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Oldest Modern Humans Found
DrLudicrous writes "Anthropologists have reconstructed and dated three skulls from Ethiopia that they believe to be the oldest anatomically modern human skulls in existance. They date to 160,000 years ago, in agreement with genetic studies that pin the arrival of modern humans to at least 150,000 years ago. The skulls also demonstrate evidence of ritual burial." UC Berkeley has the original release as well.
Ethiopia? Didn't humans come from the Philippines?
It's time to revise the Bible again! Damn science, it makes my work so much harder.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
Strom Thurmond's head?
Not that hominids, though, arrived considerably earlier than this... what's the latest figure? somewhere in the 4 million range? Some of them wren't exactly dumb either; neanderthals, in fact, are supposed to have had more brain mass than humans did/do.
How come there are modern human and non-modern?
What's next?
newmodern?
gerymodern?
Crux?
Bluecurve?
-- Hasbullah bin Pit (sebol)
along with the skulls are some tools, and their way of burial is more than a simple "covering up with dirt and let's move on", which sort of indicates these ancestors are pretty smart and know what they were doing.
are we going to discover even earlier "modern" human remains in order to find out how we really came from??
What they din't tell you is they also found remains of a time machine, indicating that they are from people from the 31st century
Now ware did I put my tin-foil hat
Modern humans. Come on, think before you post.
The Herto skulls were not found with other bones from the rest of the bodies, which is unusual, White said, leading the researchers to infer that the people "were moving the heads around on the landscape. They probably cut the muscles and broke the skull bases of some skulls to extract the brain, but why, whether as part of a cannibalistic ritual, we have no way of knowing."
I was rather surprised by the possibility of ritualistic brain-eating amongst the earliest ancestors of our species. Maybe they were extracting the brains not for appetizers, but for the same reasons Egyptians removed the brains prior to mummification: so that dead would not be encumbered by the useless grey gunk inside their head on the journey to the afterlife.
You think it's confusing now? Wait until we get the postmodern humans. I shiver at the idea of self-referential genetics.
They've been dead 160,000 years -- what's another couple days?
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Personally, I don't know if they are that old...i've heard that those dating techinques fail alot...kinda like mine :-D
Also found with the body, a rock tablet pecking stone. Scientists will never be sure what the writing on the tablet means, but have surmised that it was either the etchings of a madman, or the first failed attempt at hand writing recognition software, ancient ancestor to the newton. :)
(age > 6000) + "years"
Too many digits.
Some even weigh 800 lb. They own insane amounts of cash. These gorillas control millions of supposedly more intelligent sapient humans.
Evidence of evolution is also seen in the computing industry. 30 years ago, smart humans sat in front of dumb terminals. These days dumb bimbos operate smart PCs.
At Slashdot, a few ninja monkeys....
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
hehe
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
Perhaps non-modern refers to homo-erectus, the first hominid which lived ~2 million years ago, whereas modern humans refers to homo-sapiens (you and I and most slashdot readers).
>> Haven't you heard? (Score:1) ;)
>>by arcite (661011) on Friday June 13, @02:34AM >>(#6188625)
>>God was a monkey.
If God Were alive you would have said:
God IS a monkey
Yay for Creationism! Turns out we were right after all.
I like how you said 'most slashdot readers'. Where do the others fit in? homo-dickus
If I point out that you are incorrect, making me a foe does not make you any more correct.
Yeah... and the next thing they'll come up with is that humans are descendants of apes...
Damn scientists!
p/s: Long time no see sebol... Remember me?
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
i refuse to believe my ancestors were
you know
"black"
Now we have an explaination for SCO!
Karma whorin' since 1999
that they believe to be the oldest anatomically modern human ... they date to 160,000 years ago
...
Come on Grandpa, you've been living off the state long enough now
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
GW Bush: Standing Stark Naked, Stirring a Hornet's Nest With a Stick
Is that, Okay, Great^n Grandpawas around 160,000 years ago, complete with stone tools and burial practices.
Yet Civilization only 'started 6-10,000 years ago.
Why does this just not quite add up to me. I mean, our ancestors were not stupid, they posessed the same intuition and logic that we do today. Whay did it take so long to get where we are now though?
Just food for thought.
You say you want a revolution....
God is not dead. It has evolved from animal to human.
No big surprise here, God was created by humans (for emotional support)
I think that the most important part of this discovery, though is that it pretty much rules out the descent of homo sapiens from homo neanderathalensis. I know that there was a lot of evidence of that, anyway, but this seems pretty conclusive.
Still, I think that more interesting discoveries would be from 5 million years ogo. In particular, I would like to see remains of the ancestors of Australopithecenes and Ardopithecenes which would support the evolution of modern chimpanzees and modern humans from a common ancestor.
http://yetanotherpoliticalrant.blogspot.com
There used to be a time when slashdot was on top of the news. I read about this on quite a few other sites over 2 days ago. Perhaps its time to get some other news posters eh?
OOG the Open Source caveman LIVES!!!
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
No, apes are descendants of humans. We just haven't discovered the joy of flinging poo, yet.
(alright alright, SOME of us haven't discovered yet)
I always thought this was the oldest fossil.
I wonder if they predate lawyers. Would tell us which way evolution has been going ever since.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
What was it, like 6 baud? Ah crap, I guess I'm the only one who thought that said "Oldest Modem Found".
So you must be one of those proponents to "God part of the brain" theory, yes? I understand it's purpose is for the cognitive mind to not break down psychologically to the mear thought of death. After all, just seeing something dead will for a moment give us a bit of fear due to self reflection to just how mortal we really are. In the end though, it doesn't matter. I believe there is a God. Something/s had to come from nothing. And that my friend, is a miracle unto itself.
Life is not for the lazy.
"Thats the exact same joke. Its just a damn popularity contest with you kids." - Superintendant Chalmers.
... oldest modern human food?
Uhh, Homo erectus was not the first hominid. Not by a long shot. Try Ardipithecus ramadis at 5 to 8 million years ago, or arguably something earlier. A. ramadis is most likely bipedal however, which is typically the criteria for early hominids.
If you were refering to the first in the Homo genus, that would be (in my opinion) Homo habilis or possibly Homo heidelburgensis. These were characterized by the earliest confirmed tool use (Homo habilis means "handy man"). These fellas were around for several hundred thousand years before H. erectus and H. ergaster.
Sorry about the lack of italicised names, I'm lazy.
Jeremy
Maybe myths of Atlantis and other advanced civilizations are true? For some reason they fell. Maybe this happens in cycles where humans get advanced and then nearly destroy themselves in the process. Then its back to the stone age. Your thoughts?
Oh, and to answer your half-question. There were also "archaic Homo sapiens" as a sort of intermediate between what we call anatomically modern Homo sapiens and H. erectus. Not a separate species, because they simply transitioned into us.
Jeremy
IANA geneticist, but I wonder whether some rapid evolution occurred amongst these small subgroups that gave modern humans the advantage over the Neanderthals?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
...Sees the term "oldest modern" shown in the headline as an oxymoron?
We just haven't discovered the joy of flinging poo, yet.
obviously missed a few presidential debates.
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
How long before someone gets Linux running on one of those??
Whoops. Good call. You are absolutely correct. I wasn't thinking. Homo rudolfensis is around then too. I wouldn't consider Homo heidelburgensis to be the first hominid, only because it came about so close to the evolutionary division which eventually resulted in Homo neandethalensis on one end, and Homo sapiens on the other. This subject is somewhat debatable, but the point is that they were after Austrolopithecus Garhi.
the humans had to wait for the copyrights and silly patents to expire. the Monkey Patenters Ass. of Ages Ago (MPAAA) had a way to stifle inovation.
