Posts by Doug Mason

13

Fossils fail to provide a connection

by Doug Mason in

page 24 of “the origin of life” cites henry gee:.

a second, more serious challenge is the lack of proof that those creatures are somehow related.

specimens placed in the series are often separated by what researchers estimate to be millions of years.

Doug Mason

LetTheTruth,

So you believe The Epic of Gilgamesh is historically correct, do you?

Are you saying that Gilgamesh went to Cuba?

Doug

13

Fossils fail to provide a connection

by Doug Mason in

page 24 of “the origin of life” cites henry gee:.

a second, more serious challenge is the lack of proof that those creatures are somehow related.

specimens placed in the series are often separated by what researchers estimate to be millions of years.

Fossils fail to provide a connection

by Doug Mason in

page 24 of “the origin of life” cites henry gee:.

a second, more serious challenge is the lack of proof that those creatures are somehow related.

specimens placed in the series are often separated by what researchers estimate to be millions of years.

The way that the author of the "Origin of Life" brochure uses the words from Henry Gee's book, he wishes to make it look as if Gee is speaking about transitions from "fishes to amphibians" . Here is the brochure's context:

=====

"What, though, of the fossils that are used to show fish changing into amphibians, and reptiles into mammals? Do they provide solid proof of evolution in action? Upon closer inspection, several problems become obvious. …

"A second, more serious challenge is the lack of proof that those creatures are somehow related. Specimens placed in the series are often separated by what researchers estimate to be millions of years. Regarding the time spans that separate many of these fossils, zoologist Henry Gee says: “The intervals of time that separate the fossils are so huge that we cannot say anything definite about their possible connection through ancestry and descent.”("The Origin of Life", page 24)

====
As the passage from Gee showed, he is speaking about direct lineal ancestry of a single species separated by millions of years.

Doug

13

Fossils fail to provide a connection

by Doug Mason in

page 24 of “the origin of life” cites henry gee:.

a second, more serious challenge is the lack of proof that those creatures are somehow related.

specimens placed in the series are often separated by what researchers estimate to be millions of years.

Doug Mason

Page 24 of “The Origin of Life” cites Henry Gee:

A second, more serious challenge is the lack of proof that those creatures are somehow related. Specimens placed in the series are often separated by what researchers estimate to be millions of years. Regarding the time spans that separate many of these fossils, zoologist Henry Gee says: “The intervals of time that separate the fossils are so huge that we cannot say anything definite about their possible connection through ancestry and descent.” (Brochure’s footnote: Henry Gee does not suggest that the theory of evolution is wrong. His comments are made to show the limits of what can be learned from the fossil record.) – In Search of Deep Time—Beyond the Fossil Record to a New History of Life, by Henry Gee, 1999, p. 23.

======

The following is the immediate context of the passage.

======

It has been a productive week. Nzube, Gabriel, Robert, and others on the team have unearthed hominid remains—no complete skulls or skeletons, because these are rare indeed, but evidence enough that could, after study, reveal something about the hominids that had lived in this region 3.3 million years ago.

In all, it has taken approximately 250 man-hours of work to produce enough hominid fragments to half-fill a tin box that Meave carries around on the passenger seat of her truck. Almost all the specimens were pieces of tooth. It does not sound like much, given all that effort, but it is more than most fossil hunters expect, even from a site that had already yielded a few hominid bones and had earlier been marked as promising.

Before I told everyone else about my own find, straddled on that ridge overlooking an expanse of space and, figuratively, an expanse of time, I wondered fleetingly if it might have been part of a hominid—perhaps half a tooth, like the one Gabriel found. In my mind I was already holding the fragment between finger and thumb, turning it over in the light. The question immediately presented itself: could this fossil have belonged to a creature that was my direct ancestor?

It is possible, of course, that the fossil really did belong to my lineal ancestor. Everybody has an ancestry, after all. Given what the Leakeys and others have found in East Africa, there is good reason to suspect that hominids lived in the Rift before they lived anywhere else in the world, so all modern humans must derive their ancestry, ultimately, from this spot, or somewhere near it.

It is therefore reasonable to suppose that we should all be able to trace our ancestries, in a general way, to creatures that lived in the Rift between roughly 5 and 3 million years ago. So much is true, but it is impossible to know, for certain, that the fossil I hold in my hand is my lineal ancestor. Even if it really was my ancestor, I could never know this unless every generation between the fossil and me had preserved some record of its existence and its pedigree. The fossil itself is not accompanied by a helpful label.

The truth is that my own particular ancestry—or yours—may never be recovered from the fossil record. The obstacle to this certain knowledge about lineal ancestry lies in the extreme sparseness of the fossil record. As noted above, if my mystery skull belonged to an extinct giant civet, Pseudocivetta ingens, it would be the oldest known record of this species by a million years. This means that no fossils have been found that record the existence of this species for that entire time; and yet the giant civets must have been there all along. Depending on how old giant civets had to be before they could breed (something else we can never establish, because giant civets no longer exist so that we can watch their behaviour), perhaps a hundred thousand generations lived and died between the fossil found by me at site LO5 and the next oldest specimen.

