fulltimestudent

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Posts by fulltimestudent

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  8

  The Evolution of Humans

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  tracing the evolutionary path of humans is complicated.

  simply because human and proto-human remains (including bones) are perishable.

  remains from the distant past are usually only preserved when some unique features exist that assist preservation.

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  fulltimestudent

  Half banana : s ago
  FTS, the unilinear model i.e. a single evolving thread remains an idealistic notion which does not easily fit with the findings. Whereas 1992 is a long time ago in paleoanthropology, the phylogeny or positions in the family tree, are still constantly being reconsidered as new finds and new species are discovered. Since that date we have even had two completely new types of human species living simultaneously with our own namely the Denisovans in the Urals and the so called 'Hobbit', Homo floresiensis from Indonesia.

  We are in agreement, thanks for posting.

  Half Banana: Imagine the consequences of living with other species of humans.

  But (of course) its not what we may imagine, but what another proto-human species may have imagined. Currently, the evidence suggests that early humans did meet and intermingle (to an unknown extent) and even interbred, as we are reputed to carry some Neanderthal genetic material. Would they have 'thought' too much about another similar species? Would they have been able to communicate? Were they competing or co-operating? I doubt that we will ever be able to puzzle out answers to such questions.

  A 2004 letter printed in Nature discusses it, and I'm sure later material can be found in that Journal

  Here's some of that letter and the link:

  The genomic landscape of Neanderthal ancestry in present-day humans
  The genomic landscape of Neanderthal ancestry in present-day humans

  • Sriram Sankararaman,
  • Swapan Mallick,
  • Michael Dannemann,
  • Kay Prüfer,
  • Janet Kelso,
  • Svante Pääbo,
  • Nick Patterson
  • & David Reich

  Genomic studies have shown that Neanderthals interbred with modern humans, and that non-Africans today are the products of this mixture1, 2. The antiquity of Neanderthal gene flow into modern humans means that genomic regions that derive from Neanderthals in any one human today are usually less than a hundred kilobases in size. However, Neanderthal haplotypes are also distinctive enough that several studies have been able to detect Neanderthal ancestry at specific loci1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. We systematically infer Neanderthal haplotypes in the genomes of 1,004 present-day humans9. Regions that harbour a high frequency of Neanderthal alleles are enriched for genes affecting keratin filaments, suggesting that Neanderthal alleles may have helped modern humans to adapt to non-African environments. We identify multiple Neanderthal-derived alleles that confer risk for disease, suggesting that Neanderthal alleles continue to shape human biology. An unexpected finding is that regions with reduced Neanderthal ancestry are enriched in genes, implying selection to remove genetic material derived from Neanderthals. Genes that are more highly expressed in testes than in any other tissue are especially reduced in Neanderthal ancestry, and there is an approximately fivefold reduction of Neanderthal ancestry on the X chromosome, which is known from studies of diverse species to be especially dense in male hybrid sterility genes10, 11, 12. These results suggest that part of the explanation for genomic regions of reduced Neanderthal ancestry is Neanderthal alleles that caused decreased fertility in males when moved to a modern human genetic background.

  05 September 2013

  Accepted

  18 December 2013

  Published online

  29 January 2014

  507,

  354–357

  (20 March 2014)

  doi:10.1038/nature12961

  Reference: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v507/n7492/full/nature12961.html
  
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  25

  All shunning soon to end

  by poopie in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  this is just a first step clapping.

  it's like the fed one quarter bases point at a time.

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  fulltimestudent

  cofty : Shunning will never be revoked. It's how they control dissent.

  I agree! When I was young (in years, and the org) I was working H2H with an older brother whose experiences reached back to the 1920s. He suggested that programmed meetings and the later development of disfellowshipping were introduced mainly because of arguments over beliefs.

  But another perspective - these web-sites are anti-JW, but do not exist primarily because of JW beliefs. That sort of analysis and talk is a by-product of the main problem, which is that we have not been allowed to resign with dignity and with family ties intact.

  So what the witnesses see as a major problem, is self-inflicted. Change that practise and these web-sites will nearly all disappear.
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  133

  What are the biggest holes in evolution?

  by shadow in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  how honest are the proponents of evolution?

  idk but curious to see what type of response there is on a topic like this or does their study only seek to confirm their preconceptions and ignore uncomfortable facts?

