Verifiable evidence for creationism?

[metis]

The massive evidence you mention favors creation as I have been pointing out. Science ends up backing the Bible. OTOH science is molded to fit evolution. Very little science backs up evolution.

I would tend to agree we take ideas from other cultures and then rework them, but is it Babylonian? Did Abraham take their ideas and rework them? What evidence do you have?

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/abraham.html

First of all, in my Introduction to Anthropology course, I spent roughly 15 hours of lecture on early human evolution, and the main problem I had was that I had to reduce the information available to squeeze it in that time slot. The available information on human evolution is simply massive.

On your second question, a tablet was found in northern Israel a short while back that had on it the Babylonian creation narrative, and it predates the writing of Genesis, so we know that we had that available to us prior to the writing of our creation accounts. The same holds true of the flood accounts as well, btw, also undoubtedly coming from a Babylonian epic as well.

There's simply no way to tell much of anything about Abraham, including how accurate or not the scriptures are about him. However, that doesn't bother me because the Bible is a book of faith, not a science nor a history book. It is when people forget that and argue that each detail must be historically and/or scientifically accurate that they mislead themselves by forgetting it's about faith. The creation accounts are rich with basic Jewish teachings, which some miss out on because they focus on the wrong things.

 

[james bond]

First of all, in my Introduction to Anthropology course, I spent roughly 15 hours of lecture on early human evolution, and the main problem I had was that I had to reduce the information available to squeeze it in that time slot. The available information on human evolution is simply massive.

On your second question, a tablet was found in northern Israel a short while back that had on it the Babylonian creation narrative, and it predates the writing of Genesis, so we know that we had that available to us prior to the writing of our creation accounts. The same holds true of the flood accounts as well, btw, also undoubtedly coming from a Babylonian epic as well.

There's simply no way to tell much of anything about Abraham, including how accurate or not the scriptures are about him. However, that doesn't bother me because the Bible is a book of faith, not a science nor a history book. It is when people forget that and argue that each detail must be historically and/or scientifically accurate that they mislead themselves by forgetting it's about faith. The creation accounts are rich with basic Jewish teachings, which some miss out on because they focus on the wrong things.

Are you sure it's not anthropology and natural selection? Alfred Russel Wallace was an anthropologist and the creationist have massive evidence, too.

Do you have a link to this Babylonian creation narrative? What do the Jews say about it? We must have some Jewish scholars here to explain it.

Again, it's just your opinion that the Bible is a book of faith. Obviously, you do not understand history. The Bible is not a book of science, but science backs up the Bible. Big difference. The Bible as a science book would not be understood by people in the 3rd - 4th century since science wasn't advanced. Yet, even today science continues to back up the Bible. I already covered this.

 

[metis]

Are you sure it's not anthropology and natural selection? Alfred Russel Wallace was an anthropologist and the creationist have massive evidence, too.

Do you have a link to this Babylonian creation narrative? What do the Jews say about it? We must have some Jewish scholars here to explain it.

Again, it's just your opinion that the Bible is a book of faith. Obviously, you do not understand history. The Bible is not a book of science, but science backs up the Bible. Big difference. The Bible as a science book would not be understood by people in the 3rd - 4th century since science wasn't advanced. Yet, even today science continues to back up the Bible. I already covered this.

To say that I "do not understand history" is simply based on your ignorance and willingness to stereotype me, and does your denomination teach you that this is somehow right and proper? I taught history for a fair number of years, plus as an anthropologist, we delve in history all the time. I also taught a comparative religions course for a couple of years as well as theology for 14 years, and I have also taught several religious-based seminars.

Believe in what you want, but hopefully some day you'll stop judging people and start actually doing some research on the subjects of both theology and and biology. Until then...

 

[metis]

Oh, btw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enûma_Eliš

 

[james bond]

To say that I "do not understand history" is simply based on your ignorance and willingness to stereotype me, and does your denomination teach you that this is somehow right and proper? I taught history for a fair number of years, plus as an anthropologist, we delve in history all the time. I also taught a comparative religions course for a couple of years as well as theology for 14 years, and I have also taught several religious-based seminars.

Believe in what you want, but hopefully some day you'll stop judging people and start actually doing some research on the subjects of both theology and and biology. Until then...

