Why are there no human apes alive today?

Wow, an article from science digest revokes all of an entire field of science, namely physical anthropology. That is of course, if it is properly cited. Biology of Race? 1971? Are you from Stormfront?Welcome to EvC!Anyone in a betting mood, I say a week.That is of course, depending upon your ability to listen, my good doctor. You are in grave danger of learning new things here.

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Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. - Francis BaconPlease contribute to my apprenticeship in the gadfly society by rating all my messages as low as possible.

In the first place, the book appears to be kosher, and in the second place, even if it wasn't, it is a matter of course that he hasn't read it --- he's a creationist.

And they all bow down and give homage to likely, probably and maybe and likely only agree on one thing.... "It all evolved".Edited by Mazzy, : No reason given.

I warned that this thread was being watched and for all people to up the quality of debate.The following people have received suspensions.Mazzy, 48 hours for Message 579 and Message 600
zenmonkey, 24 hours for Message 580
anglagard, 24 hours, for Message 581
dr adequate, 48 hours for Message 588 and Message 602
nuggin, 48 hours, for Message 606 and Message 607 and Message 612

I doubt there will be any embarrassments that I will find hard to swallow.Sure there were early depictions that showed Neanderthal as a hairy ape man, mostly because there was still many folk that thought the Adam and Eve story was more than just a fable and that we were still very *** about them and their time.But we have learned much over the last 150 years, and that is how science is different from the fantasy that is Creationism.Science learns, it discards ideas that are shown to be wrong.But Adam and Eve simply never existed.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

A common theme emerging in messages from those debating with you is that you lie. I object to this characterization on two grounds. First, it would be extremely rare and unusual for someone to lie on this scale for such a lengthy period. I think you sincerely believe your position is correct. Second, it's against the Forum Guidelines that request civility and courtesy, without which debates descend into acrimony and name calling.But what is one to make of the way you continually mischaracterize what people say (to mention just one example, claiming that the evolutionists were stating that chimps and humans were the same), the way you ignore most arguments, and especially the way you spew a veritable torrent of false information? It's almost as if you believe that anything that pops into your head is true as long as it supports your beliefs. You say "let's remember" about the human skull as if we had discussed it before, but it is a fact that I had to post those images three times before you responded, and that this is the first time you responded. There's nothing to remember because we haven't discussed this before.As is typical you managed to compress an incredible number of errors into a small number of words, for that sentence continues on to assert that the skull was "chosen by your researchers." How do you know where that skull image came from? You obviously have no idea where it came from. You didn't even check the link, because if you had then you would have known it comes from a novelty shop, not my "researchers."That image was not "carefully chosen." I found the image myself by typing "human skulls" into a Google image search. You can do the same thing and find dozens of skull images that look pretty much just like that one. Here are some images that include many human skulls: Your link (Turkana Boygetting past the propaganda by Daniel Anderson, a creationist pseudonym) told you that Turkana boy fits within the normal human range of variation. Here are the Homo erectus and Turkana boy skulls again - do either of them look even remotely like any of the human skulls above? It is undeniably true that there is an enormous range of human variation, so here's the skull of an Australian aborigine and a male African: And if you poke about on the Internet you can find skulls with a wide range of unusual attributes, but the skull image I originally posted is fairly typical of modern images.Egad, I just ran into the image limit (it made sense 10 years ago, does it still make sense?). I'll continue this in my next post.--Percy

Hi Mazzy,This continues my previous reply that I had to cut short because of the number of images.More importantly, the images I provided of Homo erectus is fairly typical. Here are a bunch more images of Homo erectus that I tracked down using the Wikipedia article listing primate and hominin fossils. The first one is Turkana boy: What we don't find any skulls of the age of Homo erectus that resemble modern human skulls. Homo erectus skulls lie far outside the range of normal human variation, and human skulls lie far outside the range of variation we find in Homo erectus. If you think that's not so then don't just make up some objections or quote someone else's made up objections. This time actually post the images and describe in your own words the features in those images that leads you to the conclusion that the normal range of variation of Homo erectus and humans skulls overlaps.Let me conclude with the categorization issue that you keep avoiding. It appears that it's the "ape" label that drives you crazy, but why does the name matter to you? Why do you care what a particular categorization group is called? That gorillas, chimps, orangutans and humans all bear live young, have teats, have opposable thumbs, etc., is a fact, and these shared characteristics require that at some level of classification they be in the same group. It just so happens that that group is called Hominidae, or more popularly, apes.Sorry you got suspended, see you in a couple days.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.

This from a girl with one arm.

I havent lied about anything. I took your evidence and accept it. But the intelligence and self-awareness of animals as remarkable as it may be does not come anywhere close to humans. Edited by Portillo, : No reason given.Edited by Portillo, : No reason given.

