Guilt by Association

_{William Dembski

October 30, 2009

Creationism, Intelligent Design}

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Nick Matzke and other critics of ID like nothing better than to conflate ID with young-earth creationism (go here for the latest in this vein by Matzke). But as University of Wisconsin science historian Ron Numbers has noted, even though it’s inaccurate to conflate the two, this is “the easiest way to discredit intelligent design” (go here). Matzke, as a loyal Darwinist, is thus simply being true to form.

For the record, just because various non-ID conferences and events are reported here at UD (e.g., creationist, atheist, or theistic evolutionist) does not constitute an endorsement of those events. Nor does the appearance of an ID proponent at such events constitute complicity with the positions of the organizers. I myself have appeared at atheist (World Skeptics Congress), theistic evolutionist (Templeton conferences), and young-earth creationist (local gatherings here in Texas) events. I believe in getting the word out about ID and, frankly, am happy to have the opportunity to address people on the other side of these issues.

ID, per definitionem, is the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the product of intelligence. It rests on two pillars: (1) that the activity of intelligent agents is sometimes detectible and (2) that nature may exhibit evidence of intelligent activity. How anyone gets young-earth creationism from this is a mystery.

Comments

StephenB, you said: "The central point is the Darwinist proclivity to insist that science be defined SOLELY as the study of natural causes–that it must be EXCLUSIVELY rather than PRIMARILY about natural causes. That is a new developoment calculated to discredit the design inference." and also: "Methodological naturalism is an arbitrary rule that never existed previously to 1980." If I understand you correctly, you claim that until recently science could legitimately consider non-natural causes for observed phenomena - perhaps not as primary but at least as secondary causes. Can you please give us some examples where science has in the past invoked non-natural causes (even if only secondary) for observed natural phenomena? Were these explanations successful at the time? If so, how and why have they since been superceded by modern natural explanations? Thanks, fGfaded_Glory_{November 8, 2009
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---hummus man: "If you are asking me whether I believe the statements of real working scientists, Christians among them, that have told me (and you, BTW) that you are wrong instead of some guy on the internet who refuses to say whether he has any experience or training in science other than sniping at scientists from the safety of a tightly moderated blog? Well, what can I say, ya got me there." It's not a question about who you believe. It is a question about whether you can make reasoned judgments based on evidence. Clearly, the answer is no.StephenB_{November 6, 2009
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vjtorley, Here is a gem: CHROMOSOME STUDY STUNS EVOLUTIONISTS Excerpt: To their great surprise, Dorit and his associates found no nucleotide differences at all in the non-recombinant part of the Y chromosomes of the 38 men. This non-variation suggests no evolution has occurred in male ancestry. The researchers, apparently committed to Darwinism, back-pedaled by doing statistical analysis on the evolutionary possibilities if the 38 men sampled somehow inaccurately represented the population at large. Based on this analysis, they concluded that men’s forefather – a single individual, not a group – lived no more than 270,00 years ago. The challenge this study presents to Darwinism is profound. The study of women offered a shred of support for micro-evolution. The Y chromosome research lends no support for micro-evolution. As for macro-evolution, the results of both studies rule out homo erectus (0.5 to 1.5 million years ago) as a possible progenitor of modern humans.4 http://www.reasons.org/interpreting-genesis/adam-and-eve/chromosome-study-stuns-evolutionistsbornagain77_{November 6, 2009
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vjtorley, The reason why I can be so bold as to claim Man as a unique kind is that I find, from the evidence I have been able to look at, that man is as unique genetically as can be from chimps with the refutation of the "genetic similarity" argument: First off Dr. John Sanford, who is by no means a slouch when it comes to genetics (he invented the "gene gun" and pathogen derived resistance) states: Dr. Sanford calculates it would take 12 million years to “fix” a single base pair mutation into a population. He further calculates that to create a gene with 1000 base pairs, it would take 12 million x 1000 or 12 billion years. This is obviously too slow to support the creation of the human genome containing 3 billion base pairs. http://www.detectingtruth.com/?p=66 Second is that when we remove the biased methodology that materialists have imposed on the "similarity evidence" we find some very interesting things: The 98.8% similarity derived from the DNA code, to the body plans of chimps and man, is purely imaginary, since it is clearly shown that the overriding "architectural plan" of the body is not even encoded in the DNA in the first place. Of more clarity though, this "98.8% similarity evidence" is derived by materialists from a very biased methodology of presuming that the 1.5% of the genome, which directly codes for proteins, has complete precedence of consideration over the other remaining 98.5% of the genome which does not directly code for proteins. Yet even when considering just this 1.5% of the genome that codes for proteins, we find that the proteins, which are directly coded by that 1.5% of the genome, are shown to differ by a huge 80% difference between chimps and man. 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 Eighty percent of proteins are different between humans and chimpanzees; Gene; Volume 346, 14 February 2005: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15716009 Eighty percent of proteins are different between humans and chimpanzees; Gene; Volume 346, 14 February 2005: The early genome comparison by DNA hybridization techniques suggested a nucleotide difference of 1-2%. Recently, direct nucleotide sequencing confirmed this estimate. These findings generated the common belief that the human is extremely close to the chimpanzee at the genetic level. However, if one looks at proteins, which are mainly responsible for phenotypic differences, the picture is quite different, and about 80% of proteins are different between the two species. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15716009 How in the world did the proteins change by +80% while the genes, which supposedly coded for those proteins during evolutionary history, remain virtually unchanged? Why is this huge +80% anomaly ignored by materialists and only the biased genetic similarity stressed in the media? On top of this huge +80% difference in proteins, the oft quoted 98.8% DNA similarity is not even rigorously true in the first place. Just considering this 1.5% of the genome that directly codes for proteins, other recent comparisons of the protein coding genes, between chimps and man, have yielded a similarity of only 96%. Whereas, the December 2006 issue of PLoS ONE reported that human and chimpanzee gene copy numbers differ by 6.4%, which gives a similarity of only 93.6% (Hahn). Even more realistically, to how we actually should be looking at the genomes from a investigative starting point, Dr. Hugh Ross states the similarity is closer to 85% to 90% when taking into account the chimp genome is about 12% larger than the human genome. A recent, more accurate, human/chimp genome comparison study, by Richard Buggs in 2008, has found when he rigorously compared the recently completed sequences in the genomes of chimpanzees to the genomes of humans side by side, the true genome similarity between chimps and man fell to slightly below 70%! Why is this study ignored since the ENCODE study has now implicated 100% high level functionality across the entire human genome? Finding compelling evidence that implicates 100% high level functionality across the entire genome clearly shows the similarity is not to be limited to the very biased "only 1.5% of the genome" studies of materialists. 