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  fulltimestudent

  shadow : How honest are the proponents of evolution? idk but curious to see what type of response there is on a topic like this or does their study only seek to confirm their preconceptions and ignore uncomfortable facts?

  I do not know how to count the number of people engaged in evolutionary research, but I'm guessing it must run into thousands. It is likely that we can find all kinds of human attitudes and motivations among those many people.
  

  But surely the main point is that all decent research is open to peer review, and is usually peer reviewed at some point. Difficulties in good research are not swept under the carpet and glossed over. As an example you can check the first post I made in the thread I started today on human evolution. That post discussed some difficulties that have emerged. (Mainly because of the nature of the evidence).

  But as Cofty posted in this thread:

  There are lots and lots of details about the process that are less certain but none of these change the basic fact.

  Even more basic is that the question can be reduced to this, "How did humans come to exist on this planet?"
  

  Faith based Christian religions, a rather small minority of the 2.2 billion professed Christians* in the world insist that it is by special creation. If you ask the same questions that you suggest should be asked about evolutionary scientists, what answers do you think that you will get?

  
  

  *Note, for example, that more than half of the Christians in the world are Roman Cantholic. That church accepts evolution (though it qualifies that acceptance by arguing that it is 'divinely directed.' I understand that Catholic Universities (and schools) teach evolutionary history. So in the end I suspect, that only a minority of so-called Christians believe in a special creation and accept Genesis 1 as revealed truth.

  Would you agree?
• 
  8

  The Evolution of Humans

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  tracing the evolutionary path of humans is complicated.

  simply because human and proto-human remains (including bones) are perishable.

  remains from the distant past are usually only preserved when some unique features exist that assist preservation.

  1. 
  2. 
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  fulltimestudent

  Tracing the evolutionary path of humans is complicated. Why? Simply because human and proto-human remains (including bones) are perishable. Remains from the distant past are usually only preserved when some unique features exist that assist preservation.

  For those who have an interest in the topic, I've collected some references from Nature* Journal. Your interest will need to be a bit deeper than casual as access to the journal (like most academic journals) must be purchased or accessed through a library. Many University libraries will permit public access for a fee. As an example, the University of Sydney allows public access for $40 (in 2015) a semester.

  Usually an Abstract (on the linked page) provides details of what each paper is about, and therefore can assist you to follow your own interests.

  There is, of course,.a huge range of published material on the topic, and these are only (personal) suggestions of published commentary that may be useful, as in this first link, in which the complexities of links between fossil finds are discussed.

  Nature 355, 783 - 790 (27 February 1992); doi:10.1038/355783a0

  Origin and evolution of the genus Homo
  BERNARD WOOD
  Bernard Wood is in the Hominid Palaeontology Research Group, Department of Human Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Liverpool, PO Box 147, Liverpool 169 3BX, UK.
  It is remarkable that the taxonomy and phylogenetic relationships of the earliest known representatives of our own genus, Homo, remain obscure. Advances in techniques for absolute dating and reassessments of the fossils themselves have rendered untenable a simple unilineal model of human evolution, in which Homo habilis succeeded the australopithecines and then evolved via H. erectus into H. sapiens — but no clear alternative consensus has yet emerged.

  web-link: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v355/n6363/abs/355783a0.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Nature; A description of the journal from Wikipedia: Nature is a British interdisciplinary scientific journal, first published on 4 November 1869.[1] It was ranked the world's most cited scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports, is ascribed an impact factor of approximately 42.4, and is widely regarded as one of the few remaining academic journals that publishes original research across a wide range of scientific fields.[2]Nature claims an online readership of about 3 million unique readers per month.[3] The journal has a weekly circulation of around 53,000 but studies have concluded that on average a single copy is shared by as many as eight people.[4] Research scientists are the primary audience for the journal, but summaries and accompanying articles are intended to make many of the most important papers understandable to scientists in other fields and the educated public. Towards the front of each issue are editorials, news and feature articles on issues of general interest to scientists, including current affairs, science funding, business, scientific ethics and research breakthroughs. There are also sections on books and arts. The remainder of the journal consists mostly of research papers (articles or letters), which are often dense and highly technical. Because of strict limits on the length of papers, often the printed text is actually a summary of the work in question with many details relegated to accompanying supplementary material on the journal's website. There are many fields of research in which important new advances and original research are published as either articles or letters in Nature. The papers that have been published in this journal are internationally acclaimed for maintaining high research standards.
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  6

  Australia Day tomorrow and don't forget the lamb

  by barry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  www.youtube.com/watch?v=uclvdqh5at0

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  fulltimestudent

  Another try with another Aussie day video...

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i15OPuFvmA

  BTW- Australia now has no aircraft carriers, the last one was sold for scrap years ago, so I don't know whose carrier was claimed as Australian in this video.
  
  
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  6

  Australia Day tomorrow and don't forget the lamb

  by barry in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  www.youtube.com/watch?v=uclvdqh5at0

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  fulltimestudent

  Image wont post - sorry
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  25

  An inguinal hernia.

  by Fisherman in

  1. watchtower
  2. medical

  there are a couple of schools of thought on this.

  some doctors recommend postponing surgery others recommend laparascopic surgery, etc.

  how about local anesthesia, complications during and after surgery and other concerns.

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  fulltimestudent

  Had a friend with the problem. It was repaired via keyhole surgery which is not as invasive as the old way. It was painful after the op, but he seems fine now.
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  10

  Evidence of a10,000 y.o. massacre demonstrates that it is in our biology to be aggressive and lethal

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  attention can be drawn to both the age of these skeletal remains and the conclusions that can be drawn.. .

  skeletons dating to 10,000 years ago, bearing marks of a violent death and possibly bondage, provides fresh evidence that prehistoric hunter-gatherers did not necessarily live in bonhomie.

  disturbingly, two of the 12 people found by lake turkana, kenya were not marked by signs of violence but seem to have died with their hands bound, a team of archaeologists reported in nature on wednesday.. we know prehistoric humans were armed to the teeth, but it's an open question against whom they wielded their stone knives and spears – animals, or each other.

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  fulltimestudent

  DJS : Ms. Mirazon appears to be - or have been - in the 'anthropologists of peace" camp where they believe hunter/gatherers were noble and egalitarian. This camp seems to have had its genesis from the 18th-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who believed Native Americans and other pre-state people as peaceful "noble savages". ... "Ms. Mirazon appears to be someone we should ignore, because, based on the evidence, she and her camp have been ignoring or spinning the evidence for politically correct reasons. Perhaps evidence of this massacre will open her eyes and has switched sides"

  Ummm! I looked for some indication of Dr Marta Mirazon Lahr (to use her full name) arguing that position in the quotes I posted. I also had a brief look at the titles of various papers attributed to her and didn't see anything supporting the position you suggest. A mere mention that some have believed that some pre-history peoples were peaceful does not (of course) indicate that she once believed that position. Her mention of that position in the YT video merely recapitulates 'the contemporary state of the argument."

  Her page on the LCHES ( http://www.human-evol.cam.ac.uk/marta.html ) states her research interests:

  Research Interests
  My interests cover many aspects of human evolution, from the study of morphological evolution in the genus Homo, to human evolutionary history and dispersals, evolutionary genetics and adaptation in hunter-gatherers, the formation of population boundaries, and the evolution of diversity in technology and tools.

  Not, I would suggest, that starting a research from that position is wrong. Research projects may adopt a position with the goal of supporting or refuting a position. And, of course, as Dr Robert Foley, (also associated with that research project) says, its a matter of seeing the interplay between aggression and co-operation
  

  The LCHES page briefly summarising the paper published in Nature* notes:

  "This site, Nataruk, provides evidence for inter-group conflict among hunter-gatherers, and so contributes to our understanding of the history of warfare, showing clearly that hunter-gatherers, as well as food-producers, engaged in organised and lethal conflict."

  Link: http://www.human-evol.cam.ac.uk/index.html

  
  

  * Nature (for those not familiar with the journal) is a highly regarded interdisciplinary scientific journal. It would not normally publish highly speculative material.

  
  

  But thank you DJS, for raising that previous view. The evidence found at Nataruk is important in questioning the veracity of the biblical record. The biblical myth is understood by many to suggest that YHWH created a naturally peacefully inclined human race,who became violent as a result of turning away from YHWH. The reality is, as this paper published in 'Nature' is different. The research challenges not only the biblical view of human origins but also challenges the biblical time-scale of human existence.

  And then there is the associated concept (we all likely held as JWs - and maybe by some differently branded believers) that we can regain that peaceful state as a result of being saved by YHWH's alter ego Jesus, who gave his 'blood' (spilt in an act of senseless violence) to 'save' us, because that's the way YHWH sasid it had to be.

