Evolutions Family Tree Theory Collapsing (atheist, quotes, layman, exist)
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Yeshua, you obviously have no idea what the subtitle "Preservation of Favoured Races In The Struggle For Life" means in the context of Darwin's evolutionary theory.
It has nothing to do with racism or MAN's inhumanity to man, regardless of how you and your ilk try to twist the meaning.
You do realize that is referring to all animals, right? It's merely "Survival of the fittest" I'm not saying Darwin wasn't racist; most people were then. But to use that part of the title to show he was racist is a bit of a stretch.
I'm sure she doesn't. I seriously doubt any of the anti-evolutioners (made up word. I don't care) could even explain to us what evolution is and how it works if their lives depended on it. Not without using Google.
Saying dumb things like "well why doesn't my dog turn into a cat" is proof of this.
It's funny one of the flat-earthers here is making a pathetic attempt to dismiss eviloution using science.
Yeshua, you obviously have no idea what the subtitle "Preservation of Favoured Races In The Struggle For Life" means in the context of Darwin's evolutionary theory.
It has nothing to do with racism or MAN's inhumanity to man, regardless of how you and your ilk try to twist the meaning.
Again.. YOU FAIL.
Now please, put down the pipe...
I also suspect that if she understood evolution in the first place, the title would make perfect sense to her, without racism involved.
Not tribal wars. Systematic oppression due to race. Black slavery. Pogroms.
You're linking two completely unrelated concepts. The evidence points to man and apes to having a common ancestor, and that was (part of) Darwin's discovery. Deal.
That the white race was superior was the prevailing view of the day (at least among whites, and they'd placed themselves pretty well on top, so who was going to contradict them?). Darwin did not introduce that idea. In Darwin's age, it was considered common wisdom that black people could and should be property - that it was a divinely inspired institution.
Why don't you find us one Darwin quote that's 5% as virulently anti-semitic as Luther's ramblings?
Hitler's wasn't because of the religion of other human beings. Luther's was because of religion.
All human beings have had periods of being enslaved by enemies, as war spoils, since at least Babel's fall, no matter the tribal/family backgrounds. It was black and Arab Muslims who sold black Africans to slave traders of the past centuries. White and Asian slaves were also sold to slave traders from early times. In the New Testament times, there were Greek slaves to the Romans. There were blacks who had Greek slaves. Color of skin did not determine who would be captured and enslaved, from the beginning of Babel's fall and times -and Nimrod, who enslaved other families/tribes, was black.
Hitler hated blacks because he believed they were not human.
I know it's silly to correct this one droplet of misinformation in a raging torrent of misapprehensions, but Hitler considered everyone not Aryan a lesser sort of human ("untermensch") , not a non-human.
Oh, for heaven's sake.
You do know that "The Origin of Species" hardly even touches upon the evolution of humans, right? Right?
If you'd bothered to read the book, you'd know that Darwin speaks extensively of races of horses, pigeons, plants, cattle - but there's nary of word of human races.
Color of skin did not determine who would be captured and enslaved, from the beginning of Babel's fall and times -and Nimrod, who enslaved other families/tribes, was black.
In Darwin's time, color of skin most definitely made a difference as regards your possible status as slave/free.
Where is GCStroop or Montanaguy to help cure creationist ignorance?
Right here...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Campbell34
A new skull discovery made in the African republice of Chad now has Bernard Wood, of George Washington University, Washingtone DC, now suggesting that this new discovery is giving strength to the arguement that humans (DID NOT EVOLVE IN A LINEAR PROGRESSION FROM APES THAT ROAMED THE PLANET 10 MILLION YEARS AGO.)
This same discovery, also has the Editor and paleontologist Henry Gee of Nature magazine saying, and this is a quote.
Whatever the outcome, the skull shows, once and for all, that the (OLD IDEA OF A MISSING LINK IS BUNK...) It should now be quite plain that the very idea of the missing link, always shaky, is now completely untenable.
The theory of Evolution is collapsing before our very eyes, and soon, those who have embraced this theory will be like soldiers on the field of battle. Only to discover, that their commanders and generals have left them alone on the front lines. And alone, they will try to defend a theory that is also untenable. Their old beliefs, and old ideas will be like so much watered downed ammunition. That ammunition gave them a feeling of safety, until is was revealed, that it was useless when needed.
News in Science - A heady discovery - 15/07/2002 (http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s605620.htm - broken link)
So let me get this straight... A possible hominid fossil somehow overthrows a century and a half of overlapping and empirical scientific evidence? Somehow or another, I get the feeling you're lying for Jesus again, Campbell. Either that, or you're just too flagrantly uneducated to understand what it is you are reading.
