ex-robot

he obviously does from his posts as do most creationists
who does believe in fixity of species? I believe H. Morris addressed this strawman a long time ago.
A better question would be does he believe grizzly bears have always been bears, bullfrogs have always been frogs, flounders have always been fish, etc. because he obviously believes in change over time like most creationists.

xr

lpetrich

Pre-Darwinian creationism had featured the belief that every species had been a separate creation. However, the "creation scientists" of the last few decades have preferred to believe in the existence of "natural kinds", which can include large numbers of species -- thus implying that an abundance of evolution and speciation has occurred.
Calling that a "strawman" is grossly unhistorical.
There are several species of bears, including oddballs like the polar bear and the giant panda. And a large number of frog species, and an even larger number of fish species.

Fish, especially, are very diversified, so what would a "fish kind" include? Teleost fish (most familiar bony fish)? That already includes a large number of very diversified species. Gars and sturgeons and coelacanths and other bony fish? Sharks and rays? Lampreys and hagfish (jawless fish)? Worse and worse. A creationist who concludes that "fish" are a "natural kind" is conceding that a large amount of evolution has occurred!!!

Furthermore, if bears or frogs or fish form a "natural kind", then might there be some human-ape "natural kind"?

And how does one recognize "natural kinds"?

[ April 11, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]</p>

MrDarwin

That is precisely why I worded my question as I did. If creationists don't have a problem with several species of bears evolving from a single ancestral bear species, then why do they have a problem with several genera, e.g., bears, canids and mustelids, evolving from a single ancestral carnivore ancestor? Where do they draw the line?

Duck!

They draw the line wherever they feel like it at the time. As long as humans are on the other side of whatever line it is they're drawing that is.

Creationists and their crazy ways, eh?


Duck!

Oolon Colluphid

I assume you meant 'Nebraska Man' (see <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_nebraska.html" target="_blank">here</a> for more info). The similarities of porcine and ape cheek teeth and the condition of the find mean the mistake is understandable. It was scientists, not creationists, who showed it to be a pig tooth. It was 85 years ago. Many scientists were sceptical of it even at the time. In other words, well gosh, mistakes happen. Apart from that, it is irrelevant. We have a little more than a single tooth for KNM-ER 1813:





and there are many other H habilis fossils. The people who spend their lives studying these things have no doubt that habilis is not a modern human. To take just one obvious feature, none of the habilis skulls have a cranial capacity near that of modern humans:
OH 24: just under 600cc
OH 13: 673cc
OH 7: estimated 674cc (it was an adolescent)
OH16: 638cc
KNM-ER 1813: 510cc

This is what we'd expect from evolution.

You mean this?

In other words, the differences are subtle morphology. Stuff that can be the result of 'microevolution', as with the dog skulls -- only to a much lesser degree than with those. And you did not say why there is a line to be drawn.

Yet you do not know were the dividing line is, merely that there are differences. The fossils accord with evolution. So we’re not apes simply because you don't want us to be.

(cont...)

[ April 12, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

Oolon Colluphid

Oddly enough, it's at the very bottom, if not outside, of the modern human range. As evolution expects.

Oh dear. It is not that the mandible 'receeds'; modern humans also have a ledge of bone that forms the chin. KNM-WT 15000 does not have this:





Do these folks you’ve met also have such protruding upper jaws too?

LOL! Why do you need to include "or ancient"? No, it is definitely not within the modern human range, unless Turkana boy were a dwarf. (He was 5’3’’, and would have been around 6’ when fully grown.) See <a href="http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/ViktoriyaShchupak.shtml" target="_blank">The volume of a human brain</a>. At around 900cc, it is well below the modern average of about 1400cc. Maybe, to be very charitable, borderline.

Of course the differences are subtle. The point is, they’re differences to modern humans. And do you know what sagittal keeling is? Here’s an erectus skullcap with it:



H erectus specimens such as this one also show projecting, bar-like brow-ridges, a sloping forehead, a low cranial vault height, and a broad cranial base.

Even if true, so? Are there also no differences between neanderthalensis and sapiens skulls? Or between early erectus and habilis? The experts can tell them apart, and you are no expert. The differences, as evolution expects, are subtle, but real. Also, I am familiar with Trinkaus and Shipman’s Neanderthal book, and don’t recall this being mentioned. Can you supply a reference please?

Is it not also curious that a site with which you may be familiar, <a href="http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/" target="_blank">Jesus, Dinosaurs and More!</a>, says exactly the opposite of what you claim? <a href="http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/modjokerto.html" target="_blank">This page</a> there says:
So which is it Ed? Is erectus merely modern human or not? (Answer: it is not. It is just as evolution predicts.)

Well the authors of that paper don’t seem to think it’s nothing but nutritional difference, and they are anthropologists and oral biologists. Maybe you should take it up with them. On second thoughts, don’t bother; I have emailed Christopher Dean for his thoughts on your assertion. Meanwhile, I note that the article (can anyone get at the full thing?) is not about showing a relationship with apes. It is about there being differences between erectus and apes... and modern humans.

Thanks. Again, Nature, and a very old issue at that. Does anyone have access to the article? Meanwhile, see <a href="http://home.twmi.rr.com/canovan/kowswamp/kowswamp.htm" target="_blank">this article</a>, which, despite emphasising the erectus-like features of the Kow Swamp material, stresses at the start that:

Also, not that it matters, this does not show that the modern aborigine populations are descendants of the fossil ones.

So what? How is that different from more than one species of Australopithecine coexisting? Or with having both blackbirds and thrushes in a garden simultaneously? How does that make any difference to evolution?

Not by you, apparently. The people who study these things seem to manage. Take a look at the alternative views of it above. If one knows enough about anatomy, there is plenty there by which to judge it.

Oh, sorry, you mean WT 15000. What on earth do you mean by damaged and distorted then??

Says who? You? Your ideological colleagues think that a "complex ape" could.

So to repeat, since you avoided the question: what is the dividing line between, say, STS 5 and KNM-ER 1813? And what are the differences that could not be the result of microevolution? The dog skulls show that much more is possible.

TTFN, Oolon

Oolon Colluphid

No you didn't, you pointed out differences, not why the differences make a creature one thing or another. Please be more specific. What about cranial size and shape? What about size and shape of jaws, teeth etc? It would help if you could put figures to it.

Fine. The breeds of dog are related by descent with modification, but are still dogs. So there is no reason why this



this



or even this



cannot also be human. Funny how the older they are, the less human they are too, isn’t it?

Oddly enough, yes .

Okay. That’s around 100 million years ago. Please offer some evidence for a world-wide flood then -- or any time. And some evidence of, say, great apes in South America, and humans in rocks older than 10 million years, would be good too.

[Snipped: others have covered some of it already.]

So the dodo could 'microevolve' from a pigeon and a salamander can lose its eyes, yet the far smaller changes to turn Australopithecus afarensis into humans are impossible. Ed, are you a professional idiot, or is it just a hobby?

Oolon

[ April 12, 2002: Message edited by: Oolon Colluphid ]</p>

Oolon Colluphid

Please provide references for such a wide human range. You didn’t just make it up, now did you?

Most of those are ‘evolutionists’, so they know they are ultimately drawing it on a continuum of generations. They make no such distinction between ‘human’ and ‘ape’, because they all agree we are apes. Only creationists think otherwise, and for them, the line may be clear but they cannot agree where it is! See the <a href="http://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/modjokerto.html" target="_blank">Jesus, Dinosaurs and more!</a> page and <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/compare.html" target="_blank">this page</a>, which compares various creationists’ assessments of various hominid fossils.

True. I imagine yours is well within the range of modern humans.

You can provide references, of course?

Um, ear bones? Jaws? Differentiated dentition? Limb posture? Palate?

To you, because you want it to be. Everything we can tell from what we do have indicates transition between major groups.

Which Synapsids? References please.

Not if evolution is correct, but if you say so. Shall we ask Per?

“Some”? “Most”? “May have”? Sounds like you don’t even believe it yourself. It’s pure hand-waving speculation. But okay, it might apply to those that are specific to humans alone. But most are adapted to mammals (or primates) in general, not specifically to humans. What prevented them from having always parasitised humans? Did the creator simply not notice, as he made them, that they could infect and affect his most special of creations too? How did they know to leave us alone? Why did Team Noah not catch them from the animals he was in so close contact with?

And those not included in the “some” that “may not”? What stopped the mosquitoes passing on Plasmodium and dengue to everyone? They had to get their blood meals from somewhere, and nothing else was alive.

Another straw bobs past. Ed grabs it.

Note also the way creationists embrace evolution if they think it can save their attempts at logic.

Please provide evidence of a global flood at any time in the past.

TTFN, Oolon

Ed

As I demonstrated in the EOG thread a superintelligent hamster in your basement can be logically eliminated as creator of the universe. And as I stated earlier I am not a geologist, but possibly geologists will find out that they were bigger in the past.

Ed

Actually a better recap is that they became frustrated when they were unable to refute my argument and then forcibly transferred me to this thread and THEN went home.

Quote:

OC: However, since you believe things were literally created by an entity who cares for us in some way, what I’d like to know is: why did it create, for instance, the pathogenic organisms I listed above? Parasites and pathogens are exquisitely shaped for their lifestyles. And these are just the sort of ‘design’ features that creationists usually trumpet as evidence for a designer. Here’s a few: Life Cycle of Plasmodium Life Cycle of Rickettsia Life Cycle of Leishmania Life Cycle of Schistosoma Life Cycle of Filaria Life Cycle of Cochliomyia hominivorax This is the way they live; they are superbly adapted to living like it; they are totally reliant on their hosts, and many are specific to humans. Normal Christians have to wonder why a loving god would allow these things to evolve, but doubtless they can wriggle and twist their way out of implicating their Big Sky Daddy. But if these things did not evolve, your loving god must have created them. Thus creationists insist that this god deliberately made things that cause phenomenal amounts of suffering and death, throughout all of history and throughout the natural world (and the above are merely the tip of the iceberg -- would you like me to go into more details?).

Well you have to remember that after Man rebelled against the king of the universe(Genesis 2) there were immediate repercussions throughout the universe and it started malfunctioning. And things that were once good including man himself became corrupted. So these organisms may have originally been symbionts or may have only parasitized animals because of Man's perfect immune system at the time. But after Man's rebellion they microevolved into more pathogenic versions of themselves and Man became more susceptible to disease after he could no longer eat of the Tree of Life that protected him from death and disease.

Quote:

OC: So please define 'loving'.

God is loving but also his moral character demands justice. And according to God, rebellion against him can only be justly punished by immediate death, but God in his mercy and lovingkindness did not immediately kill Man but instead the universe became corrupted and abnormal and was no longer a perfect home for Man so that is when these pathogenic organisms began microevolving. But also it allows humans time to repent of their rebellion and then will be allowed to live in the new earth and universe after this universe comes to an end.


[b] See above about early human perfect immune system.