Short 4 minute astronomy video clip here.. Homepage here. They deal with the Biblical material within an old universe model.
That's really going to irritate everyone in Kansas that fought to have evolutionary theories suppressed...
Ok, I'm thinking of Java man, from the island of Java. I must have learned this from grade school and I thought that was a silly name to call a primitive man, because it was coffee, right? So it must have stuck in my head that way, that primates came from Java, and I assumed they must have migrated to Africa and elsewhere. So apparently these primitive men can build ships and navigate waters too...
Was he buried? Or did they find him where he fell?
Scavengers would have made off with the rest of his body and left the skull (due to the lack of meat).
Error encountered in IAWebSig.clsSig.Create: Last Procedure: sPrc_Ins_tblSig
You would be annoyed if someone digged up your grave. It's disrespectful considering our current social norms.
But imagine a few years into the future, and someone digs up your corpse, and people there think it's ok.
Hmmm.
Pet peeve: Profane people propagating perfunctory pedantry.
Like why the hell would God put the genetic code for teeth in birds? Was God lazy? Was it an accident?
The "evolution vs. creation" section on that side explains the many creatures as things he did during the initial seven "days" (by the way, it says God is in his seventh day now, and is therefore resting, so quit bothering him, omnipotent beings get tired too, dont they?). So if a creature is found that didnt exist 160,000 years ago what other way can the vague first chapter of Genesis be stretched?
Read more here.
I used to get very annoyed with the "life must have come from comets or outer space" brigade. I felt that they had decided that "creation" on Earth wasn't feasible through natural terrestrial processes, so rather than accepting divine creation, they looked for life from a dirty snowball after millions of years in hard vaccum with no heat.
I have since realised that referring to God uses the same dodgy logic, as unless you step outside time, you then have to ask where God came from, and within what context does He exist?
Despite all this, I am a committed Christian and I know where I'm going when I die. The above question will be on my list of things to ask, that is probably part of the Pearly Gates FAQ...
"Homo sapiens (archaic) Discovered by villagers at Petralona in Greece in 1960. Estimated age is 250,000-500,000 years. It could alternatively be considered to be a late Homo erectus, and also has some Neandertal characteristics. The brain size is 1220 cc, high for erectus but low for sapiens, and the face is large with particularly wide jaws." Actually, the age was originally determined to be much older, 700,000-800,000 years, but there seems to be an organised program to discredit those findings, presumeably because it turns all the established theories on the origins of man on their head. However, even the most conservative estimates are still much older than the ethiopian finds.
Actually, the term hominid has become somewhat broader in recent years. Hominid is a derivative of Hominidae, the family once used to describe humans and their extinct relatives but now inclusive to the non-human great apes as well--both gorilla species, both orang-utan species, chimpanzees, and bonobos.
Humans and their relatives tend to be grouped in the subfamily Homininae these days. Thats where the term "hominin" comes in to play.
"The Herto skulls were not found with other bones from the rest of the bodies"
Too bad they can't count the ribs.
- "They misunderestimated me."
Over the years those who had the power (kings and churches) sought to enhance and secure their position by keeping the people dumb and manipulating them by altering passages from the bible in their favour.
[9F18] "... and the Lord said, Whack ye all the serpents which crawl on their bellies and thy town will be a beacon unto others. So you see Lisa, even God himself endorses whacking day."
And some archaic traits persist to today - see madonna's gappy smile!
If they "don't even know anymore what parts were actually in the original scripture" they how do they know they have changed?
Do you have any proof of your assertion that people changed the Scriptures to fit their needs, and those changes have not been caught and reversed?
Or is this more of the overly simplistic logic that starts by assuming the Bible is false and then procedes to construct some alternative scenario?
... that we're really the VHS of evolution, and killed out Betamax while it was still young? :)
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
There are small differences in manuscripts, but nothing that changes the theological doctrin of Christianity or Judaism.
Of course, since you say "Christianity is WRONG!!!!" all the Slashbots will give you their +1 mod points. If somebody where to say something equally stupid about science, they would get modded into the floor as a troll.
Slashdot moderators, get your heads out of your asses, your hands off your dicks, and think before you mindless moderate up bad comments.
I read there yesterday that there was no evidence that these early humans buried their dead and that the marks may have been from canabalism.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
How can anything that old still be modern? Haven't people got any taste? ;-)
I'd like to wait for the full report to be released but I've got some thoughts on this article.
There's too many conclusions drived from too little facts. How can a conclusion be derived about wether they used plants if only the Volcanic Layers and fossils were tested for age? There's no mention of testing or even finding any sort of plant material. Geology researchers (about 98% of them anyways) are not going to know or care about testing for this sort of thing.
Furthermore, there's no mention of attempting to re-create the environment that the fossils were found in based on geological tests, it seems that theories were based only on the fossils found. (At least that's what I get from the wording of the article). For all we know these fossils were moved from a different area/region/continent. The fossils were found bashed in. Was the bashing the result of being prey for a different, un-discovered predator?
Also, did anyone catch, near the end of the article, the following quote:
In this single study area, the team has found fossils dating from the present to more than 6 million years ago, painting a clear picture of human evolution from ape-like ancestors to present-day humans.
Is it me or is there something REALLY wrong in the fact that such a wide age range of fossils were found IN ONE STUDY AREA? I refuse to accept the fact that ALL of the fossils came from ONE area without some sort of assistance in reaching their final destination.
I did my U-Grad work in Archaeology and didn't pursue it because of these 'play in my sandbox or else' reserchers and their theories that never hold water.
Archeaologists/anthropologists seem to make their fame on either discoveries and their theories with the connection to human evolution or disproving said theories in research journals.
Dolemite
________________________
Save the World! Use a Quote!
A troll? It's a perfectly valid question.
:p
Anyhow.. First off, realize that the Old Testament (cue ominous music) ain't Christian/Catholic. It was, of course, pillaged from the Jews (aka, the Israelites).
Second, realize that the entirety of 'The Bible' has been mistranslated and purposefully modified for centuries now.
Add one, add two - and here's a theory. Genesis explains the creation of the Israelites (aka, the Jews, the Chosen of God, blah-di-blah). Not man itself.
As for myself, I don't believe that any living being was created by some random deity sneezing on a pile of dirt.
You are correct! I'm sorry I didn't finish reading before I posted the link(showes me to RTFA first!). I am aware of talk.origins website and lurk their newsgroup regularly.
(OTOH, they did have a nice physical comparison table, that was my original motivation)
Thank you for correcting me.
All that handling of other people's stones, probably...
The Bible says God created Man first, then took out one of his ribs to make Woman. Jehovah's Witnesses and probably some other groups still claim this as evidence for the biblical creation myth, even though there have been found enough women with 12 ribs and men with 14 to dilute the gender - rib count correlation.
What's to say that God didn't actually create Woman first, then cut off her willy to make Man?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
...seems the joke went way over someone's head, eh? :)
The establishment encourages humor...sorry if it's a bit too sophisticated. Next time I'll dummy it down....not!
... neanderthals ... are supposed to have had more brain mass than humans did/do.
The ratio of brain mass to body mass determines intelligence, not brain mass alone.
Women have smaller brains than men, but that doesn't make them less smart: their bodies are proportionately smaller, so the brain/body mass ratio remains constant. (See The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan for more details.)
-kgj
The artist's illustration in the Berkeley article (also used on the cover of the current edition of Nature) is misleading, in as much as it gives the figure kinky hair and thick lips, making for a more "African" look than is likely to have been the case.
The truth of the matter is that the earliest men almost certainly would have had straight hair, not curly or kinky but straight, and thin lips, just like most Europeans and Asians today. The wild-type for hair in primates is straight, and all of the great apes conform to that type. Similarly, no ape has thick lips, and our closest living relatives are pretty much lipless. Given these facts, why would any reasonable person expect the "first" men to look like modern day Africans?
Of course, it is logically impossible to rule out that our species evolved to gain the features of modern-day Africans only to lose them once again, but this flies in the face of both probability and Occam's razor - it is extremely unlikely that a feature, once lost, can then be regained down the line, simultaneously around all of the world outside Africa.
One mistake people tend to make is to assume that because our species originated in Africa, modern day Africans are somehow "closer" to what we must have originally been like, but this is nonsense. Africans are just as far removed from the original homo sapiens populations as any other population groups, so they've had just as much time to diverge from the original type. Africans, like any other populations, haven't stood still in evolutionary terms, contrary to the misleading notion that this article illustration propagates.
...
"This differently arranged vocal tract could not form the 'i', as in tea"
What in the hell are you talking about?
Burial rituals imply a seeking for meaning after death and lead to religion.
Well, maybe. And maybe not. In making that statement, you are projecting notions of afterlife on people who may have simply had reverence for a body that once was a living person, someone of significance to them. There's nothing in the simple fact of a burial "ritual" -- which in this case may or may not have been a ritual, but which involved treatment of the body before disposal [burial] -- that points to "meaning" much less "religion."
Imagine that you *don't* believe in afterlife, and death is the ultimate challenge to meaningful life. Now imagine that someone you love a lot or respect a lot dies. They're lost, forever, they ain't coming back (at least, no one else has) and you feel sad as heck. The body's all you've got left, and you know from previous experience that it isn't going to keep for long. Elaborate burial might be merely a mark of respect and of bitter acceptance that when it's over, it's over.
Without a lot more data, there's no way of knowing what death meant to these folks, or what the after-death treatment of the bodies signifies.
OK, now what?
---------------
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Tracing human migratin through gene/DNA studies of widely separated human populations has revealed a lot of new information in recent years. This discovery confirms a lot that is already known. There is an interesting (and very readable) book called Mapping Human History. Recommended to anyone interested in human history, evolution, ... and you will know how wrong all those race supremist theories, racial conflicts, ... are.
One of the more popular theories is that the rise of Mesopotamia, Egypt and the Yellow Valley can be linked to the invention of the Plow. Up until that time there is evidence of small farming communities but the Plow was the first device that actually created a true excess of food. An excess of food is considered one of the prerequisites to the creation of higher societies as for the first time people can have professions and occupations that have little to nothing to do with obtaining food. Exchanges between those who make food and those that have a skill or profession to trade creates commerce, etc.
A little more off topic if you look at modern cities you will find it wasnâ(TM)t until the invention of the sewage system that cities became capable of overcoming sanitary issues and really started to see unrestricted growth. This is a fairly recent invention and as you can see with computers, the toilet, the car, the plow and other such inventions, society tends to chug along at the status quo until someone invents something that causes a revolutionary change.
Yes and no... there are some ambiguities about translation of the bible. Some words only appear a few times, or even once, making their meaning impossible to know for sure. The meanings of words also change over time, so a word that meant something when the bible was translated into greek, say, might have been given a different meaning than when it was first written down.
This is not to say that translation is impossible or a useless effort. It's just to say that the exact meaning of a given word is often ambigous. Often, these (in my view, somewhat silly) arguments about what the bible says center around individual words.
For example, does "four corners" mean four geometric corners? Does it mean "prominent places", or was it a colloquial expression?
(My favorite one is when the Israelites were building the Tabernacle in the desert, and they used "Dolphin Skins". Where did they get Dolphin skins from? It's a funny little thing, and you wonder if the text is really refering to the skins of animals we call dolphins, or something else. But dolphin skins? From Egypt?)
The whole topic of translating ancient texts (not just the bible) is a facinating one. If you're interested in an alternate english translation of the bible, the Jewish Publication society put one out under the name "Tanakh" (the Jewish word for the bible). Every page there are footnotes with the comment "meaning of original hebrew uncertain" , or providing an alternate translation.
DISCLAIMER - I am not a linguist or biblical scholar. (IANALOBS)
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
If you consider that even when these prehistoric humans lived to the age of 35, they were "old" and they were somebody's "grampaw" and "grammaw." Compare that today with many people waiting till the age of 35 for their first young 'un. In 100 years today, a family may spawn three generations. Back then, the number would be closer to seven generations of skulls. In that context, it's easier to see how skull shapes could change in only 160,000 years or so. Back then we were generating new skulls and losing the ineffective ones at a much faster rate. Not that we're creating fewer skulls today...quite the contrary. It's just that we hang on to the less efficient ones for a lot longer.
On my RH9 box I'm constantly reading "Oldest Modem Humans Found" Tree trunk and stix prolly.
Homo sapiens lived a nomadic hunter-gatherer-fisher life for the first 90% of their existance- much like the aborigional populations did. It sis thought they full language capabilities by 50,000 years ago, when most of the world was quickly occupied by humans. However it is one of the great mysteries why poepl did start vivilization until the end of the last glaciation.
If warm climate is a factor, then it was warm 110,000 and 60,000 yearts ago- well after the new homo sapien skull discoveries. You have to explain why civilization did start then.
was the discovery of some DOS manuals along with some early remains in Ethiopia. We all know that 'real men use DOS.'
photosMy Photostream
The concept to stop chasing wildlife, and to settle down and grow crops is revolutionary, and would be a scary step
What's worse, there seems to be evidence that growing crops put individuals at a short-term disadvantage over hunter-gatherers, giving them a poorer diet for more work! The primary advantage of crop growing, though, is that it supports a higher population density, so even if your hunter-gatherer tribe may be living better than the nearby village growing crops, the village can feed ten times as many people and so they can expand faster than you and win any conflict between you.
It occurs to me that this post is either interesting and funny or overrated and offtopic. Such is the way of the world.
cLive ;-)
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
For those interested in really seeing what the Bible teaches and how science the Bible compliment one another nicely, please visit Reasons To Believe
You will never "find" time for anything. You must "make" it.
The title is a joke for anime fans :)
But now for the real meat.
The snowballs from space thing is more or less science fiction not science. The science holds that we did come from earth that we simply started as single celled creatures and evolved over time.
But dose this preclude adam and eve? Thelogens will argue the more dynamic point that adam and eve were the first single celled creatures and in this way theology holds true.
Wiccans already clame the pagan myths are not litteral but symbolic. Eventually Christians will need to make the same clame.
Some theologens already do.
Most of the Christian bible is a historical document but some of it wasn't a matter of historical record.
The mirricals are a matter of interpretation and much debate.
There has even been some scientific exploration into how the red sea could have been parted.
Your welcome to believe what ever you like so long as it fits available facts.
But life from space snowballs dose not.
I don't actually exist.
Wonder if they found a mud filled watch casing that the lead archaelogist throws away while commenting that it must be some discarded child's toy.
Invalid Checksum. Retrying.
When I die, I want someone find my skull 160 millenia from now and gape in awe and wonder. In fact, I'm going to put a big sign on my grave that says, "Do not open until Christmas, 162,052 A.D."
Puny humans.
Visit me on the web at Permanent4.com.
I would like to see some credible evidence before I'll believe that contradictions exist in the Bible.
Perhaps you haven't investigated this too deeply. I would suggest taking a look at this enumeration of "apparent" contradictions.
