Some Evidence Against Evolution

I respond by saying maybe the quote is an honest statement by Leakey lamenting the lack of quanity of fossils. Yes he believes in evolution but this doesn't mean he won't be honest about the amount of evidence in question.And if the quote is contextually accurate then this explains Leakey's remark about what an outside scientist from another discipline would conclude.

Willowtree, when are you going to provide your evidence against evolution? So far you seem to have only cited Milton quote mining a scientist or two and a lot of rhetoric. Do you have something more substantive to offer?

Well, we'll see, actually...I've ordered the book through my school's interlibrary loan service.You mention "lamenting the lack of quanity of fossils" - which is pretty likely, but is certainly not the same thing as calling into question that human and apes have a common ancestor! It may spell doom, (at least in 1981 when the book was published) on setting a precise date, finalizing the complex evolutionary tree, sorting which hominids are direct ancestors and which are off-shoots, etc.; but I'm quite confident it isn't over the question of whether apes and humans have a common ancestor in the relatively recent past.[This message has been edited by Zhimbo, 12-07-2003]

Of course we should not assume specific details about what fossils might be there. However, most consider it reasonable to interpolate. Even a small sampling of fossils suggests many degrees of uprightness and cranium size, and the age of the fossils decreases as these qualities increase. From these facts, the conclusion that humans reached the high end of the continuum by evolving from a four-legged primate with a small braincase is not a difficult or unreasonable one.

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Concerning your insulting comment about my knowledge of science:
The reply that you responded to was my reply to another persons reply.

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In that other persons reply they plainly explained that apes and humans evolved from a common ancestor.

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The wording used implied that this person also wanted me to ask the question, "What is that common ancestor ?" So seeing this I did.

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I think I know what the answer is but I didn't want to assume the posters answer. {there are only so many answers to this question}

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Then you enter in with a reply.

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All because I asked "What is that common ancestor ?" This simple respectful question directed at another member becomes a springboard for you to conclude that I know nothing about science.

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In context this is a very unintelligent deduction.

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Apologies if I've gotten you wrong, but you seemed sure that the statement you questioned would find disagreement among most evolutionists, when it is in fact quite orthodox and among the most basic tenets of evolutionary theory.

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Your quickness to fit me with a dunce cap is completely wIthout merit based upon the context of the exchange I just referenced.

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Maybe so. In the larger context of your posting here, I maintain that you have a lot to learn about modern science.

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You also inaccurately deduce that the only people who can deduce the Creator from what is made came to believe from some other means.
Deism is the term that classifies persosns who believe God created the universe but He does not intrude into the things of time nor can He be known.

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And how does one become a deist? I know they don't all independently reach the same conclusion without being taught something about God before hand.I have never met anyone, making the claim you make, who could honestly say that they just looked at the sky, or a sparrow, or a volcano, and said "hey, I should believe in one single god who made this, just because I'm seeing it right now." Everyone who believes in a god today does so because someone told them to. EVERYONE. Moreover, even if they could make that first step, they'd have to also infer a whole system of belief as well, or there would be no religion to practice.

Since your admission that post #112 is over your head then why don't you postulate a theory and tell me how the bombadier beetle might have evolved ? I intensely anticipate your response.

Bwahahaha!Well well well... this was in fact the very first ‘problem’ a creationist ever posed me, back in 1998. Funny how creationists keep recycling the same tired old chesnuts...Please, Willow, could you, yourself, explain just how the bombardiers' mechanism works? Let me guess: you think that if you mix hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide, the mixture will explode, yes?Here’s a clue that you’ve been lied to by creationists: it won’t. It won’t even get warm, though it might turn brown.How might they have evolved? Read Bombardier Beetles and the Argument from Design. Oh, and just to note that there’s not a bombardier beetle. There’s 500-odd different species of these little things, and they have a range of mechanisms. Could you tell us how many ‘kinds’ of them there are?And while you’re pondering the things your god has designed, let me remind you of all those living things designed by an idiot.TTFN, DT

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Since your admission that post #112 is over your head...
  —willowtree

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No, I covered that when I mentioned quote mining and a lot of rhetoric.So, the theory of evolution falls before the humble bombadier beetle? Judging from Mark Isaak's comprehensive article on the beetle, I think evolution is still standing upright. Did you have some substantive evidence invalidating the theory of evolution?

Uh... was I in some way unclear then? I do apologise. Yes, that is precisely what I suspect.Whether Milton intended to decieve is neither here nor there. Until we can see Leakey’s (or Pilbeam’s) original, we can’t tell for sure, but meantime I strongly suspect that they are talking about resolving details, like the examples I listed. We can’t tell whether the skull known as OH (‘Olduvai Hominid’) 24 is a separate species from skull KNM-ER (‘Kenya National Museum, East Rudolf’) 1470, or whether they are male and female of the same species, based just on those two. So, we await more fossils which may resolve it. Theories and facts are two different animals. Facts are data; theories are explanations of that data. Therefore, evolution is a fact and a theory.There is too little data -- too few fossils -- to give a definitive answer on the precise path of human evolution. There is plenty of evidence for humans having evolved. Why else do you think that everyone -- except those with a fundy-nutcase axe to grind -- accepts it? You claim (or say Milton is claiming) that Leakey / Pilbeam are admitting there is too little evidence for human evolution. If someone else looked at it, they’d say ‘forget it’. Yet [N]either David nor others involved in the search for mankind can take this advice, of course. So there is virtually no evidence, yet they carry on regardless while knowing this. How is this not tantamount to them admitting their discipline is bunk? *sigh* Look, it’s this simple:Evolution of humans = not in doubt. All the fossils indicate it happened, and it is confirmed by several other, entirely separate scientific disciplines too.Which particular fossil species gave rise to which later fossil species, and how they are related to each other = open to question, need more data to resolve. You may quote ‘evolutionists’ all you want. Just make sure they are really saying and meaning what they seem to be saying and meaning. Creationists are notorious quote-miners, so check the original and don’t trust creationist websites. And note that, even if the person quoted really said whatever it is, it would still be merely an Argument from Authority. So the Authority must be relevant and up-to-date.And even then, science works by consensus, not by monolithic authority.How about you quote peer-reviewed papers? *bangs head on wall* From the link above:Well evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Well I reckon one could fit a feck (Irish term) of a lot of bits of bone in the back of a large, erm, station wagon. (A dig down through the top five pages of a Google search has left me none the wiser as to what a bread box might be. There’s a difference between parochialisms and obscurantism.)But you missed the point, once again. I don’t give a flying fruitbat what the net volume of the fossils is (though more would be nice). To repeat, it’s not how much you’ve got, it’s what you can tell from it that matters. Whole skeletons are very rare. Skulls are pretty rare. Fossil hominin remains in general are quite rare. But we nevertheless have a couple, dozens, and bloody thousands, respectively. And they all indicate evolution.For what I hope is the last time: all they don’t indicate is precisely what’s-ancestral-to-what. Nor do they indicate sudden creation. Nope. Just which ones are ape, and which are human. No I don’t. Some creationists have tried, quite gamely, to draw a line between them. It’s true that they have then struggled to say what the crucial difference is between the ones either side of the line... but you might have been able to. It's true that I'm not surprised you can't... but I didn't know without asking.I do not see why this need be so difficult. Humans are not descended from an apelike ancestor, yes? Therefore there should be no fossils of things that are more and more apelike, as we look at earlier and earlier ones, yes? It should be easy to say ‘X is human, Y is ape’. So, why don’t you try? I guess it would be difficult if you don’t know your coccyx from your olecranon though.If it is difficult, what does this tell us? That god created a range of more and more humanlike creatures, and put them in progressively younger strata?Please try to follow this bit of logic:Humans and apes are different now.Creation predicts that they always have been, since they were created separately.Evolution predicts that, since they shared a common, apelike ancestor, that earlier and earlier fossils would be harder and harder to tell ‘ape’ from ‘human’.Which prediction matches reality more closely? Eh, Willow?Tell me which are the ape ones and which are the human ones, or admit the blindingly obvious: that evolution is vindicated, that there is no ‘missing link’. We don’t need every last link to demonstrate that there is a chain. Just honest. I keep hoping that some creationist will be able to back up their assertions, or at least try to. But I see you’d rather dodge the issue.Do it for you? Okay. They’re all apes. And I justify this by pointing out that the first ones clearly are, and I cannot find any radical difference between those and the progressively later ones. It’s nothing but ‘a bit more of this’ or ‘a little less of that’. Nothing more than what microevolution -- which you’d be astoundingly stupid to deny -- can achieve.There. That was easy. Now it’s your go. There’s an old saying round here: when you’re in a hole, stop digging.Piltdown (it’s one word) lasted maybe thirty years. But it was a misfit from the start, and became more and more anomalous as more and more real (note: ‘real’, and ‘more and more’) fossils were found. It is now just a historical curiosity (it gets two paragraphs in Lewin’s 240-page introductory textbook), and only creationists seem to care about it. Why is that?And please explain which ‘Java Man’ is the fake one? Trinil? The Mojokerto, Sangiran and Ngandong specimens? As far as I can tell, Asiatic erectus is still doing just fine. So please explain just what the hell you’re on about.You only need ‘Nebraska Man’ for a complete set. Want to bring up Hoyle and Wickramsinghe’s ‘fake Archaeopteryx’ claims while you’re at it?Here’s a novel idea: why don’t you concentrate on the real fossils? Did I mention KNM-WT 15000? Ape or human? It must be one or the other -- surely it’s not ‘transitional’? Well I was last there in September, and didn’t notice any obvious empty cases. (Perhaps I was in Teddington .) Could you be more precise? What is Milton on about? Apart from being a creationist? Apart from wanting the world to be a particular way soooo badly that a little white fib or two won’t hurt?How about you pick up a proper palaeoanthropology book like Klein or Tattersall or Wolpoff or Stringer or Lewin or... I do apologise, but I’d not realised I was being logidemic. I see I used some catalogue numbers for specific fossils, and italicise the genus and species names... but a brief Google would tell you what they were if you were in any doubt. Which bits were unclear? I’ll try to rephrase. I can be as practidemic as you want, I hope!(Incidentally, Google has never heard of either logidemic or practidemic. I know enough Greek to hazard a guess, and the context is clear enough anyway, but they look like deliberately obscurantist coinages to me.)TTFN, DT[This message has been edited by Darwinsterrier, 12-08-2003]

It's hard to tell if you're being disingenuous or just plain thick here. There are thousands of fossils, it's just that they are fragmentary. Hardly any complete skeletons; a few dozen skulls; lots of single bones, and hundreds of teeth. But don't you dare say that that is not enough, till you can demonstrate that you know what an anteriorly placed foramen magnum indicates.Go learn some taphonomy. We're lucky to have what we've got.DT

I am studying this reply and I will respond as soon as possible.

This is not an invalid criticism. I think one of the key failings of most scientists who understand evolution is the vast majority simply never try to make it easily understandable to an intelligent but possibly uninformed non-scientist. In that, the general run of professional creationists have a distinct advantage. Although the "nuts and bolts" as you say can get pretty complicated - evolution is a complex subject - there are ways to explain most of it that are accessible. I guess the best thing to do would be to stop the person you're exchanging messages with whenever there's something that sounds jargon-y or hard to understand, and ask them to explain what they're on about...

I guess that you weren’t getting at me, Q, but I do try to talk simply when possible. OTOH, I don’t want to talk down to anyone either. But since I was apparently incomprehensible to Willow, here’s a glossary for the more, erm, logidemic language in my post. I do not know what level to aim this at, so if I am now talking down... well tough! Taphonomic: taphonomy is the study of how bits of living things get turned into fossils -- what happens to them as they do, how it happens, and what happens to them afterwards till they are found.Hominin: the more modern version of ‘hominid’, which I try to use but sometimes forget and use hominid instead. It is the grouping that humans -- and all their ancestors -- belong to.Palaeoanthropologists: the scientists who study fossil humans. Palaeo- means ‘old’; anthropo- means ‘man’; and -logist is someone who studies something (from logos meaning laws or rules about something).Anatomists: scientists who study how bits of bodies fit together and work.Palaeontologists: scientists who study fossils.Zoologists: scientists who study animals.Geneticists: scientists who study genes.Chemists: scientists who study chemicals and how they interact. Chemicals are the stuff that everything is made of (which is why I find it funny when people want chemical-free food: try eating a vacuum).Physiology: How a living thing functions -- breathing, getting rid of waste, getting food and digesting it, etc.Biochemistry: Chemistry of living things.Gene: in simple terms, a bit of DNA (a long string of chemicals that in certain circumstances makes copies of itself -- the chemical basis of heredity) that helps make a body or influences behaviour. Since it’s more complicated than that in reality, it can also mean ‘something that’s inherited’.Forensics: legal or crime-related science. Colloquially, it’s finding out as much as possible about something, especially an entire situation, often from small clues. My analogy in the post was between a spot or two of blood and a boot print at a crime scene (DNA analysis, where the blood is, splash pattern, etc; make of boot, size, wear pattern, how common they are, where they could have been bought, etc), and a fossil tooth (species, age of the owner, what they ate, chemical composition of the enamel, and so on).Enamel: The hard outer surface covering of a tooth.OH24 and KNM-ER 1470, etc: catalogue numbers of a couple of fossil human skulls.Homo habilis and rudolfensis: two (or possibly just one!) types of fossil humans.Chromosome: the long chunks of DNA that are found inside most living cells inside a central structure called the nucleus. (There are some exceptions which will just confuse matters.) The name means ‘coloured body’, because they were first seen down a microscope when a cell was stained with the right stuff, and they showed up as coloured.Telomeres: as I said, the endy-pieces that most chromosomes have. To repeat, humans have a chromosome with these bits in the middle of it. The halves either side of these telomeres happen to be nearly identical to two separate chromosomes in other apes.Hope that helps.TTFN, DT

Naw, t'weren't you, DT. I've never read one of your posts that I haven't a) understood, and b) enjoyed immensely. I was merely responding to Willow's observation that he had some difficulty occasionally understanding what people were talking about. As an observation, that's not an unwarranted accusation (and one I'm personally guilty of quite a bit, I'm afraid). I just wanted Willow to see that all he had to do was ask, in a case like that.

Say, Willow... this thread's title is "Some Evidence Against Evolution". But all you've offered so far is a bunch of second-hand and erroneous assertions... and we're on page nine.Can we see some of this evidence now please?