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Despite the passionate desires and efforts of many highly qualified people over many decades to find real real evidence of ape men the hard scientific facts are clearly against the existence of such. Notice this quote from Science Digest May 1982 p. 44 : " Modern apes seem to have sprung out of nowhere. They have no yesterday, no fossil record. And the true origin of modern humans-of upright, naked, toolmaking, big-brained beings-is, if we are to be honest with ourselves, an equally mysterious matter". Regarding the impressive pictures, documentaries etc that the public are subjected to I find this quote revealing from the book The Biology of Race 1971 p. 135,171 : "The flesh and hair on such reconstructions have to be filled in by resorting to the imagination. Skin colour; the colour, form, and distribution of the hair; the form of the features; and the aspect of the face -of these characteristics we know absoulutely nothing for any prehistoric men". The above quotes are the real situation and very little has changed since this material was published . I find it disturbing that our 21st. Century scientists seem increasingly unaware that human evolution is still highly speculative.

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After 150 years, evolutionary scientists have discovered a handful of disputed fossils and artist impressions. Edited by Portillo, : No reason given.Edited by Portillo, : No reason given.Edited by Portillo, : No reason given.

There are about 100 homo erectus remains and thats just one branch of the homo family and its not a number i would consider a handful.A handfull would be H. floresiensis 7 individuals found to date.H. cepranensis could be called an artist impression because all they have to work on is one skull cap now that is a weak find There are a few branches of the homo family that have relatively few fossils found but there are alot of branches that have loads of fossils found creos tend to point at the weak finds and say thats all the scientists have evolution is a lie we did not come from monkeys. We are the product of magic + dirt and a whole lot of incest. Edited by frako, : No reason given.

Have you ever handled any of the casts of those specimens? Do you actually have any idea from your own personal experience just how many specimens there actually are, and what they are?If not, perhaps you should investigate the subject before you unwittingly pass on creationist misrepresentations.Here is one (of many) sources of casts. You could learn a lot just by looking at the various on-line catalogues.Hominid Cast Replicas HominidCasts.com

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

I tried to find some creationist views on this:Michael Oard, a creationist writing in a creationist journal:

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"I was surprised to find that instead of enough fossils barely to fit into a coffin, as one evolutionist once stated [in 1982], there were over 4,000 hominid fossils as of 1976. Over 200 specimens have been classified as Neanderthal and about one hundred as Homo erectus. More of these fossils have been found since 1976."

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Review of the book, Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils, in the Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 30, March 1994, p. 222Martin Lubenow, creationist and author of Bones of Contention: A Creationist Assessment of Human Fossils, also wrote in the same creationist journal:

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"The current figures [circa 1994] are even more impressive: over 220 Homo erectus fossil individuals discovered to date, possibly as many as 80 archaic Homo sapiens fossil individuals discovered to date, and well over 300 Neanderthal fossil individuals discovered to date."

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Letter to the editor of the Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 31, Sept. 1994, p. 70I have no idea how many more have been found since 1994 but your assertion regarding a "handful" in 150 years is clearly wrong.

From the paragraph you cite:

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I find it disturbing that our 21st. Century scientists seem increasingly unaware that human evolution is still highly speculative.

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More creationist misrepresentation.Evolution is a fact. The weight of the evidence is conclusive.Not all is yet known of the full lineage of human development. And what is "speculative" is the coloring, hair texture, fingernail length, penis size and number of teeth left in the mouth of the "impressive pictures" meant as possible renderings.So what?This all stems from the creationist mantra:"Since science does not know absolutely everything therefore science knows absolutely nothing."If disagreements due to the lack of complete information is all you have to show as your weapons against all of evolutionary theory then your case is nonexistent.

And you still haven't addressed my response to this observation: "So what?"I'll gladly agree that human beings show a type of intelligence and self-awareness that is at least quantitatively if not qualitatively different from that of other life forms on this particular planet. Big deal. We're intelligent when it comes to abstract thought and language use, but we only think abstract thought and language are the one and only measure of intelligence because good at them, at least as far as we can tell. Termites have every right to look down on us when it comes to cooperative behavior, giant nest-building, and all-over evolutionary success.I suspect that one of the reasons that creationists have such hatred of the fact of evolution is that it really does show that human beings are nothing special when it comes to the big picture. Cosmology does much the same thing, but they don't seem to get quite as worked up over that. Maybe that's because cosmology is harder to understand, or that our current knowledge of how the universe works is more tentative, or maybe it's just because "I'm a man, not a monkey!" is just an easier slogan to fall back on when you don't have the facts on your side.

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Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric

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Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert

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I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill