Jack the Bodiless

There is evidence of possible interbreeding between Sapiens and Neanderthalensis (an apparent halfbreed in Portugal IIRC), but that's not what I was referring to. I meant that there isn't a simple linear progression, because various hominids coexisted. No single branch stands clear from all the others as THE branch that led directly to us.

However, the overall progression is clear, just as a tree with intertwining branches clearly supports its leaves with them.

And, yes, you are trolling. It is laughable to imply that the totality of fossil and genetic evidence supporting humanity's evolution from (other) apes is somehow comparable to Piltdown and Nebraska Man. It's rather like claiming that the Dead Sea Scrolls are random beetle droppings on parchment. Unless you are unreasonably ignorant, you're doing this to needle "evolutionists".

Oolon Colluphid

oops!

[ June 13, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

Creation's Terrier

Shit Jack, is it that obvious?

Okay, so indulge me. This isn't "to needle evolutionists", it's to see how well creationist spin/argument can be put on stuff, and to see how easy it is to knock holes in such spin. Hence the initial anonymity. So far, you're all presupposing a troll (don't we normally beat the crap out of presuppositionalists? ), and not really answering.

I'm also curious as to why someone who does know about 'evolutionist' claims has to automatically be a troll. Doubtless, then, people like Gish would qualify, despite (presumably) honestly holding their beliefs, though dishonestly (for certain) promoting them.

[Creationist ON]

I thought the Infidels reckoned that’s what all creationists do?! Need I mention your attitude towards Ken Ham (pbuh) .

Ahem... What exactly have I claimed?

Are you saying there really are loads of complete hominid fossils? That most of what there is isn’t mostly scraps? Count hominoids in too, and you’ve got, what, another small box full?

How is it improbable that Turkana boy is not just an abnormal sapiens? Are any of its features so vastly outside the modern range that it has to be a separate species? How do you know he couldn’t have interbred with us (the definition of species, no?)? just being different doesn’t make him transitional!

And as for Lucy, it doesn’t matter that some of her features are human-like. Chimps are more human-like than orangs, but they’re still different things. Why is she not just an extinct chimp species?

Clearly, as a creationist, I don’t think humans evolved, so I think these things had bugger all to do with alleged human evolution .

Why’s that then? Was Proconsul not supposedly at the base of the ape family tree... except now it isn’t? Are we not meant to be apes too? Sounds like you’re claiming the Dryopithecines were not anything to do with humans...? I agree though: these fossils do not have anything to do with human evolution .

CT

scigirl

HA HA HA HA! The real reason Oolon stepped down from moderator - he wanted to have time to develop his new troll persona!



scigirl

Ergaster

What makes you think it's an automatic attribution?

Personally, I *wouldn't* call Gish a troll, but perhaps we differ in our definition of troll. I think Gish (or even Ham) are quite sincere in their beliefs, and are willing to defend them (however mistakenly), which excludes them from trolldom.

[Creationist ON]

(so why is there this gap in quoted material, so that I ahve to cut'n'paste from another window, and will probably mess up the codes and all?)


Huh?...(she said, feigning innocence)...is my attitude towards Kanned Ham somehow inappropriate?

Implications of your claims. The implication that one needs "complete" skeletons in order to draw any kind of conclusion about human evolution. This automatically belies any claim to knowledge about the evolution of humans (okay, okay--you didn't specifically claim any knowledge about evolution, just familiarity with the literature.

There are several partial skeletons of hominids. There are about a dozen of Neanderthals alone. I can think of 7 Plio-Pleistocene partial hominid skeletons (including "Lucy" and KNM-WT 15000), although none as complete as those two (except, very probably, the australopithecine that is currently being extracted from the breccias of Sterkfontein).

And if we include the Miocene forms (not that this would occur to *real* creationists)...I suppose it would depend on your definition of "small". I'm not sure I'd want to try to lift that box....

Yes. In cranial morphology (and in pattern and timing of dental development, as it turns out), he is far outside the range of modern humans.