Too much fallacies. Appealing to yourself as an authority. A fallacy. No professional would do this ha ha.

And again you use wikipedia which is a terribly biased source. Another fallacy. No wonder you are wrong. Your worldview is based on fallacies.

Come back when you have actual evidence.

 

[Parsimony]

You're fallacious in avoiding the issues or the question.

There is nothing to avoid. You’re committing the equivocation fallacy by somehow thinking that a chimp-human hybrid is the same thing as what humans evolved from. They aren’t the same at all. By definition, an organism cannot have evolved from a hybrid which requires its own existence in order to create. In order to have a chimp-human hybrid, you have to have a human first. If humans had not yet evolved, then there could be no chimp-human hybrids.

The experiments demonstrated we can't have chimp-human hybrids to populate itself.

I don’t deny that.

You have to provide experiments to prove apemen which you can't.

The ERVs and pseudogenes provide plenty of evidence that humans and chimps share a common ancestor. Whether you want to call that common ancestor an ape-man or not is up to you (there isn’t exactly any agreed-upon scientific definition of an “ape-man”, especially since humans are considered to be apes themselves.

OTOH, it fits the theory that apes are apes and humans are humans. They can populate themselves just fine.

So what if we can’t have chimp-human hybrid populations? The theory of evolution never said that populations of chimp-human hybrids ever existed nor does it say that humans and chimps should be capable of hybridizing to produce a self-sufficient population of ape-men. It’s about as nonsensical as arguing that dogs weren’t domesticated from wolves because you can’t create a wolf by mixing a poodle and a chihuahua. It’s a non-sequitur.

More avoiding the issues or questions fallacy.

I don’t think you know what a fallacy is. A fallacy is faulty reasoning used to construct an argument. If someone is avoiding an issue, then they aren’t making any argument in regards to that issue at all. An argument cannot be flawed if it doesn’t exist in the first place. Besides, I did address your question by explaining why human-chimp hybrids are irrelevant to human ancestry.

What do you mean not relevant?

Exactly what I said before: (1) Evolutionary theory never said that modern humans and chimps should be able to make ape-men together, (2) it never said that there were once populations of modern human-chimp hybrids and (3) it never said that humans evolved from such human-chimp hybrids. So no, it’s not relevant at all. If anything, this is a combination of a straw-man (because evolution doesn’t work that way) and a red herring (because it’s not relevant to human origins).

Natural selection is very relevant to Darwinism as well a creation. It just goes to show that intelligent design was behind it.

What that has to do with chimp-human hybrids is beyond me...

Not really. Isochron plots are fine as long as they conform to the ToE. If not, they are discarded even if they aren't contaminated.

Can you provide any examples of uncontaminated isochron plots contradicting evolution in the first place? I’m doubtful that they even exist.

BTW most people would not understand isochron plots, so care to explain your argument so they do? You first and then I'll explain.

The link I provided earlier explained how it works. If you read it then you will understand.

Don't know yet. Waiting for more information. Based on no other mammals were buried there, I'm guessing probably was human.

So you agree that humans once had brains not much larger than those of chimps?

Do you agree Tiktaalik is important to evolution? If it is important, then you should want to discuss it and provide an argument for it. I'm still waiting for the mountain of evidence that evos keep referring to.

I’m not particularly knowledgeable about Tiktaalik so you’ll need to be more specific about what you want to discuss. The issue of whether it could walk or what?\

I was referring to predictions based on science which is useful. The same with scientific knowledge and a country or group of people being more productive and successful.

Well then that’s easy: I predict that evolutionary algorithms will be used to design things in the future that are useful to us. It’s already been done before, as I am about to point out in this next section.

So are you saying now evolution is not useful? I agree with that wholeheartedly.

I’m guessing you missed the part where I said that evolutionary algorithms have been useful to us. To quote my book on aircraft design by Daniel P. Raymer:

The “genetic algorithm” approach works by applying a process of “survival of the fittest.” While Darwin is not normally associated with aircraft design, the modeling of aircraft characteristics as “genes” of design variables shows much promise. The design variables are coded into binary strings such that a collection of 1s and 0s defines a particular aircraft, at least as regards the design variables being optimized (Ref. 109).

NASA has also used evolutionary design algorithms to design antennae. So evolution does indeed have uses. Regardless of that, do you seriously believe that something not being useful means that it’s not true? Really? That is possibly the most bizarre non-sequitur I have seen you use.

