Cavemen?

[JackH]

Why have none of the many experts on humans that posted here shown us the deciding line between human and non-human?

View attachment 92190

Just let me know.

Which of those skulls belong to Young Earth Creationists?

I haven't seen anybody really answer the question.

Some say it's ethics.

This woman has an interesting perspective:

"And, in case anyone wonders at my own personal view: I believe that humans are the ultimate generalists, creatures that may lack specific talents or physical adaptations that have been finely honed in other species, but whose additional brain power enables them — in an exquisite manner — to, for example, integrate information, improvise with what is present, and alter or adapt to a wide range of environments…but that this additional brain power is (and provides) a quantitative, not qualitative difference."

Edge.org

 

[Dr_GS_Hurd]

There's a very abrupt ... Difference between L and M... It looks like they all have the same " designer " though. I see no evolving, they look like mixed up bones. Out of all the bones in the world, I'm sure you guys can paint a pretty picture then this... Dr.

Those are both Neanderthals.

Here is a page that might help: Human Evolution by The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program

 

[Brainfreeze]

I never said either looked human I said there's a big difference, so how long and where from both were found ?

 

[john832]

The Pontifical Academy of Sciences does not support a 6,000-year-old world and global flood and maintains that evolution is compatible with the creation account.

Well, I am very happy for them. What has that got to do with the truth?

 

[JackH]

Well, I am very happy for them. What has that got to do with the truth?

I would hope that The Pontifical Academy of Sciences would tell the Poop 'er I mean Pope that his recent statement that evolution does not conflict with the Bible is nonsense. That is who the Pope gave the speech to a week or two ago.

It is not necessary, in my opinion (and apparently that of the Pope), to pit science against religion.

But you YECs seem rather obsessive-compulsive about doing exactly that.

 

[john832]

Regarding Lucy or Australopithecus: Lucy is a 3 1/2 foot tall skeleton found by Dr. Donald Johanson in 1974. According to Johanson it was


the oldest most complete skelton of any human ancestor known to anthropoligists. It is supposed to give us a good idea of what our ancestors looked like 3 million years ago. Too bad it looks just like a chimpanzee skeleton.


The main reason Lucy is supposed to be a missing link in the chain demonstrating our evolution from monkey to man is because supposedly her hip bone and knee bone structure indicate she walked upright like a man.


There are two BIG problems with this assumption:


1. There are monkeys in the world today which walk upright and aren't considered a missing link. The pygmy chimp for example in the Amazon Jungle.


2. The knee bone of Lucy was not found with the rest of her skeleton. It was found over a MILE away and 200 FEET DEEPER than the rest of the bones!!! What! I can just imagine this, "Well, we can't find a knee for her around here, but Bob found one way over there, let's just put the two together and it will even look like she walked upright."


Ramapithecus, found in 1976, which was only the fragment of a jaw and several teeth was put forth as a missing link and turned out to be an orangutan.

Piltdown Man was a human skull combined with the jaw of an orangutan collected in 1912 from a gravel pit at Piltdown, a village near Uckfield, East Sussex, in England. The teeth were filed down to make the fossil look more human. This was a fraud that fooled evolutionists for 40 years.

Neanderthal Man was a more than one fossil found that was stooped over and therefore classified as a missing link. But it was later discovered they were stooped over because of a bone disease like rickets. They are now classified as normal humans.

Nebraska Man was made up based off of one tooth found in 1921!! Turned out to be the tooth of an extinct pig.

from: False missing links again and again and again...


Just thinking logically, if there were evolutionary links between some ancient primates and humans, shouldn't there be skeletal and fossil remains EVERYWHERE? There had to be an unbelievable amount of intermediate species leaving behind a staggering fossil record.

Where are they?

 

[JackH]

the oldest most complete skelton of any human ancestor known to anthropoligists

Interesting choice of words.

Ones that I don't recognize.

But tell me, you believe that there were no humans prior to around 6,000 years ago?

Because if that is your pre-conceived notion, which you absolutely refuse to deviate from, these conversations will never go anywhere.

 

[Angela53510]

Here is the problem as it pertains to stories in the Bible about Jesus. They might only be stories. We have no verification that any of it is true. There are few, to no, first hand accounts of Jesus in scripture. Are you able to provide just one example, Kerry, of a first hand account? I won't ask for a second unless you can give me a first.

Sorry to go off on a rabbit trail, but Cycel seems to want some essential info, and to the best of my reading no-one answered him.

Try Tacitus, the Roman historian and Josephus, the Jewish Historian. Both mentioned him in contemporaneous writings. It wasn't a lot, but then, no one knew he was the Son of God and would turn the world upside down in those days. At least in literary company.

You might want to read "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel, which documents all this information.

As for Neanderthal, my understanding was the bent over carriage was due to arthritis. Seeing as I suffer from severe Rheumatoid Arthritis, I can understand how this would happen without the medications we have today. I have met two med resistant people with RA, and they were bent over and could barely walk. I don't think they found many skeletons, did they?

And what happened to those cave paintings in France? While I disagree with the early dating, these paintings are certainly evidence that early humans tried to communicate and draw about their environment.

I do find it revealing that almost all civilizations around the globe suddenly sprang into being about the same time - 6000 or so years ago. Writing, agriculture, even building structures are similar.

I just visited a pyramid in Mexico in the Yucatan peninsula, and the amazing thing was how advanced the astronomy and mathematics was in constructing the buildings to be aligned with the sun rising.

And those were built between 600 and 900 AD. So somewhere, they learned advanced science and mathematics, which didn't exist elsewhere, except ancient cultures like Egypt and Babylon. Same with the Aztecs in central Mexico.

But I guess early architectural similarities is another thread. Except for the digressions to plate tectonics. Certainly the earth divided, and humans all lived in one place. And we have continued to devolve since the flood, no doubt about it.

Lots of evidence for being created perfect, and gradually devolving. Not so much for evolution to a different species, in spite of Dr. Hurd's attempts at fossil head pictures to the contrary!

 

[JesusIsAll]

The epitaph, for the headstone of atheistic evolution, even were they to have an answer where the something from nothing came from that turned into primordial slime,

Which evolved first, the heart or the blood? If the heart did, and there was no blood, why was a heart necessary? If the blood did, where would it go and what would it do?

There's a lot of truth in that blood...

 

[john832]

Interesting choice of words.

Ones that I don't recognize.

But tell me, you believe that there were no humans prior to around 6,000 years ago?

No, I don't believe that, I know it for a fact.

Because if that is your pre-conceived notion, which you absolutely refuse to deviate from, these conversations will never go anywhere.

You are correct there, I will NEVER deviate from it and there is no chance in the world that ANY conversation will change my mind concerning the creation of man.

 

[john832]

Interesting choice of words.

Ones that I don't recognize.

But tell me, you believe that there were no humans prior to around 6,000 years ago?

Because if that is your pre-conceived notion, which you absolutely refuse to deviate from, these conversations will never go anywhere.

I don't believe that it is a preconceived notion that there should be mountains of evidence of intermediate species, I think that is only a logical fact. Again, my question is...

Where are they?

 

[Straightshot]

"Because if that is your pre-conceived notion, which you absolutely refuse to deviate from, these conversations will never go anywhere."


Because John knows the related scriptures taken together on this vital understanding .... and he believes that the Bible is in fact the Word of the living God

.... He needs nothing else

 

[JesusIsAll]

I do find it revealing that almost all civilizations around the globe suddenly sprang into being about the same time - 6000 or so years ago. Writing, agriculture, even building structures are similar.

I remember in school the scientists would teach things like adaptation, Eskimos have more eye fat for dealing with the cold, dark skinned people were out in the sun too much, light skinned people were out in the sun too little, on and on... adapting to the environment. But then, you get into the good old history class, and recorded civilization is popping up all over the world, in some few thousands of years B.C. time frames. So, all these races evolved and adapted over Carl Sagan's billions and billions of years, to all get around to writing, about the same time? Just as a snotty kid, it seemed one or the other was lying, and I had to go with the written record that actually exists. Historians don't fool around with comic books.

 

[john832]

Interesting choice of words.

Ones that I don't recognize.

But tell me, you believe that there were no humans prior to around 6,000 years ago?

Because if that is your pre-conceived notion, which you absolutely refuse to deviate from, these conversations will never go anywhere.

Just to be clear, I was quoting a website that I cited (? that doesn't sound right, does it?) and take no credit for the observation. (Credit where credit is due.)

 

[JackH]

"Because if that is your pre-conceived notion, which you absolutely refuse to deviate from, these conversations will never go anywhere."


