evidence from genetics, (and the mathematics of population genetics), when viewed in its entirety, instead of just piecemeal as Darwinists are prone to do, actually falsifies, instead of supports, the Darwinian claim that humans evolved some chimp-like ancestor.
Genesis 1:26-27 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
bornagain77
November 11, 2021
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Moreover, even if the genetic similarity were as close as Darwinists have falsely claimed it to be for years (98.5%), (and even if the 'operating systems' were not 'species specific'), Darwinists would still have no empirical evidence that it is possible to change one creature into a brand new creature by mutating DNA alone. As Jonathan Wells states in the following article, “Studies using saturation mutagenesis in the embryos of fruit flies, roundworms, zebrafish and mice also provide evidence against the idea that DNA specifies the basic form of an organism. Biologists can mutate (and indeed have mutated) a fruit fly embryo in every possible way, and they have invariably observed only three possible outcomes: a normal fruit fly, a defective fruit fly, or a dead fruit fly.”
Jonathan Wells: Far from being all-powerful, DNA does not wholly determine biological form – March 31, 2014 Excerpt: Studies using saturation mutagenesis in the embryos of fruit flies, roundworms, zebrafish and mice also provide evidence against the idea that DNA specifies the basic form of an organism. Biologists can mutate (and indeed have mutated) a fruit fly embryo in every possible way, and they have invariably observed only three possible outcomes: a normal fruit fly, a defective fruit fly, or a dead fruit fly. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/jonathan-wells-far-from-being-all-powerful-dna-does-not-wholly-determine-biological-form/ Response to John Wise – October 2010 Excerpt: But there are solid empirical grounds for arguing that changes in DNA alone cannot produce new organs or body plans. A technique called “saturation mutagenesis”1,2 has been used to produce every possible developmental mutation in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster),3,4,5 roundworms (Caenorhabditis elegans),6,7 and zebrafish (Danio rerio),8,9,10 and the same technique is now being applied to mice (Mus musculus).11,12. None of the evidence from these and numerous other studies of developmental mutations supports the neo-Darwinian dogma that DNA mutations can lead to new organs or body plans–,,, (As Jonathan Wells states),,, We can modify the DNA of a fruit fly embryo in any way we want, and there are only three possible outcomes: A normal fruit fly; A defective fruit fly; or A dead fruit fly. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/10/response_to_john_wise038811.html
And starting around the 15:00 minute mark of the following video, Dr. Wells reveals that the central dogma of Darwinian evolution, (which simply stated is “DNA makes RNA makes protein makes us”), has been shown to be incorrect at every step.
Design Beyond DNA: A Conversation with Dr. Jonathan Wells – video (14:36 minute mark) – January 2017 https://youtu.be/ASAaANVBoiE?t=876 Dr. Jonathan Wells: Biology’s Quiet Revolution – podcast – April 15, 2016 On this episode of ID the Future, Dr. Jonathan Wells discusses a popular claim, which he describes as “DNA makes RNA makes protein makes us”—or, every organism contains a program for itself in its DNA. Though this view fits neatly with the perspective of Darwinian evolution, it has been shown to be incorrect at every step. Listen in as Dr. Wells explains. https://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/idtf/2016/04/dr-jonathan-wells-biologys-quiet-revolution/
Darwinists simply have no evidence that morphology, and/or biological form, is reducible to DNA. As the following 2020 article states, "At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved."
On the problem of biological form - Marta Linde-Medina (2020) Excerpt: Embryonic development, which inspired the first theories of biological form, was eventually excluded from the conceptual framework of the Modern Synthesis, (neo-Darwinism) as irrelevant.,,, At present, the problem of biological form remains unsolved. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12064-020-00317-3
Perhaps the best evidence that 'biological form' is forever beyond the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinists is the following. The following article notes that 'a brief time-lapse video can teach more about embryonic development than any amount of reading.” And further notes that “it is hard not to be impressed how a repeatable form reliably emerges despite considerable variation in both genes and environment.'
Criticality in morphogenesis - September 17, 2013 Excerpt: In many regards, a brief time-lapse video can teach more about embryonic development than any amount of reading. It is hard not to be impressed how a repeatable form reliably emerges despite considerable variation in both genes and environment. While it had been hoped that concepts borrowed from statistical mechanics or the ideas of self-organized criticality could help to create some kind of physics-based theory of development, much of what has been done lies only at the level of metaphor. In a paper just released to ArXiv, William Bialek and his colleagues from Princeton University, have taken their search for the signature of criticality in a more specific direction. They looked at a particular set of transcription factors in Drosophila embryos which control spatiotemporal development. By analyzing fluctuations in the expression levels of these so-called gap genes, they found evidence for critical (fine) tuning in this particular network. http://phys.org/news/2013-09-criticality-morphogenesis.html
To further drive to point home that the biological form of any particular organism is not reducible to mutations to DNA. nor reducible to any other material particulars of an organism, in the following article it is noted that, Richard Lewontin once described how you can excise the developing limb bud from an amphibian embryo, shake the cells loose from each other, allow them to reaggregate into a random lump, and then replace the lump in the embryo. A normal leg develops. Somehow the form of the limb as a whole is the ruling factor, redefining the parts according to the larger pattern.
What Do Organisms Mean? Stephen L. Talbott - Winter 2011 Excerpt: Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin once described how you can excise the developing limb bud from an amphibian embryo, shake the cells loose from each other, allow them to reaggregate into a random lump, and then replace the lump in the embryo. A normal leg develops. Somehow the form of the limb as a whole is the ruling factor, redefining the parts according to the larger pattern. Lewontin went on to remark: "Unlike a machine whose totality is created by the juxtaposition of bits and pieces with different functions and properties, the bits and pieces of a developing organism seem to come into existence as a consequence of their spatial position at critical moments in the embryo’s development. Such an object is less like a machine than it is like a language whose elements... take unique meaning from their context.[3]",,, http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/what-do-organisms-mean
bornagain77
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To drive this point home, Dolphins, Kangaroos, frogs, etc.. etc… although being very different morphologically from humans, are, ‘unexpectedly’, found to have very similar DNA sequences to humans.
Richard Sternberg PhD – podcast – On Human Origins: Is Our Genome Full of Junk DNA? Part 2 5:30 minute mark quote: “Basically the dolphin genome is almost wholly identical to the human genome,, yet no one would argue that bottle-nose dolphins are our sister species”,,, http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/11/on-human-origins-is-our-genome-full-of-junk-dna-pt-2/ Dolphin DNA very close to human, – 2010 Excerpt: They’re closer to us than cows, horses, or pigs, despite the fact that they live in the water.,,, “The extent of the genetic similarity came as a real surprise to us,” ,,, “Dolphins are marine mammals that swim in the ocean and it was astonishing to learn that we had more in common with the dolphin than with land mammals,” says geneticist Horst Hameister.,,, “We started looking at these and it became very obvious to us that every human chromosome had a corollary chromosome in the dolphin,” Busbee said. “We’ve found that the dolphin genome and the human genome basically are the same. It’s just that there’s a few chromosomal rearrangements that have changed the way the genetic material is put together.” http://www.reefrelieffounders.com/science/2010/10/21/articlesafari-dolphin-dna-very-close-to-human/ Kangaroo genes close to humans – 2008 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,” http://www.reuters.com/article/science%20News/idUSTRE4AH1P020081118 First Decoded Marsupial Genome Reveals “Junk DNA” Surprise – 2007 Excerpt: In particular, the study highlights the genetic differences between marsupials such as opossums and kangaroos and placental mammals like humans, mice, and dogs. ,,, The researchers were surprised to find that placental and marsupial mammals have largely the same set of genes for making proteins. Instead, much of the difference lies in the controls that turn genes on and off. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/070510-opossum-dna.html Frogs and humans are kissing cousins – 2010 Excerpt: What’s the difference between a frog, a chicken, a mouse and a human? Not as much as you’d think, according to an analysis of the first sequenced amphibian genome. The genome of the western clawed frog, Xenopus tropicalis, has now been analysed by an international consortium of scientists from 24 institutions, and joins a list of sequenced model organisms including the mouse, zebrafish, nematode and fruit fly. What’s most surprising, researchers say, is how closely the amphibian’s genome resembles that of the mouse and the human, with large swathes of frog DNA on several chromosomes having genes arranged in the same order as in these mammals. The results of the analysis are published in Science this week1. “There are megabases of sequence where gene order has changed very little,,,” – per nature
Genetic similarity simply does not line up with morphological similarity as is presupposed in the Darwinian claim that genetic evidence supports human evolution. Where differences are greatest between chimps and humans, (and between all other creatures), are not in the genetic sequences, but are instead found in alternative splicing patterns. As the following paper states, “A major question in vertebrate evolutionary biology is “how do physical and behavioral differences arise if we have a very similar set of genes to that of the mouse, chicken, or frog?”,,, the papers show that most alternative splicing events differ widely between even closely related species. “The alternative splicing patterns are very different even between humans and chimpanzees,”
Evolution by Splicing – Comparing gene transcripts from different species reveals surprising splicing diversity. – Ruth Williams – December 20, 2012 Excerpt: A major question in vertebrate evolutionary biology is “how do physical and behavioral differences arise if we have a very similar set of genes to that of the mouse, chicken, or frog?”,,, A commonly discussed mechanism was variable levels of gene expression, but both Blencowe and Chris Burge,,, found that gene expression is relatively conserved among species. On the other hand, the papers show that most alternative splicing events differ widely between even closely related species. “The alternative splicing patterns are very different even between humans and chimpanzees,” said Blencowe.,,, http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view%2FarticleNo%2F33782%2Ftitle%2FEvolution-by-Splicing%2F
In fact, due to alternative splicing, “Alternatively spliced isoforms,,, appear to behave as if encoded by distinct genes rather than as minor variants of each other.,,,” and “As many as 100,000 distinct isoform transcripts could be produced from the 20,000 human protein-coding genes (Pan et al., 2008), collectively leading to perhaps over a million distinct polypeptides obtained by post-translational modification of products of all possible transcript isoforms,,”
Widespread Expansion of Protein Interaction Capabilities by Alternative Splicing – 2016 In Brief Alternatively spliced isoforms of proteins exhibit strikingly different interaction profiles and thus, in the context of global interactome networks, appear to behave as if encoded by distinct genes rather than as minor variants of each other.,,, Page 806 excerpt: As many as 100,000 distinct isoform transcripts could be produced from the 20,000 human protein-coding genes (Pan et al., 2008), collectively leading to perhaps over a million distinct polypeptides obtained by post-translational modification of products of all possible transcript isoforms (Smith and Kelleher, 2013). http://iakouchevalab.ucsd.edu/publications/Yang_Cell_OMIM_2016.pdf
This finding of “perhaps a million distinct polypeptides obtained by post-translational modification” is simply completely devastating to the ‘bottom up’ reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinists. As Stephen Meyer stated in the following interview, “it has become increasingly clear that the non-coding regions, the crucial operating systems in effect, of the chimp and human genomes are species specific. That is, they are strikingly different in the two species.,,, I see nothing from a genetic point of view that challenges the idea that humans originated independently from primates,”
An Interview with Stephen C. Meyer TT: Is the idea of an original human couple (Adam and Eve) in conflict with science? Does DNA tell us anything about the existence of Adam and Eve? SM: Readers have probably heard that the 98 percent similarity of human DNA to chimp DNA establishes that humans and chimps had a common ancestor. Recent studies show that number dropping significantly. More important, it turns out that previous measures of human and chimp genetic similarity were based upon an analysis of only 2 to 3 percent of the genome, the small portion that codes for proteins. This limited comparison was justified based upon the assumption that the rest of the genome was non-functional “junk.” Since the publication of the results of something called the “Encode Project,” however, it has become clear that the noncoding regions of the genome perform many important functions and that, overall, the non-coding regions of the genome function much like an operating system in a computer by regulating the timing and expression of the information stored in the “data files” or coding regions of the genome. Significantly, it has become increasingly clear that the non-coding regions, the crucial operating systems in effect, of the chimp and human genomes are species specific. That is, they are strikingly different in the two species. Yet, if alleged genetic similarity suggests common ancestry, then, by the same logic, this new evidence of significant genetic disparity suggests independent separate origins. For this reason, I see nothing from a genetic point of view that challenges the idea that humans originated independently from primates, http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/scripture-and-science-in-conflict/
The evidence from genetics, directly contrary to what Darwinists claim, simply does not support the Darwinian ‘narrative’.bornagain77
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Like the entire fossil evidence, the 'big picture' genetic evidence also simply does not line up with what Darwinists predicted. Thus, like the fossil record, we have more than sufficient reason to also regard the genetic evidence that Darwinists offer for human evolution with more than just a little suspicion. As the following article explains, “In 1965 one of the most important scientists of the last century, Linus Pauling, and biologist Emil Zuckerkandl, considered by some as the father of molecular biology, suggested a way that macroevolution could be tested and proved: If the comparison of anatomical and DNA sequences led to the same family tree of organisms, this would be strong evidence for macroevolution.7 According to them, only evolution would explain the convergence of these two independent chains of evidence. By implication, the opposite finding would count against macroevolution.“ So what were the results? Over the past twenty-eight years, experimental evidence has revealed that family trees based on anatomical features contradict family trees based on molecular similarities, and at many points. They do not converge.”
Jonathan Witt: Why Is Common Descent A Better Explanation For The History Of Life Than Common Design? Excerpt: “In 1965 one of the most important scientists of the last century, Linus Pauling, and biologist Emil Zuckerkandl, considered by some as the father of molecular biology, suggested a way that macroevolution could be tested and proved: If the comparison of anatomical and DNA sequences led to the same family tree of organisms, this would be strong evidence for macroevolution.7 According to them, only evolution would explain the convergence of these two independent chains of evidence. By implication, the opposite finding would count against macroevolution.“ So what were the results? Over the past twenty-eight years, experimental evidence has revealed that family trees based on anatomical features contradict family trees based on molecular similarities, and at many points. They do not converge. Just as troubling for the idea of macroevolution, family trees based on different molecules yield conflicting and contradictory family trees. As a 2012 paper published in Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society reported, “Incongruence between phylogenies derived from morphological versus molecular analyses, and between trees based on different subsets of molecular sequences has become pervasive as datasets have expanded rapidly in both characters and species” (emphasis in original).8 Another paper, published the following year in the journal Nature, highlighted the extent of the problem.9 The authors compared 1,070 genes in twenty different yeasts and got 1,070 different trees.10 https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/jonathan-witt-why-is-common-descent-a-better-explanation-for-the-history-of-life-than-common-design/
The genetic evidence simply does not fall into a 'tree-like' pattern like Darwinists predicted. And this falsification of Darwinian expectations, (i.e. expectations for how the genetic evidence should line up in a tree like pattern), as Winston Ewert has now shown, has been a ‘hard falsification’ of Darwinian expectations, and by no means is it to be considered a ‘soft falsification’ of Darwinian expectations. As Cornelius Hunter explained, the intelligent design model falsified the Darwinist’s common descent model by 10,064, 40,967 and 515,450 bits respectfully, and this is where 6.6 bits is considered to provide “decisive” evidence for a model.
