evolution

  • Thread starter Thread starter lavazza
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
lavazza said:
here is the link from that article. you will finfd it very interesting.

hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HUMAN_EVOLUTION?SITE=ORBAK&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Click to expand...
You have linked us to a popular journalistic article. Here is the abstract of the scientific paper published in Nature tomorrow. I have the whole paper in front of me. I find it very interesting. What exactly about the paper is it that you find very interesting?

*"Sites in eastern Africa have shed light on the emergence and early evolution of the genus Homo1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. The best known early hominin species, **H. habilis and **H. erectus, have often been interpreted as time-successive segments of a single anagenetic evolutionary lineage3, 7, 8, 9, 10. The case for this was strengthened by the discovery of small early Pleistocene hominin crania from Dmanisi in Georgia that apparently provide evidence of morphological continuity between the two taxa11, 12. Here we describe two new cranial fossils from the Koobi Fora Formation, east of Lake Turkana in Kenya, that have bearing on the relationship between species of early **Homo. A partial maxilla assigned to **H. habilis reliably demonstrates that this species survived until later than previously recognized, making an anagenetic relationship with **H. erectus unlikely. The discovery of a particularly small calvaria of **H. erectus indicates that this taxon overlapped in size with **H. habilis, and may have shown marked sexual dimorphism. The new fossils confirm the distinctiveness of **H. habilis and *H. erectus, independently of overall cranial size, and suggest that these two early taxa were living broadly sympatrically in the same lake basin for almost half a million years."

Alec
evolutionpages.com
 
Details, my friend, details. From that article:

“It’s the equivalent of finding that your grandmother and great-grandmother were sisters rather than mother-daughter,” said study co-author Fred Spoor, a professor of evolutionary anatomy at the University College in London.

Susan Anton, a New York University anthropologist and co-author of the Leakey work, said she expects anti-evolution proponents to seize on the new research, but said it would be a mistake to try to use the new work to show flaws in evolution theory.

“This is not questioning the idea at all of evolution; it is refining some of the specific points,” Anton said. “This is a great example of what science does and religion doesn’t do. It’s a continous self-testing process.”

Just to be clear. Science is all about refining the details to get closer and closer to truth. Although I disagree about that last statement, since Catholicism has a development of doctrine of sorts. Rigid Fundamentalism perhaps is what she means by religion.

Evidence for Human Evolution

Phil P
 
I find it very funny to see these “experts” getting egg all over their faces. imagine if we had to redo the bible after every new finding? lol.

what did st paul say ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. That reminds me of them. i am just a lay person, do not understand science very well. god blessed me in other areas. So when i see this type of report, it just puts a warm glow in my heart.
 
lav << i am just a lay person, do not understand science very well. >>

As I said, details. No big deal. If you want the actual articles, Email Alec. 😃

Finding Darwin’s God (1999) by Ken Miller
Perspectives on an Evolving Creation (2003) by Keith Miller
Coming to Peace with Science (2004) by Darrel Falk
The Language of God (2006) by Francis Collins

Good books for any Christian to get written by theists and scientists (biologists, geologists, astronomers, geneticists). The Perspectives book is a compilation by several Christian (evangelical) authors.

Phil P
 
lav << imagine if we had to redo the bible after every new finding? lol. >>

BTW, people do and have re-do and re-done the Bible after every new finding if you mean by that “textual criticism”, better and newer translations, and new ideas in interpretation. We produce new translations based on the best, most ancient and reliable manuscripts. And we produce new commentaries based on the best scholarship. It is a scientific approach to the text as well which the Catholic Church approves of – see the 1943 encyclical DIVINO AFFLANTE SPIRITU by Pius XII or the sections in the Catechism on the Bible and interpretation.

So there is a parallel here between the findings of new hominids in paleoanthropology and the findings of new manuscripts in biblical archaeology, or scientific approaches to the biblical text. Same idea about refining the details. We don’t throw out evolution, we improve in our details and understanding (the mechanisms and paths evolution takes), and we don’t throw out the Bible, we produce better and better Bibles (translations and commentaries too). 👍

Phil P
 
lavazza said:
I find it very funny to see these “experts” getting egg all over their faces. imagine if we had to redo the bible after every new finding? lol.

what did st paul say ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. That reminds me of them. i am just a lay person, do not understand science very well. god blessed me in other areas. So when i see this type of report, it just puts a warm glow in my heart.
Click to expand...
Egg? I don’t see any egg. It’s true that you don’t understand science very well, but it beats me why you would want to broadcast that shameful fact so publicly.

