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Missing Link Found Between Human Ancestors
simetra writes "Researchers with a University of California, Berkeley team are now saying they have 'proof' of human evolution. Fossils have been found linking two types of pre-human species." From the article: "The remains of eight individuals found in the northeastern Afar region of Ethiopia belonged to the species Australopithecus anamensis -- part of the Australopithecus genus thought to be a direct ancestor to humans, according to a report due to be published Thursday in Nature magazine. 'The fossils are anatomically intermediate between the earlier species Ardipithecus ramidus and the later species Australopithecus afarensis,' he said."
God put all those fossils there just to test us..... :-)
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Now, I'm sure that by now my opinion regarding ID and its proponents is well-known, and I'm equally sure that the majority of the Slashdot community are in agreement, but there is one positive thing I can say about ID: it's thrown a spotlight onto the theory of evolution, and has stimulated many concerned people towards a more comprehensive understanding of the theory (as well as a more comprehensive understanding of the word 'theory' as it pertains to science). Also, it seems like there have been some major advances lately...this latest story hot on the heels of the walking fish discovery, that have gone a long way towards silencing the detractors of evolution. Whether these advances are truly happening at a faster pace than in the past, or said advances are merely being perceived as such due to the increased attention evolution has been getting of late, is difficult to say...but the central point remains that the theory of evolution and the theory of ID have both been placed under the harsh light of truth, and it is ID, not evolution, that is shrivelling away.
ID has done quite a bit of harm to the minds of young people, but by virtue of the controversy, it has also done some good. Think of it as...well...evolution in action.
Anyway, this latest news is great....now I finally have something solid to point to when my fundie friends stick their fingers in their ears and chant 'missing link! missing link!'.
Rationality will triumph....it's just going to take us longer than we'd like.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
What did they do! Now we have to find four missing links to put between these they just found!
BTW, FP?
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
Heathens!
This is about the third story on "missing links" reported on Slashdot (and in the rest of the media) in the past week.
The name "missing link" implies there is a problem with evolution, and this "link" solves it, when this is in fact not the case. There will always be gaps in the fossil record, and we should not call every discovery that happens to be within one of those gaps a "missing link".
As is always said, creationists love the discovery of "missing links", since every time one is discovered, the original gap is replaced by two new ones.
You illuminate a good point. For the creationist folks, they'll continue to dispute this because their blind faith requires it. It's like the entropy argument. They'll say that spontaneous organization can't happen because of entropy and ignore the fact that entropy only applies to closed systems.
It's cool that they discovered this but it won't change the debate.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
from the we-were-apes dept.
Speak for yourself, Zonk. I know I was never an ape. My distant relatives are a different story...
This guy's the limit!
But it does nothing to prove that humans have caused global warming!
Umm.. not a whole lot? Science doesn't have a specifically anti-Christian bias. Certain Fundamentalists simply just see something there and use it to play up their own sense of persecution.
Would anyone say a metallurgist has an anti-Christian bias?
You're an idiot.
Anyone who in this day and age still believes that humans did not evolve will never be convinced. They are incapable of realizing they are wrong if they havent already.
If this is a missing link, it creates 2 new ones. Instead of "what species comes between 'Ardipithecus ramidus' and 'Australopithecus afarensis'", you have both "what species comes between 'Ardipithecus ramidus' and 'Australopithecus anamensis'" and "what species comes between 'Australopithecus anamensis' and 'Australopithecus afarensis'".
We do not need these missing peices. It is always great to find more about evolution, but it really doesnt help prove it any more than the information we already had.
--
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
click here to see what the missing link is all about...
huh?
Since microbes reproduce much more quickly, everyone can settle this debate using them. Over time, strains of bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. This is pure Darwinism. So it should be possible to prove evolution using evidence generated after a challenge is offered.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
(Trust me, that's what they'll say. Our puny reason, logic, and data is useless against their advanced willful ignorance!)
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
How much you want to bet these guys have an anti-christian bias?
Are you suggesting rationality can't co-exist with religious beliefs?
Trolling is a art,
"Evolution is just a tool of satan to deny christ..." -Crazy brainwashed guy from the Sopranos
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Why can't people think that God put an devolved form of life on the planet and we evolved like the Scientists say?
Ryan - http://www.thecosmotron.com/
If this were a poll, I'd choose the CowboyNeal answer.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Intelligent Design is not a theory. It's not even a hypothesis. It's an assertion.
Even the creationists admit "microevolution" happens now; but they still won't admit macroevolution until you can turn the bacteria into a puppy before their eyes.
I'll bet you have an anti-evolution bias.
Serious question for any evolution scientists out there: How come we're always just looking for the "missing link" for the human species? Have we found many other "missing links"?
It seems to me that nature is full of all sorts of implausible creatures -- the stick insect, for example. Have we ever found the missing link between, say, a primordial centipede and the stick insect? Or is there a type of ancient toucan that has a beak that's not quite as big and not quite as colorful as the ones we see today? Are there ancestors of the manta ray that aren't so flat?
How many really obvious "links" are actually out there?
Breakfast served all day!
the evolution naysayers will say those "pre-human species" couldn't have evolved into us anyway so the UC research is moot.
Mama, I got 'dem ole cosmic blues again.
The phrase "Missing link" is starting to piss me off more than "smoking gun" and "evildoers" combined.
Hemos, the missing link, even had a birthday recently. So....why look any further?
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Why is the summary placing the word proof in single quotes? Did the definition change while I wasn't looking?
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
Now the real question is, who put those fossils there?
Well, that's obvious.
Ramen.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
Well, all religion is ultimately brainwashing. Religion seeks to convince people of its own version reality based on zero evidence, only based on faith.
Evolution's validity doesn't, and definitely shouldn't in the media, rely upon finding a fossil for every single step in the multi billion year process. At the rate we're going, in a million years they'll be digging me up and calling me "the missing link."
><));>
Humans are apes.
But monkeys are not apes, and the fossils are not monkeys.
"Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke.
I do love that they argue that you can't proove evolution but, in this book, some guy wrote long ago that's been translated and interpreted countless times, it says God made the world in 7 days and thus it is true. There is a certain amount of faith necessary to go from theory to fact but it's a very minimal leap compared to believing in the literalness of biblical text.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Science doesn't have a specifically anti-Christian bias.
The true problem is that reality has an anti-Christian bias. There's not much that can be done about that.
My karma is always excellent, and my posting philosophy is to never be swayed by the potential of bad karma. There are plenty of places to post outside of Slashdot, but holding yourself back results in the mediocre quality that gets you on average modded down.
Is some commentary from the nut job christian lady off of trading spouses. That would be great. Crazy bitch..
Steve -- http://tail-f.net/
I have a black velvet painting of Jesus riding a dinosaur that says they're wrong.
It is clear that the link to this article is not missing.
- Andrew
I meta-moderate because I care.
What exaclty were these specimens comprised of? TFA does not say. Are we talking about full skeletons, partial skeletons, limbs, bones, chips, or coprolites?
Thank you for almost getting it :-). Intelligent Design is not science, it is not a theory, it is not something testable by the scientific method. It is a proposal for a minor change in the philosophical underpinnings of modern science. The reason why it should be discussed in science classrooms is because even at the level of a highschooler, you don't want students to take the philosophical basis for what they are being taught for granted.
The issue at stake is to teach rational and sound thought in learning rather than as another poster said "fact after fact". Teaching critical thinking is just another term for teaching philosophy, and while you don't want to teach a straight mythology, you do want to consider the limitations of scientific inquiry, which intelligent design delineates quite starkly and with a fairly good rational model to step off from.
Considering Intelligent Design forces us to not take for granted the philosophical underpinnings of current scientific inquiry. Why is this important? Because science is not philosophy, but depends on a philosophical framework that can be exploited by politics and religion. Knowing this can make us more aware of the exploitation and more resilient to its efforts to sway public opinion.
"Scientists don't change their minds, they just die." -- Max Planck
Not to mention that it was he who put the fossils there 6000 years ago in order to test our faith in him...
gratuitious wikipedia link
Get your Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool Here for FREE! - http://fedora.redhat.com
Think of it. It would have never happened if Q didn't hard convinced Picard to close that transtemporal abnormality.
Léa Gris
Well, ok, there are some... I mean, they really look ... umm...
But the flood existed! It did, the book tells you it did and you have NO proof that it didn't. Ha! Evolution? Who cares? But the flood, the flood!
In other words, as soon as you prove one thing wrong, they'll start riding the next. Same thing that happend to the flat Earth or the sun rotating around it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Da, Gee Fred, It dosen't look good for us?" B. Rubble
Sig Hansen?
I'm disappointed to see so many news agencies and readers taking this hype at face value. Before I even begin, can I just appeal to everyone to read up on Karl Popper's assertions regarding our ability to 'prove' anything using scientific insight? We can't! Especially, when we consider that deducing anything from a patchy fossil in an even patchier fossil record is a dodgy proposition to begin with... First: this is not a new taxon, as news agencies and apparently Tim White would like us to believe; Australopithecus anamensis has been known for quite some time now, and its exact position in the hominin lineage is still under dispute last time I heard (making the assertion that it's in a direct relational line to modern humans suspect). Second: is the evidence White cites convincing? Is linking these new A. anamensis specimens to Ardipithecus ramidus robust, or merely convenient (in other words, did White discover Ard. ramidus, as well)? Are they even comparable? I may be wrong, but I thought Ardipithecus ramidus was only represented by a few teeth and some postcrania... in which case, how convincing is White's evidence? If the new specimens can be successfully placed in A. anamensis based on the few specimens found, how can it also be so similar to Ardipithecus ramidus? I wish the popular media would ask such questions... maybe then every new fossil 'hominin' could be examined without quite so much bias, frenzy, and politics.
