Remarkably complete’ 3.8-million-year-old cranium of human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia

[PruePhillip]

Can you give a link to a scientific source that says this?

NASA/ESA sent the Huygens probe to Saturn's moon Titan. This moon has a dense cloud deck
and was thought to be oceanic at the time (as opposed to having mere "oceans")
Titan was considered a "precursor earth" - dark, wet and sterile.

 

[PruePhillip]

Prue, I've called you out on this before, but taking the Biblical Genesis account and removing everything that doesn't fit and then manipulating and over-simplfying what's left is dishonest.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
(So we can assume that when the earth was created, God made water upon it and it was dark - despite the fact that the earliest stage of earth was a hot ball of molten magma and water didn't exist until around 100 million years after the earth first formed. WRONG.)
.

Just this for now.
God created the earth - from verse 1.
The whole process of how this was achieved is not recorded, nor was
it of importance to the writer - Genesis isn't a science book and people
who thought the earth was flat and planets were wandering stars would
not appreciate.
Verse 2, the "observer" are NOW ON THE EARTH.
But at what stage? It doesn't say. There was a gaseous cloud stage
(perhaps) a super-sonic turbulence stage
a clumpy stage
a ball of lava stage
a meteoric stage
and maybe a few other stages we don't yet know about - no matter,
the bible doesn't give everything - it just gives us a stage where you,
the observer, could relate to - the water stage (let's forget the ice stage
too) which could have been a prominent stage lasting a long time, and
had theological implications (ie separations)
This was a real stage - a dark, wet, sterile earth. RIGHT.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Just this for now.
God created the earth - from verse 1.
The whole process of how this was achieved is not recorded, nor was
it of importance to the writer - Genesis isn't a science book and people
who thought the earth was flat and planets were wandering stars would
not appreciate.
Verse 2, the "observer" are NOW ON THE EARTH.
But at what stage? It doesn't say. There was a gaseous cloud stage
(perhaps) a super-sonic turbulence stage
a clumpy stage
a ball of lava stage
a meteoric stage
and maybe a few other stages we don't yet know about - no matter,
the bible doesn't give everything - it just gives us a stage where you,
the observer, could relate to - the water stage (let's forget the ice stage
too) which could have been a prominent stage lasting a long time, and
had theological implications (ie separations)
This was a real stage - a dark, wet, sterile earth. RIGHT.

So, you can basically just interpret the Bible however you want, ignore anything that doesn't fit, and if it doesn't mention anything specific you can just imagine it deliberately missed that part for no reason whatsoever. I mean, how hard would it be for God to say "First, the world was made of molten rock, and this eventually cooled"? Why would God not say that?

The point is that you claimed the Bible was miraculously accurate, yet you yourself admit here that it is vague, misses a lot of stuff out, and can be interpreted in a variety of ways.

So, the Bible could literally say anything and you'd call it miraculously accurate.

 

[PruePhillip]

So, you can basically just interpret the Bible however you want, ignore anything that doesn't fit, and if it doesn't mention anything specific you can just imagine it deliberately missed that part for no reason whatsoever. I mean, how hard would it be for God to say "First, the world was made of molten rock, and this eventually cooled"? Why would God not say that?

The point is that you claimed the Bible was miraculously accurate, yet you yourself admit here that it is vague, misses a lot of stuff out, and can be interpreted in a variety of ways.

So, the Bible could literally say anything and you'd call it miraculously accurate.

The theologians who sought to shoehorn the creation into seven days (they did that often
BTW - in genealogy they would REMOVE generations just to get that symbolic seven of
"completeness.")
How many stages were there, really? Our professor at Monash Uni developed the "super
sonic turbulence" stage. He was quite clever - he advised NASA on what they would
find when Voyager and Pioneer probes visited the outer solar system - and got a lot of it
right) But the Americans didn't like his super-sonic turbulence stage.
Maybe the earth had a Saturn-like ring stage. There was the lunar impact stage. So let's
say there could have been a hundred stages. Why would you need to itemize them all?
Do we give every minute detail of every biblical historic event, or just an overview? Depends
if you want the bible to a history book or a theological book.
So we have six stages in Genesis. Plus the earlier creation of the heavens and the earth
which wasn't included.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