I am not attempting to discredit the Bible or the religion it supports. I am simply pointing out there's a lot to analyse and contemplate on this particular subject.
Go read for yourself.
Join Tor today!
This new discovery might be a proof that the Christian Religion has some false beliefs.
According to this new discovery, now we have definite proof that the Homo sapiens and the Homo neanderthalensis co-existed in some time period
Now,consider this:
1.It has already been prooved that Homo neanderthalensis was a sentient being with advanced culture and rituals
2.If Homo neanderthalensis was an ancestor of Homo Sapiens then this was consistant to christianic beliefs. That is because someone could assume that The Creation formed Adam and Eve as Homo neanderthalensis and then their ancestors evolved into Homo Sapiens.
3.Now that we have proof that the Homo neanderthalensis and Homo Sapiens were completely different lifeforms, not related to each other we have to conclude that either:
A. During 'The Creation' God gave sentient life to two different kinds of species, but in the bible we have records only for our species
B. Bible is wrong in some parts
Please consider before you flame me that I am not an atheist. On the contrary, I consider my self as a Christian, but I think we have the right to question some parts of the bible in the light of modern scientific discoveries
I've been watching the oldest modern human once a year on his "Rockin New Year's Eve" show for as long as I can remember.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But when life gives you crap, please don't make a beverage out of it.
Why does it appear that anthropologists only work in Africa? It certainly seems that way because every "revolutionary" find is African. Something sounds fishy here doesn't it? Why don't they go to the real birthplace of human civilization? Could it be that they may find something that disagrees with their carefully constructed theories? The bottom line is that the fertile crecent area of Mesopotamia is where everything got started, not Africa, so why not look there? Someone is hiding something in the name of science falsely so called.....
For those interested in seeing how uninsightful, superstitious, and self-contradicting the works of one of the dozens of ancient civilizations can be, feel free to check The Skeptic's Annotated Bible
Especially if you are a woman, just, or tolerant.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
I thought Dick Clark is the oldest. He must be 250 years old.
"It really made me realize how related we all are, and silences the idiots who think blacks are closer to the apes, and whites are more advanced, etc."
I was watching a show on discovery, and they were talking about how there was a massive genttic bottleneck in the huma race about 75,000 years ago, whre the human race was reduced to a couple of thousand individuals world wide. They couldnt figure out why, untill a vulcaologist saw a talk they gave, and he happend to know about the toba explosion in the pacific that happed at the same time. basically, the human race was damn near wiped out by the volcano, to the point that the average chimpanzee family, has more genetic diversity than the whole human race.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
At last an intelligent comment, culture is cumulative. Other than this posting and one or two others, the level of this discussion is mind-boggling. I saw a PBS special 10 years ago that said foo, I googled and found one page that said bar. Sheesh, it's like a paleoanthropologist or geneticist forum discussing linux based on a single news report of Steve Ballmer's latest gurglings. For those that actually want some information on this topic, try http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/ for general paleoanthropology or http://www.wam.umd.edu/~mturn/WWW/deacon.html for an interesting starting point on the prehistory of language.
thomas, not timothy...
thomas has jesus doing miracles at like age 9...
... hi bingo
I cannot possibly reply any more eloquently than Black Parrot does in this post.
Join Tor today!
I have to say that I am slightly amused that "Captain Beefheart" is talking about brain food and nutrition.
Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. -FB
I am a creationist ::hears laughter in the background::. Is anyone else? Doesnt anyone know what a load of bull this is?
The skulls also demonstrate evidence of ritual burial.
They must have been going for chivalry. Knights kick ass.
You might want to reconsider you comments, or enjoy your time in hell. :)
Scott
that's always annoyed me. if you don't believe or slight the religion/jesus/god you're supposed to go to hell (insofar as i am aware). i doubt any god would be so petty to do his people, more of conversion technique if anything. "believe today and win a 'get out of hell free' card !"
Reconcile the genocidal maniac Jahweh of the OT, who invaded lands and put the resident women and children to the sword, with the god of love of the NT.
Sorry, that's incorrect. Homo and australopithecine species are known as "Hominids" or family Hominidae. The great apes are all "Hominoids" or superfamily Hominoidia.
Jeremy
Not incorrect. It really depends on who you ask.
Some scientists prefer a broader definition of the Hominidae, others a narrower definition. The broader definition has gained significant ground with scientists in the past two decades as a result of molecular studies illustrating that all the great apes (humans included) form a clade of very closely related species.
The narrower definition is a left-over of the days of mythological distinctions between man and animal.
These days, Hominoidea is still a superfamily constituting the Hylobatidae (gibbons and siamangs) and the Hominidae. Within the Hominidae are the subfamilies Ponginae (orangs) and Homininae (the African apes). Still further below the Homininae is the tribe Hominini (humans and our related bipedal apes).
Gee, I just graduated Monday with a degree in Primatology and this is news to me. The wonders of Slashdot!
Jeremy
because thats where the money is.
I mean thats where the funds for studies are sanctioned.
Thats how you can prove...SEE? africans are primitive.
If africans get their act together they'll fund studies showing whites are H.erectus not even neanderthals.
With all the bible trashing it hasn't really occured to anyone that a single origin for all of mankind from the area where the garden of eden is supposed to be located is now supported by the scientific evidence. I don't think it's a coincidence. Is it religion that must accomodate science, or science converging with religion?
Intelligent Design Theory is not Creationism
Actually, you might be more familiar with them as the Phonecians... bit to late historically to be Neanderthals, sorry.
DNA just wants to be free...
Speaking of good science articles, if I were only able to buy one, should I buy a subscription to Science or Nature? I can handle 100 dollars a year, but I'm not so sure about 200.
And I'm sorry to see that this has turned into a creationism vs. evolution debate. (Evolution is a fact, btw). But it's like flogging a dead horse.
Scientific American and Discover are good too, but it's pretty cool reading the actual publications they refer to.
Also, how big is a typical issue of Nature or Science? I'd think they're pretty big by the TOC, which was quite impressive for a single issue.
Thanks; I'd never heard of that idea before. I had heard that lots of ancient cultures drank weak beer whenever they could instead of water for the health benefits (fewer deleterious microorganisms), but it hadn't occurred to me that beer is one "food" source you can't pluck off a bush or hit with a spear.
Do you know where you heard this, off-hand? I'd like to see what the evidence is; it would be hilarious if civilization was the result of beer.
But specifically, in reference to your listing of Piltdown, Nebraska man, and Java man, read the extensive talk.origins FAQs on these very items: (emphasis added by me)
Nor is it true, as is often claimed, that Dubois kept the existence of the Wadjak skulls secret because knowledge of them would have discredited Java Man. Dubois briefly reported the Wadjak skulls in three separate publications in 1890 and 1892. Despite being corrected on this in a debate in 1982 and in print (Brace 1986), Gish has continued to make this claim, even stating, despite not having apparently read Dubois' reports, that they did not mention the Wadjak skulls (Fezer 1993)."
In the 90 years since then have we developed better and more rigorous testing methods? Yes. But even during those 40 years it took for the full hoax to be revealed, faults with Piltdown were found, long before testing showed that they were recent skulls: "...It should be remembered that, at the time of Piltdown finds, there were very few early hominid fossils; Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens were clearly fairly late. It was expected that there was a "missing link" between ape and man ... Piltdown man had the expected mix of features, which lent it plausibility as a human precursor.