I sit right next to her...a cross between Milton (office space) and Richard Stallman. Enough to convince me.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
I would say that sciecne defintiely has a bias against "God of the Gaps," Christian or no. I suppose it's possible to design your deity out of the gaps, which science keeps closing, but that's theology, not religion.
Helium balloons want to be free.
I wonder how many of these fossils the church has successfully had destroyed in the past.. do creationist types become archeologists? would seem like a waste of time, since the world is only 6000 years old and all..
Yes I believe in Evolution. Probably much more than many others. So there are humans, who came from lower life forms, animals, plants, and it all began with the primordial soup and those giant self-replicating molecules that ended up being that way by chance... Look at us today...from dust and gases to plants to animals to man to thinking man!!!! Yes we have evolved...but where did those giant molecules come from??? Gases, water dust?? Where did those come from??? Air?? The Universe...where did that come from?? The Big Bang???? But then who planned the big bang??? Where did matter come from? Dark matter?? Nothingness? Where did "NOTHINGNESS" come from????? It is an intelligent design of a conscious and intelligent will and EVOLUTION are its means!!! There IS NO CONTRADICTION!
Life is about being a Phoenix!
We have sped up evolution for our own purposes: selective breeding.
We have slowed it down for our own purposes: again, selective breeding.
We have seen species develop into "other thans" in the last 200 years.
So, I ask, with all humility, why the hell are we still trying to find evidence of evolution when we already have it?
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
It's not at all inconsistent with observed evidence to postulate that some Divine Being (hereinafter referred to as Fred) decided to create a universe that would end up in the creation of something very, very similar to today's Man, so Fred spent some time and developed a bunch of rules and cause-effect relationships and etc, then set it in motion, observed it for billyuns of years, and the result is what we have today.
It would also work to postulate that Fred started out with that system, and at some point decided to "fix" the die roll so that this particular species of ape would develop larger cranial capacity...
Regretfully, most of the "Intelligent" design folks aren't willing to understand that just because there is a Fred, it doesn't mean that Fred hand crafted everything, Fred could have just built the machinery and now lets it run...much like an ant farm.
You don't have to suspend belief in Scientific Processes to postulate Divinity...but it is a very simple and appealing option, that many take.
Here is a nice diagram that gives some context to the finds. "Missing Link" is hype and "Proof of Evolution" is very misleading. But the diagram is an amazing summary and speaks for itself.
an ill wind that blows no good
"the problem is that you can't prove evolution"
What the hell are you talking about? Evolution is a known fact, we can even see species evolving ourselves. Like that lamb that was born with six legs... there isn't a species of lamb with six legs, it parents didn't have six legs, which means that a change must have occured. This animal wasn't able to walk by itself, which means that without human help, it would die... this is the natural selection bit. An animal born with better eyes/ears that could see/hear it's hunter/prey better would have the oposite effect.
The "theory" bit ISN'T that animals evolve, the "theory" bit is the path which evolution has taken to get everything to where it is now; which species have come from which etc.
Let me say one more time: evolution happens, we know it happens, we see it happening, it is not theory.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
How much you want to bet these guys have an anti-christian bias?
The facts have an anti-fundamentalist bias.
Basically, for those of us that actually believe in Evolution this doesn't do anything for us. In the real meaning of Theory a confirmation of the theory doesn't help prove it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory At this point the scientific community would have to decide if it is a law or not. Every scientist out there believes in evolution, the only benefit of these "misssing links" is that it takes the scientific community a step closer to calling evolution a law and closing the book on the whole theory debate. We all expected these links to be found. I wasn't surprised to hear they found another missing link.
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." - Voltaire
Can somebody suggest a good science discussion site ?
I thought Slashdot was it, but apparently, I am wrong.
This currently looks like a mostly political and sensationalist topic only discussion site.
No issues with that, but I am not for that.
So if somebody can suggest me a good science discussion site, it would be very helpful for me.
Perhaps I've been going about experimentation and research wrong, or it only applies to the scope of my own fields of study, but I thought theories were either supported or disproved. Proof is completely valid, accepted as true. It's always a bit of a stretch to use it in science.
It can be more of flamebait in a way. A news article cites findings and exclaims proof only to instigate an argument with the other side. More flock to it.
Anyhow, I don't want to detract from this interesting article. I just found it a poor choice of words for an article related to science. Definitive proof will always be elusive, but I'm glad to see we're still headed on the right track for evolution.
Fun Zoid RPG
I will assume from your position you believe in evolution and "God" as seen from a christian scientific perspective (all powerful being made everything). Assuming this means I don't lose respect for your statement or position.
:P
:\
Anyway, you must see the fight over abortion for what it is. It isn't about wishing to kill another being (the abortion) but the importance of women to have control of their lives. Currently we don't have statistics for "children who's dad ran away because he had actually raped the child's mother" which would throw this whole debate into a more horrific light.
The effects of this system are devastating for some, and trivial to others. 14 year old girls have their lives changed forever, and women with high paying careers get abortions simply to get rid of the hassle. Throughout time women have had the capability to get rid of their own baby by doing physical harm to the fetus (chemicals, trauma) and this was necessary because if the woman did not want the baby (for whatever reason) she would soon let it die from mis-treatment.
The solution to all of these problems would be what "fundy's" fear the most... the dreaded "welfare state". If you want to declare it a crime to abort a fetus then you must do three things.
1. You MUST make a system where any girl (under 18, perhaps older) can give their baby to a government institution and be raised. How to do this is beyond me, but it would involve a lot of money.
2. You MUST make birth control available to anyone who needs it (for women they might need a doctor's prescription so that is paid for by society as well), but do not assume this would violate the person's right to the previous statement.
3. You MUST give girls some way to easily go through this process without recrimination for their parents. This is once again beyond me as I am not a "fundy" and do not fully understand your "ways"
Sorry, had to through that last sentence in their cause I've got too much resentment
Anonymous Coward is where its at!
For the record, it is called the LAW of gravity, not the theory. You may now resume fire...
No animals were harmed in the making of this sig.
Well, there was that one puppy, but he is all better now.
Yeah, the pope and the top christians throughout the major chirstian denomations must also be anti-christ types for believing that evolution occured. Yep, yep.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Humans are nested within the great apes.
If you actually knew any great apes, I think you'd see that they have quite a lot of individuality, though of course it would be a mistake to read human-like personality traits into them, as they are not human.
On the other hand, if you ever met a fetus, it would be pretty hard to work out any sort of individuality, given that at least for most of its term, it has no substantive brain function. I'm willing to grant that later term fetuses can feel pain and should be protected, but I've never understood the idea that we should care more about the fate of a zygote with no nervous system than, say, a prawn, which is infinately more self aware (and yet still not much aware).
Can't god be so smart that evolution was a part of his plan? And yes I did say HE because god is a man. BITCHES!!!!
It's worth noting that humans are monkeys depending on how you define Monkey. The problem is that "monkey" is not a good clade. Good clades terms are supposed to include a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Generally, most people's understanding of "monkey" includes a common ancestor and only SOME of its descendants, arbitrarily excluding apes, despite the fact that apes are descended from monkeys.
Of course, "fish" "reptile" and "dinosaur" are all lousy clades as well, since there are groups nested WITHIN those groups that most people would object to calling "fish" "reptile" or "dinosaur." For instance, birds are almost certainly dinosaurs. They are descended from dinosaurs, and you never STOP being part of the group your ancestors were a part of.
(They won't concede the point, of course, but it's fun to watch them backpedal, spin, skid, etc.)
Discussion System prefs link: http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=editcomm
Then this would be false.
But seriously, it's simple to believe that survival of the fittest rules our world, it's simply self-evident. Whereas our genealogical timeline is a bit shakey, however with each year that passes more gaps are filled with these scientific findings.
Disbelief in undeniable fact that human remains date back far beyond the Biblical "6000 Year History" of our kind amuses me, but what annoys me is the utter disregard for this fact by calling it fallacy and pagan trickery.
If someone slapped you in the face, would you deny it as "The Wind"? I doubt it, so why dispute something so tangible as this obviously tangible evidence?
I Lost My Virginity While Waiting for BSD to Compile.
Also a good point, although it is hard to know at exactly what point the fetus "gains consciousness". The nervous system is a good scientific start since it is what connects the entire body with the same energy (as far as we currently imagine), however it is hard to define at exactly what point the fetus does gain consciousness. The point being that we must be careful before we use clear-cut definitions for a very important distinction.
-Same anonymous coward
PS: Curious, what does "anonymous" matter to an article's weight? Theoretically I could be anyone with a computer connection, but its only when you worry about hypocrisy and "credibility" that you actually care. Anyway, with an opinion how do such things matter? Opinions should be viewed (not written) without bias. WITH all knowledge of events possible, but no bias.
Are you implying that a truth seeking scientist might have a problem accepting something with no reason to other than "cuz it's like, written in this book, which I believe cuz someone else told me they believed it"???