In addition, we cannot know if the fossil found at LO5 was the lineal ancestor of the specimens found at Olduvai Gorge or Koobi Fora. It might have been, but we can never know this for certain. The intervals of time that separate the fossils are so huge that we cannot say anything definite about their possible connection through ancestry and descent. (Gee, pages 22-23; underlining added)

31

The Church Father's "70 years"

by Doug Mason in

in their letter to lobsto regarding the neo-babylonian chronology, the wts wrote the following regarding the early church fathers:.

less than 200 years after josephus, several early church writers clearly accepted that the length of the desolation or exile was 70 years, and no one gives any other length for this event.

for instance, tatian the assyrian (110 to 172 c.e.

Doug Mason

apologies peacefulpete,

I should have been more specific. Babylon was dominant for 70 years, in the way that the ancients reckoned. Some of the upper echelon were taken to Babylon at the beginning and again later, and some returned when Cyrus told them - including from other nations - to return. Many, as you point out, made a good business (Egibi Bros.) and stayed there.

The Biblical text of Cyrus' letter (not really a "decree") is not a replica of the text on the Cyrus Cylinder. It's a religious rewriting to suit the agenda of the later writers (Chronicles and Ezra).

The names of the people recorded in their Scriptures as leading the initial returnees to Yehud were likely concocted to make a link to Jehoiachin.

This marked the time when the priestly class's desire for power was able to be mounted, now that the royal household was gone. A new entity emerged and they later became known as "Jews".

There was another major change following the destruction of the second temple, although unlike the Jewry witnessed today.

Doug

31

The Church Father's "70 years"

by Doug Mason in

in their letter to lobsto regarding the neo-babylonian chronology, the wts wrote the following regarding the early church fathers:.

less than 200 years after josephus, several early church writers clearly accepted that the length of the desolation or exile was 70 years, and no one gives any other length for this event.

for instance, tatian the assyrian (110 to 172 c.e.

Doug Mason

peacefulpete,

Yes, numbers had symbolic meanings for them.

They also used a system known as Gematria, in which each of the 22 letters of the alphabet is assigned a numerical value, as in "the number of his name is 666 (or 616)".

It also put the number at Daniel 9:24 into perspective, representing 7 times greater than the 70 years.

Doug

5

The Origin of Life

by Doug Mason in

in its brochure, “the origin of life”, the wts poses: “how did life begin?” (page 4).

it states: “the answer to the question, where do babies come from?

is well-documented and uncontroversial.

Doug Mason

peacefulpete,

Thank you.

Doug

31

The Church Father's "70 years"

by Doug Mason in

in their letter to lobsto regarding the neo-babylonian chronology, the wts wrote the following regarding the early church fathers:.

less than 200 years after josephus, several early church writers clearly accepted that the length of the desolation or exile was 70 years, and no one gives any other length for this event.

for instance, tatian the assyrian (110 to 172 c.e.

Doug Mason

Hi Scholar,

No one disagrees that they were captives for 70 years, that Babylon ruled for that period. Some -- and their descendants - were held for that period while others were subjected to Babylon while they remained in their respective lands.

And they were not termed as "Jews" that early in their history.

Others are able to agree with me that these statements referred to by the Watchtower Society do not say what the Society claims they were saying.

Were you able to locate the complete statement by Eusebius? I provided the URL.

Doug

5

The Origin of Life

by Doug Mason in

in its brochure, “the origin of life”, the wts poses: “how did life begin?” (page 4).

it states: “the answer to the question, where do babies come from?

is well-documented and uncontroversial.

Doug Mason

In its brochure, “The Origin of Life”, the WTS poses: “How Did Life Begin?” (page 4)

It states: “The answer to the question, Where do babies come from? is well-documented and uncontroversial. Life always comes from preexisting life.” (“The Origin of Life”, page 5)

======

So my questions are:

(1) Does the WTS explain what is meant by “life” or when it begins?

(2) Does it believe that spermatozoa (human or otherwise) are alive?

(3) Does it believe that an ovum is alive? (Is an unfertilised chicken’s egg alive?)

======

I would also like to comment that the WTS does not differentiate between the “origin of life” and “evolution”, but there is a difference between the moment of conception and the subsequent development (“evolution”) resulting from a successful union.

Doug

31

The Church Father's "70 years"

by Doug Mason in

in their letter to lobsto regarding the neo-babylonian chronology, the wts wrote the following regarding the early church fathers:.

less than 200 years after josephus, several early church writers clearly accepted that the length of the desolation or exile was 70 years, and no one gives any other length for this event.

for instance, tatian the assyrian (110 to 172 c.e.

Doug Mason

Scholar,

The statements by the Church Fathers on "70 years" in no way agree with the Watchtower's position.

Doug