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.refdag.nl/artikel/1366432/Chimpanzee.html as well, we are still early in this line of investigation ,,,yet even from this early starting point things are not looking good for the materialists in the least: 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," http://www.reuters.com/article/science%20News/idUSTRE4AH1P020081118 As well, it is now shown that over one thousand protein coding genes are completely unique between human and chimps: The Evolution of Mammalian Gene Families - Jeffery P. Demuth Excerpt: Our results imply that humans and chimpanzees differ by at least 6% (1,418 of 22,000 genes) in their complement of genes, which stands in stark contrast to the oft-cited 1.5% difference between orthologous nucleotide sequences. But if we to actually try to account for just one gene occuring by accident, much less several hundred orginating in a "poly-functional interweaved" way we find" the problem quickly outstrips the probabilistic resources of the universe (1 in 10^236 for genes: 1 in 10^77 for specific functional proteins) And on top of all this, the 80% of different proteins are not nearly as passive as materialists have led us to believe: Researchers Uncover New Kink In Gene Control: - Oct. 2009 Excerpt: a collaborative effort,, has uncovered more than 300 proteins that appear to control genes, a newly discovered function for all of these proteins previously known to play other roles in cells.,,,The team suspects that many more proteins encoded by the human genome might also be moonlighting to control genes,,, But the top off killer in all this, that clearly sets man apart as a distinct kind from the rest of the animals is that the genome is found to be severely poly-constrained to random mutations with ENCODE: Poly-Functional Complexity equals Poly-Constrained Complexity http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYmaSrBPNEmGZGM4ejY3d3pfMjdoZmd2emZncQ Encyclopedia Of DNA: New Findings Challenge Established Views On Human Genome: The ENCODE consortium's major findings include the discovery that the majority of DNA in the human genome is transcribed into functional molecules, called RNA, and that these transcripts extensively overlap one another. This broad pattern of transcription challenges the long-standing view that the human genome consists of a relatively small set of discrete genes, along with a vast amount of so-called junk DNA that is not biologically active. The new data indicate the genome contains very little unused sequences and, in fact, is a complex, interwoven network. In this network, genes are just one of many types of DNA sequences that have a functional impact. etc..etc...etc... The overall point being vjtorley, is that though the evolutionists may have "a" suggestive piece of evidence in the fossil record (which is by far not the continuous transition of fossils they need to establish just a first level order plausibility), the conclusive evidence they need to prove the evolution in the genome simply does not exist, all evidence that has been put forth by evolutionists for genetic similarity literally falls apart with the slightest breeze of scrutiny is applied: Frankly vjtorley I did not feel the need to defend my last point 14 in post 32 as rigorously as Mustela seems to think I should have since, in my eyes at least, the evolutionists frankly don't even have a empirical leg to stand on in the first place as far as the actual evidence is concerned:bornagain77_{November 6, 2009
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StephenB:
You don’t handle evidence-based refutations very well do you?
If you are asking me whether I believe the statements of real working scientists, Christians among them, that have told me (and you, BTW) that you are wrong instead of some guy on the internet who refuses to say whether he has any experience or training in science other than sniping at scientists from the safety of a tightly moderated blog? Well, what can I say, ya got me there.hummus man_{November 6, 2009
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Well I agree with everything you stated save for point one,,, common ancestry? shoot evolutionists can't even connect the two oldest "ancestors: For though life shares a optimal DNA code, which is a "miracle in and of itself, There simply is no smooth "gradual transition" to be found between these most ancient of life forms, bacteria and archaea, as even this following "evolution friendly" article clearly points out: Was our oldest ancestor a proton-powered rock? Excerpt: In particular, the detailed mechanics of DNA replication would have been quite different. It looks as if DNA replication evolved independently in bacteria and archaea,... Even more baffling, says Martin, neither the cell membranes nor the cell walls have any details in common (between the bacteria and the archaea). http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427306.200-was-our-oldest-ancestor-a-protonpowered-rock.html?page=1 About the only thing common in the ancestry that I can hold on to, especially considering the explosive appearance of radically new body plans in the Cambrian, would be the "commonality of descent" that God implements his plan with,,,bornagain77_{November 5, 2009
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bornagain77 (#81): As far as the human line is concerned, my position is as follows: 1. I would agree with Professor Michael Behe that a very strong case can be made for the common ancestry of all living organisms. That includes human beings. 2. I find it very interesting that none of Behe's scientific critics have been able to dent his thesis that there is an edge of evolution, as far as blind, undirected processes are concerned. Behe identifies this with the taxonomic level of either the genus or family. 3. The article by S. Huang which I linked to above in #80 provided evidence that human beings belong to a separate family - hominids - which appeared approximately 17.3 million years ago. 4. Nevertheless, a hominid is not necessarily a human being. If we're talking about the genus Homo, then the evidence indicates that this genus appeared suddenly, about 2 million years ago. Two paleoanthropologists have admitted in Nature in 2005 that we don’t know the direct ancestor of our genus Homo:
[Homo ergaster] marks such a radical departure from previous forms of Homo (such as H. habilis) in its height, reduced sexual dimorphism, long limbs and modern body proportions that it is hard at present to identify its immediate ancestry in east Africa. Not for nothing has it been described as a hominin “without an ancestor, without a clear past.” [Robin Dennell & Wil Roebroeks, “An Asian perspective on early human dispersal from Africa,” Nature, Vol. 438:1099-1104 (Dec. 22/29, 2005) (internal citations removed).]