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Name your species -- whales, domestic dogs, cattle, modern antelope, sharks, squid, tapeworms, whatever -- and the fossil history won't be perfect but it'll be substantial. Darwin's insight was to explain the mechanism for change between one species and another -- but in terms of physical evidence, "Have we found many other 'missing links'?" is a no-brainer, because even back then the evidence was piling up.
The whole set of events that resulted in Darwin's Origin of Species was all about the enormous new body of evidence for species changing over time. Between the geology of Darwin's day, which showed the earth was of much greater antiquity than had been thought, and the colossal fossil finds that were happening, naturalists were presented with a raft of examples of transitional species: dinosaurs of course, but also all manner of species like fossil camels, burly "terror birds," and on and on. They were presented with overwhelming examples of species evolving, but they had to get their heads around the evidence to explain how things had happened.
And yeah, that does mean creationist objections to evolution have things exactly backwards when they talk about no evidence being there. Evolutionary theory started with evidence piling up to the point where it had to be explained.
The news just doesn't go crazy when someone finds a new fossil shark tooth, and it does play up the hominid remains. That's the only reason you had this idea.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Actually, most of the fundies do believe this. They believe that only their little enclave is even slightly Christian and that all the others worship a false Jesus.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Laying aside the whole evolution/creationism/design thing, the language used by these archaelogists is a big red flag.
..."We have proved that one (species) is transforming into the other" [--- how did they manage to prove THAT, without even any mention of how the fossils were dated?]
Count the number of times they use language like "proved", and also words like "for the first time", "unambiguous", "It is the only place in the world",
This is not the language of careful scientists. These are people touting themselves, their research and their region in spectacular ways. It is grandstanding. It may be that the results are valid, but I think we have every right to be skeptical until other scientists weigh in.
I agree, sort of, and I agree that we should probably play it safe in regards to the rights that we give fetuses. Of course, most states ALREADY do this: late trimester abortions are already heavily regulated, and even second trimester abortions can be: even under Rv.Wade.
I don't think there is a point at which something gains consciousness: even newborn babies have a lot less conscious awareness than adults. It's a gradient, and you have to draw an arbitrary line somewhere. But it's worth noting that you can compare different forms of life. If you feel fine killing and eating chickens, for instance, it seems bizarre to think that RU486 is bad, because it at best can kill something with far far far less individuality, feelings, psychological fear, and so on than a chicken. That's not to say that human beings and chickens are equivalent. It's just that if you are just going by degree of capacity for things like consciousness and pain and so on, its seems totally out of order to care first about the appropriate treatment of zygotes before you've worked out the appropriate treatment of chickens.
Not sure if your anonymous comment is you sig, but I mostlyagree. I think the main reason AC are given less credence is that they have no need to maintain a reputation, even for their made up name like "plunge." They can post without having any prior connection or relationship to the website, and so are on average less wedded to its rules and so on.
I always thought the missing link was in the White House? Am I wrong? W sure looks like a ape man.
Sadly, I think that Ghandi had it right about us christians.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Hello all:
Pardon my ignorance, I have some questions I like to have answered:
* When they say they found fossils of eight individual primitive hominids, what exactly did they find? How complete are the fossils in terms of percentage?
* Would you explain to me how an anthropologist can classify a whole animal and infer its evolutionary stage, given a few small pieces of bone fragments?
I ask these questions humbly. Thank you in advance.
Cheers.
B. Pascal.
You can tell it's Easter .. the Atheists are working overtime.
The parent post asks such great questions. I have a post on my blog about the fossils and what they may show about the biogeography of early hominids.
In response to the questions:
In any event, please read my blog for more information; I always update when new fossils are found!
-John
Check out this link:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39512
You guys want this to be true soooo bad :-/
Nothign to see here - move along....
DO you have a brain? Or did your mommy type this for you.
I meant a piece of a tooth and a jaw bone. Scientists can be so stupid sometimes.
The Nature article is available online complete with figures and pictures.
As a scientific guy and a bit of a programmer, I have observed what I call the fundamental nature of complex systems.
That is, they either act in their own interest and succeed and increase, they fail, or they reach a case of neither failing nor increasing, but just staying at a point of existence. A population of bacteria may not have enough food to survive and may die out, may have just enough food to reproduce enough and move on or reproduce and expand the population. This, I feel is the inherent nature of complex systems, they either fail, they stabilize at a certain size or number or they grow and expand.
This concept can be applied to business (success, failure or hanging on at a current size) and to populations of living creatures.
Therefore, we can see a bunch of these "systems" operating at different scales in an "envronment", be it the marketplace or the ecological niches on the earth. All working, interacting with each other, succceeding, holding on or failing.
I have no problem with the feeling that there is no need for a God behind this. In recent conversations with converted people they can not fathom that the sunrise can not exist without a God to make it. They had an emotional realization of God and Jesus, not a rational , logical one. These folks look at a sunrise as a perfect creation by God. It is the fundamental essence of their understanding. The birds chirping are not calls saying "I'm here, I've got the best spot" but are manefestations of the wonder of "the perfect system" that God has created for us to inhabit. While we scientific minded love to find out how things work and how they work together, they accept things at face value and their interpretation of that. Therein it is flawed by their perspective, skewed by their predisposition that "everything was just created by God 6000 years ago". They are not capable of understanding research papers, partly because it would conflict with their sense of the world.
I (we?) are/am perfectly capable with everything existing without a God/god to make it happen. They are not.
The recent discovery of the transitional fish form was mentioned to these folks and was discounted as a baby alligator. No matter that alligators do not have fin rays at the end of their limbs and elbow like joints in the middle. Explaining atomic decay and radio carbon dating are equally dismissed by "that's just 75 years old, how can we make sure it's accurate?"
If scientific discovery found more evidence towards a God or some divine creation, then that's a pointer to skew things towards that direction but all discoveries are merely evidence one way or the other. Right now, there are more AGAINST the "truths" of the bible and testaments but until these discoveries are put in a language and context for people of the mindset I've mentioned, they still will discount it, sadly, because they can not fathom it.
I'll be damned if I'm going to discuss genetic drift. Anyone have any simple cases they care to share? Be they pro evolution or pro creation??
Cheers,
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
[iiiiippp]
[Scientist 1] Hey, man. This weed is awesome.
[Scientist 2] Yeah, dude.
[Scientist 1] Hey, you know what, man?
[Scientist 2] What, dude.
[Scientist 1] Your skull bong totally looks like a missing link! I bet it could, like, totally fit in by Australopithecus anamensis.
[Scientist 2] Wow, man, and I totally thought it was an ancient bong.
so are you saying christians have a persecution complex? hmm I wonder what papa freud would say about such a thing. I mean they do sit on santas lap, Jesus does love the little children, and innocence is divine. Sounds like christians need to get their act together, and stop supporting perverse ideals.
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
That's called Intelligent Design.
The god of the old testament is always testing people, burning them up, inflicting them with horrible & fatal diseases, drowning them, etc. Even if you don't think the Judaeo-Christian god is so vengeful and jealous, you still have the problem of theodicy, the theoretical achilles heel of monotheism. It's much easier to deal with evil if you go with more than one deity.
Anyway, you may be right that god wouldn't test people with fossils. That would be way too easy on us humans.
I completely agree with all that. One point is that we must then become vegetarians if we truly wish to save the world's pain and suffering. How much will the world suffer if a panda is killed or if some woman loses (in any form) her baby before the first trimester? No I am not vegetarian, but I don't eat meat every day either.
The last part is not my sig, that was a real comment. You did a good job explaining the social contract of making an account, but this has no bearing on viewing an opinion without bias (bias is "previous judgement"). If you read an opinion biased, which very naturally develops when you listen to someone's previous record of opinion, then you are viewing with a clouded mind. When someone's opinions generally are the same as our own we usually give that person more respect, however there are times when no matter who is saying something it is still a wrong or right statement.
-AC
My question is other than bones, what is the proof he is absolutely a new species. Could this specimen have a genetic disorder? Aren't "mini-me" and Shaq the same species? How do you know that Australopithecus evolved into modern man and that that line didn't die out? I'm not saying that evolution doesn't exist. But damn you have to do better than that to call it "proof". I would call it evidence exhibit x.
I say atheists, because some who advocate on behalf of evolution want to disprove Christianity through science. In Discover magazine recently, there was an article about Sir Richard Dawkins, refered to as Darwin's rottweiler, who uses evolution to attempt to disprove Christianity, even to scientists who believe in both evolution and God.
Frankly, science and religion have little in common, other than the search for truth that was talked about in the movie Contact. I believe that science's purpose is to explain the natural (physical) world, but that it cannot say anything about the spiritual world. Religion/faith is about who we are in relation to the natural and spiritual world, and is suppose to show us how to fulfill our potential as human beings.
1. Nope.
2. Wrong.
3. Unh unh.
Nobody is required to do what you claim they "MUST" do. I'll live my life the way I see fit. You live your life the way you see fit.
"Proving" evolution does not disprove the existence of God. Even Einstein spoke of God. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive.
:-)
Personally, I believe in God. I believe in ID. This does not mean that I do not believe in evolution. The fact is, my feeble mind can not comprehend how God created life and the universe. For all I know, evolution may be the intelligent design. I won't know until I meet God and ask him (or her
All I know is:
1) God does not play dice with the Universe
and
2) Do not tell God what to do with His dice.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
The issue is both broader and deeper than you suggest. Essentially you imply that creationists are irrational and motivated by emotion, who are not introspective.