New Paper by Winston Ewert Demonstrates Superiority of Design Model – Cornelius Hunter – July 20, 2018 Excerpt: Ewert amassed a total of nine massive genetic databases. In every single one, without exception, the dependency graph (intelligent design) model surpassed common descent. Darwin could never have even dreamt of a test on such a massive scale. Darwin also could never have dreamt of the sheer magnitude of the failure of his theory. Because you see, Ewert’s results do not reveal two competitive models with one model edging out the other. We are not talking about a few decimal points difference. For one of the data sets (HomoloGene), the dependency graph model was superior to common descent by a factor of 10,064. The comparison of the two models yielded a preference for the dependency graph model of greater than ten thousand.,,, But It Gets Worse The problem with all of this is that the Bayes factor of 10,064 bits for the HomoloGene data set is the very best case for common descent. For the other eight data sets, the Bayes factors range from 40,967 to 515,450. In other words, while 6.6 bits would be considered to provide “decisive” evidence for the dependency graph model, the actual, real, biological data provide Bayes factors of 10,064 on up to 515,450. We have known for a long time that common descent has failed hard. In Ewert’s new paper, we now have detailed, quantitative results demonstrating this. And Ewert provides a new model, with a far superior fit to the data. https://evolutionnews.org/2018/07/new-paper-by-winston-ewert-demonstrates-superiority-of-design-model/
Thus, given the fact that the 'big picture' genetic evidence has, rather dramatically, falsified Darwinian expectations, we have more than sufficient reason to be more than a little suspicious of their claims that the 'small picture' genetic evidence establishes human evolution as a undeniable fact. And indeed, when we zoom-in on the 'small picture' genetic evidence we find much reason to be skeptical of Darwinian claims. And indeed we do. According to a Darwinist, who studied the methodology of how one of the original 98.5% Chimp-Human DNA similarity comparisons was derived, stated that the comparison “needs to be treated like nuclear waste: bury it safely and forget about it for a million years”,,,
The Rise and Fall of DNA Hybridization – Jonathan Marks - 2011 Excerpt: the technique of DNA hybridization had devolved into being doubly “tricky” – but more significantly, the outstanding charge of data falsification was there in black-and-white in the leading science journal in America. It seemed as though nothing more needed to be said for the “wheels of justice” to begin turning. Yet they didn’t. In 1993, I was asked by The Journal of Human Evolution to review Jared Diamond’s book, The Third Chimpanzee. Noting that the book’s “hook” was based on the Sibley-Ahlquist work, which Diamond was still touting uncritically, I said: Perhaps you recall Sibley and Ahlquist. In a nutshell, their results were: (1) chimp-gorilla DNA hybrids were more thermally stable than chimp-human hybrids; (2) the differences were insignificant; and (3) reciprocity was very poor when human DNA was used as a tracer. Unfortunately, the conclusions they reported were: (1) chimp-human was more thermally stable than chimp-gorilla; (2) differences were significant; and (3) reciprocity was near-perfect. And they got from point A to point B by (1) switching experimental controls; (2) making inconsistent adjustments for variation in DNA length, which was apparently not even measured; (3) moving correlated points into a regression line; and (4) not letting anyone know. The rationale for (4) should be obvious; and if (1), (2) and (3) are science, I'm the Princess of Wales. This work needs to be treated like nuclear waste: bury it safely and forget about it for a million years.31 31Marks, J. (1993) Review of The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond. Journal of Human Evolution, 24:69-73. http://webpages.uncc.edu/~jmarks/dnahyb/Sibley%20revisited.pdf
Likewise, and to further highlight the shady methodology of Darwinists, previously Darwinists have used the human genome as a 'scaffold and/or reference' to assemble the chimp genome before comparing the genomes to one another. (Can anyone say 'built-in confirmation bias'?)
New Chimp Genome Confirms Creationist Research BY JEFFREY P. TOMKINS, PH.D. * | FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2018 Excerpt: The first time they constructed a chimp genome and compared it to humans, they claimed 98.5% DNA similarity based on cherry-picked regions that were highly similar to human. However, an extensive DNA comparison study I published in 2016 revealed two major flaws in their construction of the chimp genome.1 First, many chimp DNA data sets were likely contaminated with human DNA, especially those produced in the first half of the chimpanzee genome project from 2002 to 2005. Second, the chimpanzee genome was deliberately constructed to be more human-like than it really is.2 Scientists assembled the small snippets of chimp DNA onto the human genome, using it as a scaffold or reference. It’s much like putting together a jigsaw puzzle by looking at the picture on the box as a guide. Since many chimpanzee data sets likely suffered from human DNA contamination, the level of humanness was amplified. I studied the 2005–2010 data sets that showed less human DNA data contamination and found they were only 85% similar to human at best.1 Just this year, scientists published a new version of the chimpanzee genome.3 This new version incorporated an advanced type of DNA sequencing technology that produces much longer snippets of DNA sequence than earlier technologies. It also involved better protocols that greatly reduce human DNA contamination. And most importantly, the authors report that the DNA sequences have been assembled without using the human genome as a scaffold. They also acknowledged the flawed nature of previous versions of the chimp genome: The higher-quality human genome assemblies have often been used to guide the final stages of nonhuman genome projects, including the order and orientation of sequence contigs and, perhaps more importantly, the annotation of genes. This bias has effectively “humanized” other ape genome assemblies.3 This confirms what many creationists have been pointing out for years. Curiously, the authors of the new chimp genome paper said very little about the overall DNA similarity between humans and chimpanzees. However, the University of London’s specialist in evolutionary genomics, Dr. Richard Buggs, evaluated the results of an analysis that compared this new chimp version to the human genome and discovered some shocking anti-evolutionary findings. Dr. Buggs reported on his website that “the percentage of nucleotides in the human genome that had one-to-one exact matches in the chimpanzee genome was 84.38%” and “4.06% had no alignment to the chimp assembly.”4 Assuming the chimpanzee and human genomes are about the same size, this translates to an overall similarity of only about 80%! This outcome is way outside the nearly identical level of 98 to 99% similarity required for human evolution to seem plausible. http://www.icr.org/article/new-chimp-genome-confirms-creationist-research Comparison of 18,000 De Novo Assembled Chimpanzee Contigs to the Human Genome Yields Average BLASTN Alignment Identities of 84% - Jeffrey P. Tomkins - 2018 Abstract In a previous 2016 study aligning Sanger-style chimpanzee genomic trace reads (mean length = 704 bases) to the human genome, it was determined that chimpanzee DNA was not more than 85% similar to human. To further investigate the issue of human-chimpanzee genome similarity using higher quality DNA sequence, 18,000 de novo assembled contigs (constructed with Sanger style reads, Illumina short reads, and PacBio long reads) downloaded from NCBI having an average length of 30,913 bases were queried against the human genome using the BLASTN algorithm with gap extension. The alignments averaged 10,508 bases in length with a nucleotide identity of 84%. The contigs were also queried against the panTro4 and panTro5 versions of the chimpanzee genome yielding alignment identities of 92% and 100%, respectively. Results from this study not only negate the concept of the 98.5% DNA similarity myth, but highlight the extremely flawed and humanized nature of the panTro4 version of the chimpanzee genome and its predecessors that are widely used to support the human evolution paradigm. https://answersresearchjournal.org/comparison-chimp-contigs-human-genome/
As mentioned in Jefferey Tomkins article, from the best evidence we now have, the genetic similarity figure is turning out to be around 85% which is far less than the highly misleading 98.5% figure that has been used by Darwinists for years to make it seem as if the genetic evidence for human evolution was a 'slam dunk'. As was also mentioned, Dr. Richard Buggs came up with a very similar figure to Dr. Tomkins's figure,
Geneticist: On (Supposed 99%) Human-Chimp Genome Similarity, There Are “Predictions” Not “Established Fact” - July 31, 2018 Excerpt: To come up with the most accurate current assessment that I could of the similarity of the human and chimpanzee genome, I downloaded from the UCSC genomics website the latest alignments (made using the LASTZ software) between the human and chimpanzee genome assemblies, hg38 and pantro6.,,, The percentage of nucleotides in the human genome that had one-to-one exact matches in the chimpanzee genome was 84.38% In order to assess how improvements in genome assemblies can change these figures, I did the same analyses on the alignment of the older PanTro4 assembly against Hg38 (see discussion post #40).,,, The percentage of nucleotides in the human genome that had one-to-one exact matches in the chimpanzee genome was 82.34%. - Richard Buggs https://evolutionnews.org/2018/07/geneticist-on-human-chimp-genome-similarity-there-are-predictions-not-established-fact/
Moreover, although some may try to argue that 85% genetic similarity is still a pretty high degree of genetic similarity, it turns out, directly contrary to Darwinian thought, that genetic similarity has very little, if anything to do with overall morphological similarity. As James Le Fanu explains, “Contrary to all expectations, many DNA sequences involved in embryo development are remarkably similar across the vast spectrum of organismic complexity, from a millimeter-long worm to ourselves.7 There is, in short, nothing in the genomes of fly and man to explain why the fly should have six legs, a pair of wings, and a dot-sized brain and we should have two arms, two legs, and a mind capable of comprehending that overarching history of our universe.”
Between Sapientia and Scientia — Michael Aeschliman’s Profound Interpretation -James Le Fanu – September 9, 2019 Excerpt: The ability to spell out the full sequence of genes should reveal, it was reasonable to assume, the distinctive genetic instructions that determine the diverse forms of the millions of species, so readily distinguishable one from the other. Biologists were thus understandably disconcerted to discover precisely the reverse to be the case. Contrary to all expectations, many DNA sequences involved in embryo development are remarkably similar across the vast spectrum of organismic complexity, from a millimeter-long worm to ourselves.7 There is, in short, nothing in the genomes of fly and man to explain why the fly should have six legs, a pair of wings, and a dot-sized brain and we should have two arms, two legs, and a mind capable of comprehending that overarching history of our universe. So we have moved in the very recent past from supposing we might know the principles of genetic inheritance to recognizing we have no realistic conception of what they might be. As Phillip Gell, professor of genetics at the University of Birmingham, observed, “This gap in our knowledge is not merely unbridged, but in principle unbridgeable and our ignorance will remain ineluctable.”8 https://evolutionnews.org/2019/09/between-sapientia-and-scientia-michael-aeschlimans-profound-interpretation/ 7. James Randerson, “Fewer Genes, Better Health,” New Scientist, July 13, 2002, 19. 8. Philip Gell, “Destiny and the Genes: Genetic Pathology and the Individual,” The Encyclopaedia of Medical Ignorance, ed.s R. Duncan and M. Weston-Smith (Kidlington: Pergamon, 1984), 179–87.
bornagain77
November 11, 2021
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Any thoughts about why William Lane Craig would put so much faith in the human evolution data presented to him while researching the book? He seems convinced that human beings descended from Heidelberg Man (Homo heidelbergensis) who existed around 700,000 years ago.Truth Will Set You Free
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Likewise, Casey Luskin also did a deep dive into the peer-reviewed literature and found that, “multiple authorities recognize that our genus Homo appears in the fossil record abruptly with a complex suite of characteristics never-before-seen in any hominin.”
Read Your References Carefully: Paul McBride’s Prized Citation on Skull-Sizes Supports My Thesis, Not His – Casey Luskin – August 31, 2012 Excerpt of Conclusion: This has been a long article, but I hope it is instructive in showing how evolutionists deal with the fossil hominin evidence. As we’ve seen, multiple authorities recognize that our genus Homo appears in the fossil record abruptly with a complex suite of characteristics never-before-seen in any hominin. And that suite of characteristics has remained remarkably constant from the time Homo appears until the present day with you, me, and the rest of modern humanity.,,, The complex suite of traits associated with our genus Homo appears abruptly, and is distinctly different from the australopithecines which were supposedly our ancestors. There are no transitional fossils linking us to that group.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/read_your_refer_1063841.html
Also see “Apes as Ancestors (2020)” by Jerry Bergman, Peter Line, and Jeffrey Tomkins, which also, via a deep dive into the peer reviewed literature itself, finds the fossil evidence for supposed human evolution to be far different than what Darwinists portray to the general public..
Apes as Ancestors: Examining the Claims About Human Evolution – 2020 https://www.amazon.com/Apes-Ancestors-Examining-Claims-Evolution/dp/1944918205
Likewise, Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig has collected a fairly impressive list of damning quotes from leading Darwinists themselves in regards to undermining the entire ‘narrative’ of human evolution that is told by Darwinists.