A 2009 article (Texas Hold ’Em Part III: Calling Ronald Wetherington’s Bluffs About Human Evolution in His January Texas State Board of Education Testimony) by Casey Luskin at http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/04/texas_hold_em_part_ii_calling_1.html#fn59 certainly gives the lie to claims that human evolution contains no gaps and no lack of transitional fossils, and that the origins of our species represents a gradualistic evolutionary change. To be fair, however, it has been suggested that the Dmanisi remains in Georgia represent a transition between Homo ergaster and earlier forms. See this link: http://books.google.com/books?id=m61bIJcOmosC&pg=PA180&lpg=PA180&dq=Homo+erectus+%22without+an+ancestor%22&source=bl&ots=ITr5NRrHR_&sig=9OLI0vW7Pvcp_EgvP_-lWPoHGS4&hl=en&ei=cGjzSqqMO8OPkQXw7JWkAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CBAQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Homo%20erectus%20%22without%20an%20ancestor%22&f=false 5. My own position is that the human brain is the most exquisitely complex organ known to exist in nature, so I am highly skeptical of claims that it evolved gradualistically. Some kind of intelligent guidance must have been required to explain its origin. 6. However, the human mind is not reducible to the brain, as I have argued elsewhere. The brain is a necessary but not sufficient condition for human thought to occur. Thus I would also expect to find evidence of another quantum leap in the archeological record, either 600,000 or 200,000 years ago, as I argued above. 7. As far as I know, no families have appeared in the last two million years, and certainly none since the dawn of true human beings.vjtorley_{November 5, 2009
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Nice post vjtorley,,,I gonna borrow some of those quotes if you don't mind,,bornagain77_{November 5, 2009
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You know Mustela, I've been reflecting on your objection to my 14th point on post 32 https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/guilt-by-association/#comment-338458 Now I find it interesting that you are not contesting none of the other 13 failed postulations of materialism, Such as a transcendent origin of the "material" universe. Or that time is not constant everywhere, or the fact the photosynthetic cell appeared on earth as soon as water appeared on earth, or the fact that the "simplest life' is more complex than any man made machine or even the Cambrian explosion or the general pattern of sudden appeareance of distinct kinds in the fossil record since the Cambrian,,,No all this seems to have slipped your attention and you pretend as if it has absolutely no bearing on point 14 (you accuse it of being a red herring, when in fact they are just 13 cold hard facts that bear directly on the matter of point 14),,,but instead of giving fair hearing to all this, you want to pick on what is a fairly modest observation that Humans as a "kind" are the last distinct kind to appear in the fossil record,,, But in reflection, I think it is not to bold at all on my part to make the claim, for even in the evolutionists in their very own own fossil graphs,,,, the graphs with the infamous dotted lines that we all love so well, those dotted lines that connect all the "current" tree (or is that bush) of hominids,,,, even in those graphs, Man is always the last to appear on the graph,,,, Now if a new type of ape were to have appeared since man arrived on the scene I am pretty sure evolutionists would have triple highlighted that on their graphs and I am also fairly certain it probably would have garnered National Geographic healines for at least a year! But No this is not the case,,,there Man sits all alone on all the graphs as the last distinct type to appear in the fossil record,,, connected with nothing but our beloved dotted line,,, and as Erst Mayr, a leading expert in "human evolution" has stated: "Man is indeed as unique, as different from all other animals, as had been traditionally claimed by theologians and philosophers." - Evolutionist Ernst Mayr or Ian Tattersall: “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) I just don't know what it is your missing Mustela,,,It is hard for me to believe that someone could either be so blind to the evidence or so deceptive but that is all that is left for me to think. --------------- By the way Mustela with ENCODE finding virtually 100% poly-functional complexity, the true genome similarity between Man and Chimps is this: 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.refdag.nl/artikel/1366432/Chimpanzee.htmlbornagain77_{November 5, 2009
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bornagain77 (#81) A few points on cichlids: 1. You are perfectly correct in asserting that cichlids have been around for much longer than human beings, or even hominids for that matter. Age of Cichlids: New Dates for Ancient Lake Fish Radiations by Martin J. Genner, Ole Seehausen, David H. Lunt, Domino A. Joyce, Paul W. Shaw, Gary R. Carvalho and George F. Turner, in Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msm050.
Abstract: Timing divergence events allows us to infer the conditions under which biodiversity has evolved and gain important insights into the mechanisms driving evolution. Cichlid fishes are a model system for studying speciation and adaptive radiation, yet we have lacked reliable timescales for their evolution. Phylogenetic reconstructions are consistent with cichlid origins prior to Gondwanan landmass fragmentation 165-121 million years ago, considerably earlier than the first known fossil cichlids (Eocene). We examined the timing of cichlid evolution using a relaxed molecular clock calibrated with geological estimates for the ages of (i) Gondwanan fragmentation and (ii) cichlid fossils. Timescales of cichlid evolution derived from fossil-dated phylogenies of other bony fishes most closely matched those suggested by Gondwanan break-up calibrations, suggesting the Eocene origins and marine dispersal implied by the cichlid fossil record may be due to its incompleteness. (Emphases mine - VJT.)
2. Cichlids constitute a single family, with a very large number of species. According to Wikipedia :
Cichlids ... are fish from the family Cichlidae in the order Perciformes. The family Cichlidae, a major family of perciform fish, is both large and diverse. There are at least 1300 scientifically described species, making it one of the largest vertebrate families. Numerous new species are discovered annually, and many species remain undescribed. The actual number of species is therefore unclear, with estimates varying between 1,300 and 3,000 species.
3. Creationist Arthur Jones, whose doctoral thesis in biology was on cichlid fish, has written :
For all the diversity of species, I found the cichlids to be an unmistakably natural group, a created kind. The more I worked with these fish the clearer my recognition of “cichlidness” became and the more distinct they seemed from all the “similar” fishes I studied. Conversations at conferences and literature searches confirmed that this was the common experience of experts in every area of systematic biology. Distinct kinds really are there and the experts know it to be so.
Jones continues :
Developmental studies then showed that the enormous cichlid diversity (over 1,000 “species”) was actually produced by the endless permutation of a relatively small number of character states: 4 colors, ten or so basic pigment patterns and so on. The same characters (or character patterns) appeared “randomly” all over the cichlid distribution. The patterns of variation were “modular” or “mosaic”; evolutionary lines of descent were nowhere to be found. This kind of adaptive variation can occur quite rapidly (since it involves only what was already there) and some instances of cichlid “radiation” (in geologically “recent” lakes) were indeed dateable (by evolutionists) to within timespans of no more than a few thousand years.
