Recent fossil find a “Cambrian explosion” for humans?

_{Denyse O'Leary

March 5, 2015

Human evolution, Intelligent Design}

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Further to Oldest human fossil found, 400k years “earlier than previously thought,” neuroscientist David A. DeWitt writes to say,

That is a real problem since it means that humans overlapped with australopithcines including especially sediba which is a mere 2 million years old.

Humans dated 2.8 million years ago? Sophisticated tools used by H. erectus? Neanderthal genes in modern humans? Range of variation in Dmanisi overlapping H. erectus to modern humans? A. sediba is a mixture of Homo and Australopithecine remains in South Africa?

What we essentially have is a Cambrian explosion type phenomenon for human origins.

Readers?

See also:

The ridiculous level of uncertainty in the field of human evolution DeWitt: “Look at how messed up this field is. Genetic evidence supports Neanderthals and modern humans interbred. The Dmanisi skulls show such variation as to incorporate all of the various Homo specimens.”

History of man unravels in “huge fraud”

and

Contemplating Bill Nye’s skulls slide “I can only conclude that the sole purpose of showing such a slide was to confuse and obfuscate, not educate.”

But wait! It’s not messed up as long as hundreds of pop science writers refrain from wondering.

Also: What we know (and don’t) about human evolution, s synopsis

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Comments

"Homo such as habilis, rudolfensis, erectus, etc aren’t just a single species, but in fact are all Homo sapiens." You need to get your facts straight. For instance even though habilis has homo in front of it we find that the homo prefix is misleading: A Big Bang Theory of Homo – Casey Luskin – August 2012 Excerpt: To the contrary, she explains, habilis “displays much stronger similarities to African ape limb proportions” than even Lucy. She called these results “unexpected in view of previous accounts of Homo habilis as a link between australopithecines and humans.” Without habilis as an intermediate, it is difficult to find fossil hominins to serve as direct transitional forms between the australopithecines and Homo. Rather, the fossil record shows dramatic and abrupt changes that correspond to the appearance of Homo. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/a_big_bang_theo063141.html Moreover, Homo Rudolfensis is now known to be fraudulent in its representation: “Dr. Leakey produced a biased reconstruction (of 1470/ Homo Rudolfensis) based on erroneous preconceived expectations of early human appearance that violated principles of craniofacial development,” Dr. Timothy Bromage http://www.geneticarchaeology.com/research/Mans_Earliest_Direct_Ancestors_Looked_More_Apelike_Than_Previously_Believed.asp DeWitt’s digital manipulation of skull 1470 - August 13, 2012 Excerpt: The skull as presented in the news websites has some significant issues that suggests that the facial reconstruction is seriously off. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/dewitts-reconstruction-of-skull-1470/ Moreover, homo erectus is notorious for its abuse of classification: Hominids, Homonyms, and Homo sapiens - 05/27/2009 - Creation Safaris: Excerpt: Homo erectus is particularly controversial, because it is such a broad classification. Tattersall and Schwartz find no clear connection between the Asian, European and African specimens lumped into this class. “In his 1950 review, Ernst Mayr placed all of these forms firmly within the species Homo erectus,” they explained. “Subsequently, Homo erectus became the standard-issue ‘hominid in the middle,’ expanding to include not only the fossils just mentioned, but others of the same general period....”. They discussed the arbitrariness of this classification: "Put together, all these fossils (which span almost 2 myr) make a very heterogeneous assortment indeed; and placing them all together in the same species only makes any conceivable sense in the context of the ecumenical view of Homo erectus as the middle stage of the single hypervariable hominid lineage envisioned by Mayr (on the basis of a much slenderer record). Viewed from the morphological angle, however, the practice of cramming all of this material into a single Old World-wide species is highly questionable. Indeed, the stuffing process has only been rendered possible by a sort of ratchet effect, in which fossils allocated to Homo erectus almost regardless of their morphology have subsequently been cited as proof of just how variable the species can be." By “ratchet effect,” they appear to mean something like a self-fulfilling prophecy: i.e., “Let’s put everything from this 2-million-year period into one class that we will call Homo erectus.” Someone complains, “But this fossil from Singapore is very different from the others.” The first responds, “That just shows how variable the species Homo erectus can be.” http://creationsafaris.com/crev200905.htm#20090527a Skull of Homo erectus throws story of human evolution into disarray - OCT. 17, 2013 Excerpt: Over decades excavating sites in Africa, researchers have named half a dozen different species of early human ancestor, but most, if not all, are now on shaky ground.,,, If the scientists are right, it would trim the base of the human evolutionary tree and spell the end for names such as H rudolfensis, H gautengensis, H ergaster and possibly H habilis. http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/17/skull-homo-erectus-human-evolution Skull "Rewrites" Story of Human Evolution -- Again - Casey Luskin - October 22, 2013 Excerpt: "I think it's probably premature to dump everything into Homo erectus," Johanson told NBC News. "This is what you're going to find the most opposition to.",,, "There is a big gap in the fossil record," Zollikofer told NBC News. "I would put a question mark there. Of course it would be nice to say this was the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and us, but we simply don't know." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/10/skull_rewrites_078221.html supplemental note: No Known Hominin Is Common Ancestor of Neanderthals and Modern Humans, Study Suggests - Oct. 21, 2013 Excerpt: The article, "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. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131021153202.htm Moreover, as if that was not bad enough, where the fossil record is most complete is where we find the fossil evidence to run completely contrary to Darwinian expectations: If Modern Humans Are So Smart, Why Are Our Brains Shrinking? - January 20, 2011 Excerpt: John Hawks is in the middle of explaining his research on human evolution when he drops a bombshell. Running down a list of changes that have occurred in our skeleton and skull since the Stone Age, the University of Wisconsin anthropologist nonchalantly adds, “And it’s also clear the brain has been shrinking.” “Shrinking?” I ask. “I thought it was getting larger.” The whole ascent-of-man thing.,,, He rattles off some dismaying numbers: Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cc, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball. The female brain has shrunk by about the same proportion. “I’d call that major downsizing in an evolutionary eyeblink,” he says. “This happened in China, Europe, Africa—everywhere we look.” http://discovermagazine.com/2010/sep/25-modern-humans-smart-why-brain-shrinking of supplemental note: The Red Ape - Cornelius Hunter - August 2009 Excerpt: "There remains, however, a paradoxical problem lurking within the wealth of DNA data: our morphology and physiology have very little, if anything, uniquely in common with chimpanzees to corroborate a unique common ancestor. Most of the characters we do share with chimpanzees also occur in other primates, and in sexual biology and reproduction we could hardly be more different. It would be an understatement to think of this as an evolutionary puzzle." http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2009/08/red-ape.htmlbornagain77_{March 6, 2015
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Zachriel, as Casey Luskin pointed out in the lecture that you apparently could not be bothered to listen to, the fossils fall into two distinct groups, ape-like and human-like
Yes, we can all agree that the fossils fall into two distinct groups. As argued in the OP, the Dmanisi find shows that early Homo such as habilis, rudolfensis, erectus, etc aren't just a single species, but in fact are all Homo sapiens. This means there's a clear wide divide between humans and the australopithecines, which, as BA77 has shown, are apes, and includes habilis and rudolfensis. Err, uh, the point is there are two distinct groups and no intermediates. And the newly discovered jaw bone falls clearly into the human group, as argued in the OP, probably belonging to H. habilis, which, as we've seen, is an ape. Umm, whatever... it's clearly a human... or an ape.goodusername_{March 6, 2015
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bornagain77: Zachriel, as Casey Luskin pointed out ... You can't seem to bring yourself to address the question. What is the alternative hypothesis that explains how an expedition was *successfully* mounted to find such fossils? Lucky guess?Zachriel_{March 6, 2015
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Zachriel, as Casey Luskin pointed out in the lecture that you apparently could not be bothered to listen to, the fossils fall into two distinct groups, ape-like and human-like:
A Big Bang Theory of Homo - Casey Luskin - August 2012 Excerpt: To the contrary, she explains, habilis "displays much stronger similarities to African ape limb proportions" than even Lucy. She called these results "unexpected in view of previous accounts of Homo habilis as a link between australopithecines and humans." Without habilis as an intermediate, it is difficult to find fossil hominins to serve as direct transitional forms between the australopithecines and Homo. Rather, the fossil record shows dramatic and abrupt changes that correspond to the appearance of Homo. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/a_big_bang_theo063141.html Has Science Shown That We Evolved from Ape-like Creatures? by Casey Luskin - Fall 2013 (useful references at the end of the article) Excerpt: A closer look at the literature shows that hominin fossils generally fall into one of two categories—ape-like species or human-like species (of the genus Homo)—and that there is a large, unbridged gap between them. Despite the claims of many evolutionary paleoanthropologists, the fragmented hominin fossil record does not document the evolution of humans from ape-like precursors. In fact, scientists are quite sharply divided over who or what our human ancestors even were. Newly discovered fossils are often initially presented to the public with great enthusiasm and fanfare, but once cooler heads prevail, their status as human evolutionary ancestors is invariably called into question. - http://salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo26-science-faith/has-science-shown-that-we-evolved-from-ape-like-creatures.php "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)
Moreover, there is an inherent bias for Darwinists to 'see faces in the clouds' in regards to human evolution. In the following video, from 15:05 minute mark to 19:15 minute mark, Phillip Johnson directly addresses that inherent bias of Darwinists for 'seeing faces in the clouds' for human evolution:
“What I saw about the fossil record again,, was that Gould and Eldridge were experts in the area where the animal fossil record is most complete. That is marine invertebrates.,, And the reason for this is that when,, a bird, or a human, or an ape, or a wolf, or whatever, dies,, normally it does not get fossilized. It decays in the open, or is eaten by scavengers. Things get fossilized when they get covered over quickly with sediments so that they are protected from this natural destructive process. So if you want to be a fossil, the way to go about it is to live in the shallow seas, where you get covered over by sediments when you die,,. Most of the animal fossils are of that kind and it is in that area where the fossil record is most complete. That there is a consistent pattern.,, I mean there is evolution in the sense of variation, just like the peppered moth example. Things do vary, but they vary within the type. The new types appear suddenly, fully formed, without an evolutionary history and then they stay fundamentally stable with (cyclical) variation after their sudden appearance, and stasis (according) to the empirical observations made by Gould and Eldridge. Well now you see, I was aware of a number of examples of where evolutionary intermediates were cited. This was brought up as soon as people began to make the connection and question the (Darwinian) profession about their theory in light of the controversy. But the examples of claimed evolutionary transitionals, oddly enough, come from the area of the fossil record where fossilization is rarest. Where it is least likely to happen.,,, One of things that amused me is that there are so many fossil candidates for human ancestorship, and so very few fossils that are candidates for the great apes.,, There should be just as many. But why not? Any economist can give you the answer to that. Human ancestors have a great American value and so they are produced at a much greater rate.,, These also were grounds to be suspicious of what was going on,,, ,,,if the problem is the greatest where the fossil record is most complete and if the confirming examples are found where fossils are rarest, that doesn’t sound like it could be the explanation." - Phillip Johnson - April 2012 - audio/video 15:05 minute mark to 19:15 minute mark http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJDlBvbPSMA&feature=player_detailpage#t=903s
Of supplemental note as to the inherent bias of Darwinists:
"One famous fossil skull, discovered in 1972 in northern Kenya, changed its appearance dramatically depending on how the upper jaw was connected to the rest of the cranium. Roger Lewin recounts an occasion when paleoanthropologists Alan Walker, Michael Day, and Richard Leakey were studying the two sections of skull 1470. According to Lewin, Walker said: You could hold the [upper jaw] forward, and give it a long face, or you could tuck it in, making the face short…. How you held it really depended on your preconceptions. It was very interesting watching what people did with it. Lewin reports that Leakey recalled the incident, too: Yes. If you held it one way, it looked like one thing; if you held it another, it looked like something else." Roger Lewin, Bones of Contention, Second Edition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), p 160 Good-bye Heidelberg Man: You Never Existed - July 11, 2014 Excerpt: “If someone kills one person they go to jail,” anthropologist Zeresenay Alemseged of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco noted last month at a meeting here in France’s deep south. “But what happens if you kill off a whole species?” The answer soon became apparent: anguished debate. In the balance was Homo heidelbergensis, a big-brained human ancestor generally seen as a pivotal figure, (common ancestor of modern humans and our extinct closest cousins, the Neandertals), during a murky period of evolution. At the invitation-only meeting, researchers debated whether this species really was a major player—or "no more than a paleoanthropologists’ construct". http://crev.info/2014/07/heidelberg-man-never-existed/
bornagain77_{March 6, 2015
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Each non-sapiens hominin found is a confirmation of the hypothesis of baraminology.Joe_{March 6, 2015
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bornagain77: The fossil record, despite your denial to the contrary, is not nearly as conducive to your presupposed conclusion of common descent as you imagine. You didn't attempt an answer to the question. Each non-sapiens hominin found is a confirmation of the hypothesis of common descent. What is the alternative hypothesis that explains how an expedition was *successfully* mounted to find such fossils? Lucky guess?Zachriel_{March 6, 2015
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The fossil record, despite your denial to the contrary, is not nearly as conducive to your presupposed conclusion of common descent as you imagine. What you desperately need, as Joe pointed out already, is experimental support. And in that regards you not only have no support, but you have many lines of evidence directly contradicting your claim that basic body plans can be radically changed into new body plans.bornagain77_{March 6, 2015
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The "hypothesis" of common descent still doesn't have a mechanism capable of getting beyond populations of prokaryotes and that is given starting populations of prokaryotes. Strange that evos ignore that problem.Joe_{March 6, 2015
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bornagain77: actually common descent (besides being shown to be highly implausible in the lab) is still a presupposed conclusion searching for supporting evidence in the fossil record Every non-sapiens hominin found is a confirmation of the hypothesis of common descent. What is the alternative hypothesis that explains how an expedition was successfully mounted to find such fossils? Lucky guess?Zachriel_{March 6, 2015
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To underscore ‘the image of God’ postulation of Christian Theism, the three Rs, reading, writing, and arithmetic, i.e. the unique ability to process information inherent to man, are the very first things to be taught to children when they enter elementary school. And yet it is this information processing, i.e. reading, writing, and arithmetic that is found to be foundational to life:
Signature in the Cell by Stephen Meyer – video clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVkdQhNdzHU
As well, as if that was not ‘spooky enough’, information, not material, is found to be foundational to physical reality:
