Oolon Colluphid

In another thread, I posted these two pics:





Well, I’ve had an email from someone commenting on them. I’ve replied, but maybe some others would like to comment too. I’ll direct the person here; maybe he’d like to register (I’m guessing he hasn’t already) and discuss it.

Cheers, Oolon

[ July 01, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

Duvenoy

Interesting thought. I've never heard hominid evolution refuted (attempted) in quite that way, apart from the Neandertal with rickets, of course. That old saw is still being used long after it's lost it's edge.

Hope he shows up.

doov

Quetzal

Two rather obvious questions pop into my mind reading that email:

1. Does s/he have any evidence - other than the babble - that any human has lived "several hundred years"? Especially in the absence of modern medicine, including anti-senescence treatments, etc...

2. If this is an arthritically deformed individual, what are the diagnostic features that would show this? I've never heard of skull arthritis - I thought that was a joint problem. Osteoporosis and other degenerative bone diseases of aging certainly wouldn't cause prognathus jaws and brow ridges. Of course, he could be claiming that every single specimen of that species that ever fossilized was deformed in exactly the same fashion and no undeformed individuals ever fossilized for some reason. I admit that I'm impressed s/he was able to make that determination from the photo of a plaster cast...

gallo

Couple of questions.

What evidence is there that continued growth of the bones of the face and head would yield a configuration similar to that of Mrs Ples? If these Biblical humans had lived several hundred years more, no doubt they would have looked like chimps.

If Mrs Ples is the result of hundreds of years of growth of a normal human, why is the skull so much smaller? On average, a modern human has a skull capacity of about 1350 cc. Mrs Ples had a skull capacity of about 485 cc, a bit larger than the median for her species. How could 900 years of "growth" reduce the size of the brain by 865 cc? Again, if we follow the trend for a few hundred more years, humans would eventually all become micro-cephalic.

The beauty of "creation science" is that you get to make it up as you go. Other creationists tell us that Mrs Ples is an ape.

Oolon Colluphid

Here’s my reply:

Could be, though I haven’t heard that. It’s normally soft tissues such as nose and ears that continue to grow... and even so, it’s at a far slower rate than during infancy. Do you have a reference?

(there’s no such thing as ‘more’ or ‘less’ evolved)

Ah, where to start...? (By saying ‘nice try, now go learn some basic anatomy!’ ? )

1. Do you know of a single old person with such a protruding face?

2. Because that skull is STS 5, Australopithecus africanus, dated to around 2.6 million years old (I’ll check how it was dated if you’d like). It is sufficiently different from modern humans that it doesn’t even get put in the genus Homo. Here are some details and more pics of it:
<a href="http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/sts5.html" target="_blank">http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/sts5.html</a>

I’ll go into more anatomical details if you like, as soon as I can get to my reference books (Aiello & Dean, Klein etc).

3. It has a cranial capacity of about 485cc, which is _half_ that of the _bottom_ of the normal human range, and 50-100cc above that of the modern chimpanzee. From <a href="http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/ViktoriyaShchupak.shtml" target="_blank">here</a>:

“Modern humans have cranial capacities from 950 cm3 to 1800 cm3, but the average volume of a modern human brain is 1300 cm3 to 1500 cm3.”

4. As <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/compare.html" target="_blank">this comparison of creationist arguments </a> shows, creationists are united in considering the rather more human-like (compared to STS 5) KNM-ER 1813:

to be ‘merely’ an ape. Are they all wrong then?

5. Other A africanus material tells us that they were no more than 4ft 6in tall, less than 4ft on average. They also had relatively much longer arms than us, and a pelvis intermediate between modern chimp and modern human.

Quite possibly not. Though ‘adult’, STS 5 may not be fully mature. The temporal lines are not quite touching, and the roots of the third upper molars were (probably) not fully closed. If so, it wouldn’t have been hundreds of years old: it wouldn’t have even been 30. See:
<a href="http://www.nfi.org.za/palaeo/temporal_lines_and_dental_develo.htm" target="_blank">http://www.nfi.org.za/palaeo/temporal_lines_and_dental_develo.htm</a>

Sure (apart from arthritis not being exclusively a disease of the elderly). But there’s no sign of it in STS 5 (unsurprisingly, since it’s a skull), and I’ve not heard of arthritis in any Australopithecus remains. I suggest you look here at Australopithecus afarensis:

<a href="http://www.modernhumanorigins.com/afarensis.html" target="_blank">http://www.modernhumanorigins.com/afarensis.html</a>

Any idea how living to 900 caused these remains to look as they do? Do people’s arms grow disproportionately to their legs as they get older?

Here’s a load of info on hominid remains:
<a href="http://www.modernhumanorigins.com/hominids.html" target="_blank">http://www.modernhumanorigins.com/hominids.html</a>

On what grounds do you think it is inspired?

And we believe this why? You have some evidence then? I can provide evidence for what I say; why should we take your say-so, or that of an old book?

As I’ve said, ‘my Neanderthal’ is an Australopithecus.

Nope

Erm, the ‘love’ of a deity which -- you claim -- created eg Lyssavirus, Plasmodium falciparum, Rickettsia prowazekii and Pediculus humanus, to name just a couple, you can stuff.

In rational thought, Oolon

[Edited to add the 1813 pic for easy comparison. Also, just thought: he is in fact on to something. He not only realises that (brain case volumes notwithstanding) one form could turn into the other by differential growth patterns, but also, given the crucial role of paedomorphosis (neoteny) in human evolution, if we did live hundreds of years and kept growing, we probably would look somewhat like africanus!

All we need now is some specific details on Australopithecine non-human morphology (most sites only seem to mention the human-like characteristics)... I’ll check tonight, but is Ergaster around...?]

Cheers, Oolon

[ July 01, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

RufusAtticus

Well, actually, human face bones do stop growing. It has to with hormones and puberty, so when people take steroids they it doesn't stop and they end up with projected faces. Just look at Arnold.

~~RvFvS~~

[ July 01, 2002: Message edited by: RufusAtticus ]</p>

Undercurrent

This looks similar to Kent Hovind's claim that reptiles never stop growing so "dinosaurs" (scare quotes) are just lizards who lived a really long time by the grace of god before the flood.

But isn't the "big faced" ancestor, really just a "small braincased" ancenstor? I.e. the faces are the same size, but the braincase is smaller in the one, and the photo is at a differen scale.

m.

Godless Dave

Are you sure he's talking about the Bible? It sounds more like Protector by Larry Niven.

LeftCoast

That's correct, it is the cartilaginous portions of the face/head that continue to grow, the bones do not.

nogods4me

Those creationists surely do come up with some odd "theories" .
At the payable on death christian music board Dr. GH and some others have shown amazing patience in dealing with such suggestions as:

since they folks in bible times lived to be very old they were vey smart as well so Noah took 100 years to build the ark. and developed a cold storage system for the food for the animals. and this is my favorite, they grew to much larger sizes than modern humans so that Noah was actually twice the size of a modern human, and that means that the ark was twice as high, wide, and deep, as we usually thinik, so there was plenty of room for all the animals. I had to take 4 ibuprofen after that one.