In other words: here we have a creationist biologist who readily acknowledges that the members of a fish family (Cichlidae) share a common ancestry. 4. According to an article in Science magazine (Vol. 300. no. 5617, pp. 325 - 329, April 11, 2003) entitled Origin of the Superflock of Cichlid Fishes from Lake Victoria, East Africa by Erik Verheyen, Walter Salzburger, Jos Snoeks, Axel Meyer (abstract available online at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/300/5617/325 ), 500 species of cichlid fish have evolved in the last 100,000 years in a single lake:
Lake Victoria harbors a unique species-rich flock of more than 500 endemic haplochromine cichlid fishes. The origin, age, and mechanism of diversification of this extraordinary radiation are still debated. Geological evidence suggests that the lake dried out completely about 14,700 years ago. On the basis of phylogenetic analyses of almost 300 DNA sequences of the mitochondrial control region of East African cichlids, we find that the Lake Victoria cichlid flock is derived from the geologically older Lake Kivu. We suggest that the two seeding lineages may have already been lake-adapted when they colonized Lake Victoria. A haplotype analysis further shows that the most recent desiccation of Lake Victoria did not lead to a complete extinction of its endemic cichlid fauna and that the major lineage diversification took place about 100,000 years ago.
In other words, as far as cichlids are concerned, the last time any intelligent intervention in their origin could have taken place would have been 165-121 million years ago.vjtorley_{November 5, 2009
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---hummus man: "Shorter StephenB: What do those darn scientists know about science anyways. Take the word of some guy commenting on a blog." You don't handle evidence-based refutations very well do you?StephenB_{November 5, 2009
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StephenB:
Sorry, your attempted arguments from authority are not working. I have already proven my point with plenty of evidence to support my position
Shorter StephenB: What do those darn scientists know about science anyways. Take the word of some guy commenting on a blog. Gotcha.hummus man_{November 5, 2009
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----hummus man: "When one wants to understand the ground rules under which scientists worked prior to the 1980’s, the logical place to start is with a scientist that was working during that time. Scientists and science educators who worked during that time have told you that you are wrong." Sorry, your attempted arguments from authority are not working. I have already proven my point with plenty of evidence to support my position, and I have plenty more in reserve. You have nothing, as is clear from your posturing. You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble by simply reading the FAQ. This is basic stuff.StephenB_{November 5, 2009
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Gorilla-like anatomy on Australopithecus afarensis mandibles suggests Au. afarensis link to robust australopiths Yoel Rak, Avishag Ginzburg, and Eli Geffen Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, April 17 2007, 104: 6568-6572, doi 10.1073/pnas.0606454104 Abstract: Mandibular ramus morphology on a recently discovered specimen of Australopithecus afarensis closely matches that of gorillas. This finding was unexpected given that chimpanzees are the closest living relatives of humans. Because modern humans, chimpanzees, orangutans, and many other primates share a ramal morphology that differs from that of gorillas, the gorilla anatomy must represent a unique condition, and its appearance in fossil hominins must represent an independently derived morphology. This particular morphology appears also in Australopithecus robustus. The presence of the morphology in both the latter and Au. afarensis and its absence in modern humans cast doubt on the role of Au. afarensis as a modern human ancestor. The ramal anatomy of the earlier Ardipithecus ramidus is virtually that of a chimpanzee, corroborating the proposed phylogenetic scenario.bornagain77_{November 5, 2009
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Mustela, if I want a lecture on being honest with empirical evidence I sure as heck ain't gone to go to a Darwinist to get it!!! I can assure you, as sure as I am breathing right now, that almost every Darwinist/Atheist I have ever met would not know how to be honest with evidence if their very soul depended on it (which is quite another large topic unto itself). Do you really want to be honest with the evidence Mustela? lets see if you can be Let's try with Lucy? The following sources show that "Lucy", the supposed superstar of human evolution, was an ape:
"these australopith specimens (Lucy) can be accommodated with the range of intraspecific variation of African apes" Nature 443 (9/2006), p.296

"The australopithecines (Lucy) known over the last several decades from Olduvai and Sterkfontein, Kromdraai and Makapansgat, are now irrevocably removed from a place in a group any closer to humans than to African apes and certainly from any place in a direct human lineage." Charles Oxnard, former professor of anatomy at the University of Southern California Medical School, who subjected australopithecine fossils to extensive computer analysis;

Israeli Researchers: 'Lucy' is not direct ancestor of humans"; Apr 16, 2007 The Mandibular ramus morphology (lower jaw bone) on a recently discovered specimen of Australopithecus afarensis closely matches that of gorillas. This finding was unexpected given that chimpanzees are the closest living relatives of humans. http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2007/04/24/lucy_demoted_from_the_human_ancestral_li

"The australopithecine (Lucy) skull is in fact so overwhelmingly simian as opposed to human that the contrary proposition could be equated to an assertion that black is white." Lord Solly Zuckerman - Chief scientific advisor to British government and leading zoologist
Lucy - The Powersaw Incident - humorous video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAJelssgOgE
My Pilgrimage to Lucy’s Holy Relics Fails to Inspire Faith in Darwinism: Excerpt: Collard and Aiello’s article also reports that we now have “good evidence” that A. afarensis (including Lucy) “‘knuckle-walked’, as chimps and gorillas do today.” Due to their evolutionary preconception that Lucy was a bipedal precursor to our genus Homo, they call this plain evidence that Lucy knuckled-walked “counterintuitive.” They suggest the possibility that “the locomotor repertoire of A. afarensis included forms of bipedalism, climbing and knuckle-walking.” This is a tenuous proposal, however, as knuckle-walking is obviously very different from bipedal locomotion. Collard and Aiello suggest avoiding the "counterintuitive" evidence that Lucy climbed and knuckle-walked by discarding it as unused “primitive retentions” from her ancestors.---"We were sent a cast of the Lucy skeleton, and I was asked to assemble it for display,” remembers Peter Schmid, a paleontologist at the Anthropological Institute in Zurich.,,, "When I started to put [Lucy’s] skeleton together, I expected it to look human,” Schmid continues “Everyone had talked about Lucy as being very modern, very human, so I was surprised by what I saw.” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/my_pilgrimage_to_lucys_holy_re.html#more

“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.nyu.edu/public.affairs/pdf/2007_BROMAGE_IADR_1470.pdf
bornagain77_{November 5, 2009
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bornagain77 at 86, You've moved on from red herrings to an attempt to shift the burden of proof. What you haven't done is support your baseless assertion from post 32. The honest approach is to admit that you cannot and retract the statement.Mustela Nivalis_{November 5, 2009
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StevenB, you are mostly just restating the same thing over and over again, but I can boil it all down to one thing.
Professional scientists? As a long time lurker, you should know that we don’t accept arguments from authority on this site.
When one wants to understand the ground rules under which scientists worked prior to the 1980's, the logical place to start is with a scientist that was working during that time. Scientists and science educators who worked during that time have told you that you are wrong. So, I have to come back to a question you did not answer. You purport to know more about how science worked than actual, you know, working scientists. So, again I have to ask if what you do for a living? Are you a scientist?hummus man_{November 5, 2009
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----hummus man: "Actually, as a long time lurker, I’ve already made a note of your tactics in this discussion." You mean the tactic of offering reasoned arguments and providing evidence when necessary? ----"When professional scientists and science educators point out that science has been conducted via methodological naturalism (if not by that specific name) for centuries, your next step is to point out a famous scientist that is a theist and conflate their rejection of philosophical naturalism into a presumed rejection of methodological naturalism and hope nobody catches on to the switcheroo." Professional scientists? As a long time lurker, you should know that we don't accept arguments from authority on this site. Once again, you miss the point: Studying "natural causes" is not synonymous with establishing institutional rules declaring that nothing other than natural causes can be admitted in the name of science. I am sorry if you cannot understand that. As I say, I have numerous examples. I could provide one after the other all day long. From the Kansas Science Standards: [Begun informally in the 1980’s, codified in the 1990’s, and restated in 2005] Explaining Methodological Naturalism: “Science is a human activity of systematically seeking natural explanations for what we observe in the natural world around us………..”As is practical in the late 20th and early 21st Century, science is RESTRICTED TO EXPLAINING ONLY THE NATURAL WORLD, USING ONLY NATURAL CAUSES.” What is it about the word "restricted" that you do not understand? Note that by that standard, Intelligent Design is ruled out apriori as non-scientific, since it seeks to offer explanations that are not solely natural. That was the idea. To rule out ID even before it enters the arena. Notice also, by the way, that there is no question of the hard and fast distinction between "metaphysical naturalism" and "methdological naturalism." The arbitrary rule--- ---it is arbitrary and it is a rule--- states that the scientist must study nature as if nature is all there is. If he doesn't approach nature that way, he isn't doing science. Again, no one has ever defined science that way prior to the 1980’s. There is a very good reason for that. The academy is threatened by ID, so it seeks to use it power by defining science in a novel and restricted way. If you think science has been defined this way previously, provide your evidence. Again, I can save you the trouble because I have already been there. The evidence doesn't exist because, prior to the 1980's science wasn't defined that way.StephenB_{November 5, 2009
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Mustela, evolutionists have completely failed to provide a continuous transition from apes to man, foryou to deny this reveals your philosophical bias of materialism, a bias which has NO foundation in science proper, I could cite numerous studies refuting lucy, Australopithecus , but you would ignore them as well,,, seeing as you will not concede even that fact, or the fact that materialism is bankrupt as a philosophy in the first place what is the point in arguing with you,,,I would have better luck going down to the mental institution and trying to help someone who at least knows he is delusional instead of you who has no clue.bornagain77_{November 5, 2009
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bornagain77 at 79, You continue to fail to support your assertion. Here it is again: "14. Materialism predicted animal speciation should happen on a somewhat constant basis on earth. Theism predicted man was the last species created on earth. Man himself is the last generally accepted major fossil form to have suddenly appeared in the fossil record." Please provide a cite to peer reviewed literature that supports the two parts of your claim, namely: 1) Homo sapiens appeared "suddenly" in the fossil record, and 2) Homo sapiens is the last "major fossil form" to have appeared in the fossil record. The first is clearly incorrect, given just the fossils you yourself mentioned. The second requires a definition of "major fossil form", and you'll still not be able to support it. I suggest you admit that you made an unsupported assertion and retract it with whatever good grace remains to be had. PS: Biblical quotations and YouTube videos are no peer reviewed scientific literature.Mustela Nivalis_{November 5, 2009
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STephenB
The central point is the Darwinist proclivity to insist that science be defined SOLELY as the study of natural causes–that it must be EXCLUSIVELY rather than PRIMARILY about natural causes. That is a new developoment calculated to discredit the design inference. Please make a note of it.