It's not an emotional rejection, but rather a world view that says that speciation through mutation and time is not correct. I don't make such assertions about those who have an a priori commitment to naturalism, and I would appreciate it if you might offer a bit more charity to those with whom you disagree.
Of course I have an a priori commitment to a philosophy that rejects the time and chance model. In addition, I see a number of things that don't fit the model of a designerless universe, and that don't seem to follow logic in terms of "mutations and adaptations lead to beneficial change, given enough time." That does not mean that I don't see difficulties with alternate theories, just that I disagree with the conclusions drawn by evolutionists.
For what it's worth, I'm a big believer in the scientific method.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
"Law" is a largely obsolete term that means "a simple scientific theory that seems to be reliable." These days, science is moving so fast that hardly anybody presumes to call anything a "law" anymore, no matter how reliable a theory might be. However, for historical reasons, the word "Law" is often retained for older theories, even after they are shown to be wrong. For example, the "Law of Gravity" is still understood to refer to Newton's theory of gravity, even though it has been shown to be inaccurate and has been supplanted by Einstein's Theory of General Relativity.
I have many, many of these robots which transform into modern vehicles which are direct descendents of the original 'bots which were on the Arc. The current incarnations of these robots are devoid of the sentience they had 1 million years ago. They're called Transformers and I have reason to believe that they possessed great intelligence given their detailed paint jobs and symbols they created.
Many of the current Transformers can be geneologically traced back to their ancestors using advanced scientific methods and some can even be traced back just by the structure of their jaw and cranial antenae.
No text.
Just for the sake of clarification, so that everyone is aware of a (seemingly ubiquitous) equivocation ocrruing in the vernacular of this "social discussion". I should say that I am not referring to the professions of the dogmatic as much as the actual ideas of the informed (and yes, it's a mistake to think that all creationists are uninformed and morons -- as foolish as the mistake that all evolutionists are informed and brilliant. There are people who have all the data and have PhDs in biology and so forth who are also creationists -- not out of zealotry, but out of genuine skepticism about as-yet-unanswered questions relating to evidence for the theory of evolution).
Creationists (generally) aren't actually troubled by the notion of evolution. When people refer to the "evolution-creation debate" there's an equivocation going on with the word "evolution." The point of contention for creationists is with universal speciation -- that is, the theory that all the species of the world evolved from a common ancestor organism. Creationists generally won't have difficulty with the notion that poodles are related to great danes or even wolves. To this end, they will claim that speciation occurs within a "kind" (most likely similar to "order" or "family" in the taxonomical chain -- which is problematic for its own reasons, which I'll mention in a moment -- but possibly as restrictive as "genus") but not to the scale that differentiation of "kingdom" occurs.
The dispute over findings in articles such as the one cited here will rest generally on paragraphs like this one:
Claiming that there's a step being taken here that isn't logically necessary (that is, there isn't sufficient evidence to warrant calling it necessary -- since this isn't an empirical science); namely that just because the species has changed, doesn't mean that humans evolved from a non-human ancestor (where non-human is referring to a creature whose closest biological connection to us is in the "kind" level (again "order," "family," or "genus").
Finally, a major point of difficulty for the honestly skeptical creationist is that the taxonomy of organisms has generally been phenotypical rather than genotypical. This is pretty much analogous to the genetic response to Lamarck's theory of acquired characteristics. It's a reasonable doubt. We're still working out what havoc -- if any -- is caused by making that change (there is some evidence that some species may be wildly mis-placed genetically).
I should disclaim that I am not arguing that it is necessary to be a creationist if one is skeptical about evolution, but it is also not necessary not to be.
The find is appropriate for anthropologists (as in the article), but the conclusions aren't. Palentologists are more qualified to make such judgements (and I was glad to see that one was quoted at the beginning of the article), but the rest of the article seems simply to be quoting an anthropologists take on a matter possibly outside his field.
'The bible goes on to say that in the 20th verse of this 3rd chapter of revelations, "I will come into him and will suffer him until he was me." I'm ready for god to say "I'll suffer for someboy, I'm ready to come into somebody and do a change in their situation. Let god turn it around for you, let god make the difference, let god BE what he wanna be... in your life.'
Be you of muslim, christian, or buddhist (to name a few) persuasion.
Piltdown, Java, Nebraska, Orce, Neanderthal, Yale DNA Hybridization Scandal, etc... Logic? Not even close. Proven fraud? You bet!
Yeah, creationists are easily bored.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
He lives in the apartment next to me and likes throwing parties where people scream, shout and sing indecipherable lyrics for hours, in that horrible tone-deaf way that only male supporters and neo-nazis can.
Researchers [...] are now saying they have 'proof' of human evolution.
Most slashdotters believe that there's an overwhelming number of proofs already available. Why should one more (or less) make a headline?
Now, mod me down freely. My karma can't get any worse...
You said "arsed" that was cool
Kill your TV
God did not put those there to test us.... If one reads the entire article they find that even the scientists are speculating on this at best. There is still not proof or actual facts. The problem is that people do not read or research what is really going on here. The only evolution that can be proven is the modification of same species like the Dog as an example. There are many types of dogs but they are all dogs. There is no actual proof of one species turning into another. Lastly, the fossil record and the geological column arguments are circular reasoning. The fossils determine the age of the layers in the column and the fossils are dated by where they are in the column. The best explanation for the lack of "transitional fossils" is stated by Darwin as the, "extreme imperfection of the geological record." Scientist have yet to prove this yet and therefore work on a basis of faith in an unproven theory. The only fact that we have yet to see is that this theory has been labled as fact enough times that people are actually believing it and now teaching it as a fact in schools.
Science doesn't have a specifically anti-Christian bias. Certain Fundamentalists simply just see something there and use it to play up their own sense of persecution.
It's not so much the scientist that have an anti-Christian bias. It's people like so many here on slashdot that take every evolutionary discovery and try to use to beat Christians over the head saying, "See, ID people are stoopid".
Truth is, neither scientist nor fundamentalists can full explain how the universe was created. What most of us know for sure is that it exists.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Asside from all the rhetoric... where are the transitional species (fossils)? I know that most of this community will simply dismiss me because i come from the ID side of the argument but I have yet to see what i would consider to be real evidence of evolution or even of the age of the earth. Without all of the sarcasm, help me out here... If you'll take the time to point me toward the real facts, I will certainly review them and rebut if possible or accept if proven.
The guy was a great brainwasher, but his brainwaxes sucked.
The fossils clearly show evoulution was and is occuring in all species.
Religion clearly shows interferance with this evolution(maybe more mental than physical?).
God (or someone) appears to have contacted humans and informed them about a lot of good stuff (see "book of Enoch" which predates the bible and is repeated in dead sea scrolls).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Enoch
This infomation was adopted like the cargo cults and has been held onto with complete faith in a higher being. seems ok with me they had the contact with a clearly higher inteligence and were very much helped by them.
Todays issue appears to be accepting both events happend and using science to prove evolution and the events that turned nice hunter gathers who killed to eat into manic religous people that now kill to prove there point.
Just shows to me that captain Kirk was right to hold firm on the non-interference thingy.
{ Pillar candles great for when the power fails and you cant see the keyboard..
For all those ignorant members, Christinity isn't the only religion on the face of earth. There are other religions which believe in evolution. It is wrong to say religion does not believe in evolution. It should rather be Christinity does not believe in evolution. For ex, Hinduism/Buddhism have the concept of evolution from lower form of life to present day human form. Unlike Judaism/Christinity/Islam, they believe in cycle of life rather than a linear form (particular point of time when god created everything). There is neither beginning nor end.
How do we know that the carbon dating process isn't dating 4,000 year old fart gas instead? Humans and animals have been around for a long time... we all have gas... where does it go? Into fossils! Here... date this... *pfffft*
It's not just happening around us. Just like your examples show, we create evolution. It cannot happen by itself.
Now, who or what creates our evolution...?
That's a well-articulated article describing a position I've long held.
/You can't even answer that in our units of time!/
/trivial/. Any time He needs to be somewhere or know something, He just looks it up as it happend (from our point of view). He wrote the universe's OS, designed it's hardware, and so on. Omnipotence (from our standpoint) becomes pretty straightforward.
/concept/ of mass. Heavy, eh? (pun intended)
;)
1) God doesn't lie (I hesitate to use the word "can't", though it seems right to me).
2) We can see events that happened billions of lightyears away/billions of years ago.
Ditto for fossils, and sedimentary rock, and so on and so forth.
3) We have two things we know to be true
3.1) The Universe
3.2) The Bible (I'm well aware that there are lots of people who will disagree with me)
4) If we believe those two things contradict one another, we're interpretting something wrong, and should figure out where we mad an error.
C'mon... TIME AND SPACE AS WE KNOW KNOW THEM didn't exist before the big bang (so the theory goes). So God must exist outside our space/time.
How long are seven of God's days?
The way I figure it, God has access to the entire length and breadth of our space/time, all the time (his time). At which point omnisciense and omnipresence are
Creating matter from energy or visa versa I can get my mind around (in a hand-wavy sort of way). But how does one go about creating "space", or "time", or "gravity", "temperature", "mass", [insert list of physical properties that define our universe here]?!
And when I say "mass", I don't mean X kg of element Y. I'm talking about the
And I've got a strong feeling that God's a hacker on an unimaginable scale. Disagree? Okay... try to understand QM, then reevaluate that position.