Neo-Darwinism and the Big Bang of Man’s Origin – Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig – February 25, 2020 Excerpt: “There is a popular image of human evolution that you’ll find all over the place, from the backs of cereal packets to the advertisement for expensive scientific equipment. On the left of the picture there’s an ape — …. On the right, a man … Between the two is a succession of figures that become ever more like humans … Our progress from ape to human looks so smooth, so tidy. It’s such a beguiling image that even the experts are loath to let it go. But it is an illusion.” – Bernard Wood, Bernard Wood, Professor of Human Origins at George Washington University, “Who are we?” New Scientist 176 2366: 44-47. 26 October 2002:,,, A Big Bang at Man’s Origin? To repeat the key points quoted above (from Darwinists themselves), we may emphasize that 1. “differences exist on an unusual scale” 2. “Homo sapiens appears […] distinctive and unprecedented” 3. “There is certainly no evidence to support the notion that we gradually became what we inherently are over an extended period, in either the physical or the intellectual sense.” 4. “…we evidently came by our unusual anatomical structure and capacities very recently.” 5. “…a convincing hypothesis for the origin of Homo remains elusive” 6. “[W]e should not expect to find a series of intermediate fossil forms with decreasingly divergent big toes and, at the same time, a decreasing number of apelike features and an increasing number of modern human features.” 7. “No gradual series of changes in earlier australopithecine populations clearly leads to the new species [Homo sapiens], and no australopithecine species is obviously transitional.” 8. “…early H. sapiens was significantly and dramatically different from earlier and penecontemporary [as well as coexisting] australopithecines in virtually every element of its skeleton and every remnant of its behavior.” 9. “Our interpretation is that the changes are sudden and interrelated,” “a genetic revolution.”,,, “…a rather minor structural innovation at the DNA level” appears to be, for all that can be known at present, a rather unsatisfactory proposal for a comparable origin of some 696 new features (out of 1065) which distinguish man from chimpanzees, 711 from orang, 680 from gorilla, 948 from Gibbon (Hylobathes), presupposing a similar magnitude of different anatomical and other features (“distinctive and unprecedented”) from his supposed animal ancestor, “our closest extinct kin,” not to speak of 15.6% differences on the DNA level between man and his alleged closest cousin, the chimpanzee, which means, in actual numbers, more than 450 million bp differences of the some 3 billion bp constituting the genomes overall.28,,, Almost any larger science museum around the globe presents a series of connecting links between extinct apes and humans such as Homo erectus, Homo habilis, Australopithecus afarensis (“Lucy”), Ardipithecus ramidus, Orrorin tugensis and others. For a brief overview on such assumed links see Lönnig (2019).38 I include there a series of references to papers and books that do not simply presuppose evolution and neo-Darwinism as the final truth on the origin of species without any scientific alternative (as is common practice nowadays). Instead, these works critically discuss the relevant details, showing in depth the untenability of the evolutionary scenarios usually given to these would-be links generally put forward as indisputable scientific facts…. 98.5 Percent Human/Chimp DNA Identity? Although long disproved, the assertion that human and chimp DNA display approximately 98.5 percent identity is still forwarded in many papers and books. The present state of the art has been clearly articulated by Richard Buggs, Professor of Evolutionary Genomics at Queen Mary University of London. He asks, “What does the data say today in 2018, and how can it be described to the public in an adequate manner?” Key answer: “The total percentage of the human genome that I can know for sure has one-to-one orthology with the chimp genome is 84.4 percent” (“our minimum lower bound”)39, i.e., more than 450 million differences (15 percent of 3 billion bp = 450 million). http://www.weloennig.de/HumanEvolution.pdf Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, (retired) Senior Scientist (Biology), Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Emeritus, Cologne, Germany.
Even Ian Tattersall himself, emeritus curator of the American Museum of Natural History, (and who believes human evolution to be true), stated that, “Homo sapiens appears as distinctive and unprecedented…there is certainly no evidence to support the notion that we gradually became who we inherently are over an extended period, in either the physical or the intellectual sense.”
“A number of hominid crania are known from sites in eastern and southern Africa in the 400- to 200-thousand-year range, but none of them looks like a close antecedent of the anatomically distinctive Homo sapiens… Even allowing for the poor record we have of our close extinct kin, Homo sapiens appears as distinctive and unprecedented…there is certainly no evidence to support the notion that we gradually became who we inherently are over an extended period, in either the physical or the intellectual sense.” – Dr. Ian Tattersall: – paleoanthropologist – emeritus curator of the American Museum of Natural History – (Masters of the Planet, 2012)
Thus, it readily appears that the 'narrative' of human evolution that is constantly told by Darwinists is built far more on unrestrained imagination and story telling than it is on any actual fossil evidence. No less than Stephen Jay Gould and Ernst Mayr themselves admitted as much,
“most hominid fossils, even though they serve as a basis for endless speculation and elaborate storytelling, are fragments of jaws and scraps of skulls.” – Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda’s Thumb, page 126 (W.W. Norton, 1980). "The earliest fossils of Homo, Homo rudolfensis and Homo erectus, are separated from Australopithecus by a large, unbridged gap. How can we explain this seeming saltation? Not having any fossils that can serve as missing links, we have to fall back on the time-honored method of historical science, the construction of a historical narrative." - Ernst Mayr - What Makes Biology Unique?, p. 198 (2004).