Does that mean that people who believe evolution are not more productive and successful?

I’m sure at least some of them have made a good living from being evolutionary biologists.

The GM companies and the scientists who created mutations seem to have become very rich. They seem to be ones funding evolution (even though mutations did not cause evolution).

Another GMO red herring...

I'm not sure of the people parts, but how is the Bible fallible? You said you do not take it literally, so are you arguing for an old earth?

I’m only saying that it’s fallible if it has to be taken literally. The fact that we can see stars and galaxies much further out than 6,000 light-years alone proves that the universe is much older than young Earth creationism claims.

Now you're arguing semantics to avoid the issue, a fallacy.

Again, avoiding an issue isn’t a fallacy. It isn’t my fault that you poorly choose the words that you form your arguments with. If you didn’t mean predict then you shouldn’t have said predict.

This chemical company predicted their chemical processes and patents will make them successful and it did.

If you want to get that technical then yes, you can make predictions with evolution. For example, evolutionary theory predicts that, if there is another mass extinction caused by humanity, then those surviving populations of organisms should be better adapted to the environment that humans left behind (for example, being more tolerant of pollution). It predicts that any species that aren’t rendered extinct by a change in the environment will be or will become better adapted to it than their ancestors. That’s a pretty easy prediction to verify too. It happens all the time with viruses and bacteria: they evolve to adapt to our medications constantly.

Uh, okay. You just meant a group of people who already were predisposed to believe in evolution.

I meant people with the relevant education and experience to make authoritative statements about evolution. An engineer or chemist would not have these qualifications.

Remember, I said evolution came from atheists and their theories about the origins of the earth.

Darwin was not an atheist when he wrote The Origin of Species, so you’ve got that wrong. He denied ever being more than an agnostic, actually.

 

[metis]

Too much fallacies. Appealing to yourself as an authority. A fallacy. No professional would do this ha ha.

And again you use wikipedia which is a terribly biased source. Another fallacy. No wonder you are wrong. Your worldview is based on fallacies.

Come back when you have actual evidence.

I taught adults, not children, so I guess I'm talking to the wrong element with you. ^^[ignore list]^^

 

[Guy Threepwood]

one wonders if
mankind would be better off believing in NO Gods?????? NO religions?

Like USSR, Communist China, North Korea?


and by your definition, evolution is faith also, it's just a faith that isn't usually acknowledged as such. aka blind faith!

 

[jeager106]

Like USSR, Communist China, North Korea?


and by your definition, evolution is faith also, it's just a faith that isn't usually acknowledged as such. aka blind faith!

My post was merely a hypothetical question, not something I want or wish for.

I agree that believing the theory of evolution requires faith also.
Faith = that which can not be proved nor disproved.
I'll hang on to my faith in a Power greater than man just the same.
Blind faith is.................well, kinda dumb now ain't it?
http://search.aol.com/aol/search?enabled_terms=&s_it=client97_searchbox-ac&q=crystal+cathedral
https://www.yahoo.com/news/robert-s...megachurch-founder-dies-142244763.html?ref=gs

Then there are these^^ built from money donated by believers.
Blind faith in another form but that's just my opinion.
Wonder what "god" thinks of such a monumental waste of bucks suckered
from believers?

 

[gnostic]

Too much fallacies. Appealing to yourself as an authority. A fallacy. No professional would do this ha ha.

The only people here, I am seeing who are using fallacious arguments come from you, JB.

For one, metis have both the academic and field background in anthropology, which make him an expert in the fields in history, cultures and possibly philology and archaeology.

Retired, metis may be, I don't think anyone here, except perhaps just you, would deny his expertise in the field. And his knowledge would go and predate Wikipedia.

I believed that Metis provided the link to you, for YOUR benefits and for YOUR convenience, not his. The wiki article is only to allow you to read up on the Enuma Elis and even possibly seek out the actual translation elsewhere, yourself. Though I very much doubt that you will do any research yourself, because you talk of bias, but the only one I am seeing bias, is coming from you.

I know from past replies by metis, that he is both knowledgeable about Christianity and the bible than you, seeing that he even taught theology subjects university or college. Second, he WAS a Christian, before he left the church, would indicate that he was a former believer.