The theologians who sought to shoehorn the creation into seven days (they did that often
BTW - in genealogy they would REMOVE generations just to get that symbolic seven of
"completeness.")
How many stages were there, really? Our professor at Monash Uni developed the "super
sonic turbulence" stage. He was quite clever - he advised NASA on what they would
find when Voyager and Pioneer probes visited the outer solar system - and got a lot of it
right) But the Americans didn't like his super-sonic turbulence stage.
Maybe the earth had a Saturn-like ring stage. There was the lunar impact stage. So let's
say there could have been a hundred stages. Why would you need to itemize them all?
Do we give every minute detail of every biblical historic event, or just an overview? Depends
if you want the bible to a history book or a theological book.
So we have six stages in Genesis. Plus the earlier creation of the heavens and the earth
which wasn't included.

Again, you're just kind of proving my point.

You can't claim the Bible is miraculously accurate if the Bible is vague, misses a lot of things out, gets other stuff wrong, and is open to interpretation.

 

[gnostic]

Just this for now.
God created the earth - from verse 1.
The whole process of how this was achieved is not recorded, nor was
it of importance to the writer - Genesis isn't a science book and people
who thought the earth was flat and planets were wandering stars would
not appreciate.
Verse 2, the "observer" are NOW ON THE EARTH.
But at what stage? It doesn't say. There was a gaseous cloud stage
(perhaps) a super-sonic turbulence stage
a clumpy stage
a ball of lava stage
a meteoric stage
and maybe a few other stages we don't yet know about - no matter,
the bible doesn't give everything - it just gives us a stage where you,
the observer, could relate to - the water stage (let's forget the ice stage
too) which could have been a prominent stage lasting a long time, and
had theological implications (ie separations)
This was a real stage - a dark, wet, sterile earth. RIGHT.

You are making things up.

The first 2 verses were meant to read together as the beginning of Earth’s creation.

It was the Earth first, then the water later. The creation of the earth included the water, at the very beginning.

There are only mention of “the deep” or the abyss, which was the water. And what it also say in verse 2 was blowing on surface of the water.

There are no mentions of gases, clouds or smoke anywhere in these first 2 verses, so you really are making things up. Do you really think that the author had no word in Hebrew for clouds?

There are also no mentions of the Earth being in a molten states in Genesis, no lava and no volcanic activities. And no mentions of meteorites in Genesis, certain not in the first 2 verses. So again, you are making things up,

The other problems with Genesis 1:2 is the mentions of winds. How can there be winds, if there are no atmosphere?

According to Genesis 1:6-8 (the 2nd day), atmosphere wasn’t created until the firmament (some translations called this “dome” or “vault”) or sky was created. Winds shouldn’t exist until this atmosphere was created.

There also shouldn’t be water (1:2) until there were atmosphere.

So winds and water in Genesis (1:2) existed before there were atmosphere (1:6-8). The order are completely wrong, and in disagreement with our current knowledge of Earth’s.

 

[Astrophile]

NASA/ESA sent the Huygens probe to Saturn's moon Titan. This moon has a dense cloud deck
and was thought to be oceanic at the time (as opposed to having mere "oceans")
Titan was considered a "precursor earth" - dark, wet and sterile.

I think that we have had this argument already. Titan is not much like the early Earth. For one thing, it consists mostly of ice enveloping a core of rock and iron, and its 'oceans' consist of liquid methane. The Earth consists of silicate rocks enveloping a nickel-iron core; the oceans and ice-caps form only a thin veneer. Titan is not completely dark; the Huygens lander found that the surface illumination was about 1/1000 of full solar illumination on Earth, or about 500 times as bright as Full Moonlight - Huygens (spacecraft) - Wikipedia .