Actually, as a long time lurker, I've already made a note of your tactics in this discussion. When professional scientists and science educators point out that science has been conducted via methodological naturalism (if not by that specific name) for centuries, your next step is to point out a famous scientist that is a theist and conflate their rejection of philosophical naturalism into a presumed rejection of methodological naturalism and hope nobody catches on to the switcheroo. I am curious about one thing, Steven. You speak with great authority about how science was conducted 20 plus years ago. What exactly do you do for a living? Are you a professional scientist?hummus man_{November 5, 2009
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Vj torley, This may clearly illustrate for you the extreme bias that evolutionists artificial impose on the fossil evidence: “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.nyu.edu/public.affairs/pdf/2007_BROMAGE_IADR_1470.pdfbornagain77_{November 5, 2009
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For prime example of the flimsy "similarity evidence", used by materialists to try to make their case for evolution, most materialists are adamant Darwinian evolution is proven true when we look at the supposed 98.8% genetic similarity between chimps and man. Though suggestive, the gene similarity, even if true, is not nearly good enough to be considered conclusive scientific proof. Primarily this "lack of conclusiveness" is due to concerns with the Second Law of Thermodynamics and with the Law of Conservation of Information. But of more pressing concern, body plans are not even encoded in the DNA code in the first place. This inability of body plans to be reduced directly to the DNA code is clearly shown by Cortical Inheritance. Cortical Inheritance: The Crushing Critique Against Genetic Reductionism - Arthur Jones - video Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JzQ8ingdNY Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1bAX93zQ5o This inability for the DNA code to account for body plans is also clearly shown by extensive mutation studies to the DNA of different organisms which show "exceedingly rare" major morphological effects from mutations to the DNA code. Hopeful monsters,' transposons, and the Metazoan radiation: Excerpt: Viable mutations with major morphological or physiological effects are exceedingly rare and usually infertile; the chance of two identical rare mutant individuals arising in sufficient propinquity to produce offspring seems too small to consider as a significant evolutionary event. These problems of viable "hopeful monsters" render these explanations untenable. Paleobiologists Douglas Erwin and James Valentine This includes the highly touted four-winged fruit fly mutations. ...Advantageous anatomical mutations are never observed. The four-winged fruit fly is a case in point: The second set of wings lacks flight muscles, so the useless appendages interfere with flying and mating, and the mutant fly cannot survive long outside the laboratory. Similar mutations in other genes also produce various anatomical deformations, but they are harmful, too. In 1963, Harvard evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr wrote that the resulting mutants “are such evident freaks that these monsters can be designated only as ‘hopeless.’ They are so utterly unbalanced that they would not have the slightest chance of escaping elimination through natural selection." - Jonathan Wells http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/08/inherit_the_spin_the_ncse_answ.html#footnote19 Darwin's Theory - Fruit Flies and Morphology - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZJTIwRY0bs If that wasn't enough, the Human Genome Project really put the last nail in the coffin for "Genetic Reductionism": DNA: The Alphabet of Life - David Klinghoffer Excerpt: But all this is trivial compared to the largely unheralded insight gained from the Human Genome Project, completed in 2003. The insight is disturbing. It is that while DNA codes for the cell's building blocks, the information needed to build the rest of the creature is seemingly, in large measure, absent. ,,,The physically encoded information to form that mouse, as opposed to that fly, isn't there. Instead, "It is as if the 'idea' of the fly (or any other organism) must somehow permeate the genome that gives rise to it." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/07/dna_the_alphabet_of_life.html Higher Levels Of Information In Life - Stephen Meyer - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HavmzWVt8IU Psalm 139:15 My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart;,, Thus the 98.8% similarity derived from the DNA code, to the body plans of chimps and man, is purely imaginary, since it is clearly shown that the overriding "architectural plan" of the body is not even encoded in the DNA in the first place. Of more clarity though, this "98.8% similarity evidence" is derived by materialists from a very biased methodology of presuming that the 1.5% of the genome, which directly codes for proteins, has complete precedence of consideration over the other remaining 98.5% of the genome which does not directly code for proteins. Yet even when considering just this 1.5% of the genome that codes for proteins, we find that the proteins, which are directly coded by that 1.5% of the genome, are shown to differ by a huge 80% difference between chimps and man. 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 Eighty percent of proteins are different between humans and chimpanzees; Gene; Volume 346, 14 February 2005: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15716009 How in the world did the proteins change by +80% while the genes, which supposedly code for those proteins, remained virtually unchanged? Why is this huge +80% anomaly ignored by materialists and only the biased genetic similarity stressed? On top of this huge +80% difference in proteins, the oft quoted 98.8% DNA similarity is not even rigorously true in the first place. Just considering this 1.5% of the genome, other recent comparisons of the protein coding genes, between chimps and man, have yielded a similarity of only 96%. Whereas, the December 2006 issue of PLoS ONE reported that human and chimpanzee gene copy numbers differ by 6.4%, which gives a similarity of only 93.6% (Hahn). Even more realistically, to how we actually should be looking at the genomes from a investigative starting point, Dr. Hugh Ross states the similarity is closer to 85% to 90% when taking into account the chimp genome is about 12% larger than the human genome. A recent, more accurate, human/chimp genome comparison study, by Richard Buggs in 2008, has found when he rigorously compared the recently completed sequences in the genomes of chimpanzees to the genomes of humans side by side, the true genome similarity between chimps and man fell to slightly below 70%! Why is this study ignored since the ENCODE study has now implicated 100% high level functionality across the entire human genome? Finding compelling evidence that implicates 100% high level functionality across the entire genome clearly shows the similarity is not to be limited to the very biased "only 1.5% of the genome" studies of materialists. 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.refdag.nl/artikel/1366432/Chimpanzee.html More Chimp-Human Genome Problems - Cornelius Hunter Excerpt: Even more interesting, at these locations the chimp's genome is quite similar to other primates--it is the human that differs from the rest, not the chimp. (human accelerated regions (HARs) . http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2009/08/more-chimp-human-genome-problems.html On top of that the Junk regions are actually found to be "more functional" than the protein coding regions: Astonishing DNA complexity update Excerpt: The untranslated regions (now called UTRs, rather than ‘junk’) are far more important than the translated regions (the genes), as measured by the number of DNA bases appearing in RNA transcripts. Genic regions are transcribed on average in five different overlapping and interleaved ways, while UTRs are transcribed on average in seven different overlapping and interleaved ways. Since there are about 33 times as many bases in UTRs than in genic regions, that makes the ‘junk’ about 50 times more active than the genes. http://creation.com/astonishing-dna-complexity-updatebornagain77_{November 5, 2009
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Hmm vjtorley, Shoot I steadfastly maintain that humans are the last major "kind" of fossil to suddenly appear in the fossil record. Cichlid fish have certainly been in the fossil record as a kind far longer than man has: Cichlid Fish - Evolution or Variation Within Kind? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1TDNHNvZRk As well Cichlid fish happen to show conformation to genetic entropy which is exactly what is predicted by the Theistic model of sudden creation of kinds": African cichlid fish: a model system in adaptive radiation research: "The African cichlid fish radiations are the most diverse extant animal radiations and provide a unique system to test predictions of speciation and adaptive radiation theory(of evolution).----surprising implication of the study?---- the propensity to radiate was significantly higher in lineages whose precursors emerged from more ancient adaptive radiations than in other lineages" http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=16846905 "The long-term stasis, following a geologically abrupt origin, of most fossil morphospecies, has always been recognized by professional paleontologists" – Stephen Jay Gould - Harvard I reiterate this: This following site has a graph which was made by an evolutionist. The graph can be enlarged by clicking on the image. The graph, though made by an evolutionist with an extreme bias for "shoehorning evidence", shows just how stable each of the hominid species is over the long periods of time they are found in the fossil record, as well as each hominid's "abrupt appearance" in the fossil record. Man is, of course, the last hominid species to "abruptly appear" in the graph. As well the graph shows the only actual transition ever witnessed by anyone, between any of the stable hominid lineages on the graph, is in the imaginations of the evolutionists who draw the connecting lines between the stable hominid lineages on such graphs. I guess drawing connecting lines on such graphs represents hard physical evidence for them. Perhaps they can forgive me for being less than impressed with their imaginary "lines of evidence" for human evolution. Hominid Fossil Graph http://www.handprint.com/LS/ANC/evol.gif etc...etc... Does genetic evidence help you vj? NO!bornagain77_{November 5, 2009
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Hi everyone. I've been thinking about bornagain77's claim that human beings are the last of God's creations. Right now I'm reading Professor William Dembski's fascinating book, The End of Christianity (see http://www.amazon.com/End-Christianity-Finding-Good-World/dp/0805427430 ), which makes an interesting distinction between two different kinds of time: kairos (reflecting the orer of events in God's plan) and chronos (reflecting the chronological order of events in the nexus of causes and effects that we observe in the natural world). Personally, I'm not convinced that the claim that humans were chronologically the last of God's creations is one that need be drawn from a careful reading of Genesis. We might have simply been the last creation in God's plan for the world, which need not follow the chronological order of events in the fossil record, since God transcends time. Still, it would be very interesting if it turned out that we were chronologically the last of God's creations. But how would one ascertain this? New species have certainly appeared since the first human beings emerged. (Think about cichlid fish.) However, even creationists don't claim that each species was created by God. Typically that claim is made for genera or families. Then I thought about Professor Michael Behe's The Edge of Evolution. Although Behe insists on common descent, he also believes that blind processes can take us only so far, and he places the edge of undirected evolution at either the genus or family level. OK. Let's go with families. Here's my question. What is the most recent family of organisms to appear on Earth? And what is the most recent genus? Does anyone know? By the way, some of you might be wondering about where human beings fit in here. Here's an interesting paper for you to peruse: Primate phylogeny: molecular evidence for a pongid clade excluding humans and a prosimian clade containing tarsiers by Shi Huang, State Key Laboratory of Medical Genetics, Xiangya Medical School, Central South University, Hunan, China, at http://precedings.nature.com/documents/3794/version/1 The upshot of Huang’s paper is that we’re not apes after all. We belong in a separate clade. In that case, 4.4 million-year-old Ardipithecus is not the common ancestor of humans and apes. It's way too late to be anything of the sort.
Excerpt from Abstract: Interpretations of molecular data by the modern evolution theory are often sharply inconsistent with paleontological results. This is to be expected since the theory is only true for microevolution and yet fossil records are mostly about macroevolution. The maximum genetic diversity (MGD) hypothesis is a more coherent and complete account of evolution that has yet to meet a single contradiction. Here, molecular data were analyzed based on the MGD to resolve key questions of primate phylogeny. A new method was developed from a novel result predicted by the MGD: genetic non-equidistance to a simpler taxon only in slow but not in fast evolving sequences given nonequidistance in time. This 'slow clock' method showed that humans are genetically more distant to orangutans than African apes are and separated from the pongid clade (containing orangutan and African apes) 17.3 million years ago...
The paper contains a very powerful critique of the "molecular clock," which Huang proposes to replace with a new clock of his own that matches the fossil record much more closely than the clock which is currently in favor. (Huang is of course a convinced evolutionist.) If Huang is right, the human family appeared about 17.3 million years ago. And he's not alone in his opinion. Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia article on Hominidae :
An alternative minority viewpoint is that Homo diverged from a common ancestor with Pongo [the orang-utan - VJT] perhaps as early as 13 million years ago while Pan is more closely related to Gorilla. This alternative is supported by characteristics uniquely shared between humans and orangutans such as dental structure, thick enamel, shoulder blade structure, thick posterior palate, single incisive foramen, high estriol production, and beard and mustache. There are at least 28 well corroborated such features compared with perhaps as little as one unique feature shared between humans and chimpanzees. It is widely believed that these physical features are misleading, but an alternative possibility is that orangutans have undergone more genetic change than humans and African apes have since their split from the common ancestor. If this had happened, then the apparent genetic similarity between humans and chimpanzees would not necessarily be due to a close evolutionary relationship. This theory has been proposed as an explanation as to why early hominids such as the australopiths not only look more like orangutans than either African ape, but also share characters unique to orangutans and their close fossil relatives such as a thickened posteror palate and anterior zygomatic roots. (Emphasis mine - VJT.)