You have shown me or anyone else for that matter, that you are expert in history or anthropology, so who do you think anyone here will know more or being objective - you or JB?

My money would be on metis...though, I have never been one to bet on anything.

The truth is that my own past encounters with you, indicate that you are not as bright as you want everyone to believe you to be.

 

[gnostic]

To james bond:

The fact of the matter is that the Enuma Elis, or the "Epic of Creation" was written in the 16th century BCE (hence Middle Babylonian), in which the gods, Enki and Marduk played vital roles in the creation.

But there are older stories of Babylonian creation, for instance the Epic of Atrahasis, written in Akkadian or Old Babylonian, about 17th century BCE.

The Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh were written and copied over and over again for 2 millennium BCE. The oldest tablets were written in Old Babylonian, 19th to 18th century BCE. The last I heard these tablets known as the Pennsylvania tablet (kept in University Museum, Philadelphia) and the Yale tablet (New Haven, Connecticut).

Textually, they are almost identical, as in word-for-word, of that of later tablets, in the Middle Babylonian version (eg fragments from ancient cities of Hattusa (Boğazkale, Turkey) Ugarit (Ras Shamra, north-west Syria), Megiddo (northern Israel), Amarna (Egypt) are fragmented tablets found outside of Mesopotamia), and the Standard Version (SV was found in the Nineveh Library).

Apart from the Standard Version from the Epic of Gilgamesh, all translations of Bronze Age, predated all books from the Old Testament. There are no evidences to support the existence of Genesis in the Bronze Age.

Below are list of books that I have in my bookshelf. If you are not interested in Wikipedia, perhaps you can purchase a few of these books, JB.

SOURCES:

Enuma Elis

Dalley, Stephanie, The Epic of Creation, pp 228-274, Myths From Mesopotamia, Oxford World Classics, 1989.​

Epic of Atrahasis

Dalley, Stephanie, Epic of Atrahasis, pp 1-35, Myths From Mesopotamia, Oxford World Classics, 1989.​

Epic of Gilgamesh

Dalley, Stephanie, Epic of Gilgamesh (Standard Version), pp 39-125, Myths From Mesopotamia, Oxford World Classics, 1989.

George, Andrew, Epic Of Gilgamesh: A New Translation, Penguin Classics, 1999. This book contained Standard Version, as well as tablets from the 2nd millennium BCE, and 5 Sumerian poems of Bilgames (pp 141 - 208).​

Eridu Genesis

Jacobsen, Thorkild, Eridu Genesis, pp 145-150, The Harps That Once..: Sumerian Poetry In Translation, Yale University Press, 1997.​

Enki and Ninhursaga

Jacobsen, Thorkild, Enki and Ninhursaga, 181-204, The Harps That Once..: Sumerian Poetry In Translation, Yale University Press, 1997.​

 

[Zosimus]

Religion (in my own words) involved people following and believing, but more importantly, WORSHIPPING someone or something that they considered holy or sacred.

("Someone" like YHWH, Allah, Satan, Zeus, Odin, Enki, Vishnu, Kali; or it could be heroes that have been "deified", like Heracles, Theseus, or the Roman emperors. And "something" like scriptures, a sacred objects (the head of John the Baptist, Shroud of Turin, or holy place, like Temple of Solomon, Kaaba, etc.)

The keyword in my definition above is WORSHIP.

Evolution is not a religion. It is biology.

I don't worship Evolution or Natural Selection or biology any more than I would worship gravity, mountains, seas, rivers, woods.

I don't worship Charles Darwin. He is a pioneer and one of the founders of Evolution by Natural Selection, but since his passing, his theory on evolution, have expanded into new areas (like Mutation, Genetic Drift and Gene Flow), and even his Natural Selection have been corrected, modified and updated.

I don't worship Darwin any more than I would worship Galileo, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein or Max Planck. I admired their contribution to their respective in science, but no worshipping are involved.

I think people are completely ignorant or just plain stupid when they confuse science with religion. And people are even dumber when they equate evolution with atheism.

The problem is that your definition of religion excludes such known religions as Zen Buddhism, which does not worship anything. It also excludes religious Satanism.

