Were Adam and Eve homo sapiens?

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max

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Humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years (we come to this conclusion due to many independent scientific studies spanning many different fields) and it has taken all of that time to get people to the moon.

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The point of humans is misleading here: better we apply the term, speech endowed life form - which is what genesis refers to, and the factor which separates modern humans from all other life forms. The 6000 figure does not apply to any other life forms. The issue of 100s of 1000s of years must thus apply not to alledged skeletal similarities but speech. Speech endowed life forms align with what we see of modern humans within the last 6000 phase: pyramids, writings, wars, nations, names and dates - and there is no 'history' prior to the 6000.

Yes. You keep on using "made up descriptive terms".Now, can you say what you want to in English, rather than in some private stupid language that you made up in your head?

Please continue to teach me about ancient history, you know so much about it.

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I used a made up descriptive term to express a point ...

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Yes. You keep on using "made up descriptive terms".

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Now, can you say what you want to in English, rather than in some private stupid language that you made up in your head?

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One has to make up descriptive statements. What's so wrong in expressing a seed as internally derived - differentiating it from externally impacting evolution as per darwin?

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heiroglifics

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Please continue to teach me about ancient history, you know so much about it.

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One is allowed grammatical and spell-check liberty in a forum, where speed applies. But thanks anyway.

You're right. That statement is so clearly complete and utter gibberish that one doesn't really need to waste any time thinking abou it.

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Q: If science doesn't know where this comes from, then couldn't it be God's doing?A: The only difference between that kind of thinking and the stereotype of the savage who thinks the Great White Hunter is a God because he doesn't know how the hunter's cigarette lighter works is that the savage has an excuse for his ignorance. -- jhuger

What's wrong with it is that it's a language you've made up which no-one else speaks. "A seed as internally derived"; "externally impacting evolution"; these are phrases which you have made up and which do not mean anything.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Well, the natives of New Guinea did not put a man on the moon, nor build pyramids, nor even write anything. However, they are indeed speech-endowed human beings. The same thing can be said of many sub-saharan African tribes and the Australian Aborigines.So, perhaps the presence of such things as pyramids and lunar landers is not a good indicator of whether the populance had speech or not. Why? The link between speech and writing is not always present. Perhaps the environment is much harsher than in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and thus the people spend so much time trying to work out how to get the next meal and how to keep their children alive that they don't have time to think about astrophysics or even an alphabet. So, perhaps it was the case that before a few thousand (10,000 plus) years ago, all people worldwide were doing the same thing. Then, in those areas where some major advances were made, namely agriculture and domestication, and the climate was suitable for this to occur easily, then only did people start recording their history.Speech, on the other hand, is biological, so should be expected across all human cultures, regardless of their environment. Hmm, perhaps we should consider an example. Consider a species of bacteria (weighing 665 femtograms = 6.65 10^-16), which double every hour. We put this bacteria in a petrie dish, and incubate. After a year, we should expect 1 x 10²⁶³⁷ bacteria, which would weigh 7 x 10²⁶²¹. By comparison, the Earth is estimated to weigh 5.973610²⁴kg.Thus, could I say that bacteria must not have existed before one year ago, as we don't see enough? No, I can't, because the majority of bacteria die before they undergo fission. They run out of room, food, air, get killed by chemicals or sunlight etc.The same thing happens with humans - infant mortality and disease was commonplace even up until a hundred years ago, how much worse would it have been without safe water and easy food sources? It is only with the advent of a stable food source (agriculture), a body of knowledge to prevent disease and infant mortality (writing) and so on, that we humans have been able to reproduce so rapidly. Why, for a modern example, look at the drastic rise in population since the Industrial Ages (where agriculture and industry took a massive leap forward, so too did the population growth), and even more recently, the growth of Third World nations since the introduction of modern medicines and agricultural practices. In fact, the majority of the 6.5 billion population we see today is a result of the last 200 years, rather than the last 6000.Thus, as population growth in fact depends on writing (and related advances), why then are you so surprised to see it only start to grow consistently after writing was invented? Doesn't that reasoning seem a bit circular to you?Edited by Doddy, : numbersEdited by Doddy, : elaborateEdited by Doddy, : typo

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dr adequate
What's wrong with it is that it's a language you've made up which no-one else speaks. "A seed as internally derived"; "externally impacting evolution"; these are phrases which you have made up and which do not mean anything.

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Here's another one I made up: WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY MADE-UP STATEMENT - IS A SEED NOT AN INTERNALLY DERIVED FACTOR?

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doddy
Well, the natives of New Guinea did not put a man on the moon, nor build pyramids, nor even write anything. However, they are indeed speech-endowed human beings. The same thing can be said of many sub-saharan African tribes and the Australian Aborigines.

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The point concerns 'when' that speech emerged, not if it emerged with humans. And speech has surrounding indicator evidences, seen with the aboriginals today and the last 6000 years - but this is 'time' factored: it did not occur 120K years ago.

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So, perhaps the presence of such things as pyramids and lunar landers is not a good indicator of whether the populance had speech or not. Why? The link between speech and writing is not always present. Perhaps the environment is much harsher than in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and thus the people spend so much time trying to work out how to get the next meal and how to keep their children alive that they don't have time to think about astrophysics or even an alphabet. So, perhaps it was the case that before a few thousand (10,000 plus) years ago, all people worldwide were doing the same thing. Then, in those areas where some major advances were made, namely agriculture and domestication, and the climate was suitable for this to occur easily, then only did people start recording their history.

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Speech, on the other hand, is biological, so should be expected across all human cultures, regardless of their environment.

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Agreed that some speech endowed humans did not attain writings - perhaps due to isolation. But there are a host of other evidences for speech endowed humans - and apes and zebras do not evidence this - nor do we have evidence of speech 120K years ago. Nor is speech biological - else every life form would have it: they predate humans! Parents and teachers do not 'teach' a child to talk - they merely ignite a switch and the rest happens.

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Thus, could I say that bacteria must not have existed before one year ago, as we don't see enough? No, I can't, because the majority of bacteria die before they undergo fission. They run out of room, food, air, get killed by chemicals or sunlight etc.

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More impacting here is, you cannot say the previous bacteria existed.

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The same thing happens with humans - infant mortality and disease was commonplace even up until a hundred years ago, how much worse would it have been without safe water and easy food sources? It is only with the advent of a stable food source (agriculture), a body of knowledge to prevent disease and infant mortality (writing) and so on, that we humans have been able to reproduce so rapidly. Why, for a modern example, look at the drastic rise in population since the Industrial Ages (where agriculture and industry took a massive leap forward, so too did the population growth), and even more recently, the growth of Third World nations since the introduction of modern medicines and agricultural practices. In fact, the majority of the 6.5 billion population we see today is a result of the last 200 years, rather than the last 6000.

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The factors of desease and death are common to all scenarios and thus factored in. Unless you are saying it was not present in the middle-east? The current population is a result of natural prevailing conditions on this planet the last 6000 years - they apply for any period you select.[/quote]

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Thus, as population growth in fact depends on writing (and related advances), why then are you so surprised to see it only start to grow consistently after writing was invented? Doesn't that reasoning seem a bit circular to you?

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Population does not depend on writings but on the ability to reproduce.Edited by IamJoseph, : No reason given.

That's right. Writing is not the only way to tell if speech was around. You are contradicting yourself. Why would there be the 'switch' (the brains capacity to pick up language) if it wasn't biological?Consider the following: Feathers are biological, but we do not have them. Why? Exoskeletons are biological, but we do not have them. Why? Speech is biological, and other animals do not have it for precisely the same reasons as you should have given to the other two characters - not every creature evolves towards a certain goal. Nor can you say they didn't. We need other evidences for this. Your population argument is moot. It is true that diseases have been around for many years. But antibiotics haven't. It is true that famine is ever-present, but farms haven't been. It is true that child mortality has been ever-present, but hospitals and midwives haven't been. Unless you factor in health care, agriculture, domestication of animals and so on, your calculations will be incorrect. You cannot assume that the rate of death from all causes will remain static when humans have endeavoured to decrease them. Analogy:Lightbulbs don't depend on me turning on the switch, but on electricity passing through a filament.Flicking a switch is what causes the electricity to drastically increase from a tiny, tiny amount to that needed for the light bulb. Analogously, writing causes reproductive success (the probability of raising a child to adulthood, when he or she can reproduce) to increase from a small percentage of children born to almost all children.