Since the Earth's distance from the Sun is only a tenth of Saturn's distance, the illumination of the early Earth, even under a thick cloud layer, must have been much more intense than that on Titan. The argument that the early Earth was dark contradicts the assertion sometimes made by creationists that abiogenesis is impossible because solar ultra-violet radiation would have destroyed terrestrial organic compounds.

I don't know when the Earth first acquired its oceans; there is some evidence that oceans were already present by 4.2 Gyr BP, or 350 million years after the formation of the Earth - When did oceans form on Earth? . What the Bible says on this point is not scientifically useful. I agree that the very early Earth was sterile, and I don't know when the first life appeared; however, it is certain that trees, flowering plants and grass did not evolve until long after the formation of the Sun and the Moon and most of the stars that we can see.

 

[PruePhillip]

Again, you're just kind of proving my point.

You can't claim the Bible is miraculously accurate if the Bible is vague, misses a lot of things out, gets other stuff wrong, and is open to interpretation.

The king of the Rhine made war. He entered into an alliance
with Magog of the East but betrayed him. Magog made an
alliance with kings of the islands and they defeated the king
of the West.

But this could be a biblical account of WWII and Hitler's
Germany. The whole war in a single paragraph.
(mostly nations were named - with the possible exception
of America in the Ezekiel 38 and 39.

So yeah, all these things are "vague." One archaeologist
called the bible "infuriatingly vague" about historical events.
There's no doubt these events happened - it's just that for
all the text written, whole chunks of history are relegated to
a paragraph, or worse, a single sentence.

The bible isn't history, though it was often written in the
midst of great history, and might even allude to it.

Same with Genesis 1.

 

[PruePhillip]

There are no mentions of gases, clouds or smoke anywhere in these first 2 verses, so you really are making things up. Do you really think that the author had no word in Hebrew for clouds?

NASA calls Saturn's moon Titan a "precursor earth."
Titan reminds scientists of what the early earth was like.
Titan is shrouded in a pre-biotic fog.
Scientists believe that when the sun runs out of fuel
it will expand to about the orbit of earth. This will warm
Titan, clear its atmosphere and enable true organics to
evolve.

At one stage ALL the planets were cloud planets. Mars
lost its atmosphere. I don't know what happened to earth's
cloud deck - never looked into it.
And with extra-solar rocky planets - most are thought to
be ocean worlds.

 

[PruePhillip]

I think that we have had this argument already. Titan is not much like the early Earth. For one thing, it consists mostly of ice enveloping a core of rock and iron, and its 'oceans' consist of liquid methane. The Earth consists of silicate rocks enveloping a nickel-iron core; the oceans and ice-caps form only a thin veneer. Titan is not completely dark; the Huygens lander found that the surface illumination was about 1/1000 of full solar illumination on Earth, or about 500 times as bright as Full Moonlight - Huygens (spacecraft) - Wikipedia .

Since the Earth's distance from the Sun is only a tenth of Saturn's distance, the illumination of the early Earth, even under a thick cloud layer, must have been much more intense than that on Titan. The argument that the early Earth was dark contradicts the assertion sometimes made by creationists that abiogenesis is impossible because solar ultra-violet radiation would have destroyed terrestrial organic compounds.

I don't know when the Earth first acquired its oceans; there is some evidence that oceans were already present by 4.2 Gyr BP, or 350 million years after the formation of the Earth - When did oceans form on Earth? . What the Bible says on this point is not scientifically useful. I agree that the very early Earth was sterile, and I don't know when the first life appeared; however, it is certain that trees, flowering plants and grass did not evolve until long after the formation of the Sun and the Moon and most of the stars that we can see.

Agreed on most points.
But I do see the first verse as being fundamentally different to the other verses.
There was no symbolic "day" for the creation of "the heavens and the earth."
It's just there as a given - and now you are transported to this earth at a particular
point in its development.
500 times brighter than moonlight on Titan? Wow, I didn't know that. Interesting.
Does seem odd given Saturn is so far away, and Titan is covered in thick haze.
When Genesis says "Let there be light" we aren't given luminance figures - at
some stage the sky would open and the sun would shine right to the observer.

