Did Homo Erectus build the Tower of Babel?

Wise's approach directly contradicts another creationist's ideas:Creationist John Woodmorappe, in his The non-transitions in ”human evolution’-on evolutionists’ terms claims that the change from modern man, i.e., Adam and Eve, to Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, and Homo neanderthalensis took place after the Babel incident, which is usually placed after the global flood and in the range of 4,000 to 5,300 years ago.The implications of this are huge: Woodmorappe's perceived change from modern man to Homo ergaster would require a rate of evolution on the order of several hundred times as rapid as scientists posit for the change from Homo ergaster to modern man! This is in spite of the fact that most creationists deny evolution occurs on this scale at all; now a creationist has not only proposed such a change, but sees it operating several hundreds of times faster and in reverse!The creationists can't even agree among themselves, and, because they are doing creation "science" (religious apologetics), there is no way to evaluate among conflicting ideas.But because they are doing creation "science" instead of real science, this isn't a problem.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Your whole post is nonsense.The time frame doesn't work. The evolution from Homo erectus to modern man took some 2 million years, not 3,000 years.The skeletons of Homo erectus and modern humans are not "virtually indistinguishable." The postcranial bones are close, but the crania are very much different. Ever study any of these skulls? You might try it some time; you might even learn something.Humans are not descended from Neanderthals.There is no evidence for a global flood.The was insufficient time for humans to spread from the Near East after a purported flood and 1) repopulate the world, 2) evolve into the modern races, and 3) evolve into Homo erectus and the other fossil hominids. Besides, we have genetic evidence from before the time purported for the flood and it shows continuity. I have that from my own research. A skeleton dated to over 5,000 years in age is linked by mtDNA to living descendants. No replacement by Noah's type of mtDNA. (This disproves the flood right there.)Perhaps, if you study a little more science and a little less creation "science," you might be surprised at what you find.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Your growth curve is phony.Try the same thing with bacteria, and a reproduction time of 20 minutes.Go back just a short time, and you can easily prove that we are now buried hundreds of feet deep in that bacteria.Perhaps your formula did not model the variables correctly, eh?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Your quip does nothing to make my data, and the data of many of my colleagues, go away. And that data disproves the global flood all by itself.I can cite you three cases from the western US. My data is a 5,000+ year old skeleton with direct lineage ties based on mtDNA to living individuals in the same area. Another case, On Your Knees Cave in southern Alaska has a skeleton dated to 10,300 years of age with direct lineage ties (a different lineage) to living individuals spread from southern California to the tip of South America. A third case is Paisley Caves in southern Oregon, with human coprolites dated to 14,000+ years old. They too have direct lineal mtDNA connections to living individuals.All three of these cases, and many others, show direct lineage ties from early skeletons to living individuals. There was no replacement with Noah's mtDNA at about 4,350 years ago, the purported date of the global flood. This continuity of mtDNA types alone disproves the global flood at about 4,350 years.Quip all you want; the data will not go away. In fact, it will continue to grow.And no, the skeletons we are dealing with are not Homo erectus; they are fully modern humans.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Think so? Bring on your data. And before you even begin, a tip: stay away from those creationist websites. This is one subject they tend to lie about quite shamelessly. Humans only move on when there is a place to move to, and the resources to sustain a population. Are you familiar with the parameters of human migrations? People just don't move hither and yon at will; they move with particular care to the environment and conditions. They tend to go around mountain ranges and oceans, while clustering in fertile river valleys. And they go at a pace commensurate with the conditions, and as population pressure dictates. Actually the rules of animal biology pretty accurately describe human movements before watercraft were invented.But none of this matters, as modern humans had some 100,000+ years to populate the globe; they didn't have to cram all of the movements and developments into the slim period post 4,350 years ago, as there was no global flood that reduced the population.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

No. You are using a flawed model and getting flawed results. That has no implications for the time spans involved.Creation "science" as usual.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This is the Science Forum, and you are presenting religious belief. You arguing from creation "science" and a religious belief in a young earth.You should realize that the scientific argument for a young earth was abandoned in the early 1800s. The evidence since then has only grown exponentially in favor of an old earth.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

The decay constant is a statistical constant. There is no credible evidence to the contrary. There is no credible evidence that that rate has changed over time.The RATE Project spent over a million creationist dollars trying to undermine some of the assumptions underlying the conclusion that the earth is old. They failed.But, following the methods of creation "science," they refused to acknowledge that science was right all along.Here are a couple of analyses of their work: Assessing the RATE Project, by Randy IsaacDo the RATE Findings Negate Mainstream Science?, by Greg Moore

This is an easy one to support or disprove.Find some Homo erectus bones in the general range of 4,000 years of age. Document them properly and that should support the idea pretty effectively.That no such bones have been found in 150 years of archaeology pretty much disproves this idea as nonsense.I have been digging into sites of that age for nearly 40 years. I was working in one just yesterday. We had a nice variety of faunal remains, but no Homo erectus. Same as always.This idea is just another example of creation "science" -- twist science around however you have to, no matter how ridiculous the outcome, to make the data all fit as creationists want. Repeat as needed. When you run out of new ideas go back to the first and start again. Ignore all evidence to the contrary.

When you achieve some understanding of this beyond the creationist talking points get back to me.Because you have posted essentially canned talking points to me, here is a canned response (this is point one of seven; see the link for the rest):

Source

Take a look at all seven points and get back to me.Also -- this red herring you have dredged up from the bait box has nothing to do with the lack of Homo erectus bones being found in recent times. That is the subject of this thread.

The way you used that model is fundamentally flawed. No animal population has unlimited exponential growth.One major factor missing from that model: knowledge and technology.Two examples: the bow and arrow, or the atlatl, facilitate hunting among hunter-gatherers. This allows a readjustment of the population to a new, higher, level. Population will stabilize around this increased level until some new innovation allows a higher level (or some detrimental change mandates a lower level).Agriculture is necessary for the population levels we have today; without agriculture perhaps 95% of the population would starve in short order.Your model does not take these types of factors into consideration. For what you intend, it is useless, and does not serve to support the point you are trying to make.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Nonsense! Name one biological organism that experiences exponential growth for any sustained time.Pick any time period in human history prior to the development of agriculture and show me exponential population growth.The only way human will be able to get something resembling exponential growth is developing somewhat efficient interstellar travel. (See, growth is related to technology again!) And even then we might just run into something bigger and badder than ourselves out there. (Reminds me of the science fiction story, "To Serve Man.")You really should give up on creation "science" and try studying real science for a change.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

We're dealing in rubber band years here, typical of creation "science."The majority opinion of Biblical scholars is that the flood occurred about 4,350 years ago, yet we see creation "scientists" attributing the Cambrian deposits to the flood. That's off by over 500 million years, but with creation "science" that's no problem.Coming back to Babel, and the immediate topic--one creationist sees it built by Homo erectus, which then evolves into modern humans in something like 1,000-2,000 years.But other creationists, for example Lubenow and Woodmorappe, see modern man as being created in the form of Adam and Eve, and the differentiation to Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, and Homo neanderthalensis as racial variants of modern man-all descended from Adam and Eve, and most likely arising after the separation of people groups after Babel. This is especially funny, as the very evolution that creationists deny we now see a couple of them proposing, except several hundred times faster and in reverse!Isn't creation "science" wonderful? You can make anything you want out of it with no need for that messy data and all that troublesome fact checking and research. And some folks actually believe this stuff!

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.