--Mark
(-1 flamebait)
(-1 OT)
(-3 I don't like your opinion)
Well then ... who's image he created women?
On the other hand people seem to suffer of this "human centric" syndrome ... ever since they put the earth the centre of the universe and then the sun, and then the galaxy.
It might be simpler to label everything we don't know as God ... everything we do, good or bad, as God's will - yet is just a label, an excuse not to answer the real question.
However, there ARE other kinds of proof, that is also mathematical in nature, but aren't generally covered in these discussions - one being the existance/non-existance proof. This kind of proof establishes if an answer exists (or does not exist) to a specific question, without attempting to actually produce any examples. It is a useful technique when you only want to know if a counter-example must exist, even if there is no actual way of discovering it.
Let us take the theory of evolution. Evolution requires a series of random mutations to accumulate, eventually diversifying species. This has a number of obvious requirements, the first of which is that for all species that exist or have ever existed, there must exist (or have existed) a one and only one other species, where the genetic variation within either does not overlap with the genetic variation of the other, and where a sequence of mutations can be defined such that no step in the sequence involves changes in excess of those that naturally occur between generations and all steps produce viable genetic code for an organism with no significant disadvantage over others within the species, and where independent evidence exists that the two genetic sequences are directly related to each other.
Those are some very tough requirements and it's not at all clear you could solve these requirements for ANY species that currently exist. However, the problem is not one of solving the requirements. This is an existance proof, not a solution. So long as we can show that a solution must exist, we don't actually need to know what the solution is.
A second kind of proof is proof by induction. A proof by induction requires that we prove that a specific step occurs and that a given initial condition occurs. Everything else then follows. Again, we use the above argument. We start by saying that a species forks from another species, according to evolution. Every step along that fork must be valid, or it would have died off. We can use the initial species as our first step, then prove that a step will exist such that it mutates the organism without impairing it. From this, it would be possible to formulate (for any given branch) a proof by induction of the entire branch. Once you have done that for an arbritary branch, you can use that as a proof of the general mechanism and prove by induction that the entire tree must also be valid (from a given starting point).
Relationships between branches is also important, as this eliminates the possibility of parallel evolution, isolates or independent creation by any other means. It's also one of the hardest problems. There is no evidence from mDNA earlier that "mitochondrial Eve", even though there were plenty of humans existing before then. What you'd want is a species where individual lifetimes were vastly longer AND where the number of generations was small enough that extremely distinct genetic markers can be tracked.
If you can do that - ie: show that there exists a set of genetic markers that come from a common genetic family, not merely an entire species - you've established a much more definite relationship between species A and species B. The genetic code is not merely similar, it shows strong tell-tale signs of a direct family relationship.
I don't know if these options are really practical. I don't know if we have enough genetic data to know. It seems to me that we have far far too little genetic data about the world to know much of anything. But I do believe that - eventually - we will indeed have a clear-cut proof of evolution that goes so far beyond reasonable doubt that even the unreasonable doubters would have a hard time of it.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
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An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Some protestant sects have long considered the pope to by the anti-christ, no news there...
Lucy was a fraud, it conveniently left that out.
Do you have a source for that?
The missing link has been everywhere recently. It seems they find the missing link at least once a week, judging by /. articles. This must be where all the missing links go when a poorly wikified Wikipedia article is wikified.
Frog blast the vent core.
Don't forget that Evolution and other scientific principles are not true or untrue based on a single piece of evidence. It's not all or nothing as many creationists would have you believe. In other words there has long been 'proof' of evolution, human and otherwise. It is the details of specific changes that are sometimes unclear, not whether or not they happened at all and if it is possible for them to have happened. Phrases like 'missing link' and 'proof of evolution' are misleading because they imply that without the new small piece of information, or if one piece of information turns out to be wrong that we have to throw out the whole theory. It would be nice if news feeds, AFP in this case, would use more precise language in their headlines instead of perpetuating misconceptions about such politically charged issues. It's depressing that this issue is so politically charged. If more people read Gould,Dawkins,etc maybe it wouldn't be.
Thanks for providing an example! I really appreciate it!
(Hint: your list would be a lot more impressive if you could point to even one example that was debunked by a creationist or intelligent design type... instead of being disproven by scientists precisely because they didn't fit with the evidence.)
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
The true brainwasher is the television box that you are stuck to. If all that life has to give you is gangsters, guns and the next episode...GAL!
Rastafarians had said it all along; Ethiopia is the homeland.
Sorry, but "Lucy" is not a fraud. Creationist Tom Willis made this accusation way back in 1987, but it turned out that hsi criticisms weren't only wrong, they were built on an almost comical misunderstanding of a completely different case.
r ensis
At this point, we've found many Australopithecus fossils, so it's not even clear what this "fraud" screaming is supposed to prove anyway. And now that wikipedia exists, I don't expect this kind of hand waving will work much longer....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus_afa
"There's no discussion of how this fossil was dated to be 4 million years old. The scientists conclude that "the surrounding area indicated the specimens were forest dwellers"."
Lol. You really think that the sum total of what's in academic papers are in a quick news article announcing the find?
Argh, correction - actually it's centuries later..
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
Interesting take on it. I'm a hard, HARD atheist and don't "get" the supernatural stuff. On the other hand I work with some very smart scientists who happen to believe in a supreme being. Go figure.
Trolling is a art,
Apparently your are in the US, where teachers are still troubling evolution theory and Creationism. Maybe something more like
In other countries, people don't have this trouble.
No more joking. Look, man, or woman, the science is not good enough to solve every problem yet. There are only a very limited pinch of special cases that math can give us answer analytically. Many problems are solved numerically. And for most problems there are no answer at all. That's the reallity.
As people are not analytical, that't not important at all. We shouldn't expect a poet think analytically at all, shall we?
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
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No. I think news articles should summarize the basic ideas. If you are interested in the specifics, read the actual papers and learn the actual science. Then you wouldn't be running around saying stupid things like "Lucy was a fraud."
News flash 1922: Missing Link Found
The fossil "Nebraska Man" is found. Scientifically built up from a single tooth, 44 years later it was found that the tooth belonged to a pig.
News flash 1912: Missing Link Found
The fossil "Piltdown Man" is found. Remains claimed to be 500,000 years old. Cited for decades as proof of evolution. Over 500 doctoral dissertations were written. In 1956 the hoax was revealed. Scientifically built up from a jawbone, it was found that the jawbone belonged to a modem ape.
News flash ~1900: Missing Link Found
The fossil "Neanderthal Man" is found. Over 40 years later it was discovered that the skeleton was from an old man that suffered from severe arthritis.
Here are a few more fake missing link fossils:
"Lucy" turned out to be a chimpanzee
"New Guinea Man" turned out to be from 1970
"Peking Man" claimed to be 500,00 years old and all evidence disappeared
It's not so much the scientist that have an anti-Christian bias. It's people like so many here on slashdot that take every evolutionary discovery and try to use to beat Christians over the head saying, "See, ID people are stoopid".
I'd guess that there wouldn't be as much of this if some IDers weren't so intent on pushing *their* agenda on the rest of the nation/world.
Truth is, neither scientist nor fundamentalists can full explain how the universe was created. What most of us know for sure is that it exists.
While this is true, the scientists are the one who are actually seeking an explanation, while the fundamentalists seem to simply be accepting what they are told.
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"You must mean how everyone is this thread (and the scientists in this article) certainly must have read the Bible (which is a historical record), and all of the supporting archaeological, geographical, historical, cultural, and literary evidence for the authenticity of the Bible"
:)
Some may have, some may not have. I'm not sure what it has to do with anything. Plenty of religious people are just fine with what science has to say about the history of life on Earth, including all of Catholicism.
I'm not sure why you would cite "archaeological, geographical... etc." evidence as a sign of anything if you don't think such things are good science anyway.
"Science, which is merely observation limited by the confines of 3D time/space and the laws of our universe, cannot logically deliver any comment on the existence of God."
Did I or the article or anything else comment on the existense of God? No. Soooooo: I guess you have a pretty giant chip on your shoulder then. Too bad you can't trick me into knocking it off!
"Any belief about origins, is exactly that: a belief."
I don't know what you mean about "origins." We're talking about physical, everyday facts like the evolution of life on earth, including the evolution of homo sapiens. That's science, not a belief system.
"but it doesn't change the fact that at the core of *any* view of origins is belief, not science."
Sorry, but this schoolyard "I am rubber, you are glue" stuff doesn't work on me. It's science. Lucy isn't a fraud. Human beings are apes. Get over it.
The problem I have with evolution is that it is built on the concept of information being created out of nowhere. The scientists say that it is by "mutations", but EVERY mutation EVER recorded has caused a loss of information (read DNA). Even the smallest biological structures are built like mini machines, very complex data processors. Evolution can't explain where the information for DNA came from because they have yet to figure out how to spawn information with a mutation. There has yet to be a mutation recorded that has created or added to the DNA of an organism. Until they can prove that it can happed...I would more likely believe in de-evolution.
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"Belief in evolution is a rejection of the Biblical account of creation. And regardless, any belief on origins is a religious belief -- it doesn't matter whether your belief is God, dirt, or gas, the foundation is an article of faith, not a scientific fact. "
Saying it over and over doesn't make it true, sorry. I'm sorry that YOU feel you have no option other than faith in this or faith in that, but that's simply not the case for everyone. The rest of us will continue to go by what the evidence is.
"There's nothing scientifically provable about origins. The root matter and cause is by definition outside the laws of the universe. "
Nothing about evolution is outside of the laws of the universe. In fact, the entire history of life takes place within the universe. If there is a root matter and cause external to the universe then that indeed is not something relevant to science. But things like the history of life on earth is well within the everyday purview of evidence and fact.
"The issue of origins, and subsequent world view people adopt is based on an individual's desire (or lack thereof) to be responsible to a God which demands moral accountability. It has absolutely nothing to do with science. That's the big dust cloud people use to assuage their conscience."
I don't think you have any sort of coherent arugment. It's been three posts now, and you still haven't presented anything other than these sort of meaingless, empty assertions which you can't back up. You haven't even tried to back up your claim that Lucy was a fraud.
I'm sorry you feel this way, but your feelings and nasty accusations don't change the way scientific evidence works, or how solid and incontroverible the evidence for common descent is.
The scientists conclude that "the surrounding area indicated the specimens were forest dwellers". Using the same logic, I suppose the millions of seashells in the Himalayas were also sea organisms that were forest dwellers.
How exactly do you reach that conclusion?
Beliefs on origins, regardless of what they are, never have been, nor will ever be, based on science, nor can they be.
This isn't a "belief about origin". This is evidence for something that happened *after* creation. Its a peculiar arrogance of man to believe that he was created with the universe --- the universe has existed (or was created) for billions of years, and it will continue to exist for billions of years after man is gone. Science cannot, yet, explain the act of creation, or event, but it can certainly explain how humans became the way they are.
Regardless of what facts and figures you conjure up, it cannot explain the eternal matter and acting force that started it all.
I love the use of "conjure" and "facts" in the same sentence. Scientists need to "magic" to arrive at their explanations. Their evidence is the world around us that can be plainly seen. Anyway, this is not a case regarding "eternal matter", its a theory regarding our very non-eternal selves.
Those necessarily have to be, without debate or variation, relegated to an article of faith. The only thing this news article says definitively is that these scientists have chosen to adopt evolution as their article of faith.
Bullshit. The varacity of evolution can be supported just as can any other branch of science. It cannot be "proven", but then again, quantum physics hasn't been "proven" either, yet it is still the underpinning of some of our biggest industries. Faith is belief in something --- evidence is not a prerequisite for faith. Science doesn't operate on faith, their "beliefs" are of a very different nature.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
It looks like rubbish to me, but there was a story on bbc today claiming that the ability to experience pain only develops *after* birth.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4905892.stm
I've been posting on the net since 1994 and I still haven't come up with a good sig!
Oh, please. Don't play the persecution card... It's not fooling anyone.
Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, this is compelling evidec for the devolution of Slashdot. Pointless, repetetive, off-topic flamebait.
And for some on-topic observations: The breakthrough is our direct lineage is known back to 4 million BC now. And we are all Ethiopian.
Here we go again! WOW. Something different. Gee you really picked this one out from left field. Never heard anything like this before!
Well if Evolution is proved NOW then what was all the other proofs of apemen then. FAKES!!! Yes FAKES. Well maybe, just maybe these are fakes as well. They all are fake.
Hey we found a tooth of a pig, call it a million years old, quote it on slashdot, and voila, without any more ado we have evolution proved "once and for all" once again. Hey quick! Draw it into a picture of an apeman! Get the newspapers and select websites to publish it.
What happened to all the other proofs? HUH.
Gee it's lucky to find something "just now" TM. Right when the ID v Evolution debate is hotting up. Well wouldn't you know it? Just found the proof we were looking for.
Yeah right.
piltdown man
a tooth of a pig drawn into an apeman
fake 5 years by 1927
nebraska man
a fake for 40 years
javaman homo erectus
discovered by dr dubois and he himself declared in 1938 that it was just a monkey (gibbon)
had found human skulls in the same stratum
did not tell anyone for 30 years
eventually renounced it himself
peking man
Dr. black discovered it
a tooth and some ashes
soon after human remains mixed with animal remains. the animal remains were the food of the humans.
1972
richard leaky
found a skull
supposedly blew evolution out of the water. the only thing left was ramapithecus. just some fragments of jaw bones and some teeth. the same size and shape as a babboon in ethiopia.
such little evidence that would not be accepted in any other field of science
it never has been found and it never will be found a creature that is more than brute and less than human.
(zero again please moderators)(great job)(you deserve a medal)
Australopithecus anamensis was discovered in 1987. it is hardly a new species. paleoanthropologists have been speculating that it was a member of the human evolutionary tree for almost twenty years.
Have you noticed that the main theme of the Gospel of Judas is similar to some of the questions raised in the musical Jesus Christ Superstar? They both explore the idea that Judas had to turn in Christ to fulfill Christ's mission on earth. Listen to the debate between Chirst and Judas during the last supper in Jesus Christ Superstar:
Judas: You want me to do it. [Turn him in.]
Jesus: Why don't you do it?
Judas: What if I just stay here and ruin your ambition? Chirst, you deserve it.
etc.
Also, I haven't found the missing link to the ancient robots known as Transformers, but when I do, /. will be the first place I submit my headline!
Blah blah, they don't agree with you either, and they view your insistence that there is a god with the same tooth-grinding ire which which you view their instistence that there's not a god.
I think both of you need to get over yourselves. Some people use science to fuel their personal agendas the same way other people use religion.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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"Posted again (forgot the line breaks the first time):"
:)
Repeating the EXACT same thing TWICE, doesn't work either, sorry.
"The Bible precludes any possibility of evolution."
If you read it that way, I guess. But then the Bible is clearly pretty wrong, on the evidence. If you take the Bible as true over and above the evidence, then you are contradicting yourself, because before you seemed to be claiming that there was empirical evidence showing the bible to be good history. You can't have it both ways.
"Reality doesn't change because someone believes it, though that's exactly the philosophy which underpins evolution."
Nope, exactly the opposite in fact. Evolution, like all empirical science, assumes that the basic laws and functions and processes of physics and chemistry and so forth work the same in the past as they do today.
"There's the evolutionary account. There's the Biblical account. There are those who are consistent in their beliefs by believing one or the other. There are those who are completely confused and self-contradictory by trying to claim they believe in both."
I don't see the self-contradiction there, but whatever. Evolution, however, still isn't a "belief." It's an empirical conclusion.
"Absolutely nothing existed. Then something existed. That is clearly outside of the laws of the universe."
First of all, the scenario you describe is by no means the most accurate description of the start of the universe. Second of all, no it wouldnt really, but that requires an understanding of physics and thermodynamics. But thirdly, and most importantly, evolution has nothing to do with the start of the universe. It doesn't even come into play that we know of for several billion years "later."
"Making any assertion whatsoever on the origin of life is at its root, a religious belief."
What, and simply claiming that it is makes it so? Why? How? Your previous line of logic, that the origin of life has something to do with the start of the universe has already failed as, well, silly. Now you seem to be talking about at least the origin of life, which is on the right track, but still wrong. Evolution is not a theory of life's origins. That's a different branch of explanation (though still solidly within the realm of science, not faith).
"I will agree about how solid and incontrovertible the evidence for common descent is. Plants, animals, and humans all bearing descendants "after their kind"."
Ah yes, "kinds." A term with no solid specific definition, which you will re-define completely at the drop of a hat. Tell me, are camels and llamas the same kind, or different? Are false killer whales the same kind, or different kinds? Define "kind" if you can: should be amusing.
Common descent, as you may or may not know, refers to the common origins of all life. Humans are apes, which are simians, which are primates, which are placental mammals, which are amniotes, which are tetrapods, which are vertebrates, which are eukaryotes, and so on.
"The answer has always been 100% consistent with the Biblical account of creation, yet scientists will pull bone out of 50 feet of rock and claim it as the grand explanation for everything."
If that's the limit of your understanding of how science works, then no wonder you are so incredulous. I suggest that you learn more about what is actually known and done.
"They'll claim the Grand Canyon is geologic evidence for millions of years of erosion, when Mt St. Helens shows similar features which developed in a matter of minutes."
Except that they aren't at all similar (good grief: the GC is 100,000 times larger than St. Helens, and the "canyon" elements radically and identifiably different since they were formed in radically different ways). And the fact that you are willing to claim that they are only demonstrates your willingness to, knowingly or not, repeat falsehoods in service to your belief.
"We won't agree here on wha
For instance, scientists have discovered animals frozen in ice in polar regions with 'fresh' vegetation still in their mouths. This can be attributed to a very sudden drop in temperature and massive amounts of water falling from the atmosphere.
Also of interesting note is the global spread of the tale of a flood account throughout numerous cultures, including isolated native tribes. Most will have a tale related to some account of a global deluge. The Japanese culture for instance stands out in highlight - the symbol for one of their words for a boat is a boxish looking ark with eight dots inside (noah and wife, and his three sons an their wives).
So, miraculous events in the Bible can be proven. One of the biggest problems is that people will read it and nod off, breeze over it, or not completely understand what it is saying and fail to do historical research. That is why there are so many who have 'blind' faith. Many think that all that is necessary is to simply believe, when in reality, Jesus himself said that much effort would be required.
Prove it.
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"Fair enough. The one thing we know for sure is that the truth will be known."
That's your opinion. In MY opinion, in order to learn truth, you have to get up out of your easy chair and go and search for it. Sitting around pontificating and maybe even dying isn't good enough.
