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Genetic Mutations Allowed Humans To Be Artistic

Makarand writes "Most anthropologists believe that the transformations which allowed humans to think and behave in a recognisably modern fashion happened gradually and were a result of demographic and cultural changes. However, according to an expert on human origins at Stanford University these transformations have a biological explanation and were not gradual. According to his theory 50,000 years ago genetic mutations resulted in a creativity gene that led to the development of the modern mind and started a cultural revolution by triggering biological changes in the brain and vastly improving the human ability to communicate. Evidence in support of such a theory has been found in the form of FOXP2, a gene proven to affect the ability of learning and processing language and which in its mutated form can result in speech and language impediments. Also, the human FOXP2 differs only slightly from similar genes in chimpanzees, mice and other animals."

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  1. Why should I believe this theory? by Tyreth · · Score: 1, Offtopic
    I have a question for evolutionists who quote dating techniques. I have never had an answer to this. Consider the following:
    1. There are a few techniques for measuring old dates (say, 4000 years and older, including upwards of millions of years).
    2. These techniques are not accurate for young objects, such as dates taken from recent volcanic activity
    3. Because these techniques are only recently employed, they have not been tested on anything we know is old to prove they work.
    4. They are untestable because we have no objects we are certain are, say, 60000 years old except by these techniques. Therefore we cannot test these techniques on anything within range.
    5. These techniques are based on the assumption that breakdown, injection of elements, etc, continues at a constant rate.

    Now consider that there is one test we can employ - dating objects we know the date of. Eg, a recent lava flow. Consider potassion-argon (K-Ar) dating. In a young flow (eg 1948-49) there should be too little argon in the sample to provide an accurate date. It follows logically then, that if enough argon is discovered to place it's date within the accurate date of a K-Ar then the method must be inaccurate.

    Let me make this clear for Black Parrot - I know K-Ar cannot accurately measure a sample 50 years old. And the reason is because there should be too little argon. So if enough argon is present to form a date, then the assumptions that K-Ar is based on are invalid. Now consider a volcano that is discovered by explorers in 1970. It had last erupted in 1920, but they had no idea. They took some samples which showed the flow to be 1.2 million years ago. Because they are certain their testing is accurate, they will never understand that it may be incorrect.

    Now here is an article which demonstrates what I said above: here

    So my question is, if K-Ar fails when it can be tested, and produces an age of 0.27-3.5 million years old for something that is _known_ to be young, then why should I trust the dates given in contemporary science?

    If I am to take evolution seriously, then this question must first be answered. Forget anything else, lets talk about this.