 

[PruePhillip]

The other problems with Genesis 1:2 is the mentions of winds. How can there be winds, if there are no atmosphere?

According to Genesis 1:6-8 (the 2nd day), atmosphere wasn’t created until the firmament (some translations called this “dome” or “vault”) or sky was created. Winds shouldn’t exist until this atmosphere was created.

There also shouldn’t be water (1:2) until there were atmosphere.

So winds and water in Genesis (1:2) existed before there were atmosphere (1:6-8). The order are completely wrong, and in disagreement with our current knowledge of Earth’s.

I suggested, going back about 5 years, that two of these things is out of sequence. One was land life
before water life, and this could have been the other. Can't remember the second. I do not know what
the word "firmament" meant to the original writers.
We now know that Genesis and Darwin were right about life on land.
And scientifically, it's probable the atmosphere is as old as the earth, or at least was here as long as
the earth.

 

[PruePhillip]

Again, you're just kind of proving my point.

You can't claim the Bible is miraculously accurate if the Bible is vague, misses a lot of things out, gets other stuff wrong, and is open to interpretation.

It's the same for ancient history too.

 

[PruePhillip]

how hard would it be for God to say "First, the world was made of molten rock, and this eventually cooled"? Why would God not say that?
The point is that you claimed the Bible was miraculously accurate, yet you yourself admit here that it is vague, misses a lot of stuff out, and can be interpreted in a variety of ways.
So, the Bible could literally say anything and you'd call it miraculously accurate.

Not miraculously accurate - a better word would be "surprisingly similar" to
scientific accounts.

The order according to Genesis:

1. Creation of the heavens and the Earth.
2. The separation of light from dark
3. Separation of the waters and “firmament”
4. Creation of dry land and the grasses
5. Creation of the sun, the moon and the stars
6. The land brings forth life.
7. The waters bring forth life.
8. man

The order according to science:

1. Universe emerges from the Big Bang
2. Formation of the Solar System
3. The molten Earth – (not mentioned in Genesis) 4.7 billion years ago.
4. Earth as an ocean planet. Prior to 4.4 billion years ago.
5. The emergence of the granite continents from the seas. 4.4 billion years ago.
6. The clearing skies. (time unknown)
7. First life forms inhabiting the seas. 4.5 – 3.5 billion years ago.
8. Life colonizes the land. 580 million years ago.
9. Emergence of man. (Depends on what is “man.”) 2 million years ago.

 

[Subduction Zone]

It's the same for ancient history too.

History does not claim to be the word of God. Mistakes are acceptable and they are quite often corrected. When you have a way of correcting the errors in the Bible please tell us.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Not miraculously accurate - a better word would be "surprisingly similar" to
scientific accounts.

The order according to Genesis:

1. Creation of the heavens and the Earth.
2. The separation of light from dark
3. Separation of the waters and “firmament”
4. Creation of dry land and the grasses
5. Creation of the sun, the moon and the stars
6. The land brings forth life.
7. The waters bring forth life.
8. man

The order according to science:

1. Universe emerges from the Big Bang
2. Formation of the Solar System
3. The molten Earth – (not mentioned in Genesis) 4.7 billion years ago.
4. Earth as an ocean planet. Prior to 4.4 billion years ago.
5. The emergence of the granite continents from the seas. 4.4 billion years ago.
6. The clearing skies. (time unknown)
7. First life forms inhabiting the seas. 4.5 – 3.5 billion years ago.
8. Life colonizes the land. 580 million years ago.
9. Emergence of man. (Depends on what is “man.”) 2 million years ago.

I tried to respond to this by breaking this up a bit but there is something seriously buggy about the site when one uses an auto-generated list.

You got a few things wrong with Earth's history. At 4.4 billion years ago there was water, but not necessarily oceans and it is dubious if it was an "ocean planet".