"I just hope you are confident enough to bet your eternity on it. Keep in mind the father of your beloved theory (Darwin), by his own admission, didn't even completely believe his theory, and admitted his motive was seeking an alternative to God. That's where your "incontroveritble" beliefs began."
Does your church pay you three fitty every time you make up some laughable lie for the faith? We don't need to wait until we die to know that you spit out one goofy falsehood after another: we can all see it right now!
Darwin wasn't seeking an alternative to God. He was a Christian. Origin specifically credits the Creator as the source of life. Later in his life he became an agnostic of sorts, but he was never an atheist. I'm not sure what you mean by "didn't completely believe" but as far as I know, Darwin never renounced his theory. He did pretty quickly admit that he got the basic mechanism of heredity wrong, and it was wrong. But that's not the same thing, and I doubt you even know what I'm talking about there anyway.
Of course, what Darwin believed or didn't believe is a matter of historical interest, but not of scientific consequence. The only thing that matters to science is the evidence.
"No need to debate. Everyone will come face to face with the truth, regardless of what anyone says, and regardless of what anyone believes."
Again, in your opinion. Me, I think I'll put some effort into exploring what is and isn't true instead of just sitting around making stuff up.
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"In your evolutionary world, where there is no basis for right or wrong, where nothing has any inherent value, and there is no purpose to life, other than survival of the fittest, why does what I say bother you so much?"
How is it that you manage to include ridiculous falsehoods in every sentance you write? The fact of evolution has no bearing at all on a basis for right and wrong. Is is not ought.
Why does does what you say bother me? Because much of it is simply false or based on your own misconceptions about a great many things. Falsehoods need to be challenged.
"And the Bible speaks clearly about those who worship the creation rather than the Creator, and professing themselves to be wise, their foolish hearts are darkened"
How do you know that this doesn't apply to you, instead of me? I don't "worship" creation. And I don't profess myself to be "wise" Only one of us is here claiming absolute knowledge of "THE" incontrovertible truth: and it's YOU!
"Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Osama bin Laden, are model citizens according to evolutionary philosophy"
You seem to be under the misapprehension that there is anything called "evolutionary philosophy." While I suppose one could invent one, I'm not sure what the point of it would be. In any case, you are simply attacking a straw man of your own invention. If that makes you feel better, have it. But it doesn't have anything to do with either myself or evolution or science.
"And the Texas scientist given the award of "Distinguished Texas Scientist" for his proposition that 90% of the world's population be exterminated via the intentional spread of airborne ebola for the sake of saving the environment is another model evolutionist."
Another lie. He never advocated that it happen. He in fact WARNED that it would happen. I don't happen to agree with his particular brand of alarmism, but at least I argue against views like his on the merits rather than simply lying about what he believes or has said.
I'm a Christian, but there are big chunks of the book of Genesis that I believe are hogwash. A talking snake? Give me a break. And the whole "we're created in God's image" thing just doesn't make sense.
Remember in Star Trek V, Kirk asks the pointed question, "What does Goed need with a starship?" Well, what does an omnipotent being need with any of the features, limbs, or organs that we mortals posess?
I believe that God is probably not a physical entity, and certainly doesn't look anything like us.
The fossil "Nebraska Man" is found. Scientifically built up from a single tooth, 44 years later it was found that the tooth belonged to a pig.
You are obviously misinformed regarding the history of the Nebraska Man find. It was located in 1922, but even the man who found it and originally believed it to be a hominid tooth expressed doubts by 1925, and it was well-known to be a pig's tooth in 1928. That is not a 44-year time span, as you claim. That you are so misinformed on the subject suggests that you have not done any serious research in the study of human origins and the related hominid fossil finds.
News flash 1912: Missing Link Found
The fossil "Piltdown Man" is found. Remains claimed to be 500,000 years old. Cited for decades as proof of evolution. Over 500 doctoral dissertations were written. In 1956 the hoax was revealed. Scientifically built up from a jawbone, it was found that the jawbone belonged to a modem ape.
This again demonstrates a lack of research. It is true that Piltdown Man was a hoax, and it did take some time to expose it, but that is because very few scientists were allowed to examine the find until the mid 1950s. Moreover, it appears as though you are drawing research from known creationist falsehoods. I have attempted to locate even a fraction of the "over 500 doctoral dissertations" written on Piltdown man, yet not one creationist who has made the claim has been able to reference a single one. In fact, I have discovered that there were very likely no dissertations written on the subject at all (please feel free to correct me if you have a reference to an actual doctoral dissertation).
News flash ~1900: Missing Link Found
The fossil "Neanderthal Man" is found. Over 40 years later it was discovered that the skeleton was from an old man that suffered from severe arthritis.
This is completely false. No mainstream researcher has drawn such a conclusion.
"Lucy" turned out to be a chimpanzee
This claim is also false. It appears that you are obtaining information from either Kent Hovind or Jack Chick. Neither are a reliable source of information on the subject of evolution.
"New Guinea Man" turned out to be from 1970
New Guinea Man is approximately 5000 years old, and was never believed to be anything other than a modern human. It has never been presented as a transitional form.
"Peking Man" claimed to be 500,00 years old and all evidence disappeared
It appears obvious now that you have taken your information from Jack Chick's "Big Daddy" tract. You should be aware that Big Daddy is filled with factual errors and blatant misrepresentations, and constructing an argument based upon the information found in that tract will not yeild a convincing case. Information based upon Peking Man that is not a complete fabrication can be found here.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
It's people like so many here on slashdot that take every evolutionary discovery and try to use to beat Christians over the head saying, "See, ID people are stoopid".
How is an attack against promoters of ID an attack on Christians? ID proponents have repeatedly stated that ID is not Christianity.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
Buddhism isn't a theistic religion.
---
All your old jokes are belong to sigs.
Where in science or nature have you seen any phenomena that is "spontaneous"? It is generally understood that any phenomena is preceded by a "cause". So "spontaneous" is unscientific because it presupposes that there is NO preceding cause. Which is just a sleight of hand, or terminology, if you will, for saying "we don't know how it began", "we don't know what the first cause is" so therefore we will say there is none.
That is even worse dogma than the creationists dogma. It explains nothing, which is not what science is supposed to do. Science is supposed to make the distinction between the "cause" and "effect" while describing the "process". Might it not be more scientific to say that the "creation" process is "evolution", but we don't know, or want to know, what the "first cause" of that is.
They'll claim the Grand Canyon is geologic evidence for millions of years of erosion, when Mt St. Helens shows similar features which developed in a matter of minutes.
So do the Mt St. Helens deposits show angular unconformities sitting at the bottom like there is in the Grand Canyon? An angular unconformity requires:
1 Deposition
2 Lithofication
3 Metamorphis is some cases
4 Tilting
5 Erosion
6 Deposition (again)
7 Lithofication (again)
8 Metamorphis (again in some cases)
Try fitting those sequences into a few thousand years.
Also the Grand Canyon has multiple definable layers of different rock origins including among others limestone, wind blown cross bedded sandstone, basalt, shale. Some layers feature fossils, bioturbation and tracks.
Do the Mt Saint Helens deposits have these. No they have fine laminea of the same material.
Also sitting on the rim of the Grand Canyon are Limestone marine deposits (which by themselves falsify a young earth) full of fossils. Can you explain how these fossils were transported to 10000 ft above sea level with your theory of hydological sorting.
Next move north and explain the incised meanders of the Goosenecks on the San Juan river and explain those features via a rapid flood.
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I thought I'd take a line or two to educate people on the creationist "entropy argument" since it's in your post. Besides, it gives me an excuse to be exceedingly boring, which is what I enjoy doing on the Inter-webs. :-)
The standard argument I hear creationists put forth is to do with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and they love to talk about how the 2nd Law says this about entropy and that about entropy. Certainly there are implications about entropy in the 2nd Law, but these creationist arguments miss the point completely.
The 2nd Law, simply put, says that all systems tend toward a state of lowest energy. That's it. In some cases this decreases entropy, in others it increases. For example, if you put a bunch of individual oxygen atoms in a box, they'll spontaneously form O2 because that's a lower energy conformation (covalent bonding and sharing of electrons and all that). Did entropy decrease? You bet--there's half as many entities bopping around randomly, so entropy has no choice but to decrease. Pressure decreases, and so does temperature.
The same goes for far more complex molecules as well, such as chlorophyll. Put the constituent parts in a beaker, and it will spontaneously form (which scientists have successfully done). And DNA (which scientists have not yet successfully done).
Why is DNA so difficult? Because while the 2nd Law provides that all things tend to the state of lowest energy, it doesn't say anything about reaction pathways--if no pathway is present, the reaction won't happen. Look at a candle and consider: why doesn't the wick burn by itself spontaneously? Well, it does--but not until the pathway that enables that reaction (an ignition source) is provided.
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.
"Of course it does. If the universe is nothing but a glorified accident, then what one man says is right and wrong is no more legitimate than what another man says is right and wrong."
How is that any different if its planned out in detail? Regardless, the implication that evolution necessitates atheism is simply false. Try making this argument to, well, the MAJORITY of Christians in the world, and you won't get very far.
"One man says murder is wrong. Another man says murder is right. One man says that education is to be praised. Another man says that genocide is to be praised. Everything is relative. Nothing has inherent value."