Why the Quantum? It from Bit? A Participatory Universe? Excerpt: In conclusion, it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows. Thence the question why nature appears quantized is simply a consequence of the fact that information itself is quantized by necessity. It might even be fair to observe that the concept that information is fundamental is very old knowledge of humanity, witness for example the beginning of gospel according to John: “In the beginning was the Word.” Anton Zeilinger – a leading expert in quantum teleportation: http://www.metanexus.net/archive/ultimate_reality/zeilinger.pdf “it from bit” Every “it”— every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits. “It from bit” symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has a bottom—a very deep bottom, in most instances, an immaterial source and explanation, that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment—evoked responses, in short all matter and all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe.” – Princeton University physicist John Wheeler (1911–2008) (Wheeler, John A. (1990), “Information, physics, quantum: The search for links”, in W. Zurek, Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information (Redwood City, California: Addison-Wesley)) Quantum physics just got less complicated – Dec. 19, 2014 Excerpt: Patrick Coles, Jedrzej Kaniewski, and Stephanie Wehner,,, found that ‘wave-particle duality’ is simply the quantum ‘uncertainty principle’ in disguise, reducing two mysteries to one.,,, “The connection between uncertainty and wave-particle duality comes out very naturally when you consider them as questions about what information you can gain about a system. Our result highlights the power of thinking about physics from the perspective of information,”,,, http://phys.org/news/2014-12-quantum-physics-complicated.html
That life and physical reality itself are both found to be ‘information theoretic’ in their basis, and that man possesses the unique ability to understand and create information, is certainly strong evidence that we indeed possess ‘the image of God’ as the anchor of our soul, just as is postulated in Christian Theism.
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 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. You Won’t Let Go Share – Michael W. Smith https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRb_NIQTzyA
bornagain77_{March 6, 2015
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actually common descent (besides being shown to be highly implausible in the lab) is still a presupposed conclusion searching for supporting evidence in the fossil record
“most hominid fossils, even though they serve as basis of endless speculation and elaborate storytelling, are fragments of of jaws and scraps of skulls” Stephen Jay Gould
And what the fossil teeth have revealed thus far about supposed human evolution is not good for those who prefer the Darwinian position to be true
No Known Hominin Is Common Ancestor of Neanderthals and Modern Humans, Study Suggests – Oct. 21, 2013 Excerpt: The article, “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. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131021153202.htm Human/Ape Common Ancestry: Following the Evidence – Casey Luskin – June 2011 Excerpt: So the researchers constructed an evolutionary tree based on 129 skull and tooth measurements for living hominoids, including gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and humans, and did the same with 62 measurements recorded on Old World monkeys, including baboons, mangabeys and macaques. They also drew upon published molecular phylogenies. At the outset, Wood and Collard assumed the molecular evidence was correct. “There were so many different lines of genetic evidence pointing in one direction,” Collard explains. But no matter how the computer analysis was run, the molecular and morphological trees could not be made to match15 (see figure, below). Collard says this casts grave doubt on the reliability of using morphological evidence to determine the fine details of evolutionary trees for higher primates. “It is saying it is positively misleading,” he says. The abstract of the pair’s paper stated provocatively that “existing phylogenetic hypotheses about human evolution are unlikely to be reliable”.[10] http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/following_the_evidence_where_i047161.html#comment-9266481 Human Origins, and the Real Reasons for Evolutionary Skepticism – Jonathan M. – December 9, 2012 Excerpt: “Cladistic analysis of cranial and dental evidence has been widely used to generate phylogenetic hypotheses about humans and their fossil relatives. However, the reliability of these hypotheses has never been subjected to external validation. To rectify this, we applied internal methods to equivalent evidence from two groups of extant higher primates for whom reliable molecular phylogenies are available, the hominoids and paionins. We found that the phylogenetic hypotheses based on the craniodental data were incompatible with the molecular phylogenies for the groups. Given the robustness of the molecular phylogenies, these results indicate that little confidence can be placed in phylogenies generated solely from higher primate craniodental evidence. The corollary of this is that existing phylogenetic hypotheses about human evolution are unlikely to be reliable.” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/human_origins_a1067181.html
Of related interest, Casey Luskin, speaking at a 2014 Science and Human Origins conference, discusses why the fossil evidence falls short of supporting the Darwinian claim that humans evolved from some ape-like precursors.
2014 – podcast – Casey Luskin – On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 1 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us/ podcast – Casey Luskin – On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 2 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us-pt-2/ podcast – Casey Luskin – On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 3 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us-pt-3/ podcast – Casey Luskin – On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 4 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us-pt-4/
And lest we forget this recent paper, the ‘image of God’ inherent to man, (i.e. our unique ability to understand and create information), shows no signs of having gradually 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).) It’s difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/leading_evoluti092141.html
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bornagain77: before assuming that common descent is true as you do and trying to force fit these uncooperative fossils into your pre-assumed conclusion It wasn't a simple presumption, but a hypothesis that led to a valid prediction, the existence of non-sapiens Hominins.Zachriel_{March 6, 2015
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"Where (chimps and humans) really differ, and they differ by orders of magnitude, is in the genomic architecture outside the protein coding regions. They are vastly, vastly, different.,, The structural, the organization, the regulatory sequences, the hierarchy for how things are organized and used are vastly different between a chimpanzee and a human being in their genomes." Raymond Bohlin (per Richard Sternberg) - 9:29 minute mark of video https://vimeo.com/106012299 Richard Sternberg PhD – podcast – On Human Origins: Is Our Genome Full of Junk DNA? Part 2. (Major Differences in higher level chromosome spatial organization) 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/ Humans, Chimpanzees and Monkeys Share DNA but Not Gene Regulatory Mechanisms - (Nov. 6, 2012) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121106201124.htm A Listener's Guide to the Meyer-Marshall Debate: Focus on the Origin of Information Question -Casey Luskin - December 4, 2013 Excerpt: "There is always an observable consequence if a dGRN (developmental gene regulatory network) subcircuit is interrupted. Since these consequences are always catastrophically bad, flexibility is minimal, and since the subcircuits are all interconnected, the whole network partakes of the quality that there is only one way for things to work. And indeed the embryos of each species develop in only one way." - Eric Davidson http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/12/a_listeners_gui079811.html Darwin's Doubt (Part 8) by Paul Giem - developmental gene regulatory networks and epigenetic information - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLl6wrqd1e0&list=SPHDSWJBW3DNUaMy2xdaup5ROw3u0_mK8t&index=8 Still Awaiting Engagement: A Reply to Robert Bishop on Darwin's Doubt - Paul Nelson - September 8, 2014 Excerpt: "Neo-Darwinian evolution is uniformitarian in that it assumes that all process works the same way, so that evolution of enzymes or flower colors can be used as current proxies for study of evolution of the body plan. It erroneously assumes that change in protein coding sequence is the basic cause of change in developmental program; and it erroneously assumes that evolutionary change in body plan morphology occurs by a continuous process. All of these assumptions are basically counterfactual. This cannot be surprising, since the neo-Darwinian synthesis from which these ideas stem was a pre-molecular biology concoction focused on population genetics and adaptation natural history, neither of which have any direct mechanistic import for the genomic regulatory systems that drive embryonic development of the body plan." Eric Davidson - 2011 ,, it is difficult to miss Davidson's thrust. As far as the origin of animal body plans is concerned, neo-Darwinism isn't incomplete or insufficient. It is dead wrong.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/still_awaiting_089641.html
Thus, where Darwinists most need plasticity in the genome to be viable as a theory, (i.e. developmental Gene Regulatory Networks), is the place where mutations are found to be 'always catastrophically bad'. Yet, it is exactly in this area of the genome (i.e. regulatory networks) where 'substantial' differences are found between even supposedly closely related species such as chimps and humans. Needless to say, this is the exact opposite finding for what Darwinism would have predicted for what should have been found in the genome.bornagain77_{March 6, 2015
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Zachriel, before assuming that common descent is true as you do and trying to force fit these uncooperative fossils into your pre-assumed conclusion, do you not think that it would be far more appropriate, scientifically speaking, to experimentally demonstrate that common descent is possible or even plausible before you do as such? For instance, the developmental gene regulatory networks (dGRNs) between chimps and humans are found to be very different. Yet changing, i.e. mutating, developmental Gene Regulatory Networks is found to be 'always catastrophically bad'
When Theory Trumps Observation: Responding to Charles Marshall's Review of Darwin's Doubt -Stephen C. Meyer - October 2, 2013 Excerpt: Developmental gene regulatory networks (dGRN) are control systems. A labile (flexible) dGRN would generate (uncontrolled) variable outputs, precisely the opposite of what a functional control system does. It is telling that although many evolutionary theorists (like Marshall) have speculated about early labile dGRNs, no one has ever described such a network in any functional detail -- and for good reason. No developing animal that biologists have observed exhibits the kind of labile developmental gene regulatory network that the evolution of new body plans requires. Indeed, Eric Davidson, when discussing hypothetical labile dGRNs, acknowledges that we are speculating "where no modern dGRN provides a model" since they "must have differed in fundamental respects from those now being unraveled in our laboratories."8 By ignoring this evidence, Marshall and other defenders of evolutionary theory reverse the epistemological priority of the historical scientific method as pioneered by Charles Lyell, Charles Darwin and others.9 Rather than treating our present experimentally based knowledge as the key to evaluating the plausibility of theories about the past, Marshall uses an evolutionary assumption about what must have happened in the past (transmutation) to justify disregarding experimental observations of what does, and does not, occur in biological systems. The requirements of evolutionary doctrine thus trump our observations about how nature and living organisms actually behave. What we know best from observation takes a back seat to prior beliefs about how life must have arisen. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/10/when_theory_tru077391.html 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 mouse is not enough - February 2011 Excerpt: Richard Behringer, who studies mammalian embryogenesis at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas said, “There is no ‘correct’ system. Each species is unique and uses its own tailored mechanisms to achieve development. By only studying one species (eg, the mouse), naive scientists believe that it represents all mammals.” http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57986/ 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 Darwin or Design? - Paul Nelson at Saddleback Church - Nov. 2012 - ontogenetic depth (excellent update) - video Text from one of the Saddleback slides: 1. Animal body plans are built in each generation by a stepwise process, from the fertilized egg to the many cells of the adult. The earliest stages in this process determine what follows. 2. Thus, to change -- that is, to evolve -- any body plan, mutations expressed early in development must occur, be viable, and be stably transmitted to offspring. 3. But such early-acting mutations of global effect are those least likely to be tolerated by the embryo. Losses of structures are the only exception to this otherwise universal generalization about animal development and evolution. Many species will tolerate phenotypic losses if their local (environmental) circumstances are favorable. Hence island or cave fauna often lose (for instance) wings or eyes. http://www.saddleback.com/mc/m/7ece8/
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bornagain77: This evidence led to a reassessment of Homo habilis and its relationship to modern humans. That's intrinsic to evolution, that, because of common ancestry, it can be difficult to distinguish close relatives. In any case, there are non-sapiens Hominins in the fossil record, as expected from an evolutionary history.Zachriel_{March 6, 2015
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Homo Habilis Excerpt: This species was initially considered to be a direct ancestor of modern humans but fossil discoveries in the mid-1980s showed that Homo habilis had rather ape-like limb proportions. This evidence led to a reassessment of Homo habilis and its relationship to modern humans. Many scientists no-longer regard this species as one of our direct ancestors and instead have moved it onto a side branch of our family tree. http://australianmuseum.net.au/Homo-habilis/ The changing face of genus Homo - Wood; Collard Excerpt: the current criteria for identifying species of Homo are difficult, if not impossible, to operate using paleoanthropological evidence. We discuss alternative, verifiable, criteria, and show that when these new criteria are applied to Homo, two species, Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis, fail to meet them. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/68503570/abstract Human evolution? Excerpt: Some scientists have proposed moving this species (habilis) out of Homo and into Australopithecus (ape) due to the morphology of its skeleton being more adapted to living on trees rather than to moving on two legs like H. sapiens. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution#Genus_Homo Who Was Homo habilis—And Was It Really Homo? - Ann Gibbons - June 2011 Abstract: In the past decade, Homo habilis's status as the first member of our genus has been undermined. Newer analytical methods suggested that H. habilis matured and moved less like a human and more like an australopithecine, such as the famous partial skeleton of Lucy. Now, a report in press in the Journal of Human Evolution finds that H. habilis's dietary range was also more like Lucy's than that of H. erectus, which many consider the first fully human species to walk the earth. That suggests the handyman had yet to make the key adaptations associated with our genus, such as the ability to exploit a variety of foods in many environments, the authors say. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6036/1370.summary Evolution of the Genus Homo - Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences - Tattersall, Schwartz, May 2009 Excerpt: "Definition of the genus Homo is almost as fraught as the definition of Homo sapiens. We look at the evidence for “early Homo,” finding little morphological basis for extending our genus to any of the 2.5–1.6-myr-old fossil forms assigned to “early Homo” or Homo habilis/rudolfensis." http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202bornagain77_{March 6, 2015
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Homo habilis itself is morphologically intermediate between australopithecines and H. ergaster/erectus, and the main reason why it is placed in Homo rather than Australopithecus is its relatively large brain. Genera (like other traditional ranks) are quite arbitrary anyway. From the cladistic point of view, Homo is a subtaxon of Australopithecus.Piotr_{March 5, 2015
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That is a real problem since it means that humans overlapped with australopithcines including especially sediba which is a mere 2 million years old.
It was already known that the genus Homo overlapped with australopithecines by hundreds of thousands of years. Despite sediba's advanced features (it's been long debated as to whether it's australopithecine or Homo) its young date has always been an problem for those arguing that it is the ancestor of Homo, and is why afarensis is still seen as the most likely ancestor.
Humans dated 2.8 million years ago?
Of course, by "humans" they are referring to the genus, Homo, and not the species Homo sapiens.
Sophisticated tools used by H. erectus?
Well, they should. They are the successors to H. habilis after all.
Neanderthal genes in modern humans?
Yes, not sure what the problem is supposed to be there.
Range of variation in Dmanisi overlapping H. erectus to modern humans?
There's nothing like modern humans at Dmanisi. The variety of finds at Dmanisi include most of the varieties of Homo that existed at that time - about 1.8 million years ago. It's a score for the lumpers, as opposed to the splitters who argue that there were 5 or more species of Homo at the time, but nothing there comes close to resembling a modern human.
A. sediba is a mixture of Homo and Australopithecine remains in South Africa?
Yes, which is an issue for those who want to argue that there was some kind of jump or gap from Australopithecines to Homo. If the experts can't agree on whether it's Australopithecine or Homo, then how wide is the break? The same goes for this recent fossil find. It doesn't imply any gaps, just the opposite:
Prof Brian Villmoare of the University of Nevada in Las Vegas said the discovery makes a clear link between an iconic 3.2 million-year-old hominin (human-like primate) discovered in the same area in 1974, called "Lucy". Could Lucy's kind - which belonged to the species Australopithecus afarensis - have evolved into the very first primitive humans? "That's what we are arguing," said Prof Villmoare.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31718336goodusername_{March 5, 2015
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wd400, speaking of rigid falsification of a supposedly scientific theory, what specific, and rigid, demarcation/falsification criteria in Darwinism do you think would rigidly falsify Darwinism? And if no rigid falsification criteria can be found for Darwinism then why would you think any finding would falsify Darwinism?
Darwinism is a Pseudo-Science: The primary reasons why Darwinism is a pseudo-science instead of a proper science are as such: 1. No Rigid Mathematical Basis (Demarcation/Falsification Criteria) 2. No Demonstrated Empirical Basis 3. Random Mutation and Natural Selection are both grossly inadequate as ‘creative engines’ 4. Information is not reducible to a material basis, (in fact, in quantum teleportation it is found that material ultimately reduces to a information basis) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oaPcK-KCppBztIJmXUBXTvZTZ5lHV4Qg_pnzmvVL2Qw/edit
The main reason why Darwinian evolution is more properly thought of as a pseudo-science instead of a proper science is because Darwinian evolution has no rigid mathematical basis, like other overarching physical theories of science do. A rigid mathematical basis in order to potentially falsify it (in fact, in so far as math can be applied to Darwinian claims, mathematics constantly shows us that Darwinian evolution is astronomically unlikely),,
“On the other hand, I disagree that Darwin’s theory is as `solid as any explanation in science.; Disagree? I regard the claim as preposterous. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen or so decimal places; so, too, general relativity. A leaf trembling in the wrong way would suffice to shatter either theory. What can Darwinian theory offer in comparison?” - Berlinski, D., “A Scientific Scandal?: David Berlinski & Critics,” Commentary, July 8, 2003 Darwinians Try to Usurp Biomimetics Popularity - October 9, 2014 Excerpt: "it is remarkable, therefore, that formal mathematical, rather than verbal, proof of the fact that natural selection has an optimizing tendency was still lacking after a century and a half later.",,, More importantly, its proponents are still struggling, a century and a half after Darwin, to provide evidence and the mathematical formalism to demonstrate that random natural processes have the creative power that Darwin, Dawkins, and others claim it has. Everyone already knows that intelligent causes have such creative power. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/10/darwinians_try090231.html Active Information in Metabiology – Winston Ewert, William A. Dembski, Robert J. Marks II – 2013 Except page 9: Chaitin states [3], “For many years I have thought that it is a mathematical scandal that we do not have proof that Darwinian evolution works.” In fact, mathematics has consistently demonstrated that undirected Darwinian evolution does not work.,, Consistent with the laws of conservation of information, natural selection can only work using the guidance of active information, which can be provided only by a designer. http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2013.4/BIO-C.2013.4
Chaitin is quoted, by Marks, at 10:00 minute mark of following video in regards to Darwinism lack of a mathematical proof - Dr. Marks also comments on the honesty of Chaitin in personally admitting that his long sought after mathematical proof for Darwinian evolution failed to deliver the goods.
On Algorithmic Specified Complexity by Robert J. Marks II - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No3LZmPcwyg&feature=player_detailpage#t=600 WHAT SCIENTIFIC IDEA IS READY FOR RETIREMENT? Evolution is True - Roger Highfield - January 2014 Excerpt:,,, Whatever the case, those universal truths—'laws'—that physicists and chemists all rely upon appear relatively absent from biology. Little seems to have changed from a decade ago when the late and great John Maynard Smith wrote a chapter on evolutionary game theory for a book on the most powerful equations of science: his contribution did not include a single equation. http://www.edge.org/response-detail/25468 Pauli’s ideas on mind and matter in the context of contemporary science - Harald Atmanspacher Excerpt: “In discussions with biologists I met large difficulties when they apply the concept of ‘natural selection’ in a rather wide field, without being able to estimate the probability of the occurrence in a empirically given time of just those events, which have been important for the biological evolution. Treating the empirical time scale of the evolution theoretically as infinity they have then an easy game, apparently to avoid the concept of purposesiveness. While they pretend to stay in this way completely ‘scientific’ and ‘rational,’ they become actually very irrational, particularly because they use the word ‘chance’, not any longer combined with estimations of a mathematically defined probability, in its application to very rare single events more or less synonymous with the old word ‘miracle.’” Wolfgang Pauli (pp. 27-28) http://www.igpp.de/english/tda/pdf/paulijcs8.pdf “It is our contention that if ‘random’ is given a serious and crucial interpretation from a probabilistic point of view, the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and elucidation of new natural laws—physical, physico-chemical, and biological.” Murray Eden, “Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory,” Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, editors Paul S. Moorhead and Martin M. Kaplan, June 1967, p. 109.
Whereas nobody can seem to find 'universal truths' in Darwinism that can be tested against so as to potentially falsify Darwinism, ID does not suffer from such an embarrassing lack of scientific rigor:
"In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality." Karl Popper - The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014 edition), Routledge http://izquotes.com/quote/147518 It’s (Much) Easier to Falsify Intelligent Design than Darwinian Evolution – Michael Behe, PhD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T1v_VLueGk The Law of Physicodynamic Incompleteness - David L. Abel Excerpt: "If decision-node programming selections are made randomly or by law rather than with purposeful intent, no non-trivial (sophisticated) function will spontaneously arise." If only one exception to this null hypothesis were published, the hypothesis would be falsified. Falsification would require an experiment devoid of behind-the-scenes steering. Any artificial selection hidden in the experimental design would disqualify the experimental falsification. After ten years of continual republication of the null hypothesis with appeals for falsification, no falsification has been provided. The time has come to extend this null hypothesis into a formal scientific prediction: "No non trivial algorithmic/computational utility will ever arise from chance and/or necessity alone." https://www.academia.edu/9957206/The_Law_of_Physicodynamic_Incompleteness_Scirus_Topic_Page_
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wallstreeter43, What in the jawbone do you think should falsify "darwinism"? And (for anyone) why should Homo overlapping with Australopithecus be a problem?wd400_{March 5, 2015
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How anyone can take these muppets seriously I don't know. What a load of baloney. If these science terrorists would only admit to the world what many have already discovered, that being they don't know squat, will science move forward. Only once these anti scientific anti human philosophies are stripped away will science be able to flourish once again.humbled_{March 5, 2015
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What we see here is that Darwinian evolution is non falsifiable. When the fossil evidence speaks out against it they will say that it's a result of poor fossil record and twhn proceed to take a rain check on the fossil record while proclaiming Darwinian evolution a scientific fact . Nice links BA77 I'll have some good reading to do while getting over the flu :)wallstreeter43_{March 5, 2015
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as to sediba
Australopithecus sediba: The Hype-Cycle Starts Again – Casey Luskin – September 2011 Excerpt: So leading paleoanthropologists like Bernard Wood, Donald Johanson, Fred Spoor, Ian Tattersal, and Tim White aren’t convinced that Au. sediba was a human ancestor, but the media believes it’s perfectly acceptable to promote the opposite view to the public.,,, A final problem with the claims being made about Au. sediba is related the paleoanthropologist who found the fossils himself. Science reports that he formerly had a career as a TV news producer and has a tendency to overstate his findings:,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/09/australopithecus_sediba_the_hy050831.html Missing link fossil a “hotchpotch,” “may never have existed” - April 2014 Excerpt: The fossils of Australopithecus sediba, which promised to rewrite the story of human evolution, may actually be the remains of two species jumbled together. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/missing-link-fossil-a-hotchpotch-may-never-have-existed/ The Fall of Australopithecus sediba: Controversy and the Quest for Glory Cloud Claims of Human Ancestry - Casey Luskin - June 12, 2013 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/06/the_fall_of_aus073211.html Human ancestry declared to be still an enduring puzzle - David Tyler - June 10, 2013 Excerpt: "Given the mix of features seen in A. sediba, it is difficult to understand why these researchers insist that it lies at the base of the Homo lineage. Similar intellectual gymnastics are required to comprehend the authors' argument that no African Homo fossils exist from before the time of A. sediba. Although the recent papers constitute a fascinating further analysis of the A. sediba fossils, I do not think that they provide compelling evidence that this species is anything other than an unusual australopith from a Pliocene-Pleistocene time period that is already populated by a fair number of them." - William H. Kimbel - Hesitation on hominin history - Nature, 497, 573-574 (30 May 2013) http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2013/06/10/human_ancestry_declared_to_be_still_an_e
Here is a excellent summary of Casey Luskin's research (up to 2012) finding that the claims for human evolution in the fossil record are almost always (very) over-hyped. (as well the articles have excellent pointers exposing the less than forthright debating tactics of Darwinists, (such as shifting the burden of proof for one less than forthright tactic), when they debate human evolution with someone who doubts that it occurred:
How do Theistic Evolutionists Explain the Fossil Record and Human Origins? - Casey Luskin - September 14, 2012 Excerpt: In six recent articles (see the links at right), I have argued that the fossil record does not support the evolution of ape-like species into human-like species. Rather, hominin fossils generally fall into two distinct groups: ape-like species and human-like species, with a large, unbridged gap between them.,,, Third, not all paleontologists agree with Kidder that the lack of transitional fossils is simply the result of the unsophisticated (and all-too-easy) excuse the fossil record is poor. Consider what paleontologist Niles Eldredge and paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersal (who are both committed evolutionists) co-wrote in a book on human origins: "The record jumps, and all the evidence shows that the record is real: the gaps we see reflect real events in life's history -- not the artifact of a poor fossil record." (Niles Eldredge and Ian Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution, p. 59 (NY: Columbia University Press, 1982).) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/09/how_do_theistic_1064301.html
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