Because John knows the related scriptures taken together on this vital understanding .... and he believes that the Bible is in fact the Word of the living God

.... He needs nothing else

But you believe that the earth is billions of years old, right?

And you believe that dinosaurs existed millions of years ago, right?

But you agree with John about humans only being in existence for around 6,000 years, but not on the age of the earth and dinosaurs, right?

A Yes or No answer will suffice.

 

[Straightshot]

You already know my answer

Of course the universe is greatly aged .... and all one has to do is look around

.... and so the Word of God agrees [2 Peter 3]

And yes .... there is a period of scriptural silence between Genesis 1:1 ...... and Genesis 1:2 .... judgment ensued

The biblical record tells of the human presence on a recondition earth beginning about 6000 years ago

.... the dinos were not replaced .... and neither were the other planets of the universe reconditioned from judgment

So you have your unconditional yes

.... and info for others who might look on

 

[JackH]

I do find it revealing that almost all civilizations around the globe suddenly sprang into being about the same time - 6000 or so years ago. Writing, agriculture, even building structures are similar.

What specifically are "almost all civilizations" you are speaking of? That all sprang into being around 6,000 years ago.

And after the global flood they were all destroyed? And they were established a second time?

 

[Cycel]

You are off the mark, but I don't think you are aware of it.

Can you prove this thing you think Cycel

No .... you cannot

You did not respond to a single thing I said. I provided an elaborate argument. For your convenience I will repost:

You are off the mark, but I don't think you are aware of it. Creationists often think of evolution as being like a ladder with humans at the top, at the very pinnacle of creation. Because they see life as a hierarchy they expect that if evolution is true then there must be missing links, ie. missing steps on the ladder leading to man. However, evolution is better understood not as a ladder, but as a bush with many diverging branches. What this means is that one species does not arrive at the very moment another one disappears, rather any given lineage will continuously branch as it morphs, and each line will head in any number of directions.

Our own human lineage is perhaps one of the best examples of this branching and slow morphing from one phenotype to another, and should be easy – especially easy – for a creationist to understand. Start with Noah and his seven sons. From that phenotype, whatever it was, they then evolved into all the racial types we find in the world today, from Africa through the Middle East, into India and Asia, to Australia and North and South America and throughout Europe, north to south.

I don’t need to point out the obvious physical differences between an African Pygmy and someone from Japan or a Nordic Swede. That they all evolved from a single phenotype into the variety that now exists is as much a requirement of the Genesis flood story, as it is of evolution. However, should I now ask you to provide the missing link between any of these three, can you do it? Can you show me a missing link between the African Pygmy and someone from the island of Japan? Do you see the difficulty in such a request? First, you are not looking for a missing link, but rather you must search for a common ancestor of the two. Can you find it? You know a common ancestor must exist if the biblical flood account is true, so point me to the fossil of that common ancestor. Now, if you find it, you must locate a series of further fossils demonstrating the progression from that centre point to each of the two end stages (Pygmy and Japanese) to prove that the two are actually connected.

You have an hypothesis based upon your understanding of Genesis that the Pygmy and the Japanese are related to one another, but prove to me these were not two separate creation events by establishing a fossil trail. You expect this of anyone promoting evolution, so prove your own claim the same way. Do you see the difficulty? There really are no missing links. There are only common ancestors and slow progressions as one phenotype transforms gradually into another.

How about addressing the facts I raised?

 

[Cycel]

I remember in school the scientists would teach things like adaptation, Eskimos have more eye fat for dealing with the cold

You are speaking, I think, of the epicanthic fold which is present in certain geographic populations, particularly in Asian populations and those who are descended from them, such as the native Americans, and most strongly in the Eskimo population (Inuit is the name they prefer). Notice, however, that it is also present in some of the most northerly European populations (see Wikipedia: Epicanthic Fold).

What’s your view on this? If all humans are descended from Noah and his seven sons then did these features (and many others, including skin colour) arise only later, presumably as a result of evolutionary adaptation?

Note: Evolution does not always have to be adaptive. Physical features can also change randomly through mutations that have little bearing upon survivability.

... dark skinned people were out in the sun too much, light skinned people were out in the sun too little, on and on... adapting to the environment.

It comes down to UV exposure.

So, all these races evolved and adapted over Carl Sagan's billions and billions of years, to all get around to writing, about the same time?

Oh my goodness, no. Sagan’s comment about billions and billions was directed at the number of stars in the universe. The scientific claim is that humanity originated only about 200,000 years ago.

 

[Dr_GS_Hurd]

Regarding Lucy or Australopithecus: Lucy is a 3 1/2 foot tall skeleton found by Dr. Donald Johanson in 1974. According to Johanson it was


the oldest most complete skelton of any human ancestor known to anthropoligists. It is supposed to give us a good idea of what our ancestors looked like 3 million years ago. Too bad it looks just like a chimpanzee skeleton.

I don't know where you took this "quote" from, but I suspect it is from a creationist website. That is because it is untrue. The "Lucy" skeleton is one of the better preserved fossils of her time, but was neither the oldest, nor most complete. The most obvious falsehood is that the Australopithecus afarensis "looks just like a chimpanzee skeleton." The errors in that statement are of such a massive nature that I must conclude they are from a creationist. There are massive differences in the skull of an Aus. afarensis and a chimp, particularly obvious on the angle of the foremen magnum, and the orientation of the occipital condyles. Then there is the huge difference in the angle of the femoral head to the diaphysis. These variations clearly mark Aus. afarensis as an upright walking critter, and millions of years away from the Chimps.

The main reason Lucy is supposed to be a missing link in the chain demonstrating our evolution from monkey to man is because supposedly her hip bone and knee bone structure indicate she walked upright like a man.

First, the notion that there is a specific "direct line" from the other apes to modern humans is incompetent. It just isn't how evolution worked. However, it would have been physically impossible for the Aus. afarensis to have knuckle walked like the Chimps still do.

There are two BIG problems with this assumption:

It is not an assumption. It is a conclusion based on evidence and rational thought.

1. There are monkeys in the world today which walk upright and aren't considered a missing link. The pygmy chimp for example in the Amazon Jungle.

I really am trying hard not to ridicule this gross display of ignorance. I am failing.

There are no chimpanzees in "the Amazon Jungle." The "pigmy chimp"is presumably the bonobo, or Pan paniscus. The do not walk upright. They are no more a "missing link" than the Western Chimps, Pan troglodytes. No chimp. or any other ape can be a "missing link." For one thing, they are hardly missing. More importantly, we humans are not descendents of the Chimps. That would be directly contradicted by evolutionary biology. We did share a common ancestor in the distant past. That makes us at most very very distant cousins.

2. The knee bone of Lucy was not found with the rest of her skeleton. It was found over a MILE away and 200 FEET DEEPER than the rest of the bones!!! What! I can just imagine this, "Well, we can't find a knee for her around here, but Bob found one way over there, let's just put the two together and it will even look like she walked upright."

This is actually a lie. There is no other way to describe it. It is simply untrue. What is true is that we have recovered over 300 different individuals from the Aus. afarensis. They range in time for hundreds of thousands of years, and vary considerably by age, and sex.

Ramapithecus

, found in 1976, which was only the fragment of a jaw and several teeth was put forth as a missing link and turned out to be an orangutan.

Another lie popular with creationists. The "Ramapithicus" was named from a jaw discovered in 1938. In the late 1960s is was suggested as a human ancestor. This was soon rejected based on genetic studies of surviving apes, and more accurate dating of the age of the fossils. (They are too old to be human ancestors). More fossils excavated in the 1970s showed they had less similarity to early man, and were actually part of the already named "Sivopithecus."

Piltdown Man

was a human skull combined with the jaw of an orangutan collected in 1912 from a gravel pit at Piltdown, a village near Uckfield, East Sussex, in England. The teeth were filed down to make the fossil look more human. This was a fraud that fooled evolutionists for 40 years.

Piltdown Man was an elaborate fraud perpetrated against science. It was initially rejected, but eventually gained some support. It was exposed as a fraud by the first successful application of radiometric dating. This fraud was actually an impediment to evolutionary theory, and we are glad scientists exposed it.

Neanderthal Man

was a more than one fossil found that was stooped over and therefore classified as a missing link. But it was later discovered they were stooped over because of a bone disease like rickets. They are now classified as normal humans.

We have remains of hundreds of Neanderthals. We have also the recently completed DNA genome of the Neanderthals. They were most definitely not "normal humans."

Nebraska Man

was made up based off of one tooth found in 1921!! Turned out to be the tooth of an extinct pig.

The history of "Nebraska Man" as a creationist fraud is far longer than its history as a human. It really deserves a full exposure. See: Creationist Arguments: Nebraska Man