The genus Homo is estimated to have appeared 2.0 to 2.5 million years ago (depending on how you classify Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis). If we're talking about human beings with true intelligence (e.g. humans who were able to formulate abstract questions about right and wrong, and debate questions like the existence of God and the reality of an afterlife), then there are two possible dates, depending on whether you regard the Neanderthals as truly human: 600,000 years ago (the date of the emergence of Homo heidelbergensis) or 200,000 (the date of the emergence of Homo sapiens). This is just a post to get the ball rolling, so to speak. I'd like to hear what everyone thinks.vjtorley_{November 5, 2009
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Hmm Mustela, I point out, very clearly, that you have no philosophical foundation in reality in the first place in which to make coherent arguments, and you so non-chalantly call it a red herring. Did you calling it a Red Herring do anything to prove materialism had a coherent foundation in reality? Of course not. So Mustela if you have one shred of intellectual honesty in you, which I highly doubt by the way, How in the world do you presuppose a demonstratively false foundation to support any materialistic hypothesis of non-teleological evolution built upon such a non-existent foundation? For a man to claim he can build a castle on quicksand, or even in the air, we would call him delusional, Why should I think any more of you than he? My cites are on post 39 and 40, here is a partial repost: This following quote, by a leading evolutionist in the field, is candid in its admission of the gaps for the evidence of human evolution. A 2004 book by leading evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr stated that “The earliest fossils of Homo, Homo rudolfensis and Homo erectus, are separated from Australopithecus (Lucy) 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.” Misrepresentations of the Evidence for Human Evolutionary Origins: Even though the preceding comment from a leading evolutionist in the field is crushing, to the smooth transition needed for the materialist to make his case for human evolution, you would think a materialist would at least have some sort of evidence he could cling to with Homo erectus and rudolfensis fossils Mayr cited. Yet when we look at the evidence presented by the materialists themselves, for the proposed evolution of Homo erectus, the evidence is anything but straight forward and appears to be, once again, “shoehorned” to fit their preconceived philosophical bias: Hominids, Homonyms, and Homo sapiens – 05/27/2009 – Creation Safaris: Excerpt: Homo erectus is particularly controversial, because it is such a broad classification. Tattersall and Schwartz find no clear connection between the Asian, European and African specimens lumped into this class. “In his 1950 review, Ernst Mayr placed all of these forms firmly within the species Homo erectus,” they explained. “Subsequently, Homo erectus became the standard-issue ‘hominid in the middle,’ expanding to include not only the fossils just mentioned, but others of the same general period….”. They discussed the arbitrariness of this classification: “Put together, all these fossils (which span almost 2 myr) make a very heterogeneous assortment indeed; and placing them all together in the same species only makes any conceivable sense in the context of the ecumenical view of Homo erectus as the middle stage of the single hypervariable hominid lineage envisioned by Mayr (on the basis of a much slenderer record). Viewed from the morphological angle, however, the practice of cramming all of this material into a single Old World-wide species is highly questionable. Indeed, the stuffing process has only been rendered possible by a sort of ratchet effect, in which fossils allocated to Homo erectus almost regardless of their morphology have subsequently been cited as proof of just how variable the species can be.” By “ratchet effect,” they appear to mean something like a self-fulfilling prophecy: i.e., “Let’s put everything from this 2-million-year period into one class that we will call Homo erectus.” Someone complains, “But this fossil from Singapore is very different from the others.” The first responds, “That just shows how variable the species Homo erectus can be.” This following quote sums up what materialists appear to be doing with this Homo erectus and rudolfensis, “hominid in the middle”, 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.” The first line of the ” Evolution of the Genus Homo” paper illustrates the poverty of the fossil record in establishing human evolution: 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.” Though the authors of the preceding 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.” The authors try to find some evolutionary/materialistic reason for the extremely unique “information capacity” of humans, but of course they never find a coherent reason. Indeed why should we ever consider a process, which is incapable of ever generating complex functional information at even the most fundamental levels of molecular biology, to suddenly, magically, have the ability to generate our brain? A brain which has been repeatedly referred to as “the Most Complex Structure in the Universe”? A brain which somehow has within itself the capacity to understand, and generate, large amounts of complex functional information? The authors never seem to consider the “spiritual angle” for why we would have such a unique capacity for such abundant information processing. Genesis 3:8 And they (Adam and Eve) heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day… John 1:1-1 In the beginning, the Word existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. Human Evolution? Big Bang of Language, Clothes, Tools and Art – Hugh Ross – audio http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRNmiO6f_c4 This following study, though of materialistic bent, offers strong support that Humans are extremely unique in this “advanced information” capacity: Darwin’s mistake: Explaining the discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds: Excerpt: There is a profound functional discontinuity between human and nonhuman minds. We argue that this discontinuity pervades nearly every domain of cognition and runs much deeper than even the spectacular scaffolding provided by language or culture can explain. We hypothesize that the cognitive discontinuity between human and nonhuman animals is largely due to the degree to which human and nonhuman minds are able to approximate the higher-order, systematic, relational capabilities of a physical symbol system (i.e. able to understand information). These following studies highlight the difficulty materialists have in fitting mental abilities into an evolutionary scenario: Origin of Soulish Animals: Excerpt: Bolhuis and Wynne contrast the cognitive capacities of birds and primates.,,, They also refer to an experiment demonstrating that “crows can also work out how to use one tool to obtain a second with which they can retrieve food, a skill that monkeys and apes struggle to master.” Evidently, certain bird species exhibit greater powers of the mind than do apes. New Caledonian Crows Exceed Apes/Chimps at Trap-tube Experiment – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwFLJBCk5sk Even the lowly honey bee is shown to have a capacity to communicate information to other bees. Thus this comparison of abilities to manipulate rudimentary information is fraught with difficulties for the materialist to make his case for evolution with: Are you disbelieving in all this Mustela?,,perhaps angry at me? Are you saying "It just can't be? Well I have a better way to break your delusion,,, you name your one most concrete proof for human evolution, And I promise to thoroughly demolish it in front of your eyes. Deal?bornagain77_{November 5, 2009
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Mustela Nivalis: "Thank you, [hummus man] didn’t realize that this had already been explained to StephenB. You saved me a few posts by skipping ahead." Your misguided ally cannot help you because he, too, does not understand the subject matter. It is an open and shut case and you are on the wrong side of it. Methodological naturalism is an arbitrary rule that never existed previously to 1980. That is an irrefutable fact as is evident from the fact that you cannot refute it.StephenB_{November 5, 2009
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----hummus man: "I think you’ve been corrected on this before. While the term “methodological naturalism” is indeed a recent construct, the idea embodied by it is centuries old. See here." I am not the one being corrected but rather the one doing the correcting. Scientists have been studying natural causes ever since Thales. That is not the issue. The central point is the Darwinist proclivity to insist that science be defined SOLELY as the study of natural causes--that it must be EXCLUSIVELY rather than PRIMARILY about natural causes. That is a new developoment calculated to discredit the design inference. Please make a note of it.StephenB_{November 5, 2009
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hummus man at 73, "StevenB: 'Nothing like this ever existed before the 1980’s. You will not find the term methodological naturalism in any philosophy of science textbook prior to that time, nor will you find it in any history of the philosophy of science.' I think you’ve been corrected on this before. While the term 'methodological naturalism' is indeed a recent construct, the idea embodied by it is centuries old. See here." Thank you, I didn't realize that this had already been explained to StephenB. You saved me a few posts by skipping ahead. ;-)Mustela Nivalis_{November 5, 2009
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bornagain77 at 69, That post is a complete red herring. In 68 I asked for you to please reproduce cites to any peer reviewed papers you have referenced that support your claim that: “14. Materialism predicted animal speciation should happen on a somewhat constant basis on earth. Theism predicted man was the last species created on earth. Man himself is the last generally accepted major fossil form to have suddenly appeared in the fossil record.” You have not done so. When one is incapable of defending an assertion in a discussion such as this, intellectual integrity demands that the claim be retracted. I await your response.Mustela Nivalis_{November 5, 2009
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