>But Glenn, you have posited more than "idiot savant" for Adam, Eve, Cain,
>Abel, Noah, etc. Biblically, for you, they weren't pit throwers. They were
>sophisticated worshipers. They talked to God, they built altars...and you
>say that the pit throwers, a mere 300,000 years ago, were only "struggling"
>with these issues. I know about your technological dark age, but now we
>have mental and spiritual dark ages as well.
Jim, you really shouldn't put your lawlerly words in my mouth. I never said
that there was a mental and spiritual dark age. There was a technological
dark age. My point with the idiot savant was that even IF you want to say
that they were not as smart as us, something I am not willing to concede,
you can't rule them out of humanity by your fiat.
> That's the real problem I have
>with your framework. It just doesn't fit the data. How did God worshipping,
>fully lingual, complex speech man--fully functional 5 million years ago--
>revert to the bipeds you have to strain to find "signs" of humanity within?
As I have told you, If only you and 7 other friends were left here, you all
couldn't maintain the technological status quo of a neolithic farmer.
Remember that the 4000 Tasmanians were isolated for 8000 years from all
other human contact and their technology became more and more primitive with
time. Their technology consisted of only 24 items. If 4000 people can't
maintain the already impoverished Aborigine level of technology, what hope
do 8 survivors of the flood have? (See Josephine Flood, The Archaeology of
Dreamtime, p. 185)
>
><<I don't have to have the evolutionist agree with me. I don't know why
>you
>continue to think I do. I can cite their fact, e.g. the fact of special
>mortuary practice, and then interpret that fact within my own framework.>>
>
>That's fine, but I (and the experts) don't see that framework as having any
>foundation.
That is fine, so cease saying that they have to agree with me before I can
quote them.
You quote evolutionists to help your cause. I quote them to
>show you they don't support your cause. If you want to stop quoting them, I
>will too.
If it will make you feel better, I will say NO ONE ON THE ENTIRE PLANET THAT
I QUOTE OR DON"T QUOTE AGREES WITH ME. That of course has nothing to do with
the truth or falsity of my case.
>
><<If it was anything like that in the past, those Sima people were mighty
>motivated to get those bodies into that pit.>>
>
>Let's say they were. You would have us draw the conclusion that this
>manifested a human-like pondering about death. But is that enough for your
>theory? Why had they regressed so much?
>
Technological dark age.
><<By the way Jim. Is there any set of behaviors which you could name which
>
>would convince you that these people were people? >>
>
Jim listed several items which he *says* will convince him of the humanity
of the archics. these are:
>The anatomical evidence of articulate speech (not ambiguous fissures in the
>crania, but actual ability in the larynx and mouth),
The hyoid bone determines the placement of the larynx and is indicative of
an ability to speak. Shepartz says,
"The Kebara 2 hyoid, characterized by its very divergent greater horns, has a
calculated ratio of 1.96, well within the modern human range of variation
(0.97 to 2.33) reported by Papadopoulos et al. Morphologically, the Kebara 2
hyoid is virtually identical to the hyoids of modern humans, both in terms of
its muscular attachment areas and in terms of corpus form, cornua size and
shape, and the angulation between these elements. It is markedly different
from the hyoids of gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans. This suggests a
basically modern human hyolaryngeal apparatus for Middle Palaeolithic
hominids."~L. A. Schepartz, "Language and Modern Human Origins," Yearbook of
Physical Anthropology, 36:91-126(1993), p. 108
Read that as Neanderthal had a modern vocal tract.
Even the guy who everybody cites as starting the controversy about speech in
Neanderthal wrote:
"This is not to say that classic Neanderthals lacked speech capabilities and
language. As I have pointed out in every publication on this topic, the
classic Neanderthal supralaryngeal vocal tract would have allowed speech; the
archaeological evidence of Neanderthal culture, moreover, is consistent with
their having some form of language, and the new data reported by Bar-Yosef and
his colleagues reinforce these conclusions."~Philip Lieberman, "On the Kebara
KMH 2 Hyoid and Neanderthal Speech," Current Anthropology, 34:2(April 1993):
172-175, p. 174
>coupled with the
>reflective art of the sort we see 35,000 years ago, would be a start.
The vertebrate animal drawn by Homo erectus at Bilzingsleben (von Rudolf
Feustel, in H. Muller-Beck and G. Albrecht eds. 1987 Die Anfange der Kunst
vor 30,000 Jahren. pp 60-63)
Berekhat Ram Venus figurine made by Homo erectus dated at 330,000 years
ago.(see Desmond Morris, The Human Animal, (New York: Crown Publishing,
1994), p. 186-188.)
The PseudoVenus made by Neanderthal dated at 80,000 years ago (See Ivars
Lissner, Man, God and Magic, (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1961), p. 189-191)
The artwork at Jinmium Australia made by archaic Homo sapien dated at
116,000-176,000 years ago (Paul G. Bahn, "Further Back Down Under," Nature,
Oct 17, 1996, p. 577-578, p. 578)
>Putting corpses in a pit, even one 1600 feet away, coupled with...what?
>Art? Speech? This record does not even approach homo divinus.
But they were coupled with art and speech!
So are you going to admit that archaic hominids were human? I gave you the
evidence you asked for?
>
>IOW, I want a "set of behaviors" that reminds us of Noah, not Washoe.
Washoe has never thrown a corpse into a pit, nor has she ever taken a torch
in hand and entered a deep dark cave. Where did you get the mistaken
impression that Washoe did such things? Can you cite a reference?
(For those who don't know, Washoe is an ape that was claimed to have learned
sign language. She didn't and neither does she explore caves as Jim suggests)
I am going to post another note on modern humans who did exactly what the
Sima people did, bury their loved ones in caves. These are the Maya.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm