> At 09:32 AM 3/10/98 -0600, Russell Maatman wrote:
> >
> >In our discussion of human evolution, you seem to depend on
as-yet-unknown
> >mechanisms to link the human race to other hominids. Aren't you falling
> >into the same trap as the person who invokes God wherever there is a
> >mystery? That person says our ignornace points to divine action; you
seem
> >to be saying that the fact we are presently ignorant about a gap tells
us
> >some scientific discovery will be made in the future. In the one case,
> >ignorance is proof that God acts; in the other, ignorance indicates a
> >mechanism will be found in the future.
>
> Why do you claim the human race isn't linked to other hominids? We
share
> over 98% of our DNA with modern chimpanzees (not a hominid but a primate
cousin)
> and there is clear fossil evidence for hominids living in the past few
million
> years structurally far more similar to us than chimpanzees are (i.e. they
> were bipedal).
The link is not one of descent, but of being subject to the same physical
laws. What I've been saying is that the non-descent part comes (I believe)
from the Bible. The "subject-to-the-same-laws" part depends upon admittedly
fallible human reasoning. Earlier, I used a rather simplistic analogy:
stars, planets, and moons are spherical because they are subject to the
same physical laws. We'd be very surprised to discover a cubical planet.
Russ
Russell Maatman
e-mail: rmaat@mtcnet.net
Home: 401 5th Avenue
Sioux Center, IA 51250
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