  
  But the seer who wants us to believe that he knew the future of humanity (the author of 'A Revelation - to John) believed that even after a thousand year rule of Jesus many humans will still be inclined to violence and will want to fight in the war of Gog and Magog. (Revelation 20:8 ).

  In contrast take a look at DJS's mention of Dr. Steven Pinker (I assume that is who he means)

  who argues (in this TED video) that,

  "... we are living in the most peaceful time in our species."Link: https://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence?language=en

  
  So we may move from the primitive human savagery discovered at Nataruk, where the 'invaders' (whoever they were) engaged in an orgy of murder, through the savage ethnic cleansing campaign described in Joshua (ch. 10 and 11 specifically) where the invading Israelites engaged in a similar orgy of crazed violence.

  If Pinker's view is tenable, perhaps we are moving to a point where humanity may be able to live without violence, all through human reason (rejecting violence) without the need to rely on YHWH or JESUS.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
• 
  10

  Evidence of a10,000 y.o. massacre demonstrates that it is in our biology to be aggressive and lethal

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  attention can be drawn to both the age of these skeletal remains and the conclusions that can be drawn.. .

  skeletons dating to 10,000 years ago, bearing marks of a violent death and possibly bondage, provides fresh evidence that prehistoric hunter-gatherers did not necessarily live in bonhomie.

  disturbingly, two of the 12 people found by lake turkana, kenya were not marked by signs of violence but seem to have died with their hands bound, a team of archaeologists reported in nature on wednesday.. we know prehistoric humans were armed to the teeth, but it's an open question against whom they wielded their stone knives and spears – animals, or each other.

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  fulltimestudent

  Attention can be drawn to both the age of these skeletal remains and the conclusions that can be drawn.

  
  

  Skeletons dating to 10,000 years ago, bearing marks of a violent death and possibly bondage, provides fresh evidence that prehistoric hunter-gatherers did not necessarily live in bonhomie. Disturbingly, two of the 12 people found by Lake Turkana, Kenya were not marked by signs of violence but seem to have died with their hands bound, a team of archaeologists reported in Nature on Wednesday.

  We know prehistoric humans were armed to the teeth, but it's an open question against whom they wielded their stone knives and spears – animals, or each other. "Evidence for inter-group violence among prehistoric hunter-gatherers is extremely rare," writes the team led by Marta Mirazón Lahr of Britain's Cambridge University.

  Yet she found some. She and her colleagues discovered the remains of at Nataruk, a site near the edge of Lake Turkana, in 2012. Among them were ten bodies with clear signs of lethal traumas.

  read more: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.698422

  Moe information is available at this Cambridge University web-site:

  http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/evidence-of-a-prehistoric-massacre-extends-the-history-of-warfare?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=University%20of%20Cambridge%20Research%20Bulletin%20Friday%2022%20January%202016&utm_content=University%20of%20Cambridge%20Research%20Bulletin%20Friday%2022%20January%202016+CID_6c66164c835c6f4222917449144c624e&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor&utm_term=Evidence%20of%20a%20prehistoric%20massacre%20extends%20the%20history%20of%20warfare

  and at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05jK_-YThxY
• 
  12

  Stupid Questions to Ask Gay Guys

  by fulltimestudent in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my friend tells me he gets sick of silly questions.

  i tell him its part of the assimilation process.

  https://www.facebook.com/buzzfeedvideo/videos/1908211825986357/?fref=nf.

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  fulltimestudent

  Listener : FTS, I think it's interesting that you point out that this gay couple sleep in the same bed but no one cares. The day that no one knows whether they sleep in the same bed or not is the day that no one really cares.

  OK, Listener! I'm cool with that - you are more correct than I was.

  Why should anyone care? Many str8 people perform the same sexual acts as gay people! So why did the bible make it an issue?

  (Though I note that there is nothing to indicate that Jesus saw it as an issue. Some commentators have noted that Matthew's account of Jesus healing the centurion's slave, uses the word pais instead of doulos (servant) -as used by the Lukan account. Pais could be translated as 'male concubine,' which would indicate that the Roman centurion had a young lover, a common practice in the Roman Army. If so, Jesus clearly did not care. According to James Neill*, the Greek term "pais" used for the servant in Matthew's account almost always had a sexual connotation.[4] In support of this view, he remarks that the word pais, along with the word "erasthai" (to love) is the root of the English word "pederasty".)

  * Neill, James (2009). The Origins and Role of Same-Sex Relations In Human Societies. McFarland.