Granite continents never "emerged from the seas". There would have been some very early granites since granitic minerals have a lower melting point. This means they would be the last to solidify. Continents from plate tectonics would have come much later. Actual subduction is thought to have been later than the formation of life. That does not mean that there would not be plenty of "hot smokers" under the sea. The early earth not only would have had hot spots here and there, but the materials were at least twice as radioactive as they are today which would have been a significant source of heat too. It is hard to say exactly how radioactive since the radioactive isotopes with half lives of less than 100 million years would have long since decayed to nothing.

An article on early plate tectonics:

How did plate tectonics begin?

And you are still counting just the near or almost hits and ignoring the clear misses.

 

[PruePhillip]

And you are still counting just the near or almost hits and ignoring the clear misses.

And if you "prove" me wrong then I have learned something.
But if I prove YOU wrong, will have learned anything?

Genesis 1 is badly worded. There's repetitions. Hebrew "heavens" means sun, moon and
stars, but later it says that God made the sun and the stars. But it's enough to work with.
Genesis is different to all creation myths, IMO, not that I have the time to read them all.

In the Zulu tradition God was born on a reed and from this created the mountains, the rivers,
etc and taught the Zulus how to hunt and fish. Or the Maya where man climbed out of a sacred
hole in the ground.
I wager that if you took the main 100 "creation myths" and placed them beside Genesis, and
compared for accuracy, then I suspect Genesis would trump them all.
On one thread here I did the maths on the chances of getting each sequence right in Genesis
and came to a figure of one in nine hundred thousand.

 

[Subduction Zone]

And if you "prove" me wrong then I have learned something.
But if I prove YOU wrong, will have learned anything?

Genesis 1 is badly worded. There's repetitions. Hebrew "heavens" means sun, moon and
stars, but later it says that God made the sun and the stars. But it's enough to work with.
Genesis is different to all creation myths, IMO, not that I have the time to read them all.

In the Zulu tradition God was born on a reed and from this created the mountains, the rivers,
etc and taught the Zulus how to hunt and fish. Or the Maya where man climbed out of a sacred
hole in the ground.
I wager that if you took the main 100 "creation myths" and placed them beside Genesis, and
compared for accuracy, then I suspect Genesis would trump them all.
On one thread here I did the maths on the chances of getting each sequence right in Genesis
and came to a figure of one in nine hundred thousand.

Sometimes I teach, sometimes I learn. It is better than doing neither.

 

[PruePhillip]

History does not claim to be the word of God. Mistakes are acceptable and they are quite often corrected. When you have a way of correcting the errors in the Bible please tell us.

How the bible was written is not how we read it today.
And it's strange. Sennacherib was Israel's enemy -
after he was defeated he went home and was killed.
But this murder happened 20 years later. You read
the bible's account, it seems like it was immediate,
the result of God's justice.

And the oddness of it comes from the biblical account
itself:
Adam and Eve had two sons. One fled and married
into another tribe.
God made all life, but He commanded the earth and
the seas to bring forth life.
Moses was 40 years in the desert. Only he was two
years in the desert, maybe, shuttling back and forwards
between several bases. There appears to have been
other Hebrews who left Egypt before him.
etc
etc
etc
Guess you can say the bible seeks to correct the
impressions readers might have of it.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Not miraculously accurate - a better word would be "surprisingly similar" to
scientific accounts.

The order according to Genesis:

1. Creation of the heavens and the Earth.
2. The separation of light from dark
3. Separation of the waters and “firmament”
4. Creation of dry land and the grasses
5. Creation of the sun, the moon and the stars
6. The land brings forth life.
7. The waters bring forth life.
8. man

The order according to science:

1. Universe emerges from the Big Bang
2. Formation of the Solar System
3. The molten Earth – (not mentioned in Genesis) 4.7 billion years ago.
4. Earth as an ocean planet. Prior to 4.4 billion years ago.
5. The emergence of the granite continents from the seas. 4.4 billion years ago.
6. The clearing skies. (time unknown)
7. First life forms inhabiting the seas. 4.5 – 3.5 billion years ago.
8. Life colonizes the land. 580 million years ago.
9. Emergence of man. (Depends on what is “man.”) 2 million years ago.

Those two are not similar, let alone "surprisingly" so.