Seeing as how I read the actual article the entire way through, unlike some people who prefer to quote mine and misrepresent what was said, let's take a look at what the article says and see if we can't figure out the truth behind it.
Cited directly from the article itself, here we go:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Campbell’s Fantastic Scientific Reporting Venture That Apparently Overthrows A Plethora Of Scientific Evidence
A seven-million-year-old human skull has been found in the African republic of Chad.
Now, if this were actually the case, it could actually prove to be somewhat menacing for paleo-anthropologists given the fact that Lucy (A. Afarensis) was suggested to have walked the Earth around 3.2-3.5 million years ago. Though there is some debate over whether or not Lucy was a "direct" ancestor of us, there is little if any speculation that Lucy was indeed a pre-cursor to many previously extinct upright walking hominids. While it is possible that she was a direct descendant of ours, we can only be certain, based on things such as her femur, some of her molars, and other various parts of her body that she walked upright and had certain dental features consistent with more modern upright walking hominids. Thus, if indeed this were a seven million year old human skull, those in the anthropological community might have a bit of explaining to do. Chiefly, we would all be asking ourselves "How is it that a 7 million year old human skull was found while Lucy was only 3.2-3.5 million years old? If she was our pre-cursor, how is there something more advanced older than her?" But, indeed, as the very next two paragraphs elude to, the first sentence was merely a buzz phrase used to capture people's attention. It reads:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Campbell’s Fantastic Scientific Reporting Venture That Apparently Overthrows A Plethora Of Scientific Evidence
Christened 'Toumaï', which means 'hope of life' in the local Goran language, the find is said to be the most important fossil discovery in living memory.
It is twice the age of previously found ape-man skulls, making it the earliest known relic of recognisably human lineage.
Now, this is a tricky way to word things. First we hear that it was a human skull and now we hear that it's an "ape-man" skull. I'm starting to get the sinking sensation that whoever wrote this didn't have the first idea of what they were talking about in the first place. Nevertheless, and despite the consistency of most everyone that we humans are indeed apes, I will cater to the idea of "ape-man" in the context I think most people can understand.
Of course, the first thing I noticed is the excessively large and protruding brow ridge that hangs above the eye sockets on this skull. Funny... it hardly looks human to me though I do know that almost every hominid fossil found outside that of homo sapiens has a rather noticeable brow ridge. This includes Neanderthal man which went extinct some few thousands of years before God built the Garden of Eden.
At this juncture, we can posit that this skull is most indeed not a human skull.
I think it's fair to say that? No? I'm sure even Campbell might agree with me on that one despite the fact that I know he's clearly not attuned to such things we often refer to as details.
Let's move on to the next few paragraphs and see what they have to say:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Campbell’s Fantastic Scientific Reporting Venture That Apparently Overthrows A Plethora Of Scientific Evidence
They unearthed six specimens including a cranium, jaw and teeth. Assembled, Toumaï's skull displays a mix of primitive and modern features. His braincase looks like that of an ape, but his short face and teeth are similar to those of humans. His prominent brow is of a shape found only in our Homo line.
Now, this is an interesting part of the story as without doing any sort of preliminary research, one would just "go with the flow," so to speak, and not really even flinch at what was suggested here. But, I know better than that, and so I decided to look up the paper in Nature magazine and read for myself what was going on. Subsequently, I also did a quick check over on Wikipedia just for reassurance that I had properly understood my initial comprehension of the paper which states:
Sahelanthropus is distinguished as a hominid from large living and known fossil hominoid genera in the following respects: from Pongo by a non-concave lateral facial profile, a wider interorbital pillar, superoinferiorly short subnasal height, an anteroposteriorly short face, robust supraorbital morphology, and many dental characters (described below); from Gorilla by smaller size, a narrower and less prognathic lower face, no supratoral sulcus, and smaller canines and lower-cusped cheek teeth; from Pan by an anteroposteriorly shorter face, a thicker and more continuous supraorbital torus with no supratoral sulcus, a relatively longer braincase and narrower basicranium with a flat nuchal plane and a large external occipital crest, and cheek teeth with thicker enamel; from Samburupithecus14 by a more anteriorly and higher-placed zygomatic process of the maxilla, smaller cheek teeth with lower cusps and without lingual cingula, and smaller upper premolars and M3; from Ouranopithecus15 by smaller size, a superoinferiorly, anteroposteriorly and mediolaterally shorter face, relatively thicker continuous supraorbital torus, markedly smaller but mesiodistally longer canines, apical wear and large distal tubercle in lower canines, and thinner postcanine enamel; from Sivapithecus16 by a superoinferiorly and anteroposteriorly shorter face with non-concave lateral profile, a wider interorbital pillar, smaller canines with apical wear, and thinner cheek-teeth enamel; from Dryopithecus17 by a less prognathic lower face with a wider interorbital pillar, larger supraorbital torus, and thicker postcanine enamel.
