RE: In defense of Paul Seely (part 2)

Hi Glenn, you wrote:
 
What were they doing with the equipment for speech? BTW, this is as you say, over 2 million years ago.
 
Homo habilis (if there really is a Homo habilis, there is some dispute over that category) dates to 2.2 mya. Okay, speech equipment.
 
 This and some gaps in the record takes me back to my time frame.
 
It does? There is no evidence of farming earlier than 10,000 years ago. And you surmise farming 5.5 million years ago. How far a stretch is that?
 
   Statistically speaking, the origin of a taxonomic group is around 1/3 older than the earliest fossil found.
 
It is simply a guess that a taxonomic group came into existence earlier than any evidence can be found. No one could possibly know that.
 
 in the case of H. habilis that would say they probably originated around 3 million years ago. But recall that this is a statistical value. Sometimes it is longer and sometimes it is shorter. But it is very unlikely that the first specimen is the first habilis who was ever on earth.
 
Throw in two or three million years more, and Bob’s your uncle, here’s Jubal giving harpsichord lessons.
GRM: Wooden flutes? Won't survive even 100 kyr. Wont survive even a millennium unless on the bottom of the sea. I was in Tibet last month and saw nomads there, the first time I have actually been face to face with nomads. I can assure you, looking at their material possessions, that very little evidence of their existence at that spot will exist in 100 years. What do you expect? Statues of D. Fischer signed by the artist?
Copper artifacts survive very well. Pottery endures. Find any of these items dating beyond a hundred thousand years?
GRM:As to you not knowing any digging, why not simply look at a geologic map. Try the Geological Map of the Arab World, map 4 Ar Riyad, published by the Arab Organisation for MIneral Resources Rabat Morocco, 1987. That has the results (in map form) of all the 'digging' as you call it.
Even the archaeologist who excavated the central cities of Mesopotamia didn’t notice water-laid clay deposits until Wooley told them to go back and look. Why would anyone make note of clay deposits when you’re drilling for oil?
GRM:See, you and I disagree on what makes us human. You are under the misapprehension that looks is what makes us human. I beleive it was behavior which makes a human. I know some pretty ugly people who behave as humans do (including you???).
You wouldn’t have known that if you hadn’t met me last year at the ASA conference.
I just documented that one of those 'non-humans' had a well developed Broca's area which is involved in speech. And as I said, some anthropologists believe that Broca's area got bigger BECAUSE of speech. And that would mean that earlier non-sapiens would have had some form of language.
Who said there was no vocalization prior to Homo sapiens? And who besides you attributes cognitive speech to any other genus?
GRM: Without a doubt, people don't like the timing of my views, but then, I don't like the timing genetics gives for the human race. Our genes would require 5.2 million years to gather the mutations we observe in the human race. Anyone who wants to have the biological descent from Adam, simply has to move back that far. There is no way around it. So, it seems, the choice is to have Adam very early to account for genetics (http://home.entouch.net/dmd/hegene.htm ) or we say Adam is father to only a portion of humanity.
Ah, did I detect a light bulb switching on somewhere? Was Adam a Semite? Yes. Are Filipinos Semites? Not that I know of. Want more examples?
GRM: I guess I like the facts to actually fit a theory rather than do that accommodation thing and declare that something is true even if the facts contradict it. I must freely confess that things would be much easier if I would tell people what they want to hear.
Amen to that, brother. I wish often that somebody better qualified than me had it all figured out so I could just stand up and shout, “Me too.” Instead, I sit here and groan, ‘Why me”?
>>> At least it should be apparent (to nearly everyone but you and Hugh Ross) that Adam cannot be aligned with the man/ape split using the commonly-accepted anthropological date as I have argued for twenty years. Placing Adam in the flow of mankind, rather than at the apex, puts Bible, science and history all together. <<<
GRM: Actually doing what you do violates the laws of physics, but, hey, what is a violation of physics when one gets to see the Library of Congress on a daily basis?
Genesis says God created Adam. Then God fashioned Eve using one of Adam’s body parts. I don’t know how He did either of those things. Do you?
GRM: Counting is not what is correct. When you count up the forces requried for 8 people to pole a huge boat up a river against the flood and compare it with the energy output available, you find that you can't do it.
Do you know what a sucker bet is? A guy tells you he can push a quarter through his ring. You look at the ring which is smaller in diameter than the quarter and surmise it can’t be done. Do you take the bet? Of course not. First of all, you don’t gamble. Next, it’s a sucker bet. That means he can do it, only you don’t immediately see how.
I see Noah’s ark like that. We know what modern boats look like. The measurements in Genesis are too large for a typical wooden vessel. We don’t know where the boat landed. My guess is that if we could travel back in time and could see the event with our own two eyes we would understand it.
>>>>Now to your questions:
Where in the Bible does it tell us what Adam looked like?
Where does it say that sin emanated from non-human ancestors?<<<
GRM: That isn't an answer. Please answer the question.
Nowhere, master.
>>>>Where in the Bible does it say that the image of God is reserved for those who look like us?
Well, it does imply that the “image” is for humans.<<<
GRM: What is a human? by your definition, looks is everything.
Do I tell an oil man where to drill, or would I leave that to someone like you? Yet, you presume to know more than paleo anthropologists do about what constitutes humanity. I don’t.
GRM: Well, Dick, here is a quote from Niles Eldredge:
"Mankind was up and walking close to 4 million years ago, and quite possibly a good bit earlier than that." ~ Niles Eldredge and Ian Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 7
He meant forerunners to mankind and you know it.
The great taxonomist Ernst Mayr also beleived that:
"Though Mayr had not examined any of the fossils himself, he
ventured to suggest a sweeping revision: everything from the
earliest ape-man to the latest modern man ought to be included in
the genus Homo--possibly even within Homo sapiens. Pat
Shipman, The Evolution of Racism, (New York: Simon and Schuster,
1994), p. 185
I bolded part of that so your tired old eyes could see it.
Mayr retired in 1975. He was an eminent evolutionary biologist. However, have we unearthed any additional fossils in the last thirty years? Do you detect any push to adopt Mayr’s idea? In fact, the number of species that have been discovered between H. sapiens and the Australopithicines have increased.
"The dawn of humankind occurred 5 to 7 million years
ago, when the ancestors of apes and humans went their
separate evolutionary ways. But the fossil record of this
split is scarce.Claire Ainsworth, "Ancient Ethiopian
Shakes the Evolutionary Tree," New Scientist, July 14, 2001,
Did I say differently? The man/ape split is thought to be about six million years ago. That’s the branch point. “Human beings,” of which you and I are bad examples, don’t extend beyond 2.2 million years ago. And man near the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates occurred no earlier than 7,000 years ago. Those are the humans that interest me.
Oh, the answer to the sucker bet is that the guy puts the ring on his finger first and then pushes the quarter with his finger.
Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
 <http://www.genesisproclaimed.org> www.genesisproclaimed.org
 
  
 
 

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Received on Tue Jun 13 00:57:02 2006