EW,
Are you looking for 100% complete skeletons? That would be a pretty riduculous requirement. We have fragments of many individuals. We do have some amazing specimens, such as Lucy. Here is a picture:
http://secretebase.free.fr/evolution/origines/lucy.jpg
We have lots of Neanderthal specimens:
http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/N/neanderthal/facts/neanderthal_skeleton.jpg
One of the most important features, though, is the skull, which gives us brain size and other important measurements for classification. Fortunately we have lots of those. The pelvis and other parts are also good to see whether the individual walked upright or not.
The problem is that all of the fossils are transitional and there is no one "missing link". Once anyone points to any candidate "missing link" you will simply ask for two more "missing links": one between this fossil and modern man and another between our ape-like ancestor and this fossil. This simply misses the point of how evolution works - it's gradual and there can be several parallel lines going on at once.
rem
The Skeptic's Worst Nightmare (S)
by Shining One 94 Replies latest watchtower bible
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rem
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ellderwho
Yes it is hard to produce evidence for full skeletal transitional fossils that indicate the changes that are needed to evolve from ape to man. At best, one shakey looking turk boy, homo erectus skull and another bone not sure of, Homo habilis, another skull. (whats that 1, 70% skeleton and a few skulls and fragments) com' on.
Face it tetra, not much out there for the amount of people that would have lived since turk boy 1.5mil. years ago..... Its ok.
Once anyone points to any candidate "missing link" you will simply ask for two more "missing links": one between this fossil and modern man and another between our ape-like ancestor and this fossil.
You know rem, this is what the creationist needs to see. I personally need to see the mountain of evidence as a layperson.
You know that scale that shows the ape to man progression, until that is well established and on display your always going to have the creationist saying, as I do, where are the bones? Make them all fit together nicely to shut me up.
As per my first ???
EW:Whats seems to fly under the radar in this thread at least, is the inability for the evolutionist to point at mans transitional skeleton. And firmly state "see theres the proof."
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Leolaia
you want a transitional skeleton (whatever "transitional" means )? try KNM-WT 15000 aka Turkana Boy.
I think one problem for lay people is a lack of knowledge about anthropology. Without knowing exactly which features are characteristic of modern man in contrast to the great apes, or which features distinguish the genus Homo from Australopithecus, and which features distinguish Australopithecus from non-hominids, it isn't very easy for one to recognize how the body plan or morphology in a specimen is "transitional". Second, a common lay misperception is that "transitional forms" should lie midway between apes and modern humans. But modern humans did not evolve from modern apes. Rather, the relevant forms are those that transition between non-hominids and Australopithecus or between Australopithecus and Homo, or between early Homo and H. sapiens.
Turkana Boy (H. ergaster) is a great example of a "transitional form". The body plan revealed by the skeleton is overall akin to modern man. The limb proportions resemble H. sapiens (and differ strikingly from Australopithecus and non-hominids), the total height of the individual also exceeds the mean of H. sapiens (whereas Australopithecus and non-hominids tended to be short), etc. There were a few features tho -- absent in modern man -- that resemble Australopithecus, such as the shape of the femur. On the other hand, there are many features (particularly in the skull) that lie between Australopithecus and H. sapiens. The shape of the teeth and cranium and brain size fit the morphology of H. erectus specimens.
The skeleton of H. habilis (OH 62), however, had limb proportions closer to Australopithecus and non-hominid apes (other H. habilis specimens also show a smaller cranium). Another partial skeleton of H. habilis (OH 7) is important for showing that tooth morphology lies outside Australopithecus and resembles later members of Homo (such as the narrowness of the molars and premolars and the size of the incisors), and bones from the hands also resemble H. erectus and H. sapiens more than Australopithecus.
Australopithecus afarensis lacked many of the innovative features of Homo (including large cranial capacity, limb proportions and a more modern skeleton, relative size of the the teeth and jaw), and had other primitive features that occur in non-hominid apes especially in the skeleton, having small brains and large cheek teeth, a greater projecting face, curved hand bones, etc. At the same time, it had features in common with Homo that are innovative over non-hominid apes. This includes the bipel knee joint of AL 129-1, the shape of the pelvis, and so forth. The two specimens of A. anamensis also have a mixture of innovative hominid features (such as bipedal thickening of the distal tibia) and non-hominid features (particularly in the teeth and cranium, where the size of the canines exceeds that of A. afarensis and the narrow shape of the manible which arranges the teeth in straight parallel rows is a primitive feature similar to Miocene and modern apes).
What we find then is a continuum of features that stretch between modern man and the Miocene apes and each specimen that is discovered is a "transitional form" that looks back to earlier forms and anticipates trends (such as decreasing length of arm proportions compared to the legs, or decreasing relative size of the teeth, or increasing cranial capacity, etc.) and innovative features of later forms. In other words, there is a steady and culminative progression of features from non-hominid apes to modern humans, and because of this it is very difficult to group these fossils into genuses and species. This uncertainty of how to classify these fossils is exactly what we would expect with transitional forms since they by definition defy clear-cut divisions between species and other categories.
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tetrapod.sapien
Yes it is hard to produce evidence for full skeletal transitional fossils that indicate the changes that are needed to evolve from ape to man. At best, one shakey looking turk boy, homo erectus skull and another bone not sure of, Homo habilis, another skull. (whats that 1, 70% skeleton and a few skulls and fragments) com' on.
what? like you have any dim inkling of what goes into even retrieving fossils of any kind in the first place? you ignorantly come along and assert that there should be full skeletons strewn everywhere across the world? so, skeletons from 1.6 MYA are supposed to be as well preserved as skeletons from 4000 YA? oh right! that's what you believe. like i said, you obviously know nothing of paleontology, and yet you pretend that you think you know what paleontologists should find. it's rather pathetic, to be presented with the evidence that we have presented to you this evening, and still be so ungraciously arrogant. it's not even ignorance, because now you know what evidence there is, and yet you refuse to review it, OR address any of our questions to you. this is called intellectual dishonesty. you, are dishonest.and it's not a turk boy. it's Turkana Boy, because he was found by lake Turkana in Kenya.
BTW, you asked for one skeleton, and you got it. now i want your evidence for special creation. come on elder. dazzle the world with your brilliance.
Face it tetra, not much out there for the amount of people that would have lived since turk boy 1.5mil. years ago..... Its ok.
don't make yourself out to be more of an ignoramus than you already have, elder. you asked for one skeleton. you got it, but deny it. you did not ask for the other 4000 hominid fossils out there. and no, there are not photos for your viewing pleasure of all of them. that would be redundant. there are plenty between then and now. but first i want you to answer my challenge. and i also have another question i want you to answer.
what is your analysis of Turkana Boy?
You know rem, this is what the creationist needs to see. I personally need to see the mountain of evidence as a layperson.
stop lying elder. it is a few posts up. go to your freaking library and read the mountain. no one is going to hold your hand like you obviously think is required.
You know that scale that shows the ape to man progression, until that is well established and on display your always going to have the creationist saying, as I do, where are the bones? Make them all fit together nicely to shut me up.
it all comes together if you stop being a baby, and go out and do the research yourself. come back when you have read a single book with sources to evidence.
Whats seems to fly under the radar in this thread at least, is the inability for the evolutionist to point at mans transitional skeleton. And firmly state "see theres the proof."
turkana boy. "see, there's the proof." now i want YOUR analysis of it.
http://talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/specimen.html
TS
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rem
EW,
Science is hard. Belief is easy. If you want to see the evidence it will take work and effort. Nobody can magically put all of the information into your brain for you. I suggest you get started if you are really interested - there are plenty of books and resources on the net. There may even be some classes you can take at your local community college. Pretending the evidence doesn't exist because you're too lazy to look it up is pretty immature.
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peacefulpete
Terrifying story on NPR this morning. The damage ID advocates in Kansas are doing to science education in America will haunt us for generations. I really thought that although most folks want/need to believe in some higher power, the average Joe was able to see throught the Young Earth Creationist distortions of history, geology and biology. Apparently I was wrong. 45% of those polled felt the god of Genesis made all the species alive today through an act of special creation less than 10,000 years ago. I am unable to even begin to understand how this could happen in a society that is so in love with technology and modernity.
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ellderwho
Rem,There are scienctist on both sides of the fence, ones claiming authenticity, others debunking it. Does it all depend on ones own interpretation of the presented argument?
As well as scienctist' from both camps having their own presuppisitions.
I came across this:
According to the fanciful scheme suggested by evolutionists, the internal evolution of the Homo genus is as follows: First Homo erectus , then so-called "archaic" Homo sapiens and Neanderthal man (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis), and finally, Cro-Magnon man (Homo sapiens sapiens). However all these classifications are really only variations and unique races in the human family. The difference between them is no greater than the difference between an Inuit and an African, or a pygmy and a European.
The large eyebrow protrusions on Homo erectus skulls, and features such as the backward-sloping forehead, can be seen in a number of races in our own day, as in the Malaysian native shown here.Let us first examine Homo erectus , which is referred to as the most primitive human species. As the name implies, Homo erectus means "man who walks upright." Evolutionists have had to separate these fossils from earlier ones by adding the qualification of "erectness," because all the available Homo erectus fossils are straight to an extent not observed in any of the australopithecines or so-called Homo Habilis specimens. There is no difference between the postcranial skeleton of modern man and that of Homo erectus .
The primary reason for evolutionists' defining Homo erectus as "primitive" is the cranial capacity of its skull (900-1,100 cc), which is smaller than the average modern man, and its thick eyebrow projections. However, there are many people living today in the world who have the same cranial capacity as Homo erectus (pygmies, for instance) and other races have protruding eyebrows (Native Australians, for instance). It is a commonly agreed-upon fact that differences in cranial capacity do not necessarily denote differences in intelligence or abilities. Intelligence depends on the internal organization of the brain, rather than on its volume.197
The fossils that have made Homo erectus known to the entire world are those of Peking man and Java man in Asia. However, in time it was realized that these two fossils are not reliable. Peking man consists of some elements made of plaster whose originals have been lost, and Java man is composed of a skull fragment plus a pelvic bone that was found yards away from it with no indication that these belonged to the same creature. This is why the Homo erectus fossils found in Africa have gained such increasing importance. (It should also be noted that some of the fossils said to be Homo erectus were included under a second species named Homo ergaster by some evolutionists. There is disagreement among the experts on this issue. We will treat all these fossils under the classification of Homo erectus .)
The most famous of the Homo erectus specimens found in Africa is the fossil of "Narikotome Homo erectus ," or the "Turkana Boy," which was found near Lake Turkana in Kenya. It is confirmed that the fossil was that of a 12-year-old boy, who would have been 1.83 meters tall in adolescence. The upright skeletal structure of the fossil is no different from that of modern man. The American paleoanthropologist Alan Walker said that he doubted that "the average pathologist could tell the difference between the fossil skeleton and that of a modern human." Concerning the skull, Walker wrote that he laughed when he saw it because "it looked so much like a Neanderthal."198 As we will see in the next chapter, Neanderthals are a modern human race. Therefore, Homo erectus is also a modern human race.
Alan Thorne and Philip Macumber, who discovered the skulls, interpreted them both as Homo sapiens skulls, whereas they actually contained many features reminiscent of Homo erectus . The only reason they were treated as Homo sapiens was the fact that they were calculated to be 10.000 years old. Evolutionist did not wish to accept the fact that Homo erectus , which they considered a "primitive" species and which lived 500.000 years before modern man, was a human race which lived 10.000 years ago.THE 10.000 YEAR-OLD HOMO ERECTUS
These two skulls, discovered on October 10, 1967, in the Kow Swamp in Victoria, Australia, were named Kow Swamp I and Kow Swamp V.Even the evolutionist Richard Leakey states that the differences between Homo erectus and modern man are no more than racial variance:
One would also see differences: in the shape of the skull, in the degree of protrusion of the face, the robustness of the brows and so on. These differences are probably no more pronounced than we see today between the separate geographical races of modern humans. Such biological variation arises when populations are geographically separated from each other for significant lengths of time.199
Homo erectus AND THE ABORIGINES
The Turkana Boy skeleton shown at the side is the best preserved example of Homo erectus that has so far been discovered. The interesting thing is that there is no major difference between this 1.6 million-year-old-fossil and people of our day. The Australian aboriginal skeleton above particularly resembles Turkana Boy. This situation reveals once again that Homo erectus was a genuine human race, with no "primitive" features.
Professor William Laughlin from the University of Connecticut made extensive anatomical examinations of Inuits and the people living on the Aleut islands, and noticed that these people were extraordinarily similar to Homo erectus . The conclusion Laughlin arrived at was that all these distinct races were in fact different races of Homo sapiens (modern man):
Homo erectus 'S SAILING CULTURE "Ancient mariners: Early humans were much smarter than we suspected" According to this article in the March 14, 1998, issue of New Scientist, the people that evolutionists call Homo erectus were sailing 700,000 years ago. It is impossible, of course, to think of people who possessed the knowledge, technology and culture to go sailing as primitive.When we consider the vast differences that exist between remote groups such as Eskimos and Bushmen, who are known to belong to the single species of Homo sapiens , it seems justifiable to conclude that Sinanthropus [an erectus specimen] belongs within this same diverse species.200
It is now a more pronounced fact in the scientific community that Homo erectus is a superfluous taxon, and that fossils assigned to the Homo erectus class are actually not so different from Homo sapiens as to be considered a different species. In American Scientist, the discussions over this issue and the result of a conference held on the subject in 2000 were summarized in this way:
Most of the participants at the Senckenberg conference got drawn into a flaming debate over the taxonomic status of Homo erectus started by Milford Wolpoff of the University of Michigan, Alan Thorne of the University of Canberra and their colleagues. They argued forcefully that Homo erectus had no validity as a species and should be eliminated altogether. All members of the genus Homo, from about 2 million years ago to the present, were one highly variable, widely spread species, Homo sapiens , with no natural breaks or subdivisions. The subject of the conference, Homo erectus , didn't exist.201
The conclusion reached by the scientists defending the abovementioned thesis can be summarized as "Homo erectus is not a different species from Homo sapiens , but rather a race within Homo sapiens ." On the other hand, there is a huge gap between Homo erectus , a human race, and the apes that preceded Homo erectus in the "human evolution" scenario (Australopithecus , Homo Habilis , and Homo rudolfensis ). This means that the first men appeared in the fossil record suddenly and without any prior evolutionary history.
I suggest you get started if you are really interested - there are plenty of books and resources on the net
Im very interested as I was as a new Christian, however, I believe all information that gets published in favor of, will evidentually be trumped by the opposing side. Where does it end, and how much research is needed for the pat answer. I mean how "learned" does one have to be to accept evolution? And does the reaffrimation of facts ever satisfy the shadow of a doubt.
Then theres the presuppositions factor for both camps.
Pretending the evidence doesn't exist because you're too lazy to look it up is pretty immature.
Do you personally review any opposing papers of peer evidence? -
Terry
Not really.
It is personal desire and human need powered by a mindset to shape the world at large by using a kind of mental map of how things are and how they came to be.
One map, the religious one, puts control and direction outside human reach. Escape from death and disease comes from handing over power to the unseen and "higher" power of God.
The other map, the scientific one, puts control and direction in the hands of each individual. The only escape from death and disease comes from the human mind extracting knowledge from substances of nature for gene therapy and medicines. Responsibility for man's future becomes man's property and we are endowed by our cooperativeness or condemned by our passivity or hubris.
One map places man at the bottom of the power scale. The other places him at the top.
The chaos of nature, red of tooth and fang and claw is either a "plan" from on high or the sifting/shifting happenstance of struggles for survival. One plan is beyond comprehension and requires surrender of intellect and the adjustment of will into mere following of orders. The other view requires active focus of mind and strength to puzzle out the vast confluence of interlocking mysteries wrought by the spinning orbits of swarming matter/energy.
In view of my description of the above I assert the following:
We CHOOSE our map according to our personal tastes because of WHAT each of us has become.
If we have been controlled, scolded, impugned, ordered about, bullied and stunned into silent awe by the wagging finger of Authority we are apt to slink quietly into our pew and bow our head, whisper our frightened entreaty and crave the ineffable touch of magic that will open our cocoon into butterfly-hood.
If, on the other hand, we have been trusted, encouraged, empowered and led to the trough of knowledge to slake our thirst for knowledge by dint of our own efforts and investigations; then, we are likely to select the map that leads to inquiry and self-transformation.
It all comes down to our nature; our personhood; our flavor of mind.
In other words it is personal taste which is reflected in our choice of Maps.
De gustibus disputandem est (No sense disputing matters of taste.)
Terry
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hmike
If we have been controlled, scolded, impugned, ordered about, bullied and stunned into silent awe by the wagging finger of Authority we are apt to slink quietly into our pew and bow our head, whisper our frightened entreaty and crave the ineffable touch of magic that will open our cocoon into butterfly-hood.
Wow, you paint a dismal picture, Terry. Is that how you really see it?
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funkyderek
ellderwho:
See http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_erectus.html for a discussion of the creationist propaganda you posted.
I would also suggest looking at the book From Lucy to Language by Blake Edgar and Donald Johanson, which contains dozens of life-size photographs of the skulls ov various hominid species. Even a layperson can see the differences.
While Biblical creationists like to pretend that there are two sides to the issue, there really aren't. All the available evidence - an overwehelming amount - indicates that humans have evolved slowly from apelike ancestors. Creationists refuse to believe this and deliberately lie and mislead in order to prop up their medieval worldview.
