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Author Topic:   New Species of Homo Discovered: Homo naledi
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 76 of 163 (768552)
09-11-2015 12:36 PM


Note On Language For Faith
I think we've been through this before, but let me try to explain it again.
In usual scientific terms, I think what you usually want to deny is that evolution can produce new families. That's the technical term, that's more or less what you want to say can't happen.
Instead, you go about declaring that evolution can't produce new species, and then complain about the English language and the technical terms of science when it's pointed out to you that "species" and "family" are different terms, and act like it's a big conspiracy of lexicographers to stop you from saying "species" when you mean "family".
No, it's just what the words mean.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Replies to this message:
 Message 78 by Faith, posted 09-11-2015 12:51 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 77 of 163 (768553)
09-11-2015 12:39 PM
Reply to: Message 74 by Faith
09-11-2015 12:11 PM


Re: incredible creationists
I don't think A is a human being.
Noted. What about the rest of them?
Please don't do them one post at a time, we'll be here for weeks.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 74 by Faith, posted 09-11-2015 12:11 PM Faith has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 78 of 163 (768554)
09-11-2015 12:51 PM
Reply to: Message 76 by Dr Adequate
09-11-2015 12:36 PM


Re: Note On Language For Faith
I'd have no problem with the term "species" for what happens at the point called "speciation" if it weren't for the fact that that point is also called "macroevolution."
I take that back. NOTHING new happens at the point called "speciation" that hasn't been happening with every new population split that creates a new phenotype. I learned long ago to call those changes varieties or breeds or races because species is so problematic even if it shouldn't be. And a variety or breed is also what you have at speciation, with the only difference being that it has lost the ability to breed with others of its kind.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by Dr Adequate, posted 09-11-2015 12:36 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 79 of 163 (768555)
09-11-2015 1:48 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by Faith
09-10-2015 11:59 PM


Lucy has more bones than I remembered but still a pathetic excuse for a skeleton.
Well, I guess it's the best she could do. If only she had been fossilized by being entirely intact when she was buried suddenly and entirely by the sediment from a global flood, then I'm sure she'd be better preserved.
Why make an issue of talking snakes when the Bible also has water turned to wine, people raised from the dead, Jesus raised from the dead, walking through walls, ascending straight up into heaven, Elijah taken straight to heaven in a chariot, an army of angels revealed surrounding Israel, angels appearing to various prophets, sun standing still or moving backward, dew on fleece when intended to show God's will, not on fleece next day for the same reason, pillar of smoke by day and fire by night to lead the Israelites across the wilderness, manna from heaven, millions of quail dropped on them when they complained about the manna, etc etc etc. And you make a big deal out of a talking snake?
I look at the Bible. I see that it is a compilation of texts. Many of them are specifically ascribed, in their titles, as being written by different people. They are written in three different languages. They are written in a bewildering range of different styles. They seem to me to be mutually contradictory not merely in minor details, but in their portrayal of God and his ways.
So I see that it is impossible to judge that book as a whole. If I rejected one part, it would be stupid and ridiculous to just on that basis dismiss another part, written by a different person at a different time in a different language and all shuffled together into one book with other less reliable texts.
It has therefore never occurred to me that the truth of falsehood of Genesis could have any bearing on the veracity of the Gospels, or vice versa. Without any talking snakes thousands of years earlier, Jesus could have died for my sins, because that is a separate question not logically connected with talking snakes. And without Jesus dying for my sins, a snake might have talked. The Atonement either did or did not happen. This is independent of whether a snake talked.
And this is why when questioning Genesis, I so often refer to the talking snake which is in Genesis, and not to some other story in some other book of the Bible.

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 Message 41 by Faith, posted 09-10-2015 11:59 PM Faith has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 80 of 163 (768556)
09-11-2015 2:23 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by Faith
09-11-2015 12:51 PM


Re: Note On Language For Faith
I'd have no problem with the term "species" for what happens at the point called "speciation" if it weren't for the fact that that point is also called "macroevolution."
And, indeed, usually called that by creationists.
So either stop or bite it. So far as we have learned here: (1) creationists think that speciation happens (2) but they don't think that new species have arisen (3) yes they do (4) but they don't want to call species "species" they want to call families "species" (5) but at least they must deny "macroevolution" (6) but they defined macroevolution as the production of new species (7) so ...
... and so here you are, not disputing a single fact, but complaining that something you actually admit happens is also called a certain word (usually by creationists).