This plausibility did not hold up. During the next two decades there were a number of finds of ancient hominids and near hominids, e.g. Dart's discovery of Australopith
My personal take on Hell is it is simply getting what you ask for, to have nothing to do with God. If you believe as I and many others do, you know that God is everywhere within His creation, so no matter what you do in this life he is never far from you. God reaches out to you and comforts you even though you are unaware and are sometimes hostile to Him.
Imagine the feeling youâ(TM)d have if you killed everyone you love (including you wife with whom you are just as madly in love as the day you married her over 15 years ago) in a plain crash. All because you didnâ(TM)t take the time to pay attention to what you were doing and were willfully negligent. You are the only survivor and become stranded by yourself for the rest of your life. What if that rest of your life were thousands of years and you spent each day knowing that you put all those people who loved you so much, and who you loved so much, away from you forever? Imagine the loneliness, the regret, the despair. Imagine that every day after the crash you felt just as alone and just as regretful as the first day. Imagine NEVER feeling better. All of this happening because of your own choices, and you have no one to blame but yourself. That would only be a small glimpse of what hell might be like.
Now imagine the flip side. Imagine that instead of being alone for all eternity you were loved. What if instead of never seeing or talking to anyone again, you were part of a society that is governed by a perfect being and therefore keeps all members in perfect check without even needing to discipline His citizens. Imagine a place where all desires are pure and never unfulfilled. Again only the smallest glimpse of what Heaven might be like.
How could God force either on us and still love us? He couldnâ(TM)t let everyone into heaven because heaven is being with him and He is perfect. Imperfect (sinful) beings like us canâ(TM)t exist in the presents of perfection. (That is why Jesus died, to take the rap for our sins making us clean and therefore able to stand in the presence of God.)
Likewise He wonâ(TM)t send everyone to Hell; that is not what we were created for (Do you have children with your spouse with the express purpose of harming or abandoning them?). In order for a choice to be with God to mean anything the option to not be with Him must be there. When given a choice people are bound to make different choices for different reasons. God knows what we are going to chose because he is not âoein timeâ and therefore sees His creation as a whole not only as something with a beginning and end. In other words we are not fated to go to one or the other by God. Just because God knows what we will chose doesnâ(TM)t mean we donâ(TM)t still have to make the choice.
Now if God were to truly prove His existents beyond all doubt, where would the choice be? If He removed all doubt that He exists how could anyone choice to NOT follow Him?
Obviously I presuppose that God exists and that judeo Christian beliefs are correct. If you want to scoff at my beliefs as absurd I sure hope you donâ(TM)t believe in evolution. Because if you do then youâ(TM)re telling me that itâ(TM)s more absurd to think that we were created by God then to think that all life came from a rock. I donâ(TM)t expect that everyone will agree with me, or that I will really change peopleâ(TM)s minds.
P.S. I would like to apologize for all those people who do not present to gospel and anything more than a cure for hell.
Laugh all you want, but my money is on CNF working before DNF.
Well, if
Nothing is absolutely, positively NOTHING! NOTHING!!
Than it never existed, and never happened. If nothing is absolute than there was nothing, including NO GOD.
Wasn't someone earlier talking about contradictions?
Mike
> maybe when they become FOSSILIZED
Despite the fact that there was no post, the point is very good. Since they are fossils, they are just copies of the original skull (fragments) made from deposited rock/limestone/whatever and not the actual skull of the person.
try this link, damnit
... hi bingo
I was thinking the same thing, and it does appear that the poster is trying hard to reconsile some apparently contradiction with overrationalization.
However, the original argument is entirely unfair. It's like the little joke, "You're being defensive." And when I say, "No I'm not." You reply, "See. Yes you are." There is no way to properly answer the claims if you stifle the discussion by saying that any rationalization is overrationalization.
In this case, I don't think the defender of the Bible is going too far, either. Sure there are cases of people contorting themselves to explain a Biblical paradox, but I don't think this is one of those cases.
Interestingly though, the Berkley article states that "Howell added that these anatomically modern humans pre-date most neanderthals, and therefore could not have descended from them, as some scientists have proposed."
If the relative age difference could be relied upon (which is suspect considering the possibility of excess argon in the volcanic layers they dated), this could point to a possible "dark ages" of civilization after an initial period of greater civilization.
If you believe the general flow of history as documented by the Bible, this would be consistent with an intelligent race which falls into decline after a widespread flood followed by an ice age.
Life's a lot like money-- you spend it, then it's gone. Spend wisely.
The new findings show that modern looking Homo sapiens existed 160,000 years ago. Petralona is one of many skulls that show that earlier Homo sapiens didn't look like modern humans, i.e. none of these earlier skulls could be confused with a modern human. These earlier fossils range from not-quite modern to not-quite Homo erectus.
It's not the book, it's the knowlege inside the book. You try and make it sound like people are basing their belief of some fancy wood plup.
"Mitochondrial Eve has been shown in secular literature (ever heard of the magazine "Science") to have lived ~6000 years ago. Evidence of the flood here."
.
What's going on?! I used the exact same message (below) already once this week for the exact same argument. Fortunately somebody else already took care of the rest of your message so I don't have to.
One nit to pick. Going back to the original "Research News" article in Science (vol 279 issue 5347 pg 28-29), we see that instead of this being evidence for a ~6000 year old mitochondrial eve, we have to reconsider some of our beliefs about mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), or more specifically a region of mtDNA called the D-loop, which comprises only 7% of mtDNA and which most mtDNA studies have used. One of the biggies is that most mtDNA studies use "so-called "noncoding" sequences of the control region of mtDNA, which do not code for gene products and therefore are thought to be free from natural selection." to quote the article. Another is to check and see if we are instead hitting "hotspots," regions with above-average mutation rates; hotspots will have more back- and parallel-mutations which will cloud the picture. A third is that the mutation rate may vary over time. A fourth is to investigate the issue of heteroplasmy--having multiple mtDNA sequences, even though for a given region there should be only one. For a while it was thought to be rare, now 10-20% of the population could be heteroplasmic. All of these issues would need to be addressed by the creationists before it could be considered evidence of a ~6,000 year old mitochondrial eve rather than a problem with the underlying assumptions of the technique. Indeed, with the advancement of our ability to manipulate and sequence DNA, we no longer have to utilize only 7% of the mtDNA--we can sequence the whole thing--all 16,000 or so base pairs of it. A recent study published in Nature (vol 408 pg 708-713, Dec. 2000) using mtDNA--all of it--found that the D-loop (used in most mtDNA studies) does not have a constant mutation rate. The study goes on to show (again using the whole mtDNA sequence) that the date of "mitochondrial eve" is about 170,000 years ago. A more reader-friendly report by the author of the Nature paper can be found here
Say, you ever get a chance to actually read that Dalrymple article you so badly mangled? Here's a refresher. Just go up the thread.
This would put humans WAY before the creation of Adam and Eve date-wise according to the Bible! More evidence against validity of the Bible in my opinion.
oldest modem people found
and thought I was going to be reading about a bunch of hard core 110 baud folks..
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
There are multiple FAQs/reviews on Bones of Contention. "The major argument of Marvin Lubenow's book Bones of Contention (1992) is that the various species of hominid cannot form an evolutionary sequence because they overlap one another in time... Once it is realized that this argument is based on a misunderstanding of evolutionary theory, Lubenow's book loses much of its force."
Do you think Java man is a human or ape? Looking at all the species of hominids we know about, can you draw a line to separate human from ape? Why can't Gish, Lubenow and others agree on which are apes? As one Lubenow FAQ asks: ""If two eminent authorities cannot agree whether these skulls are human or ape, does this not imply that they are, um, intermediate?"
Interesting point on Scopes. Another FAQ on Nebraska Man (including the Scopes trial) talks about this "...Osborn apparently began to have doubts about his identification of the tooth shortly before the Scopes "monkey trial" in July 1925, and he stopped mentioning it in his publications. It seems likely that the crumbling of the Fundamentalist assault on evolution in the years following the Scopes trial prevented the Hesperopithecus affair from becoming a serious embarrassment to evolutionists. Although Nebraska Man did not survive long enough to become widely accepted by the scientific community and was quickly forgotten when its true identity was recognized, Hesperopithecus is again being trotted out in the current recrudescence of creationist attacks on evolution. The creationists who belittle mistakes by scientists cannot admit that science advances, in part, by correcting error. "
First of all, what we define as civilization is largely a product of ego. We look for characteristics of ourselves when we're looking for "civilization". We are mostly sedentary(i.e. not nomadic) with a hierarchial power structure and specialization of labor. (e.g. we have doctors, butchers, farmers, etc.) Arguably, for the few nomadic groups we haven't dragged out of the jungles & deserts and sent to work in factories yet, civilization came a lot earlier and only know are we decending into barbarism. I, however, like my bed, my fridge, and my TV, so let's go with what we know.
Most traditional archaeologists tend to think of civilization as a sort of ladder, and the first few rungs were actually quite slippery. Here's one possible ladder: (there are several)
First, if you want to have a town with art, politics, beer, hookers, etc. the first thing you need is a food supply that is reliable and doesn't move around a lot.
Deer, elk, tapirs, camels, elephants, etc. all move around most vexingly. Turnips do not. Agriculture is the way to go! For agriculture, you need a crop. Something to grow.
We can grow beans, squash, wheat, turnips, you name it. Unfortunately, these are all highly domesticated plants that we've been selectively breeding for thousands of years. Take corn for example. Today a stalk of corn puts out great big honking cobs chock full of juicy kernals. 50,000 years ago the stuff looked a lot like grass. It is in fact, more than a little bit unlikely that you could have lived off the stuff back then. (more on that later) So if no suitable crops existed, we had to breed one.
Here we hit a major hang up. Breeding massive changes into plants isn't exactly a speedy process when you *know* what you're doing. How exactly our ancestors ever managed to develop a crop suitable for agriculture is actually quite a hot topic of debate! Still, somehow we managed, but it probably took a while. Even for relatively smart people, it is not inconceivable that this took tens of thousands of years.
-----
Now for an alternate take on things... Beer is the root of civilization. Yes, that most lovely of liquids: the Wobbly Pop.
Take the domestication of corn in the america's for example. At first we had a sorry grass-like plant that would have been a royal pain in the ass to try to live off of. However, as it was, collecting relatively small ammounts to ferment into chicha (BEER!) for those important social events (religion?) was a much more reasonable undertaking. Of course, excessive beer consumption does tend to make one lazy, so naturally our fastly-becoming-religious ancestors decided to start throwing a bunch of seeds together in one place so they didn't have to look all over the bloody planet to round up enough for a good er... mass. Gradually they tossed the crappier grass out and the better stuff got inbred, mutated all to hell, and gradually become more and more like the corn of today. Eventually, we got a crop good enough to actually become a dietary staple. Someone might then have said "Hey guys! We can eat this stuff too! F@$* this walking around all day BS. Let's just stay here all the time. There's BEER!"
So we have a nice town springing forth from the wilderness. Art, culture, and all the trappings of civilization are flowering forth... and people are shitting in the river. This is baaad. People are getting sick! Fortunately, achohol tends to be safer to drink than brownish water! While the high-proof Canadian beers of today would be a tad difficult to live on, the watered down chicha of the day was just the thing for daily consumption. To this day there are still countries where beer is cheaper than safe drinking water. As a beneficial side effect, people with beer tend to be easier to talk into paying taxes, running off to kill people they've never met before, building pyramids, etc...
Of course, archaeology itself would be nowhere without beer. Seriously, how many major archaeological digs ar
Arent they? All the books within it a supposedly written by people anyway. Im just saying that there is no reason to have DNA at all if God created all of us.
Fine, how about this. When you go to heaven its a happy place right? Most people will assume they can remember their coporeal life (if you couldnt, youd be rewarded for things you cannot remember, or punished for that matter). Dont you think youd have sorrow or grief for people you knew that didnt make it? Thats not too happy, getting to witness people you love burn forever.
And how is this any different than basing your beliefs on a book filled with provable facts?
They finally found my old english lit teacher from college!
You might want to note that the article you linked to is a teaser for a book whose table of contents includes an appendix titled "HIV is Not the Cause of AIDS", a view he shares with few people except Falwell and Mbeki. He's also written a book about "orgones", some sort of pseudoscientific chi energy thing. (I became suspicious when I noticed a white American blaming all the ills of humanity on Africa and Asia, and singling out England in particular as a last European bastion of "matrism".) Not such an intellectual it seems. But, lest you rightly accuse me of attacking one work on the faults of another, I've read his article and I can poke some big holes in it:
In summary, as compelling as his argument sounds at first, I'm going to need to see proof--not just logical explanations accompanied by evidence that seems entirely one-sided, before I'll accept DeMeo's theory of patrism and matrism. As tempting as it is to accept a theory that supposedly explains all of human suffering and blames it on authoritative men who repress and abuse women and children, it just isn't that simple.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Can you say "Piltdown Man?" No? Perhaps "Nebraska Man?" I'd stake my nonexistent fortune on the bet that this turns out to be another fake.
This is not part of my post. It's my signature. I bet you're disappointed.
I'd really like to thank you for that link to the ICR. Several months back I was arguing the exact same issue and I was wondering where exactly the source was from. Now whenever I need to present clear-cut examples of "scientific" creationist fraud I've got another excellent example. The ICR can't even read a table correctly: the "dates" that they give for the lava samples aren't dates at all, but instead refer to how far an individual sample was from the expected concentration of Ar-40. The ICR also fails to mention that some samples had lower levels of Ar-40 than expected. The true irony is that rather than this article (Dalrymple) undermining the validity of radiometric dating, it is clearly supporting.
But don't take my word for it. Read the paper yourself: G.B. Dalrymple, "40Ar/36Ar Analyses of Historic Lava Flows," Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 6 (1969): pp. 47-55. It'll be available at (or at least through interlibrary loan) any university.
We told you so. There he is! Hidding on the edge of the broken off chip that's not really there! See it's proof.
He really does exist, and science proved it. We now have real evidence that Jesus is our lord & savior. You must all now take him into your hearts and quit laughing at and making fun of us.
And then He got first post?
you're right...
:-)
deuterocanonical.... is what i was talking about, and apocrypha has always meant "things that were never included in the bible"
so... what were we arguing about again?
... hi bingo
Obviously you are knocking on a book you haven't read. This subject, too, is accounted for.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a Bible thumper. (sometimes I wish I had the courage to be, though). What I am saying is that it takes more faith to believe in big-bangs and mutating monkeys than it does to believe in God. It was with that realization in mind that I decided to actually study that book to see for myself
SL33ZE - Artificial Intelligence is No Match For Natural Stupidity -
"They were mis-labeled as "Hittites" by their discoverers because - you guessed it - they were trying to read the Bible into what they found. Scholars wring their hands over that fact, but all recognize that it's too late to change it now due to the amount of material that has been published and the confusion that would result from a name correction after all these years."
Makes you wonder how much hand-wringing is going on all over the impunable "scientific" world, doesn't it? So, the choice should have been made first to discount the Bible, right? Sounds fair to me. I mean, why bother to get the facts right in science? It might be inconvenient or confusing. So, we'll just labor along with the fallacy and hope it just goes away. I doubt any serious student of any scientific discipline would as openly admit to propagating a lie for appearance's sake as you now have. I now lean back effortlessly into the arms of science for matters concerning the Bible. Thanks heaps.
Windows XP SP2 told me to install third-party software that prevents viruses and protects stability... I chose Ubuntu
Hmmm..
First, a note about Granites; they do doffer substantially from the bulk composition of the continental crust, being somewhat lighter and SiAl-rich by comparison. Typically we see ancient groundwater/hydrothermal systems associated with them - systems which give rise to hiughly useful mineral deposits; we see large scale metamorphic haloes caused by the emplacement of hot rocks and subsequent recrystalisation of the country rock. At places like Yellowstone, we even see the process going on today. Can you explain why a god would set this all up to make it all look so old?
Don't suppose you'd like to tell me why these polonium isotopes were 'created', but none of the other short lived (i.e. half life less than around 10 million years) isotopes? Things like Technitium? Plutonium?
Anyway, you know the explanation for those haloes, even if it annoys you. Zircons in granites contain high concentrations of Uranium; polonium is part of the decay chain of uranium. You will notice that it is directly below Radon; Radon, being a gas, will diffuse through the rock and hence when it decays to Polonium, it will appear that the polonium has just appeared. Problem solved.
Had Radon diffused through the minerals, it would have left a trail of halos, a cylindrical tube as it diffused (varying with diffusion rates in its intensity). This has _never_ been observed. Also, Gentry did specific experiments, which you would be aware of had you read the original papers, designed to find any traces of Radon seepage. There was no evidence at all. Also the chain through Po takes three steps; many of the halos had only two of those steps. No way that would happen in your scenario. But again, if you'd read the papers, you'd know that.
You also asked me to speculate on why you assume age for some formations. Sorry, you'll have to ask someone else that question.
If you would like to read the original papers, here is a list of them:
Gentry, R.V. 1968. "Fossil Alpha-Recoil Analysis of Certain Variant Radioactive Halos." Science 160, 1228.
Gentry, R.V. 1970. "Giant Radioactive Halos: Indicators of Unknown Alpha-Radioactivity?" Science 169, 670.
Gentry, R.V. 1971. "Radiohalos: Some Unique Pb Isotope Ratios and Unknown Alpha Radioactivity." Science 173, 727.
Gentry, R.V. 1973. "Radioactive Halos." Annual Review of Nuclear Science 23, 347.
Gentry, R.V. 1974. "Radiohalos in Radiochronological and Cosmological Perspective." Science 184, 62.
Gentry, R.V. 1975. Response to J.H. Fremlin's Comments on "Spectacle Halos." Nature 258, 269.
Gentry, R.V. 1977. "Mystery of the Radiohalos" Research Communications NETWORK, Breakthrough Report, February 10, 1977
Gentry, R.V. 1978a. "Are Any Unusual Radiohalos Evidence for SHE?" International Symposium on Superheavy Elements, Lubbock, Texas. New York: Pergamon Press.
Gentry, R.V. 1978b. "Implications on Unknown Radioactivity of Giant and Dwarf Haloes in Scandinavian Rocks." Nature 274, 457.
Gentry, R.V. 1978. "Reinvestigation of the ? Activity of Conway Granite." Nature Vol. 273, p 217-219 May 18, 1978.
Gentry, R.V. 1979. "Time: Measured Responses." EOS Transactions of the American Geophysical Union 60, 474.
Gentry, R.V. 1980. "Polonium Halos." EOS Transactions of the American Geophysical Union 61, 514.
Gentry, R.V. 1982. Letters. Physics Today 35, No. 10, 13.
Gentry, R.V. 1983a. Letters. Physics Today 36, No. 4, 3.
Gentry, R.V. 1983b. Letters. Physics Today 36, No. 11, 124.
Gentry, R.V. 1984a. "Radioactive Halos in a Radiochronological and Cosmological Perspective." Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Pacific Division. American Association for the Advancement of Science 1, 38.
Gentry, R.V. et al. 1973. "Ion Microprobe Confirmation of Pb Isotope Ratios and Search for Isomer Precursors in Polonium Radiohalos." Nature 244, 282.
Gentry, R.V. et al. 1974. "'Spectacle' Array of Po-210 Halo Radiocentres in Biotite: A Nuclear Geophysical Enigma." Nature 252, 564.
Gentry, R.V. et al. 1976a. "Radiohalos and Coalified Wood: New Evidence Relating to the Time of Uranium Introduction and Coalification." Science 194, 315.
Got Wisdom?
Obviously you have never read the original papers; this is most often a claim that evolutionists level against creationists. The shoe is now on the other foot.
Apart from the fact that you COMPLETELY FAILED to answer any of the other points raised.
Had Radon diffused through the minerals, it would have left a trail of halos, a cylindrical tube as it diffused (varying with diffusion rates in its intensity).
Would it? Only in a perfectly uniform rock; not in granite. And a section through such a cylinder would look axactly like a single halo.
This has _never_ been observed
Well, see above. I'm not surprised. Patterns of haloes along cracks and fissures have. By me.
Also, Gentry did specific experiments, which you would be aware of had you read the original papers, designed to find any traces of Radon seepage. There was no evidence at all.
That is a bit strange, given that granites *do* seep Radon. Tends to make me think the experiment was flawed.
Also the chain through Po takes three steps; many of the halos had only two of those steps. No way that would happen in your scenario. But again, if you'd read the papers, you'd know that.
Which implies that the non-3 step haloes were not Polonium. Which kind of argues against your case.
You also asked me to speculate on why you assume age for some formations. Sorry, you'll have to ask someone else that question
Translation: You have no answer.
Bottom line: read the original papers. Why are you unwilling to do so?
Got Wisdom?
If it annoys you, perhaps it is because your understanding is incorrect.
It's not some meaningless blief in God that saves you.
It is faith in Him to trust you. Much like saying to a friend "I trust you with my life" in a dangerous situation.
The reason why you and I would go to hell without Him, is because each of us has sinned, and the wages of sin is death. Of course few today realise how grave it is to rebel against God. Once realised though how deep ones corruption goes, that is when one realises that they, you and I, are in need of His forgiveness. Like a friend you have wronged and you ask them to forgive you - except our crimes are much worse.
Well, let's see..
Science 169, 670 - Documents the existance of giant halos, but pretty much admits that they are the result of standard decay of U and Th. At that time, the idea of superheavy elements with long half-lives was not out of the question.
Science 173, 727. - Documents the existance of halos dominated by U-238 derived lead; i.e from Radon movement.
Annual Review of Nuclear Science 23, 347. - Now this actually gives some interesting data, notably that Po-210 and Rn-222 haloes are going to be virtually indistinuishable. Indeed, the given uncertanties in measurement are larger.
Science 184, 62 - Apart from the given diagram siomply not supporting the text, there is no new evidence here. There is a *claim* [That the haloes can't come from Rn-222], but no supporting evidence is given.
Most of the later references either seem to be in non-peer reviewed publications or unavailable online, which is a pity.
And this is the problem. None of the published material excludes the alternative hypothesis [i.e. decay chain element migration].
And if we look for example, we see that Po-209 is the most stable isotope of polonium, yet we don't see any haloes from that. This is really the show stopper.
So, I've looked at the papers. There is nothing there to support instantaneous creation. Now, will you answer my questions?
You claim that Po-209 being the most stable Po isotope is a show stopper; yet from the reference you provided a couple of posts ago Po-209 is NOT on the decay chain of U->Pb. So why are you making Po-209 the "showstopper" when your own background data shows it's not relevant?