You are as confused about morality as everything else. Either things have inherent value, or they don't. No state of affairs, whether evolution is true or false, can change whether or not things have inherent value or not. Even the existence or non-existence of God wouldn't affect it (would the existence or non-existence of God, or the opinion of God, somehow magically make rape okay? I don't see how it would: how would that affect anything?). So the whole issue is completely moot.
"And if your answer is "there is no absolutes" then you are right back into moral relativism, where anything can be right and wrong."
I'm not a moral relatavist, but, amusingly, you don't even seem to know what it is, because that's not what moral relativism is.
"You certainly do. You credit the creation with the power of the Creator, you deny the Creator, and put your own test tubes, calculators, and fuzzy-headed scientists in place of God and His Word as the authority on how life began, and the meaning to life; and you organize the living of your life accordingly. That is about as literal a definition of worship as there is."
Not in the slightest. I don't worship creation, and you making up a fantasy-land verison of what you think I must believe and think doesn't make it so. You might be thinking of Tolland-esque panatheism. THEY worship creation. But then, I don't think you know who they are or what they believe either.
"The truth is God's Word. The Almighty left that for us, not me. I'm just communicating His words, not mine. "
Seriously, your arguments are so stupid that I'm beginning to think you are just a troll having fun by pretending to be a creationist. Your belief that you know what the truth is is still that: a belief that you possess the correct and true knowledge. No amount of waffling about how its ultimately Gods truth allows you to weasel out of that. At some point, YOU have to be part of the chain, and you have to be believe that you have a direct line to the absolute truth (of course, many other people from other religions make the same exact claim!).
"To adopt any theory that claims evolution as a process, one has to presuppose the origin."
What origin? The only thing evolution takes for granted is the FACT that there was simple life on earth at some point. From the perspective of evolutionary theory, it doesn't matter where it came from. It could just as easily have come from the works of God.
"If God created the universe supernaturally in a fully mature state, then all dating methods and views that the Earth is a billion years old goes right out the window."
If God created the universe three seconds ago in a fully mature state, then all criminals should be released from prison, since they didn't actually do any of the things they were in there for. Don't you see how dumb an argument that is? And the universe isn't just "supernaturally mature." It bears, at every level, a record of actual historical events and ages, SPECIFIC ages and events. All of which would have to be deliberate and intentional fabrications.
So, I guess that makes sense. You are a demonstrable serial lair. So of course you would envision that God is a liar on a grand scale.
"Likewise, there's another God-given account -- the Bible, which squares with true science."
Either the Bible doesn't re
You conviently ignored explaining angular unconformities. I like angular uncomformities as a demonstration of old earth as you can walk right up to them and see them with your own eyes and there is little room for "interperation".
A flood very well explains marine deposits thousands of feet above sea level.
I can see that you are not up on the creationist literature. Creationist employ a mechanism called hydrological sorting to explain the sorting that is seen in the fossil record. For example why are no large modern mammal fossils found with dinosaur fossils. You are proposing the opposite of hyrdrological sorting where things are all mixed up and marine fossils are sitting on top of mountains. If that was the case then why not a single instance of a primate fossil in the same bed with a dinosaur? Also keep in mind many of these high elevation beds have signs of Bioturbation. These indications are present over many feet indicating that these organism where not buried and deposited but living in an slowly accumalating depositional zone.
You also ignored the fact that the Grand Canyon is layered with rock of different origins - limestone, sandstone, shale, igneous. How are these layed down by a single super flood. Some of these a layers are cross bedded sandstone, some are wind blown, some have raindrop marks, some have animal tracks and some have fossils.
More example of old earth? Magnetic reversals demonstrated on the spreading seafloor. Documenting long periods of time catching the reversal of the earths magnetic dipole as molten rock is layed down on the seafloor. Or how about ice core samples documenting seasonal transitions tens to several hundred thousands of years. Or large and thick geological deposits that consist primarily of tiny organism fossils such as diotomaceous chert, chalk and many limestones. Or layering of basalt with deposition in between. For example in which one of the these layers represents the global flood.
There sure is some willful denial going on here. I recommend you do some study and scratch in the earth yourself instead of just believing what supports your preconcieved notions and suppositions.
You are not worth debating this because you ignore the hard parts and spout off on tangents. For example you say For anyone to claim that such an event that from a physics standpoint probably cannot be measured or fathomed Are you saying that the flood existed outside of physics? Believe me if you look at the events that occur out in the cosmos such as supernova, solar flares, black holes, star collisions, planet collisions, a flood on a small planet is a tiny event by comparison.
It is you that shrinks God down to puny human size by having to believe in a creation story that a child can see as a fairy story a metaphor at best. Present day young earthers are akin to flat earthers or those who had to believe in geocentric earth. The concept of the earth rotating around the sun was at one time heresy. Good day.
Something I learned in school - energy can not be created or destroyed, it can only change forms. So this makes energy eternal by definition. The same amount of energy existed before the big bang as existed after the big bang. So... energy is eternal or energy=eternity. I learned in Sunday school that God is eternal. Ie; God=eternity. therefore God=energy Now in the Bible I read God changes His mind all the time so this is still consistant with energy. God/energy permeates the multiverse, He is in everything, your mind, that rock, whatever. Did He create everything, well since He is everything and has always been everything He has at least changed forms, semantic hair spliting about the creation thing. Ah, changed forms kinda sounds like evolution. Ok, is evolution, amonst other things. So the only question left, is God aware, does He have a personality? That's a belief, purely subjective. That He made us in His own image?, well we're energy. Doesn't matter if we evolved or not. But look close at the first creation story, it's just stinks of evolution, just a couple of things out of order. A day is as a thousand years to God. So much for the 6 thousand year thing. My conclusion... Evolution is a fact, God is a fact. How it all works is what were working on. And all of you are wrong. I don't trust the fundies or the techs. Both camps are just digging at the other and no real thought is happening. And don't tell me I can't stipulate that God=energy, I'm just labeling a concept. You don't have use He like I did, you can use any label you want. English has a neuter gender so replace my male gender if you like. Think of this as a thought experiment. They were good enough to find the theory of relativity. Not that this is like that! Pretty much I just want you to think, because I see both sides as unbending. Plus I hope someone gets pissed, that will mean I've struck a chord.
>... where are the transitional species (fossils)?
I'm an engineer, yet I can still rattle off a few. Of course, there's the Ardipithecus - Australopithecus - Homo erectus - Homo sapiens sequence as describe in TFA.
The horse lineage is well-defined: from a doglike progenitor I can't remember right now, to the intermediates like Eohippus, Merychippus, Mesonychus (sp?), and others, to modern-day Equus. And yes, this is all before human breeding forced the issue. A similar sequence can be seen for the elephant, from a piglike progenitor with no protruding teeth, through many intermediates with all sorts of teeth, to the tusked mammoths and elephants.
The whale lineage is fairly new: the discovery of Ambulocetus natans (sp?) and Pakicetus largely settled the debate between two land-dwelling mammals proposed to be the cetacean progenitor. Then came an extinct whale species with a shrunken pelvis, which I'm sorry I don't carry around with me. This led to today's dolphins (among others), whose pelvis is reduced to two floating rods. Dolphins also have vestigal hair on their snouts.
On your own body, you will find "fossil" features (more correctly termed "vestigal" in physiology). Canine teeth were designed to secure food that was still kicking- not Eve's apple, not Abel's butchered and cooked lamb, not Cain's plants.
Your coccyx (tailbone), which you can feel one or two inches down your crack, is not a mere termination point for the spine. It has bony articulations (despite the fact that it doesn't move), and the tendons and ligaments that used to move those articulations in our distant ancestors. Had the tailbone been designed to be simply a tailbone, these parts would not only be redundant, but dangerous. Snapping the tailbone in an accident becomes a hazard for rectal tearing and infection. A small fraction of people are born with extra-long tailbones, with extra segments and joints, which indicates that the tailbone was longer, and will get shorter in the future.
Goosebumps do absolutely nothing- our "fur" is too short to fluff into better insulation, or erect into a warning posture. Yet we retain the microscopic, hair-raising muscles all over our bodies. Similarly, we retain ear muscles. (I can wiggle my ears, and so can the majority of people, given a mirror and lots of free time). Yet we cannot rotate our ears like our pets.
The grip reflex is seen in all normal infants (i.e., non-impaired children of a few months or so). Stroke their palm, and their fingers will reflexively curl around your finger. Stroke the soles of their feet, and their toes will do likewise. This is a vestige from apes, where gripping your mother's fur was the difference between life, and a multistory fall. Ouch, quite a selection effect, eh? And yet, human mothers do not let their children hang hetween their armpit and pubic hair. Double ouch.
Seek and ye shall find, rich man.
I guess that what I would have to say is.... Do the similarities prove evolution or do they prove a singal creator? What you are telling me is very largely presumption. I see your logic but it only presumes, it does not confirm. I still do not see these examples as proof of anything more than similarities between two (or more) wholely different animals. I ask that if evolution from one species to another happened so many times (as it would have to) over millions of years, surely we should be able to find more examples of it... right? I know that sound very snooty and I'm sorry... not meant to offend. I just beleive that with all the searching and researching that we surely would see hundreds or thousands of clear transitional species out there. I know that I'm probably frustrating you greatly and again I apologize. best,
Hi. Been searching the web for articles on the current topic of The Feature Article and found this link:
o pian.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2006/0417ethi
I thought you might find it an interesting read.
I will reply to your comments above a little later.
Regards.
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