Cavemen?

[Dr_GS_Hurd]

Howdy Angela, First off, Tacitus, and Josephus wrote long after the supposed events, and they wrote about the claims, beliefs and practices of the early Christians. Saying that there are people who think they were abducted by UFO aliens does not provide evidence that there are UFO aliens.

Second, we have excavated the skeletons of hundreds of Neanderthals. Some were in fact very old, and infirm people. From this we conclude that the Neanderthal were interested, and able to care for each other.

The origin of agriculture was about 11,000 years ago. The origin of writing was about 8,000 years ago.

I suggest

Schmandt-Besserat, Denise
1992 Before Writing Volume I: From counting to cuneiform Austin: University of Texas Press

I lived in Yucatan for several years. Which ruins did you visit? Here is a photo of a solar shadow alignment from California I and my students discovered in 2000.



This shadow "arrow" only happens at the winter solstice. There are no reasons that humans cannot be as smart thousands of years ago as we are today. They were limited by the lack of a written record.

 

[Dr_GS_Hurd]

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...

Actually this is not a hard question. Blood.

The earliest bacteria with a heme (iron plus some amino acids) based distribution of oxygen used it to remove oxygen from their cells. It was poison to them. Later organisms (over a billion years later) reversed the process and used oxygen to isolate the electrical charge of hydrogen. Still later, more complex animals used a protein attached to heme that could drop an oxygen and pick-up a carbon dioxide in low oxygen conditions, and drop the CO2 and pick-up an O2 in high oxygen conditions. This was the first "blood." We can still study the modern descendents of those ancient critters. Many have a form of blood, without needing any heart. Simple muscle action related to crawling, or swimming provides the motive force to circulate the blood.

The most primitive heart is a muscle surrounding the only blood vessel the critter has. A single one-way flow valve was a much later refinement found today in some worms.

 

[Timeline]

Hi Straightshot,
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.

You make some good points here. It would be difficult to "connect the dots" of evolution (if it were actually true), but scientists are saying that they have enough information to prove, beyond a doubt, that this process is happening. But, from what I've seen, they have fourteen (mostly reconstructed) skulls that they present to the world. I think most of us can agree that alterations occur, such as height, color of skin, color of hair, color of eyes, skeletal structure, etc.. Y'all are just going to find a lot more evidence before we will believe that one species will evolve into another species. And even then, you have a difficult task because we believe that y'all have an agenda (to lend credit to the opinion that there is no God) AND this claim contradicts what we believe to be the inspired Word of God.

 

[JackH]

I think most of us can agree that alterations occur, such as height, color of skin, color of hair, color of eyes, skeletal structure, etc..

So Timeline, can you give me a timeline of the oldest civilizations and reconcile that with the Bible under a 6,000-year-old time constraint?

I'm thinking civilizations in Sumer, Egypt, Africa, China, and Mexico.

Now, YECs generally say that the various languages developed instantaneous at the Tower of Babel. What year do you associate with that event? Bishop Ussher's date or thereabouts?

So those at the Tower of Babel went off throughout the world and formed these other civilizations? Is that your conclusion?

And they became other races and that took how long, approximately? How many hundreds or thousands of years?

 

[Straightshot]

"You make some good points here. It would be difficult to "connect the dots" of evolution (if it were actually true), but scientists are saying that they have enough information to prove, beyond a doubt"


It is true

.... they do not

 

[JackH]

"You make some good points here. It would be difficult to "connect the dots" of evolution (if it were actually true), but scientists are saying that they have enough information to prove, beyond a doubt"


It is true

.... they do not

Why don't you take a stab at the questions I asked about civilizations about 5 minutes before you posted this?

 

[john832]

I am still wondering about the mountains of fossil evidence of intermediate species.

 

[JesusIsAll]

Actually this is not a hard question. Blood.

The earliest bacteria with a heme (iron plus some amino acids) based distribution of oxygen used it to remove oxygen from their cells. It was poison to them. Later organisms (over a billion years later) reversed the process and used oxygen to isolate the electrical charge of hydrogen. Still later, more complex animals used a protein attached to heme that could drop an oxygen and pick-up a carbon dioxide in low oxygen conditions, and drop the CO2 and pick-up an O2 in high oxygen conditions. This was the first "blood." We can still study the modern descendents of those ancient critters. Many have a form of blood, without needing any heart. Simple muscle action related to crawling, or swimming provides the motive force to circulate the blood.