Moreover, last May, no less than the American Museum of Natural History itself, made the same exact point as Gould and Mayr did, Specifically, they came out with an article that stated, “Humans are storytellers: Theories of human evolution often resemble “anthropogenic narratives” that borrow the structure of a hero’s journey to explain essential aspects such as the origins of erect posture, the freeing of the hands, or brain enlargement (166). Intriguingly, such narratives have not drastically changed since Darwin (166). We must be aware of confirmation biases and ad hoc interpretations by researchers aiming to confer their new fossil the starring role within a preexisting narrative. Evolutionary scenarios are appealing because they provide plausible explanations based on current knowledge, but unless grounded in testable hypotheses, they are no more than “just-so stories” (167).”. As well “Sergio Almécija, a senior research scientist at the American Museum of Natural History, is also quoted as offering this remarkable admission: “When you look at the narrative for hominin origins, it’s just a big mess”,,,
Scientists Conclude: Human Origins Research Is a Big Mess – Günter Bechly – May 10, 2021 Excerpt: Finally, the article concludes with this gem: “Humans are storytellers: Theories of human evolution often resemble “anthropogenic narratives” that borrow the structure of a hero’s journey to explain essential aspects such as the origins of erect posture, the freeing of the hands, or brain enlargement (166). Intriguingly, such narratives have not drastically changed since Darwin (166). We must be aware of confirmation biases and ad hoc interpretations by researchers aiming to confer their new fossil the starring role within a preexisting narrative. Evolutionary scenarios are appealing because they provide plausible explanations based on current knowledge, but unless grounded in testable hypotheses, they are no more than “just-so stories” (167).” Hardly any ID proponent could have said it better. Fancy storytelling in the style of Kiplingesque “just-so stories” is indeed a hallmark of the soft science of modern evolutionary biology in general, and paleoanthropology in particular.,,, In this press release the senior author of the new study, Sergio Almécija, a senior research scientist at the American Museum of Natural History, is also quoted as offering this remarkable admission: “When you look at the narrative for hominin origins, it’s just a big mess — there’s no consensus whatsoever.” https://evolutionnews.org/2021/05/scientists-conclude-human-origins-research-is-a-big-mess/
Needless to say, having a senior research scientist at the American Museum of Natural History say, “When you look at the narrative for hominin origins, it’s just a big mess”, then that certainly does not bode well for any Darwinist who tries to claim that the fossil record for human evolution is beyond all dispute. Thus in conclusion, the fossil record in its entirety, from the Cambrian explosion onward, certainly does not support Darwinian evolution. Moreover, when the fossil evidence for the 'narrative' of human evolution is scrutinized in detail, we find that the purported fossil record for human evolution falls apart under scrutiny. i.e. The 'narrative' of human evolution is apparently held together far more by evolutionary bias, imaginary 'just so stories', and 'artistic reconstruction' of fossils, than it is by any real fossil evidence. No less that Henry Gee, editor at Nature, makes, pretty much, the same exact point.
“We have all seen the canonical parade of apes, each one becoming more human. We know that, as a depiction of evolution, this line-up is tosh (i.e. nonsense). Yet we cling to it. Ideas of what human evolution ought to have been like still colour our debates.” - Henry Gee, editor of Nature (478, 6 October 2011, page 34, doi:10.1038/478034a)
bornagain77
November 11, 2021
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There is something VERY fishy in the purported evidence for human evolution, (and the supposed falsification of Adam and Eve as real historical figures). Namely, when one looks at the 'big picture' evidence from the entire fossil record, (and the entire genetic data), it does not line up with what Darwinists claim to be the unassailable 'small picture' evidence from the fossil record and genetics that purports to support the narrative that humans evolved from some chimp-like ancestor. First I will address the fossil record. It is not as if we do not have more than sufficient reason to doubt the narratives that are offered by Darwinists when it comes to their claims about human evolution. The entire fossil record, when viewed in its entirety, instead of just piecemeal and with a heavy Darwinian bias as it is with human fossils, is VERY antagonistic to the entire Darwinian narrative. From the Cambrian explosion onward, the entire fossil record simply refuses to conform to Darwinian expectations. In fact, as the following study found, the fossil record is upside-down to what Darwin himself had predicted,
Scientific study turns understanding about evolution on its head – July 30, 2013 Excerpt: evolutionary biologists,,, looked at nearly one hundred fossil groups to test the notion that it takes groups of animals many millions of years to reach their maximum diversity of form.?Contrary to popular belief, not all animal groups continued to evolve fundamentally new morphologies through time. The majority actually achieved their greatest diversity of form (disparity) relatively early in their histories.,,, Dr Matthew Wills said: “This pattern, known as ‘early high disparity’, turns the traditional V-shaped cone model of evolution on its head. What is equally surprising in our findings is that groups of animals are likely to show early-high disparity regardless of when they originated over the last half a billion years. This isn’t a phenomenon particularly associated with the first radiation of animals (in the Cambrian Explosion), or periods in the immediate wake of mass extinctions.”,,, Author Martin Hughes, continued: “Our work implies that there must be constraints on the range of forms within animal groups, and that these limits are often hit relatively early on.?Co-author Dr Sylvain Gerber, added: “A key question now is what prevents groups from generating fundamentally new forms later on in their evolution.,,, http://phys.org/news/2013-07-scientific-evolution.html
Here are a few more notes that dispel the notion that the fossil record somehow supports evolution.
