New Species of Homo Discovered: Homo naledi

And the great thing about creationism is that you can say that before you've studied their anatomy. The actual facts about the bones don't matter.

Well, yes. I admit that. We only have fossils that we can see and measure and touch, and we build on that? C'mon.Whereas you have a story about a talking snake that is documented in actual paintings. Artists don't lie.

Or, if she could apply her native skepticism to her own beliefs, she would be remarkably crazy.Her "skepticism" is such that if consistently applied, she wouldn't believe anything. That would be bad skepticism done wrong. She saves herself from this by applying her "skepticism" selectively, only to deny the conclusions of scientists when it suits her, and not so as to apply to her daily needs. If she did extend her principles to how she lives her life, she would, sure, be agnostic. On the other hand she wouldn't know how to tie her shoelaces.

What an interesting fantasy. You notice how completely it's contradicted by the facts?Now, your turn. Show us a talking snake.

So there was once a time when you thought: "Because I've seen no evidence for a talking snake, it would be excessively credulous for me to believe in a talking snake". Well, that sounds jolly sensible. And then what happened --- you hit your head on something?

No, not really. If you want a case of extreme paucity, try counting all the talking snakes you've ever met.

If the folks in your town resemble Homo naledi in having a cranial capacity less than 600 cc ... well, that would explain a lot.

So these are all the results of "rapid phenotypic variation" of humans? (But don't call it evolution, that's a bad word.)

So, again, are these all "recognisable human beings"? If not, please recognize the ones that are. I hardly know what to say, except to direct you to the definitions of "species" and "speciation".

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. If I want to deny that (for example) George W. Bush was behind 9/11, I don't express that by saying "George W. Bush is a big fat aardvark" and then demand, first, that people should figure out what I really mean, and second, that they should agree to change the dictionary so that the sentence I said means what I want it to mean.

Noted. What about the rest of them?Please don't do them one post at a time, we'll be here for weeks.

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. 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.

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).