 

[james bond]

There is nothing to avoid. You’re committing the equivocation fallacy by somehow thinking that a chimp-human hybrid is the same thing as what humans evolved from. They aren’t the same at all. By definition, an organism cannot have evolved from a hybrid which requires its own existence in order to create. In order to have a chimp-human hybrid, you have to have a human first. If humans had not yet evolved, then there could be no chimp-human hybrids.

I don’t deny that.

The ERVs and pseudogenes provide plenty of evidence that humans and chimps share a common ancestor. Whether you want to call that common ancestor an ape-man or not is up to you (there isn’t exactly any agreed-upon scientific definition of an “ape-man”, especially since humans are considered to be apes themselves.

So what if we can’t have chimp-human hybrid populations? The theory of evolution never said that populations of chimp-human hybrids ever existed nor does it say that humans and chimps should be capable of hybridizing to produce a self-sufficient population of ape-men. It’s about as nonsensical as arguing that dogs weren’t domesticated from wolves because you can’t create a wolf by mixing a poodle and a chihuahua. It’s a non-sequitur.

I don’t think you know what a fallacy is. A fallacy is faulty reasoning used to construct an argument. If someone is avoiding an issue, then they aren’t making any argument in regards to that issue at all. An argument cannot be flawed if it doesn’t exist in the first place. Besides, I did address your question by explaining why human-chimp hybrids are irrelevant to human ancestry.

Exactly what I said before: (1) Evolutionary theory never said that modern humans and chimps should be able to make ape-men together, (2) it never said that there were once populations of modern human-chimp hybrids and (3) it never said that humans evolved from such human-chimp hybrids. So no, it’s not relevant at all. If anything, this is a combination of a straw-man (because evolution doesn’t work that way) and a red herring (because it’s not relevant to human origins).

What that has to do with chimp-human hybrids is beyond me...

Can you provide any examples of uncontaminated isochron plots contradicting evolution in the first place? I’m doubtful that they even exist.

The link I provided earlier explained how it works. If you read it then you will understand.

So you agree that humans once had brains not much larger than those of chimps?

I’m not particularly knowledgeable about Tiktaalik so you’ll need to be more specific about what you want to discuss. The issue of whether it could walk or what?\

Well then that’s easy: I predict that evolutionary algorithms will be used to design things in the future that are useful to us. It’s already been done before, as I am about to point out in this next section.

I’m guessing you missed the part where I said that evolutionary algorithms have been useful to us. To quote my book on aircraft design by Daniel P. Raymer:

NASA has also used evolutionary design algorithms to design antennae. So evolution does indeed have uses. Regardless of that, do you seriously believe that something not being useful means that it’s not true? Really? That is possibly the most bizarre non-sequitur I have seen you use.

I’m sure at least some of them have made a good living from being evolutionary biologists.

Another GMO red herring...

I’m only saying that it’s fallible if it has to be taken literally. The fact that we can see stars and galaxies much further out than 6,000 light-years alone proves that the universe is much older than young Earth creationism claims.

Again, avoiding an issue isn’t a fallacy. It isn’t my fault that you poorly choose the words that you form your arguments with. If you didn’t mean predict then you shouldn’t have said predict.

If you want to get that technical then yes, you can make predictions with evolution. For example, evolutionary theory predicts that, if there is another mass extinction caused by humanity, then those surviving populations of organisms should be better adapted to the environment that humans left behind (for example, being more tolerant of pollution). It predicts that any species that aren’t rendered extinct by a change in the environment will be or will become better adapted to it than their ancestors. That’s a pretty easy prediction to verify too. It happens all the time with viruses and bacteria: they evolve to adapt to our medications constantly.

I meant people with the relevant education and experience to make authoritative statements about evolution. An engineer or chemist would not have these qualifications.

Darwin was not an atheist when he wrote The Origin of Species, so you’ve got that wrong. He denied ever being more than an agnostic, actually.

I'm not making an equivocation, so no fallacy. You're the one claiming equivocation on my part but you are. You're also avoiding the issue. You are assuming the humans evolved from apes. I make no such assumptions, but separate the chimpanzee from the human. What I said was, the experiment backs up this pov or theory. You stated, "The ERVs and pseudogenes provide plenty of evidence that humans and chimps share a common ancestor. This experiment does not back up your statement. And your statement is still a theory (not fact).

Instead of criticizing me, you should have found a way to explain why one cannot have apemen today if apemen evolution was true. Is it the same for walking fish? We cannot produce a walking fish through hybridization? I let you slide on the flying bird-dinosaur ha ha.

If I understood you correctly, the isochron plots of a straight line means no contamination correct? If so, that's not what I am arguing against. My argument has to do with assumptions made by evo scientists with radiometric dating.

I think the homo naledi brain cavity is small, smaller than 1000 cc's. Thus, it's a puzzle. We do not have the dating on the bones, either. I do not think the evolutionists have concluded anything from them either despite Lee Berger giving them homo status. They are not making a big deal out of these findings, so today it's still a puzzle for the creationists. What do you think?

I've run out of time, so if there's anything of importance I did not reply to, then come back at me.

 

[james bond]

Parsimony, I'll explain how you avoided the issue or question. My original question was why are there still chimps if humans evolved from them? The existence of chimps and apes today backs up the creationist theory of apes are apes and humans are humans. Since the apes exist today, this Russian scientist tried to hybridize chimps and humans and it failed. That's more evidence to back the creationist theory. As Ricky said to Lucy (metaphoric joke), you got a lot of 'splain to do.

 

[Parsimony]

I'm not making an equivocation, so no fallacy.

If you think that human-chimp hybrids are the same as what evolution proposes that we evolved from, you most certainly are.

You're the one claiming equivocation on my part but you are. You're also avoiding the issue. You are assuming the humans evolved from apes. I make no such assumptions, but separate the chimpanzee from the human. What I said was, the experiment backs up this pov or theory. You stated, "The ERVs and pseudogenes provide plenty of evidence that humans and chimps share a common ancestor. This experiment does not back up your statement. And your statement is still a theory (not fact).

It does, actually. The ERVs alone show that humans and chimpanzees inherited their ERV patterns from a common ancestor between them because they are too similar for the viral insertions to have randomly lined up on their own. Again, it is entirely subjective whether you want to call that common ancestor an ape-man. In evolutionary biology, the word "ape-man" is fairly useless because humans are still classified as apes. That would make all humans "ape-men" in accordance with evolutionary theory. It is, however, just a label that does not change what we are. If the definition you have of "ape-men" is a hybrid between a human and a modern species of ape, then no, we did not evolve from ape-men.

To make my stance more clear: (1) humans did not evolve from chimp-human hybrids (no one says that they did), (2) humans did not evolve from any of the modern ape species (no one says that they did), (3) what humans evolved from, whether it was Ardipithecus, Australopithecus or something we haven't discovered yet, none of them were the same thing as hybrids between modern ape species and humans (no one says that they were).

Instead of criticizing me, you should have found a way to explain why one cannot have apemen today if apemen evolution was true.

Because the ape-man you are proposing (chimp-human hybrids) are not the same kind of creature as the ancestors that humans evolved from. You are therefore attacking a straw-man. Disproving creature type A (a chimp-human hybrid) cannot disprove creature type B (human ancestors) unless type A and type B are the same. Since A and B are not the same, your argument proves nothing. The only way you can have any kind of argument here is by showing that A and B are the same (i.e. you'd somehow have to demonstrate humans evolving from a hybrid of two creatures that did not yet exist. How two non-existent species can come together to make a hybrid is beyond me...).

Is it the same for walking fish? We cannot produce a walking fish through hybridization?

Nobody ever said that walking fish came about through hybridization...

If I understood you correctly, the isochron plots of a straight line means no contamination correct? If so, that's not what I am arguing against. My argument has to do with assumptions made by evo scientists with radiometric dating.

What assumptions then? I've addressed the contamination issue and you haven't provided any uncontaminated isochrons that are at odds with evolution.

I think the homo naledi brain cavity is small, smaller than 1000 cc's. Thus, it's a puzzle. We do not have the dating on the bones, either. I do not think the evolutionists have concluded anything from them either despite Lee Berger giving them homo status. They are not making a big deal out of these findings, so today it's still a puzzle for the creationists. What do you think?

I think they (along with Homo habilis), are good examples of how cranial volume increased over time in the human-lineage (from ape-like to that of modern humans).

Parsimony, I'll explain how you avoided the issue or question. My original question was why are there still chimps if humans evolved from them?

We did not evolve from chimps. Nobody ever said that we evolved from chimps. That's just another straw-man.

