Neanderthals

Well, your opinion is totally irrelevant to historical science.I mean, consider coming home and finding a broken teapot on your floor. You know it's broken - you're looking at it! But do you know how? You could try and find out, but your brother and sister were home at the time and neither one of them are talking. So, there's two explanations for the teapot situation. But you don't have to know which one of your siblings broke it to know that it's broken.

that's an interesting thought (not sarcasm, seriously), and does seem to argue what I was saying at first glance.... But if you think deeply enough about it, it's totally different. Because while yes you DO know it's broken, but don't konw exactly how.... But, you don't know that one of the two kids broke it. It could have been when you slammed the door when you left, or perhaps thunder shook the house. So you can't look at it as just "broken" there is uncertainty about whether "it was broken carelessly" or was "unaturally broken". So I'm not calling you wrong crash... I'm just saying there's another way to look at it, and if you look at it like that... I know it seems to just side with you, but if that's all you get out of it nevermind, but the point I was making in my other post was that you can be certain of things. Pogo said that math is the only thing that is absolute. And I was simply saying that isn't the case... As I showed with those examples in that post.... Actually wait, THIS JUST IN..... In thinking about your example of the broken teapot, I have something very important to say... It is what I was trying to get at kinda before, but I lost my train of thought.... Anyway.... You DO know the teapot is broken. I seed that. But! You are prepared to say that it was because one of the kids broke it. If you were writing the history of the teapot, you would say "clearly one of the 2 kids broke the teapot".... But as I stated above.... Not neccessarily... could be a very small earthquake only felt for a couple seconds in an isolated area, easily could have been thunder, could have been a slamming door.... So your version of history isn't fact. Besides it's not the same as saying something as huge as extinction took place, but having no absolute "how's or why's" for it. I mean, at least in your example you've got a pretty good shot.... But with evolution, you're talking about things that happened millions of years ago.... Again, I'm not saying you don't make a reasonable point, but I don't really buy it.

rabair, if you read your last post, you will see that you have actually repeated what crash has been attempting to explain to you.If you weren't there to witness the teapot getting broken, you're left with guesses. Some guesses are better than others, mainly due to evidence, but all in all, they're just *guesses.*The problem with giving you evidence for the extinction of Neanderthals is that we don't have evidence, per se, of the extinction event. There is no smoking gun at this point. Now, we were to find a thick ash layer somewhere on the planet with a date similar to when the Neanderthals died out, that might be a possibility. If we find higher iridium levels instead of ash at that time period, it might have been an asteroid/meteor impact. If we find evidence of severe climate change, that's another possibility.At this point, not enough is known about Neanderthals to give you specific evidence as to why they died out. And even if a *smoking gun* was found, scientists would still argue about the conclusions. Unless someone builds a time machine, we will never know for sure, but I think we have some good ideas.If that's not a good enough answer for you, then either you need to study Neanderthals (in depth) or give up on science altogether.

point taken roxrkool, but if you notice I pointed out that it seems to argue crashes point, but you need to think of it in a different way. I was basically saying that instead of looking at the teabot has "having gotten broken", you could look at it that way or "getting broken by something unavoidable." So the statement that the teapot "got broken." Isn't as true as it's face value, it could have just gotten broken by thunder knocking it to the floor. So you can't look at it as "it was broken." I don't know, I guess you don't get it, and it makes me dizzy trying to explain... But back to the issue (away from teapots for the moment)..... Number one I'm not talking about just neanderthals, I'm referring to the whole monkey to man spectrum of species of man. I see very little evidence that they existed in mass. I don't think anyone denies microevolution, such as longer necks, etc. But when you have very few skeletal remains of all these different eras, it's hard to believe that that was the way all "man" used to look. I mean, we have deformed people today too. I mean, have you ever seen the guy they call "Beatle Juice" on Howard Stern. LOL, imagine his skeleton being discovered one day. But off the topic for a minute.... Have you heard of that very seemingly Plesiosaur carcass that japanese fishermen caught off of New Zealand? It doesn't get addressed by those believing in evolution, because it's contradictory to the evolutionary "science." I mean, it was a carcass, not bones... It hadn't been dead for that long... Certainly not millions of years, not by a long shot. And if you're a true evolutionist, I'm sure you'll try to say it's a basking shark, but those who've seen it and if you yourself look at the pictures, it's pretty clear that it bears an incredible resemblance to the Plesiosaur, and not nearly as much to a basking shark. It's just another thing that calls into question the age of the planet because what get's called scientific fact isn't always the case. Another example of this might be that a lot of people, infact most people in the general public, are under the belief that Global Warming is a factual thing. When actually that's not true at all. It's not to saying Global Warming isn't real, but it's certainly not fact, but most people don't know this... I don't know what to tell you, I just don't feel that there's enough evidence that we evolved from apes, I just don't see it.