Günter Bechly video: Fossil Discontinuities: A Refutation of Darwinism and Confirmation of Intelligent Design – 2018 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7w5QGqcnNs The fossil record is dominated by abrupt appearances of new body plans and new groups of organisms. This conflicts with the gradualistic prediction of Darwinian Evolution. Here 18 explosive origins in the history of life are described, demonstrating that the famous Cambrian Explosion is far from being the exception to the rule. Also the fossil record establishes only very brief windows of time for the origin of complex new features, which creates an ubiquitous waiting time problem for the origin and fixation of the required coordinated mutations. This refutes the viability of the Neo-Darwinian evolutionary process as the single conceivable naturalistic or mechanistic explanation for biological origins, and thus confirms Intelligent Design as the only reasonable alternative. “The point emerges that if we examine the fossil record in detail, whether at the level of orders or of species, we find’ over and over again’ not gradual evolution, but the sudden explosion of one group at the expense of another.” – Derek V. Ager (Department of Geology & Oceanography, University College, Swansea, UK)?? “It is a feature of the known fossil record that most taxa appear abruptly. They are not, as a rule, led up to by a sequence of almost imperceptibly changing forerunners such as Darwin believed should be usual in evolution…This phenomenon becomes more universal and more intense as the hierarchy of categories is ascended. Gaps among known species are sporadic and often small. Gaps among known orders, classes and phyla are systematic and almost always large.” – G.G.Simpson – one of the most influential American Paleontologist of the 20th century “Given the fact of evolution, one would expect the fossils to document a gradual steady change from ancestral forms to the descendants. But this is not what the paleontologist finds. Instead, he or she finds gaps in just about every phyletic series.” – Ernst Mayr – Professor Emeritus, Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University“ What is missing are the many intermediate forms hypothesized by Darwin, and the continual divergence of major lineages into the morphospace between distinct adaptive types.” – Robert L Carroll (born 1938) – vertebrate paleontologist who specialises in Paleozoic and Mesozoic amphibians “In virtually all cases a new taxon appears for the first time in the fossil record with most definitive features already present, and practically no known stem-group forms.” – TS Kemp – Curator of Zoological Collections, Oxford University, Oxford Uni Press, p246, 1999 etc.. etc.. etc..
Thus, given the fact that the entire fossil record simply does not conform to Darwinian expectations, then we have more than sufficient reason to be VERY suspicious of the claims from Darwinists that the fossil record for human evolution is supposedly a 'slam dunk'. And indeed, when we zoom-in on the fossil evidence that purports to 'unquestionably' establish that humans evolved from some chimp-like ancestor, we find that things are not nearly as neat and tidy as Darwinists have falsely portrayed them to be to the general public. Since teeth are, by far, the most complete fossil evidence that we can have for testing the Darwinian claims for human origins,,,,
Why are teeth the most abundant fossil of hominids? Tooth enamel is densely packed with a durable mineral called hydroxyapatite, which makes teeth much better than bones at withstanding the chemical and physical degradation that occurs during fossilization. As a result, teeth are the most abundant elements in the primate fossil record. https://www.sidmartinbio.org/why-are-teeth-the-most-abundant-fossil-of-hominids/
Since teeth are, by far, the most complete fossil evidence that we can have for testing the Darwinian claims for human origins, I consider the following study to be a fairly compelling piece of empirical evidence that undermines the entire Darwinian ‘narrative’ for human evolution.
“No known hominin species matches the expected dental morphology of the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans,” relies on fossils of approximately 1,200 molars and premolars from 13 species or types of hominins — humans and human relatives and ancestors. Fossils from the well-known Atapuerca sites have a crucial role in this research, accounting for more than 15 percent of the complete studied fossil collection.,,, They conclude with high statistical confidence that none of the hominins usually proposed as a common ancestor, such as Homo heidelbergensis, H. erectus and H. antecessor, is a satisfactory match. “None of the species that have been previously suggested as the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans has a dental morphology that is fully compatible with the expected morphology of this ancestor,” Gómez-Robles said.” – Indiana University, “No Known Hominin Is Common Ancestor of Neanderthals and Modern Humans, Study Suggests” at ScienceDaily (October 21, 2013) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131021153202.htm
As well, John Sanford and Chris Rupe spent four years carefully examining the scientific literature on the fossil record that purports to support human evolution and found that “It is very clear that the general public has been deceived regarding the credibility and significance of the reputed hominin fossils.”
Contested Bones: Is There Any Solid Fossil Evidence for Ape-to-Man Evolution? – Dr. John Sanford and Chris Rupe Excerpt: We have spent four years carefully examining the scientific literature on this subject. We have discovered that within this field (paleoanthropology), virtually all the famous hominin types have either been discredited or are still being hotly contested. Within this field, not one of the hominin types have been definitively established as being in the lineage from ape to man. This includes the famous fossils that have been nicknamed Lucy, Ardi, Sediba, Habilis, Naledi, Hobbit, Erectus, and Neaderthal. Well-respected people in the field openly admit that their field is in a state of disarray. It is very clear that the general public has been deceived regarding the credibility and significance of the reputed hominin fossils. We will show that the actual fossil evidence is actually most consistent with the following three points. 1) The hominin bones reveal only two basic types; ape bones (Ardi and Lucy), and human bones (Naledi, Hobbit, Erectus, and Neaderthal). 2) The ape bones and the human bones have been repeatedly found together in the same strata – therefore both lived at the same basic timeframe (the humans were apparently hunting and eating the apes). 3) Because the hominin bones were often found in mixed bone beds (with bones of many animal species in the same site), numerous hominin types represent chimeras (mixtures) of ape and human bones (i.e., Sediba, Habilis). We will also present evidence that the anomalous hominin bones that are of the human (Homo) type most likely represent isolated human populations that experienced severe inbreeding and subsequent genetic degeneration. This best explains why these Homo bones display aberrant morphologies, reduced body size, and reduced brain volume. We conclude that the hominin bones do not reveal a continuous upward progression from ape to man, but rather reveal a clear separation between the human type and the ape type. The best evidence for any type of intermediate “ape-men” derived from bones collected from mixed bone beds (containing bones of both apes and men), which led to the assembly of chimeric skeletons. Therefore, the hominin fossils do not prove human evolution at all.,,, We suggest that the field of paleoanthropology has been seriously distorted by a very strong ideological agenda and by very ambitious personalities. https://ses.edu/contested-bones-is-there-any-solid-fossil-evidence-for-ape-to-man-evolution/ “Contested Bones” chapter by chapter review by Paul Giem – video playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6ZOKj-YaHA&list=PLHDSWJBW3DNU_twNBjopIqyFOwo_bTkXm
bornagain77
November 11, 2021
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