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I think for Mr A to answer that question, he would first have to understand what "internally derived factor" actually means. Otherwise, you have asked an essentially meaningless question of him.Let me see if I can understand. Essentially, you are referring to a seed being part of the parent organism. This distinguishes the seed from external factors, such as soil acidity, sunlight and so on, that determine the appearance and characteristics of the seedling. Thus, you are then describing what I, as a scientist, would call either a zygote or an embryo. Perhaps you could look up those terms and see if they express what you are trying to.

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This statement is not true.Findings from the science of psychology clearly show that children subject to extreme abuse to the point where they are not exposed to human communication not only have tremendous difficulty in learning a language they are unable to completely learn the nuances involved in learning any and all languages. Therefore any 'switch' must be turned on by human communication during the first 6 months to 3 years of life, all learning at or beyond that point is done through parents, teachers, or other sources in the child's environment. I directly remember an article in Psychology Today in the 70s concerning a subject named 'Mary' that was subject to such abuse and directly showed this to be true. Worse for the anti-science crowd which can usually, yet unfortunately, be associated with conservative political beliefs, the findings concerning language acquisition directly supported the theories of language acquisition proposed by Noam Chomsky! Edited by anglagard, : change subtitle as per previous admin desires

In addition, there is physical evidence of whether someone should be capable of speech. The positioning of the larynx, the development of areas of the brain. These can be determined in fossil remains. While there's no universal agreement, this places the origin of speech, based on fossil and anthropological evidence, at somewhere between 40,000 years ago to about 2 million years ago, though the 40,000 year mark seems to be prefered (Origin of language - Wikipedia).With all due respect, the idea that human speech could not have existed but for a rather short time before writing developed seems downright ludicrous.

Yeah, I was considering posting the same thing concerning human anatomy and speech. Of course I don't have to tell you that fossil evidence concerning the position of the larynx or the inter-cranial markings on the left side of the brain associated with language development provide evidence of speech far into the past. I'm also sure that we both agree that such developments were gradual and therefore placing an arbitrary date of 40,000 years ago is imposing an artificial boundary upon a continuous process.

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doddy
That's right. Writing is not the only way to tell if speech was around.

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Certainly. There are also, pyramids, wars, nations, kings and historical events. We know of no 'NAME' of any human prior to the genesis datings - in fact no history per se - and this is not because of no writings.

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You are contradicting yourself. Why would there be the 'switch' (the brains capacity to pick up language) if it wasn't biological?

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Speech is an inherent intergrated attribute with humans. I meant, parents to not inculcate it: it cannot be thought to non-humans.

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IamJoseph writes:
More impacting here is, you cannot say the previous bacteria existed.

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But if it was, it is potentially catered to in the text.

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It is true that diseases have been around for many years. But antibiotics haven't. It is true that famine is ever-present, but farms haven't been. It is true that child mortality has been ever-present, but hospitals and midwives haven't been. Unless you factor in health care, agriculture, domestication of animals and so on, your calculations will be incorrect. You cannot assume that the rate of death from all causes will remain static when humans have endeavoured to decrease them.

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Deseases were also less prevalent then. But even if all those items are factored in, they'd account for a small fraction of the population: 120K years would still amount to 1000s of trillions.

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Analogy:Lightbulbs don't depend on me turning on the switch, but on electricity passing through a filament.

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Flicking a switch is what causes the electricity to drastically increase from a tiny, tiny amount to that needed for the light bulb. Analogously, writing causes reproductive success (the probability of raising a child to adulthood, when he or she can reproduce) to increase from a small percentage of children born to almost all children.

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Let the attribute of speech replace electricity here?