No, actually, I wouldn't. I would say "The teapot was broken. How? Historians are uncertain. Perhaps the siblings. Perhaps cosmic rays. We may very well never know." I would cretainly never try to pass conjecture as fact. The teapot is broken. That's a fact. Any attempt to explain how is conjecture (so long as there's a lack of evidence), of course, but that the teapot broke is incontrovertable. And if all we care about is teapots, then how it broke is rather irrelevant.The point I was trying to make was that you appeared to take the statement "Historians are uncertain as to how the teapot was broken" as evidence that the teapot may not have been broken after all. A clearly false inference.

No, we discuss it all the time. Because it's a hoax. It's not a plesiosaur at all, it's a misleading photo of a well-rotted basking shark. DNA tests confirm it. But I suppose your source didn't mention that, did they?So, it doesn't get addressed by those who believe in evolution because we're better informed than creationists. I suggest you become better informed, as well. Interesting, I guess you'd already heard the rebuttal. What you don't explain of course is why it has the DNA of a basking shark if it's really a plesiosaur.Sure, it looks more like a plesiosaur than a healthy basking shark. On the other hand it looks very, very much like a rotting basking shark, because that's what it is. Huh? If it's real, it's a fact. How could you have a real fiction? Do you think about your statements before you write them?

rabair,For your edification.http://members.aol.com/paluxy2/plesios.htm "Figure 4. Basking shark and "pseudoplesiosaur"
A. Basking shark in closed-mouth profile.
B. Basking shark while feeding.
C. Decomposed basking shark presenting a plesiosaur-like shape. Scale bar shows that a 10 meter basking shark carcass with tail lost would have essentially the same body proportions as those indicated in the Zuiyo carcass (Figure 2). The carcass head and neck combined were measured at 1.95 m long and the tail 2.0 m, making the unmeasured torso (mid section) 6.05 m by calculation."-- Gross amino acid analysis of the carcass samples gave results that closely matched elastoidin from a known basking shark. Elastoidin is a collagenous protein known only from sharks and rays (not reptiles or even other fish). The match was especially impressive when known basking shark elastoidin was treated with an antiseptic sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) solution, as were the Zuiyo-maru samples (Obata and Tomoda 1978, p 52; Omura, Mochizuki, and Kamiya 1978, p 58). The correspondence was virtually identical on all 20 amino acids tested (Table 1). In discussing this "striking similarity," Kimura, Fujii, and others (1978, p 72) noted that a statistical test called the "difference index (DI)" gave the extremely low value of .95 indicating a tight match. They also noted that the high tryosine content (43 and 41 residues for the samples) is especially characteristic of shark elastoidin as compared with other collagens, which typically have 5 or less residues. ceratotrichia."-- Electron micrographs of the tissue showed numerous parallel protofibrils, along with a particular banding pattern that is characteristic of shark elastoidin. Micrographs also revealed a major periodic striation pattern of 450-500 angstroms, which is shorter than typical collagens, but which was previously observed in basking shark elastoidin (Kimura, Fujii, and others 1978).-- Earlier gas chromatography analysis on the horny fibers gave results consistent with shark tissue (Sasaki 1978)It looks like rotting shark, it is chemically & anatomically consistent with being a rotting shark. Why would you think it is anything but a rotting shark? Have you seen a decayiong plesiopsaur to compare it with?Mark------------------
"I can't prove creationism, but they can't prove evolution. It is [also] a religion, so it should not be taught....Christians took over the school board and voted in creationism. That can be done in any school district anywhere, and it ought to be done." Says Kent "consistent" Hovind in "Unmasking the False Religion of Evolution Chapter 6."

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I was basically saying that instead of looking at the teabot has "having gotten broken", you could look at it that way or "getting broken by something unavoidable."

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Broken is broken. What difference does it make? The point is that we don't know exactly how it 'came to be in its broken state', but we still know that it is in pieces on the floor.

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So you can't look at it as "it was broken."

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The phrase doesn't imply human involvement. You are splitting hairs. "The teapot was broken by one of the children." "The teapot was broken during a small earthquake." See?

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I see very little evidence that they existed in mass.

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Most of 'em didn't exist in huge numbers. Our ancestors had a pretty precarious existence.

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But when you have very few skeletal remains of all these different eras, it's hard to believe that that was the way all "man" used to look.

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There are no homo sapiens sapiens fossils prior to 130,000 years ago. We might find fossils to push this date back a bit further, but what reason is there to believe that such creatures existed millions of years earlier than the oldest fossil we have?

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I mean, we have deformed people today too.

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Isn't it a bit silly to assume that ALL of the fossils except homo sapiens fossils are deformed? Why would deformed skeletons be preserved at rates thousands of times that of 'normal' skeletal remains? And why would only the SAME deformities from a particular time period fossilized for us to find? Why would, for that matter, you have the SAME deformities at all? And why would they form a relatively smooth pattern of change through time?

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Have you heard of that very seemingly Plesiosaur carcass that japanese fishermen caught off of New Zealand?

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Yes. Its a shark. It had shark protein and looks just like a partially decomposed shark. Yeah, it looks dinosaur-ish. Looks can be deceiving.

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It's just another thing that calls into question the age of the planet because what get's called scientific fact isn't always the case.

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Even if it were a Plesiosaur, it wouldn't call into question the age of the Earth. It would call into question our conclusion that the thing went extinct.

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It's not to saying Global Warming isn't real, but it's certainly not fact,

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Wanna explain this? It is real but not fact??????

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I don't know what to tell you, I just don't feel that there's enough evidence that we evolved from apes, I just don't see it.

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Maybe you should spend a couple of years studying the matter in a good school anthropology/archeaology.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com[This message has been edited by John, 09-03-2003]

Don't take things out of context and try to say something I didn't say. I was simply saying that we don't know if if Global Warming will one day be proven to be real... So NO, I won't say it's not real, but it is certainly not fact, which is how it is passed off. I'm not saying it is REAL, but I'm not going to say it isn't either, there just isn't enough information to prove either way. Therefore I stand by my statement.... Here's how the sentence was written:"... Another example of this might be that a lot of people, infact most people in the general public, are under the belief that Global Warming is a factual thing. When actually that's not true at all. It's not to saying Global Warming isn't real, but it's certainly not fact, but most people don't know this..."Now, as smart as all of you scientist types who know all about everything that happened millions of years ago are, I think you'd be able to figure out what that means. I mean do I have to spell it out like you're childredn? I'm not saying it's not real or is real. There isn't enough evidence to say... But overall the general public has been led to believe it is fact. Which calling it "fact" is far from the truth.Now, about the Plesiosaur... I have known of the Plesiosaur finding for a number of years now, and it's difficult to find an un-biased article or web page or anything about it. MOST, lean towards the "basking shark" theory. However, you make the claim that DNA tests were done to prove this... But I don't see that anywhere nor have I even once. It's easy for you to say things like this because here amongst your friends you can all make blanket statements and hope they won't get argued. And if they do, then you all jump to another explanation. More and more guessing. Then your friend goes on to mention some bologna about amino acids, but doesn't point out the rest of the findings.... The scientist giving these findings also finds them to be inconclusive, but I guess we'll take this other guys word for it because he read it on a biased web site somewhere, so he's much more of an expert than the scientists who actually studied it. Not to mention the carcass
s defined spinal column, lack of a dorsal fin, and it's not like it juste had a skull... It has a small HEAD. An actual head, not just a skull that could compare with a shark. If it were infact a basking shark.... Would your experts not have just compared the bones and said, there it is, it's a shark? Why wasn't that done to prove you right. Not to mention... because it's amino acids "match" that of a shark, who's to say they don't match that of a Plesiosaur? Have you tested another Plesiosaur to find out. Again, you "Conclude", when infact you haven't proven.Now the difference with the teapot and evoloution: The teapot is something that you can prove happened so it's really a totally different case than evolution anyway. I tried to go with you on it... But it's really not relevant. I'll go back again, and mention my only point with my, I think, 4 examples was that there are absolutes outside of math, which someone tried to say wasn't true. Someone, said there weren't absolutes except in math, and I said I can see that my kitchen light is on.... and so on. But again, teapots and evolution are different. My point was you needed to show how/why evolution happened in order to show that it did infact happen. And I say, sure you don't need that "how/why" for the teapot, I'll give you that. But teapots are a lot different then extinct species of pre-historic man. Something like this, with little evidence towards the actual occurance, needs that supporting evidence to prove it even happened. And the fact that everything you have is an absolute guess.... That doesn't cut it for people who don't just drink your cool aid.

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Now, about the Plesiosaur... I have known of the Plesiosaur finding for a number of years now, and it's difficult to find an un-biased article or web page or anything about it. MOST, lean towards the "basking shark" theory. However, you make the claim that DNA tests were done to prove this... But I don't see that anywhere nor have I even once. It's easy for you to say things like this because here amongst your friends you can all make blanket statements and hope they won't get argued. And if they do, then you all jump to another explanation. More and more guessing. Then your friend goes on to mention some bologna about amino acids, but doesn't point out the rest of the findings.... The scientist giving these findings also finds them to be inconclusive, but I guess we'll take this other guys word for it because he read it on a biased web site somewhere, so he's much more of an expert than the scientists who actually studied it. Not to mention the carcass
s defined spinal column, lack of a dorsal fin, and it's not like it juste had a skull... It has a small HEAD. An actual head, not just a skull that could compare with a shark.

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Sharks have a fairly small cranium and a large jaw. It is well known that the jaw drops away when they decompose while the skull remains attached to the neck. Now, in the pictures, the tissue is obviously very decomposed. If you insist on calling the lump in the front a "head," maybe you could point out the eyes and mouth.

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If it were infact a basking shark.... Would your experts not have just compared the bones and said, there it is, it's a shark?

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The carcass was thrown overboard! We can't do that! What we can do is look at the sketch and note that the flippers are as long as the neck. How does that say plesiosaur?

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Why wasn't that done to prove you right. Not to mention... because it's amino acids "match" that of a shark, who's to say they don't match that of a Plesiosaur? Have you tested another Plesiosaur to find out. Again, you "Conclude", when infact you haven't proven.

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You seem to be missing the fact that elastoidin is found only in sharks and not in any known reptiles or any other animals. Does that mean nothing to you? We have a plausible explanation (it's the body of a common animal alive by the millions today, verified by chemical analysis and biologists' knowledge of the typical decay process) and an insane one (it's the body of an animal known only from fossils and never seen alive) and you want them both given equal credence... just because?I fell for the creationist story about the "plesiosaur remains" when I was a little kid. I was badly disappointed when I learned the truth, and the truth is that anyone who thinks it was something other than a shark is fooling themselves.

You're right... They supposedly threw the carcass overboard, I forgot that was the initial story I'd heard too when I learned of this thing.... But don't you find it odd that they would do such a thing? I mean, when you find this crazy sea monster (as far as the fishermen were concerened).... I think they would have kept it, and brough it in. I mean come on, they were excited enough to take pictures and measurements, and keep tissue samples, but they said "oh well, guess that's all we need, better throw this thing back. I mean, hey, we've got a strange sea monster here but, who cares." I don't think you can out rule a cover up about this. But whatever, I'm sure you'll see that as laughable.

I'm sorry, but what are the tests that show it to be something OTHER than a basking shark?The only "evidence" that it is a plesiosaur is that it's rough outline is something like that of a plesiosaur. That's it. And in fact, that's evidence AGAINST, since the proportions are wrong.And that ain't no head on a neck, it's a lump on the end of a non-jointed, stiff "bar".Persistance of the idea that this is a plesiosaur isn't even speculation, it is simply irrational. It DOESN'T EVEN LOOK LIKE A PLESIOSAUR, any more than a dog "looks like" a gazelle - same rough configuration, that's all.

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"who's to say they don't match that of a Plesiosaur? "

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Not even creationists would claim close bio-chemical similarities between these groups, which are very clearly very different "kinds" (in the intuitive sense used by Creationists).

If I remember correctly, only one person on the fishing boat was all that interested in the carcass. The reason it was thrown overboard was that it was a fishing boat...they were worried that the decomposing, stinking carcass would contaminate their catch.------------------
Asgara
"An unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates via Plato

rabair, Not DNA, as far as I'm aware, those techniques weren't available then, but amino acid analysis was. It's shark elastoidin protein. No guessing, a conclusion based on evidence. I BEG your pardon? Did you read, "the match was especially impressive", "virtually identical", "striking similarity", & "tight match"? Does that sound like the scientists in question found the results inconclusive? That quotes impartial findings. Are your sources impartial? No, I'm taking my lead from the scientists, you aren't. Why? There was evidence of a dorsal fin. Note that the head is pointing away from you (above), & the fin appears awfully close to the spinal column, rather than the pectoral lower quarter consistent with the position of the head. In this photo, for comparison, both pectoral fins are visible, the dorsal fin isn't, 'cos it's round the back. Also the lowest part of the dorsal fin in the first photo is about as low as the head, the fin in the second photo is much lower indicating it is indeed a separate fin, both pecs are visible, meaning we have a third fin at the back.Not that we know plesiousaurs never had a dorsal fin, of course, but I digress.Again, I take my lead from the experts who know how sharks decay. If you think they are wrong, lets have your evidence. For your edification: That's five separate studies showing the same thing. They would of if the carcass wasn't thrown back. Here's a question for you. A carcass was discovered that was 33 feet long, the length of a particular species of basking shark, found in in those waters. It's decay pattern is consistent with it being a shark. The tissue samples show a protein found only in sharks, & heavily lean to a basking shark origin. The number of cervical vertebrae, ~7, is consistent with it being a shark. Plesiosaurs have many more. Fin rays were evident. Fin rays are only found on fish, plesiousaurs have bony phalanges similar to whales. The ribs were 16" long, too short for ANY marine animal that size, living or dead, except sharks.What is the likeliest explanation, the carcass was a shark, probably a basking shark, or a marine reptile not seen for 65 million years?Mark------------------
"I can't prove creationism, but they can't prove evolution. It is [also] a religion, so it should not be taught....Christians took over the school board and voted in creationism. That can be done in any school district anywhere, and it ought to be done." Says Kent "consistent" Hovind in "Unmasking the False Religion of Evolution Chapter 6."

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I don't think you can out rule a cover up about this. But whatever, I'm sure you'll see that as laughable.

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Your prescience is amazing. Cover-up? The country printed pictures of a plesiosaur skeleton on postage stamps. There was a lot of publicity, which died in time because nobody wanted to shout just as loudly "we were actually wrong!!!"