Not for paleontologists, it ain't. The Biological Species Concept is pretty much useless for fossils (for obvious reasons), and is rarely used to assign living organisms to species anyway (morphology is still used most of the time). However nice the BSC is in theory, it is often not very useful from a practical standpoint.

How did we get onto "transitionals" all of a sudden?

Uh...because she doesn't *look* like a chimp?

(Is this a real argument you've cadged from somewhere, or are you just making it up?)

You are giving yourself away. In years of reading creationist literature and websites, I have not encountered a single creationist who demonstrated any kind of awareness whatsoever about the Miocene record of hominoids and how they might or might not relate to human evolution (maybe you know of such a site. I'd like to see it). By confessing that you actually know what Proconsul and its putative status is (not to mention Dryopithecus--eek!), you raise immediate alarm bells about your true identity.

Sorry.

Creation's Terrier

Fair enough! Sorry, I just can’t hack it as a creationist (Though expect reappearances every so often .)

Mind you, the point of this exercise was to see how we’d react to a creationist who did know about these things. Sure, we’ve not found one so far, but someone like Gish may well know of these fossils... and would put a cretinist spin on it. How we reacted was to smell a rat, not to tackle the questions. Correctly, of course. What we need is a real creationist who really understands evolution... but I’d wager those are mutually exclusive concepts .

But the ‘creationist fact’ (don’t laugh) remains that there is now a gap in the Miocene. Of course [Oolon ON] the real answer is that we are very very unlikely to ever have fossils of members of the actual ancestral population; fossils are more of a guide to what was around at the time, rather than us being literally Lucy’s great ^100,000 grandchildren. Which allows Proconsul back into the frame.

This is precisely why things like KNM-ER 15000 are safely to be taken as representative rather than abnormal (you’ve missed Ed’s claiming this I think, Ergaster): fossils are most likely to be of average members, by definition. There’s most numbers of the middle range of morphology, so they’re most likely to be preserved. Hence to argue that all erectus and archaic sapiens fossils, with all their differences, are merely aberant modern forms, is farcical.

Cheers, Oolon / CT

Ergaster

Just speaking from personal experience: I have, indeed, encountered creationists who have a grasp of the fossil evidence; they just have bizarre interpretations of it. It's just that these creationists are encountered on their own turf, so to speak (websites, usually)--they do not normally post to discussion fora like these. I've had some very--um--interesting (and generally quite cordial) exchanges with some of them. It would be nice if they'd show up more often, like that fellow a month or so back (what was his name?) who then did a runner. Responses to him required at least a measure of thought and research, and couldn't be refuted while asleep (as is the case all too often).

I don't know what you mean by that.

Well...I doubt that Proconsul is out of it yet. It is entirely expected that the most primitive members of a clade are going to look very much like the ancestral clade from which they sprang, and "drawing the line" will be very difficult. The most basal mambers of a clade will not have all of the diagnostic features of that clade. This is one of the nuances that creationists generally fail to grasp--that ancestry does NOT depend upon nomenclature, and deciding that [i]Proconsul{/i} is not a technical hominoid (or that Homo rudolfensis, to take an example closer to home, is not a primitive member of the genus Homo but an advanced australopithecine) does not automatically remove it from the family tree.

I may have missed Ed's claim, but since that is a common creationist claim wherever you go, I'm hardly unfamiliar with it.

At a certain level of education in paleoanthropology, the assumption that fossils represent the "average" individual (unless there is compelling reason to believe otherwise--of which there is at least one example I can think of) is like the fact that humans walk on two legs: it is assumed (by professionals and advanced students) to be so self-evident that it hardly bears comment.

Deb

GeoTheo

Oolon,
I think you are cool! You are a TRUE skeptic!

Oolon Colluphid

Cheers Theo! But the thing is, I can be persuaded by evidence... and in the case of evolution, I overwhelmingly am.

Oolon