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 Message 78 by Faith, posted 09-11-2015 12:51 PM Faith has not replied

  
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Message 81 of 163 (768557)
09-11-2015 3:22 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by Faith
09-11-2015 12:51 PM


Re: Note On Language For Faith
Hi Faith,
I'm posting this as Admin, but this is strictly informational for now.
In case it helps to explain it a different way, while species can be a difficult concept if the focus is all of life, in these discussions we're usually just talking about sexual species like reptiles and mammals. For these the definition of species is pretty simple: if two populations cannot interbreed, they're different species. So when one subpopulation of a species evolves to the point where it cannot interbreed with another subpopulation of the same species, then it is *by definition* a different species.
You believe that when two subpopulations can no longer interbreed that they are still the same species, but that is *by definition* a contradiction. Unless you redefine the word species. Which you can't do. Because it already has a definition.
If no one objects then I will be moving this thread to the Biological Evolution forum tomorrow. I will be taking over moderator duties and will request that the Forum Guidelines be followed. The main focus of the thread will be on the topic and not on redefining words that already have time-honored definitions.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

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Meddle
Member (Idle past 1270 days)
Posts: 179
From: Scotland
Joined: 05-08-2006


(1)
Message 82 of 163 (768558)
09-11-2015 8:28 PM
Reply to: Message 18 by Faith
09-10-2015 3:12 PM


Not enough skull there though, and the one hand isn't convincingly human...
It may not be the full skull but what is there is still provides a significant amount of information. For example the overall size of the brain cavity and the sloping of the skull from the pronounced brow ridge, lacking a discernible forehead and therefore a less developed frontal lobe. you could also point to the slope of the upper jaw as an indication of how far the jaw protrudes. I'm sure someone like Coyote who has studied this area of biology could get a great deal more information from this skull and how it compares with other hominin skulls.
Look again at the series of skulls that Dr Adequate posted. We see a series of 'microevolutionary' changes as the brain cavity increases in volume and other features of the skull becoming more gracile, and somewhere in that continuum lies H.naledi. If you disagree, can you point to two adjacent skulls that show what you would call a 'macroevolutionary' change?
As for the hand not being convincingly human, what leads you to believe that? Like in humans the thumbs are quite large, extending as far as the proximal phalanges of the other fingers, whereas in the great apes the thumb is proportionally smaller since the metacarpals of the other fingers are elongated.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 18 by Faith, posted 09-10-2015 3:12 PM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 83 of 163 (768559)
09-12-2015 12:15 AM
Reply to: Message 82 by Meddle
09-11-2015 8:28 PM


Look again at the series of skulls that Dr Adequate posted. We see a series of 'microevolutionary' changes as the brain cavity increases in volume and other features of the skull becoming more gracile, and somewhere in that continuum lies H.naledi. If you disagree, can you point to two adjacent skulls that show what you would call a 'macroevolutionary' change?
What evidence do you have that any particular skull in that chart microevolved from the one preceding it? I look at that collection and see an arrangement that's most likely artificial. Some overzealous evolutionist just put them in the order that seems to suggest evolution from one type to the next, but what's the evidence of that? I suspect there's none. (For one thing why should there be such a neat sequence that seems to demonstrate how we got a bigger brain than our apish ancestor anyway? Isn't that rather teleological and doesn't that violate a basic idea of how evolution supposedly works?)
Actually, genetics doesn't work like that anyway. I'll refer back to the Croatian lizard for an example. I can't seem to find the first posts on this subject, which I believe was started by Frako, but HERE's a National Geographic article on it.. a few specimens of a lizard with ordinary sized heads were deposited on an island devoid of lizards* [see corrections below] and left there for thirty years before anyone came to check on them. In that time they had developed/microevolved an unusually large head along with a new digestive system which allowed them to eat tougher foods than had been possible to their ancestors. All the same foods were available as far as I remember, by the way, they merely now had the ability to eat tougher stuff and did so.
Of course I reject the usual adaptationist interpretation as well as the cause being mutation. I think what happened is that for whatever accidental reason the genetic stuff for a larger skull had a high genetic frequency in that isolated group, and that the digestive ability is somehow linked to that feature so developed with it, and over the generations that trait came to dominate. It didn't change in response to the environment although it found itself preferring new foods as a result of its stronger bones and jaws, it was just something in the lizard genome that came to dominate the phenotype over time. It could have been a smaller skull. It could have been a longer tail. There are many things in the genome of a species that could get emphasized or deemphasized in a geographically isolated group over a few generations. The National Geographic article starts out with the usual evolutionist idea that it takes millions of years for such changes to occur. Obviously it doesn't and such examples ought to be a slapdown to evolution. Too bad the theory is so adaptable due to the human ability to rationalize anything.
I see no reason to think those skulls on Dr. A's chart are anything but normal human variations found hither, thither and yon, even possibly at great distances in geography as well as time, with no necessary genetic descent between two adjacent types at all. Smart people like to make patterns so some smart people invented this pattern, but it's just an artificial pattern as far as anyone could judge from its mere appearance. If there's any evidence of actual descent from one type to another that evidence has oddly been excluded from the presentation. Such as where each was found and how it was dated, even the relative sizes of the different skulls which can't be assumed from the picture. Etc.
As for the hands, human hands have short thumbs and those don't.
___________________________
*I see from the article that the island did have its own population of lizards but that the introduced lizards somehow did away with them.
The article gives the specifics that it was ten individuals, five male-female pairs, that were introduced. Kind of supports my claims about what would have happened after the animals left Noah's ark, except that I would suppose that back in those days there was a lot more genetic variability in those few individuals on the ark than there would be in the lizards deposited on the island. If the lizards have any further ability to evolve, that could only be tested by taking some from the new group and putting them in another isolated place. But with high genetic variability many new phenotypes are possible from geographic isolation alone, which is what must have happened to the ark creatures as they dispersed.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 82 by Meddle, posted 09-11-2015 8:28 PM Meddle has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 84 by RAZD, posted 09-12-2015 7:03 AM Faith has replied
 Message 87 by Dr Adequate, posted 09-12-2015 10:41 AM Faith has replied
 Message 88 by Dr Adequate, posted 09-12-2015 11:02 AM Faith has replied
 Message 118 by Meddle, posted 09-14-2015 8:05 AM Faith has replied
 Message 138 by Meddle, posted 09-19-2015 10:55 AM Faith has replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


(1)
Message 84 of 163 (768560)
09-12-2015 7:03 AM
Reply to: Message 83 by Faith
09-12-2015 12:15 AM


Time
What evidence do you have that any particular skull in that chart microevolved from the one preceding it? I look at that collection and see an arrangement that's most likely artificial. Some overzealous evolutionist just put them in the order that seems to suggest evolution from one type to the next, but what's the evidence of that? I suspect there's none. (For one thing why should there be such a neat sequence that seems to demonstrate how we got a bigger brain than our apish ancestor anyway? Isn't that rather teleological and doesn't that violate a basic idea of how evolution supposedly works?)
Time.
The first skull is a modern chimpanzee skull for comparison, the rest are arranged chronologically from oldest to youngest.
29 Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 1
quote:
29 Evidences for Macroevolution
Part 1:
The Unique Universal Phylogenetic Tree
Figure 1.4.4. Fossil hominid skulls. Some of the figures have been modified for ease of comparison (only left-right mirroring or removal of a jawbone). (Images 2000 Smithsonian Institution.)
(A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
(B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
(C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
(D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
(E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
(F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
(G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My
(H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
(I) Homo heidelbergensis, "Rhodesia man," 300,000 - 125,000 y
(J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y
(K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y
(L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y
(M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y
(N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern

Note that (B) and (C) are the same species\age, as are (D) and (E); that (J), (K) and (L) are all neanders, and that (M) is archaic human while (N) is modern human.
Note further that any denial of the ages shown is empty until you have explained the evidence in Age Correlations and An Old Earth, Version 2 No 1 for an old earth and the methods of dating artifacts.
The fossils sorted by age is what shows the evolutionary trending from more ape-like to modern human, it is not arbitrary, artificial or just some whim of some purported "overzealous evolutionist" as anyone with the same evidence, derived independently for each skull, would place them in the same order.
Until we have better dates for Homo naledi all we can say is that they appear to be between (C) and (D) at this time.
Finally please note that this is not intended as a linear line of development, rather it is a sampling of the hominids from those periods, and like the neanders, some could be cousins. And those cousins may also have interbred as we now know happened with neanders.
Enjoy
Edited by RAZD, : .

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 83 by Faith, posted 09-12-2015 12:15 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 91 by Faith, posted 09-12-2015 12:57 PM RAZD has replied

  
Admin
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Joined: 06-14-2002
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Message 85 of 163 (768562)
09-12-2015 8:27 AM


Thread Copied from Creation/Evolution In The News Forum
Thread copied here from the New Species of Homo Discovered: Homo nalediHomo[/i] Discovered: Homo naledi thread in the Creation/Evolution In The News forum.

  
Admin
Director
Posts: 12998
From: EvC Forum
Joined: 06-14-2002
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Message 86 of 163 (768565)
09-12-2015 9:40 AM


Moderator On Duty
As I mentioned earlier, I'll be moderating this thread.
This thread did not pass through the normal vetting process in Proposed New Topics, and so no actual focus of discussion was defined, but discussion has defined a topic, which is how is Homo naledi evidence for human evolution. Evolutionists believe that Homo naledi is yet more evidence for a rich and detailed human bush of evolution. They aren't able to tell which are direct ancestors and which are cousins, but to evolutionists they are clearly related and represent change over time.
Creationists believe that Homo naledi is either human or just a species of ape, but not part of any evidence of gradual change over time of species of apes that evolved into the species we see today. Creationists believe that species can experience considerable change and still remain the same species, but that a species cannot become a new species. Therefore the fossil evidence is just a catalog of species that became extinct, with the exception of those that still exist.
Humans are of course a species of ape, but let us not get too picky about terminology. It is usually clear from context when people are using "ape" to refer to all apes including humans, and when to refer to all apes except humans. When it's not clear, just ask.

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 87 of 163 (768571)
09-12-2015 10:41 AM
Reply to: Message 83 by Faith
09-12-2015 12:15 AM


I see no reason to think those skulls on Dr. A's chart are anything but normal human variations found hither, thither and yon.
Skull A is a chimpanzee. If you're going to claim that chimps and humans are both "normal variations" of the same thing, then haven't you basically given away the store?
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 83 by Faith, posted 09-12-2015 12:15 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 89 by Faith, posted 09-12-2015 12:45 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 88 of 163 (768577)
09-12-2015 11:02 AM
Reply to: Message 83 by Faith
09-12-2015 12:15 AM


As for the hands, human hands have short thumbs and those don't.
Hre's an x-ray of a human hand.
AbE: Adding the images from Message 82 for comparison:
Edited by Admin, : Add helpful images.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 83 by Faith, posted 09-12-2015 12:15 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 90 by Faith, posted 09-12-2015 12:47 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 89 of 163 (768610)
09-12-2015 12:45 PM
Reply to: Message 87 by Dr Adequate
09-12-2015 10:41 AM


I already said A is not human. Obviously I'm talking about those that ARE human. Trust you to confuse things though. You must have been trained by Jesuits. Anything to misrepresent and distract and confuse.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 87 by Dr Adequate, posted 09-12-2015 10:41 AM Dr Adequate has replied

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 90 of 163 (768613)
09-12-2015 12:47 PM
Reply to: Message 88 by Dr Adequate
09-12-2015 11:02 AM


I was OBVIOUSLY talking about the hands with the skeleton Mr. Obfuscator. They do not have short thumbs.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 88 by Dr Adequate, posted 09-12-2015 11:02 AM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 92 by Dr Adequate, posted 09-12-2015 1:19 PM Faith has replied

  
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