What I see is the unequalled power of science to discover the way the world works (and the fact that you are posting here with a PC with 160GB hard disc and 4.6MHz processor speed and a 12Mb connection to the internet and the existence of the internet are all overwhelming evidence that the scientific method works). If you think there is egg, then you are sadly,sadly mistaken about the way science works. The fact that scientists are open to change their hypotheses in the light of new evidence (note where this paper is published - in the great journal of science, Nature, not hidden away altogether or published in some obscure corner. Scientists are proud, not ashamed or dismayed about new understanding) is the foundation for the great success of science in explaining the natural world - from Galileo to Tegmark, from Darwin to Dawkins, from Newton to Einstein, from Darwin (again) to Maeve Leakey. Anyone who thinks that biblical fundamentalism is a superior way to understand the universe because it holds to long discredited ideas is living in a fantasy.

Alec
evolutionpages.com
 
hecd2 said:
Egg? I don’t see any egg. It’s true that you don’t understand science very well, but it beats me why you would want to broadcast that shameful fact so publicly.

What I see is the unequalled power of science to discover the way the world works (and the fact that you are posting here with a PC with 160GB hard disc and 4.6MHz processor speed and a 12Mb connection to the internet and the existence of the internet are all overwhelming evidence that the scientific method works). If you think there is egg, then you are sadly,sadly mistaken about the way science works. The fact that scientists are open to change their hypotheses in the light of new evidence (note where this paper is published - in the great journal of science, Nature, not hidden away altogether or published in some obscure corner. Scientists are proud, not ashamed or dismayed about new understanding) is the foundation for the great success of science in explaining the natural world - from Galileo to Tegmark, from Darwin to Dawkins, from Newton to Einstein, from Darwin (again) to Maeve Leakey. Anyone who thinks that biblical fundamentalism is a superior way to understand the universe because it holds to long discredited ideas is living in a fantasy.

Alec
evolutionpages.com
Click to expand...
You must have misunderstood, the “egg on face” is in regards to the idea that one species evolved from the other in succession, IF that is disproven then the textbooks have to be rewritten and a new theory proposed.
 
Catholic_Dude said:
You must have misunderstood, the “egg on face” is in regards to the idea that one species evolved from the other in succession, IF that is disproven then the textbooks have to be rewritten and a new theory proposed.
Click to expand...
No, *you *misunderstand - no new ‘theory’ needs to be proposed even if we accept that H erectus did not descend directly from H habilis (I think you don’t know what a theory is). But even if a new theory did need to be developed, I fail to see how that in any way causes ‘egg on face’. If you think it does, then that merely shows how little you understand of the way science works. Why do you think that this paper is trumpeted in the most prestigious and widely read science journal in the world?

Having said all that, let us return to Phil’s wise advice to look at details. Who here, other than me, has read the Spoor, Leakey et al paper, and understands its full implications? Who is relying on popular journalism, and second and third hand reports of popular journalism? Well the last two sentences of the scientific paper can be understood in the kindergarten, but haven’t been reported in the press. They are:“As the earliest secure evidence of Homo is found outside the known region of overlap4, it is nonetheless possible that H. erectus evolved from H. habilis elsewhere, and that the Turkana basin was a region of secondary contact between the two hominin taxa”

Alec
evolutionpages.com
 
hecd2 said:
No, *you *misunderstand - no new ‘theory’ needs to be proposed even if we accept that H erectus did not descend directly from H habilis (I think you don’t know what a theory is). But even if a new theory did need to be developed, I fail to see how that in any way causes ‘egg on face’. If you think it does, then that merely shows how little you understand of the way science works.
Click to expand...
Explain then how you would teach evolution if you had different [edit: not just different, but originally were successions of] species living at the same time. The “ladder” concept simply wouldnt work.
Why do you think that this paper is trumpeted in the most prestigious and widely read science journal in the world?
Click to expand...
This EARLY in the story I would guess it is mostly hype to attract some attention and maybe make a name for the head archaeologist, maybe a nice grant or two.
Having said all that, let us return to Phil’s wise advice to look at details. Who here, other than me, has read the Spoor, Leakey et al paper, and understands its full implications? Who is relying on popular journalism, and second and third hand reports of popular journalism? Well the last two sentences of the scientific paper can be understood in the kindergarten, but haven’t been reported in the press. They are:“As the earliest secure evidence of Homo is found outside the known region of overlap4, it is nonetheless possible that H. erectus evolved from H. habilis elsewhere, and that the Turkana basin was a region of secondary contact between the two hominin taxa”
Click to expand...
I dont pretend to be an expert, but I dont know how you can call Nature a leading journal one second and call it “popular journalism” the next.
 
Catholic_Dude said:
You clearly dont understand human nature to not believe the possibility exists…😉
Click to expand...
The possibility that you robbed three banks last night and committed various unspeakable crimes against female humanity exists, but there is no evidence for it. Because something is possible does not mean that we should believe it.

There is similarly no reason to believe your bizarre idea. You, like many non-scientists, think that scientists have a vested interest in defending at all costs the status quo. That’s a fallacy. There is a great incentive for scientists to *disprove *the status quo and to propose an alternative successful hypothesis - the great and the lauded scientists are not those that have supported the status quo but those who have made radical advances in our understanding Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Maxwell, Einstein, Curie, Bohr, Heisenberg, Rutherford, Hubble, Penzias, Wilson, Dawkins, Zwicky, Riess, Perlmutter, Margulis and many more. For example., any scientist who could simultaneously show that neo-Darwinian evolution was fundamentally mistaken and propose a more robust scientific hypothesis to explain the diversity of species would be the greatest biologist of the 21st century. It’s unlikely, given what we know, to happen.

Alec
evolutionpages.com
 
i believe in evolution to a point. but man did not evolve in my view, it was a creation made by god. alone and seprate from all others.

that is why i think they will never find a diect link to any evolution process and man.
 
what is shameful about admitting ones shortcomings? it makes you a better person in my view, i was blessed by the lord in other area’s. like having the brain and wisdom to run a business with 53 employees. as far as scientists go. they have their own religion, it is called scientism, well that is what huston smith calls it. and most scientists are athiests or agnostics. that has been my dealings with them.
 
got a question for you hecd2, if what you say is true about scientists, why do they not try to prove a god exists? i never see any research into that area.
 
Catholic_Dude said:
Explain then how you would teach evolution if you had different [edit: not just different, but originally were successions of] species living at the same time. The “ladder” concept simply wouldnt work.
Click to expand...
Why not? - the fact that two species, one clearly older in origin than the other, are also found simultaneously does not in any way provide evidence against evolutionary theory. Both allopatric-with-migration and sympatric speciation can result in coexisting species that share a common ancestor. (A more modern example is H Neanderthalensis and H sapiens in Europe - both evolved from an earlier common ancestor and both shared the same geographic range for many thousand years).
This EARLY in the story I would guess it is mostly hype to attract some attention and maybe make a name for the head archaeologist, maybe a nice grant or two.
Click to expand...
You really, really don’t understand, do you? The paper is a peer reviewed paper published in the world’s most prestigious science journal.
I dont pretend to be an expert, but I dont know how you can call Nature a leading journal one second and call it “popular journalism” the next.
Click to expand...
You are extremely confused. I have read the scientific paper from which I quoted. I am the only person so far on this thread to have read it. Everyone else is quoting a popular journalistic report from the Associated Press which is definitely NOT a scientific journal. Let’s not divert ourselves with red herrings and confused ideas from what the authors say in the scientific paper: “As the earliest secure evidence of Homo is found outside the known region of overlap4, it is nonetheless possible that H. erectus evolved from H. habilis elsewhere, and that the Turkana basin was a region of secondary contact between the two hominin taxa”

Alec
evolutionpages.com
 
in my view evolution is a theory just like any other idea, it has not been proven, yet in schools it is taugh like it is the one and only answer to many questions. there are many other theory’s on who mankind etc can to be. why is it i do not see those taught?
 
some examples are creationism. life forms being brought here from other planets etc. those are not explored in science classes why?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top