The most primitive heart is a muscle surrounding the only blood vessel the critter has. A single one-way flow valve was a much later refinement found today in some worms.

Ridiculous. I just don't know what to say about such a clumsy fantasy and fabrication, to try and get around huge irreducible complexities, which exist even in your worm. Just ridiculous.

 

[JesusIsAll]

I am still wondering about the mountains of fossil evidence of intermediate species.

Pretty amazing, isn't it? The way they tell it, you'd think you'd be finding evidence of transitional forms while gardening, and hybrid stages living. Now, just where did they all go? DUH!

 

[JackH]

I am still wondering about the mountains of fossil evidence of intermediate species.

Why in your 6,000-year-old world would you consider any evidence offered of transitional fossils when you have stated that there is absolutely nothing that could cause you to deviate from a 6,000-year-old world?

Despite the mountain of evidence that the world is older than 6,000 years.

 

[john832]

Why in your 6,000-year-old world would you consider any evidence offered of transitional fossils when you have stated that there is absolutely nothing that could cause you to deviate from a 6,000-year-old world?

Despite the mountain of evidence that the world is older than 6,000 years.

Help me out here, if man is the product of evolution and the earth is 4-1/2 billion years old, where is all the evidence of transitional, intermediate species? There should be TONS upon TONS of it.

In other words...

'Show me the money!'

 

[john832]

Pretty amazing, isn't it? The way they tell it, you'd think you'd be finding evidence of transitional forms while gardening, and hybrid stages living. Now, just where did they all go? DUH!

We should be tripping over it everywhere we go. I keep asking for evidence but...

 

[JesusIsAll]

We should be tripping over it everywhere we go. I keep asking for evidence but...

Well, hope you're not holding your breath; though, come to think of it, that may be a way to go to be with Jesus sooner.

 

[Dr_GS_Hurd]

I am still wondering about the mountains of fossil evidence of intermediate species.

If your question is about our human ancestors, there are comprehensive lists, but in print or behind 'paywalls' as far as I know. The individual museums and universities have catalogs of their material. See for example Fossils | The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program

Wikipedia keeps a list of the more visually attractive or "important" from an evolutionary viewpoint human fossils, List of human evolution fossils - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

African Fossils has a very interesting website on their fossils mostly from Lake Turkana in East Africa. Search | African Fossils

 

[john832]

If your question is about our human ancestors, there are comprehensive lists, but in print or behind 'paywalls' as far as I know. The individual museums and universities have catalogs of their material. See for example Fossils | The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program

Wikipedia keeps a list of the more visually attractive or "important" from an evolutionary viewpoint human fossils, List of human evolution fossils - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

African Fossils has a very interesting website on their fossils mostly from Lake Turkana in East Africa. Search | African Fossils

Many very interesting and convincing pieces in the Smithsonian collection. This one sealed the deal for me...

And this one made me a believer...

 

[john832]

One would assume the Smithsonian would put there best and most convincing evidence on there website, and so they did...

 

[john832]

From the Smithsonian website...

Built for the cold
Neanderthals of Europe, who had evolved by about 200,000 years ago, had to endure winter cold and even ice ages. A short, broad body shape helps to retain heat, which is useful in cold environments like those inhabited by Neanderthals. The lower arm and leg bones in this Neanderthal skeleton are short compared to the upper arm and leg bones, a feature that also reduced heat loss. This skeleton is reconstructed based on La Ferrassie 1 and Kebara 1.

Ah, a reconstructed composite?

 

[john832]

We ought to be finding complete skeletons by the truck loads, no by the cargo ship loads in our back yards for all the intermediates that had to live between the ancestor and modern man.

 

[JesusIsAll]

Many very interesting and convincing pieces in the Smithsonian collection. This one sealed the deal for me...

And this one made me a believer...

Well, one look at the second one and I see a clear progression of monkey men, gradually learning to stand up straight and put their shoulders back, like in all the textbooks. Don't blame anybody else you don't have the intellectual acumen to extrapolate a T. Rex from a petrified finger nail clipping.

 

[john832]

Apparently the idea was first proposed by Empedocles 2500 years ago. That's a long time. I would have thought a great deal of evidence would have been uncovered in that length of time. Instead we find a few shards of questionable authenticity.