Sahelanthropus is also distinct from all known hominid genera in the following respects: from Homo by a small endocranial capacity (preliminary estimated range 320–380 cm3) associated with a long flat nuchal plane, a longer truncated triangle-shaped basioccipital, a flat frontal squama behind a robust continuous and undivided supraorbital torus, a large central upper incisor, and non-incisiform canines; from Paranthropus18 by a convex facial profile that is less mediolaterally wide with a much smaller malar region, no frontal trigone, the frontal squama with no hollow posterior to glabella, a smaller, longer and narrower braincase, the zygomatic process of the maxilla positioned more posterior relative to the tooth row, and markedly smaller cheek teeth; from Australopithecus19, 20, 21 by a less prognathic lower face (nasospinale–prosthion length shorter at least in presumed males) with a smaller malar (infraorbital) region and a larger, more continuous supraorbital torus, a relatively more elongate braincase, a relatively long, flat nuchal plane with a large external occipital crest, non-incisiform and mesiodistally long canines, and thinner cheek-teeth enamel; from Kenyanthropus4 by a narrower, more convex face, and a narrower braincase with more marked postorbital constriction and a larger nuchal crest; from Ardipithecus6, 7 by upper I1 with distinctive lingual topography characterized by extensive development of the crests and cingulum; less incisiform upper canines not diamond shaped with a low distal shoulder and a mesiodistal long axis, bucco-lingually narrower lower canines with stronger distal tubercle, and P4 with two roots; from Orrorin8 by upper I1 with multiple tubercles on the lingual fossa, and non-chimp-like upper canines with extensive apical wear.
Now, what is fascinating is the way I read it, it seems as though the article which has stated that the "ape-man" link is primarily noticeable through teeth seems to be somewhat different than how I interpret it. Again, seven years have gone by since the initial paper and my best guess is that better examinations into it have henceforth been undertaken. Nevertheless, when I looked it up in Wikipedia, just to make sure my understanding was correct, this is what comes up:
The braincase, being only 340 cm³ to 360 cm³ in volume is similar to that of extant chimpanzees and is notably less than the approximate human volume of 1350 cm³. The teeth, brow ridges, and facial structure differ markedly from those found in Homo sapiens.
The rest of the Wikipedia article on this specimen is here.
This, of course, does not prove anything other than the fact that the skull is clearly not human - which we already knew. Right, Campbell? It could still be a long distant relative prior to Lucy that held certain features which adapted and evolved over time to eventually look as Lucy did and so on and so forth until we find ourselves saying it was a direct ancestor.
Let's look at the next few paragraphs from the original article you posted:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Campbell’s Fantastic Scientific Reporting Venture That Apparently Overthrows A Plethora Of Scientific Evidence
It is the first skull find from a critical time in human evolution — between 10 million years ago, when there were only apes, and five million years ago, when evidence suggests early human ancestors, or hominids, appeared.
Bernard Wood, of George Washington University, Washington DC, wrote in Nature that although Toumaï is not a 'missing link', it does suggest a diversity of ape-men lived even six to seven million years ago.
Well, this pretty much sums it up for me. I don't know how you skipped this part of the article, Campbell. Let's read it very carefully. 10 million years ago there were no hominids. Just apes. 5 million years ago there were both hominids and apes. Thus, we have a hominid fossil pretty much smack dab in the middle of those two. It may not be a 'missing link' as Dr. Wood states but it does indeed suggest that hominidae were roaming the Earth approximately six to seven million years ago.
Not humans but hominids. Surely, we humans currently do classify as hominids but I'll save the taxonomic discussion for another time. Regardless, what Dr. Wood states is something that should be reiterated. So allow me to do so:
There were no humans and this may or may not be a 'missing link.' What it does suggest is that hominids (with certain sets of characteristics) roamed the Earth around six to seven million years ago. Funny... That seems like a prediction met with scientific accuracy. Or perhaps that's just me.
But, as promised, I suppose we should go on...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Campbell’s Fantastic Scientific Reporting Venture That Apparently Overthrows A Plethora Of Scientific Evidence
Indeed, the discovery strengthens the argument that humans did not evolve in a linear progression from apes that roamed the planet 10 million years ago. Rather, our lineage sprouted in many directions — the so-called 'bushy' model — before we evolved as Homo erectus and then modern humans, Homo sapiens.
According to Australian National University anthropologist Dr Alan Thorne, the Chad discovery is important because it "pushes things back a few million years".
"From this and previous discoveries of things like teeth and a few femurs … it's clear that there were upright people six to seven million years ago," he said.
"What this find really means is we've got a head for those people."
Ahhh.... The great big mystery of the article... This is the golden nugget, Campbell. By golly, I think you've done it. You've cracked a major hole in the massive global conspiracy of science to push evolution on school children like crack-cocaine dealers. Bravo, my boy! You're quite the sharp butter knife, aren't you?
There is no doubt that this was indeed an intriguing discovery. It does, as the man states, "push things back a few million years." As I mentioned before, our oldest known hominid was in the range of about 5 million years. If the skull is indeed that of a hominid, it would tell us that their evolution and distancing from apes started even further back than previously known - that's about it.
Where I do feel Wood gets ahead of himself is by suggesting that this particular hominid walked upright like you, me or Lucy. Indeed, extant generas of hominidae are found in today's world that don't walk upright such as the orangutan, chimpanzee and gorilla.
His statement of fact that "From this and previous discoveries of things like teeth and a few femurs … it's clear that there were upright people six to seven million years ago," is one that I find to be a little shy of meeting the evidential mark. To my knowledge, no femurs of this specimen were found and that is one of the key components in determining whether or not a species walked upright. However, I will say that due to other similar facial features found in upright walking hominidae, it's not impossible this is the case, but simply lacking evidence.
Furthermore, I also feel that you've once again gotten ahead of yourself with this grandiose misunderstanding of "not evolving in a linear path." I would think that even someone such as yourself who is clearly not proficient at understanding a single thing he reads, would have been able to connect the dots in so much as what an "evolutionary tree" is.
Most trees have branches and those branches sometimes have branches and those branches sometimes have little twigs. This find could either be a branch of a branch of a branch or it could be more direct. As Wood stated, it shows that our evolutionary development was not necessarily a bee-line to humanity. I don't see what the problem is???
Next...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Campbell’s Fantastic Scientific Reporting Venture That Apparently Overthrows A Plethora Of Scientific Evidence
Professor Colin Groves, from the Australian National University's Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, was equally enthusiastic about the discovery, but less convinced the skull is human.
He places Toumaï at the point in evolution before humans and chimpanzees diverged, believed to be around five million years ago. One reason for doubt is Toumaï's small canine teeth.
"We have precedence for short canines in other things besides humans, such as the creature Graecopithecus, which is said to be an early proto-gorilla."
Surprise, surprise. Someone said the skull wasn't human... I can't imagine why? Unless they're just talking about "ape-man" human which isn't really very distinct and telling, wouldn't you agree?
Here is where we see scientific empiricism at its' best. Someone proposes something and it's immediately questioned by another member of the scientific community. This is of utmost necessity and importance in trying to unlock some of the bigger mysteries that are out there. If we just took the first crackpot's suggestion over what was found, we might have people such as yourself dictating to us some pretty radically obscene ideas like a magical man in the sky putting us all here some 6,000 years ago.
Nonetheless, the focus is back on the teeth, which I believe I sufficiently pointed out as being prime examples of evidential supporting measures when examining such remains in my citation of Lucy, humans, and this particular find.
As the skeptic said, the size of the teeth may indicate that it's a proto-gorilla. This could indeed be a big find because many chimpanzee, gorilla, etc... evolutionary finds have not yielded to be very fruitful as of yet. It could very well give us a grand insight into part of the evolution of gorillas and other hominidae just as much as it might give us more insight into our own evolution.
But, I hardly, in any capacity whatsoever, feel that this means the whole of evolutionary theory is crumbling... I suggest you stop drinking Jesus' bong water and actually try to think for yourself once in a while. It's sad to see people get suckered into such nonsense... Oh wait... You got this from AiG didn't you???
A new skull discovery made in the African republice of Chad now has Bernard Wood, of George Washington University, Washingtone DC, now suggesting that this new discovery is giving strength to the arguement that humans (DID NOT EVOLVE IN A LINEAR PROGRESSION FROM APES THAT ROAMED THE PLANET 10 MILLION YEARS AGO.)
This same discovery, also has the Editor and paleontologist Henry Gee of Nature magazine saying, and this is a quote.
Whatever the outcome, the skull shows, once and for all, that the (OLD IDEA OF A MISSING LINK IS BUNK...) It should now be quite plain that the very idea of the missing link, always shaky, is now completely untenable.
The theory of Evolution is collapsing before our very eyes, and soon, those who have embraced this theory will be like soldiers on the field of battle. Only to discover, that their commanders and generals have left them alone on the front lines. And alone, they will try to defend a theory that is also untenable. Their old beliefs, and old ideas will be like so much watered downed ammunition. That ammunition gave them a feeling of safety, until is was revealed, that it was useless when needed.
News in Science - A heady discovery - 15/07/2002 (http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s605620.htm - broken link)
Where's Gee's quote????
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