Also Po halos are not smeared as they would be by Rn migration along fault and crack lines; instead the published (in peer-reviewed journals) pictures clearly show point sources. If you have contradictory evidence, you should definitely publish; Science and Nature would surely welcome anything to refute Gentry that would pass peer review. And since the peers are clearly slanted against Gentry, your getting published should be quite simple.
And since the Rn222 halo would be roughly 2 microns wider than the Po210 halo, it would be quite clear if Rn222 had been the parent of the Po218. But many halos have been published which have the Po and not the Rn halos.
Additionally, before you go attack Gentry as many anti-creationists have tried to do, based on his experimental technique, you should know that while at ORNL he headed a team of seven scientists. One of them, an atheist, was asked about Gentry's technique: "Impeccable -- one of the most careful researchers with whom I have ever worked". When asked for an alternative explanation to fiat creation, the same person said "Well, I don't have a better explanation, but I hope that at some future time there will emerge a more acceptable explanation of the data."
Got Wisdom?
You claim that Po-209 being the most stable Po isotope is a show stopper; yet from the reference you provided a couple of posts ago Po-209 is NOT on the decay chain of U->Pb. So why are you making Po-209 the "showstopper" when your own background data shows it's not relevant?
IF fiat creation was the answer, we would expect to see Po-209 haloes. It's not a show stopper for the hypothesis that the Po is a result of Rn-222 decay, but it is for fiat creation.
Also Po halos are not smeared as they would be by Rn migration along fault and crack lines; instead the published (in peer-reviewed journals) pictures clearly show point sources.
Problem is, of course, that the pictures are available on line, and they are blurred. Plus, what does a section through a cylinder look like?
And since the Rn222 halo would be roughly 2 microns wider than the Po210 halo, it would be quite clear if Rn222 had been the parent of the Po218. But many halos have been published which have the Po and not the Rn halos.
Certainly not in the papers you cite. There's a danger of sending people to look at papers. You do realise that 2 microns is right at the edge of resolution for a geological microscope on a thin section, don't you?
You claim the Rn222 halos would not be visible is obviated by the papers. Perhaps the online representations are flawed; in the actual papers which are reprinted in Gentry's book the pictures are far more clear. In the article from Annual Review of Nuclear Science:
That's a peer reviewed publication. No counter papers were submitted. While you may disagree personally and certainly are free to do so, no peer reviewed paper disputed those findings. By the standards of scientific papers, that means it is "officially" undisputed. If you have counter evidence, again, I invite you to submit it; truth is what matters here, and if you're correct, please do make sure the real facts are published. As I stated earlier, given the heavy anti-creationist bias in the scientific press, a paper disproving Gentry would sail through the review process if it had any merit.
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Is in error. See, God made us in His image; when you start to dictate how He should have made the world, that's you making Him in an image you constructed.
Once you invoke the supernatural as an explanation, you are of course abandoning any semblance of being scientific. You can assert anything supernatural you like, but it's not a valid answer.
You claim the Rn222 halos would not be visible is obviated by the papers.
I didn't claim that - I pointed out that they could not be distinguished from polonium haloes due to the inherent limitations of thin section technique. Assuming that Gentry has chosen to publish the best, hand picked specimens to try and make his case, the evidence is simply lacking.
Your claim that the halos of Rn222 and Po210 are indistinguishable due to equipment limitations is obviated by the lack of response to the original papers. Were you correct, the peer review process would certainly have stopped the publication of the papers, since that was a central point in them. Instead, as I mentioned above, it is likely a limitation in the resolution during the transfer to electronic media. I have seen the halos in color plates and the distinction between the annuli is quite clear. Yes they're close, but they do not blur together in one massive ring. Try to either get hold of Gentry's book, which has color pictures of the halos used in the papers, or get an original publication. Unfortunately many have been microfilmed, and that will impose a resolution limit which could make it more difficult, I have not looked at microfilmed versions and can't tell you if they're obscuring or not.
Note also that Henderson's original work in the 1930's showed the same effect, and he was puzzled by it. In fact it was Henderson's original work which Gentry built on (originally using some of his samples in fact). Henderson was certainly not a creationist, yet he found the same anomalies. And again his work passed peer review. I have not found any of his papers in a journal that retains the resolution, so I can't personally judge the quality of the photographs, but I think we have to agree that his peers reviewing the work would certainly have examined the photographs before recommending publication.
God loves you, fluffy666, no matter what you've done. Just as he loves me, no matter what I've done. And I'm far, far, far from "good". He "is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." [2 Peter 3:9]
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Yet that means you are unwilling to accept anything but natural causes. That bias indicates you have a mind closed in some areas, which is unfortunate.
The whole point of science is that supernatural explanations are not allowed! This is not closed mindedness, it is part of the whole process - and if you wish to participate in it, you are bound by the rules.
Your claim that the halos of Rn222 and Po210 are indistinguishable due to equipment limitations is obviated by the lack of response to the original papers.
Actually, the lack of response was probably more due to apathy and lack of time than anything else. Plus these papers were not published in the geological journals; journals like Science and Nature tend to have a less specialist set of revewers.
But as far as the thin sections go, I've done a LOT of thin section work in my time. Geological specimens - especially in rocks with large crystals - are very difficult to get thin enough (the crystals tend to break along cleavage planes, and the harder parts will resist polishing). This limits the resolution you can get, and means you are always looking at a 3D picture. There is no way you could distinuish rings so close together under these conditions.
For an instantaneous creation hypothesis to be correct, the following would have to follow:
a) The haloes would have to be present in association with Te or Se minerals; the lower O group elements would be expected to occur together. Instead, they are only found in association with U cointaining minerals.
b) We would expect to see haloes indiciating the presence of all isotopes of Po; the fact that all of those present are from the decay chains of long lived isotopes is storng evidence against a supernatural origin.
c) We would would also expect to find evidence of other related elements (At, Fr, etc..). Indeed, if we assume that all isotopes of all elements were 'created' with abundances in proportion to the stable isotopes we see today, we should see literally dozens of such isotopes. But we don't - we only detect those isotopes that have either very long half-lives (U, Th, etc), exist in the decay chains of these isotopes, or are made by cosmogenic processes.
The hypothesis fails because the predictions that come from it (as above) fail. And this is science; you can't ignore failures in prediction.
Oh really, inventing the rules by which God had to create the universe is more than a bit presumptuous. Sure a theory has to have its predictions borne out, but you're working on the prequel, not the sequel, to use vernacular. Predictions are worthwhile criteria when they are used to predict subsequent events. Einstein's special theory of relativity was tested by his prediction that light would have its path altered by a strong gravitational field. And in the next eclipse that provided an opportunity to see if his prediction was correct, his theory was confirmed. Predictions like "there will be salt water found under the crystalline rock at the base of the Bosporus and Dardanelles" provide real tests since the facts are not known in advance. This prediction, made in 1995, was confirmed in 1998. That or Einstein's are the kind of prediction which have merit, as no one believed either happened and the theories made predictions which were counter to common beliefs.
Your preconditions that science utterly excludes supernatural causes is a refreshing admission, thank you for categorically stating that. Since by science's rules something cannot come from nothing (that would be beyond the rules), and since something is here, clearly science is incapable of explaining everything.
Your casting aspersions on the reviewers of Gentry's work is clearly unfair; unless you have full information on them, your attacks are unfounded and ad hominem. Try a factual argument instead of attacking people.
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As one of your fans, I have to say...
Great debate! Keep it up! It's nice to see someone defending the Church these days.