You are also straw-manning evolutionary theory by implying that all members of a species have to evolve the same way in the future. They do not. Different populations of a single species can evolve in different ways. That argument is as ridiculous as saying "The first white Americans came from Europe, therefore all white Europeans must have become white Americans". It's not true because what happens to one population does not have to happen to another. Look at wolves. We domesticated dogs from wolves and yet wild wolves still exist: not all of them became dogs. You might as well be asking "why are there still wolves if dogs evolved from them?"

The existence of chimps and apes today backs up the creationist theory of apes are apes and humans are humans.

Humans did not evolve from any of the modern ape species so you are still straw-manning,

Since the apes exist today, this Russian scientist tried to hybridize chimps and humans and it failed. That's more evidence to back the creationist theory. As Ricky said to Lucy (metaphoric joke), you got a lot of 'splain to do.

Until you are to recognize that there is difference between a chimp-human hybrid and human ancestors, I don't think I can help you. It's basically the same as trying to explain the difference between a poodle-chihuahua hybrid and a wolf. You'd think the difference would be obvious.

 

[Zosimus]

It does, actually. The ERVs alone show that humans and chimpanzees inherited their ERV patterns from a common ancestor between them because they are too similar for the viral insertions to have randomly lined up on their own.

False dichotomy.

 

[Parsimony]

False dichotomy.

Your alternative being what? That they were designed in that way? Sure, it's possible, but that would be tantamount to a deceptive intelligent designer, which is something that creationists are not likely to accept. Basically no different than arguing that a fingerprint was supernaturally created at a crime scene instead of being put there by the person that it seems to belong to. If the designer is willing plant deceptive evidence into our DNA, then there's no telling what else about our world might be deceptively designed too. Basically, it would undermine the position that we can trust anything about reality to support any conclusion, including those evidences that creationists use to support their own arguments. That's why I didn't mention this particular possibility, because it is self-defeating.

 

[james bond]

If you think that human-chimp hybrids are the same as what evolution proposes that we evolved from, you most certainly are.

It does, actually. The ERVs alone show that humans and chimpanzees inherited their ERV patterns from a common ancestor between them because they are too similar for the viral insertions to have randomly lined up on their own. Again, it is entirely subjective whether you want to call that common ancestor an ape-man. In evolutionary biology, the word "ape-man" is fairly useless because humans are still classified as apes. That would make all humans "ape-men" in accordance with evolutionary theory. It is, however, just a label that does not change what we are. If the definition you have of "ape-men" is a hybrid between a human and a modern species of ape, then no, we did not evolve from ape-men.

To make my stance more clear: (1) humans did not evolve from chimp-human hybrids (no one says that they did), (2) humans did not evolve from any of the modern ape species (no one says that they did), (3) what humans evolved from, whether it was Ardipithecus, Australopithecus or something we haven't discovered yet, none of them were the same thing as hybrids between modern ape species and humans (no one says that they were).

Because the ape-man you are proposing (chimp-human hybrids) are not the same kind of creature as the ancestors that humans evolved from. You are therefore attacking a straw-man. Disproving creature type A (a chimp-human hybrid) cannot disprove creature type B (human ancestors) unless type A and type B are the same. Since A and B are not the same, your argument proves nothing. The only way you can have any kind of argument here is by showing that A and B are the same (i.e. you'd somehow have to demonstrate humans evolving from a hybrid of two creatures that did not yet exist. How two non-existent species can come together to make a hybrid is beyond me...).

Nobody ever said that walking fish came about through hybridization...

What assumptions then? I've addressed the contamination issue and you haven't provided any uncontaminated isochrons that are at odds with evolution.

I think they (along with Homo habilis), are good examples of how cranial volume increased over time in the human-lineage (from ape-like to that of modern humans).

We did not evolve from chimps. Nobody ever said that we evolved from chimps. That's just another straw-man.

You are also straw-manning evolutionary theory by implying that all members of a species have to evolve the same way in the future. They do not. Different populations of a single species can evolve in different ways. That argument is as ridiculous as saying "The first white Americans came from Europe, therefore all white Europeans must have become white Americans". It's not true because what happens to one population does not have to happen to another. Look at wolves. We domesticated dogs from wolves and yet wild wolves still exist: not all of them became dogs. You might as well be asking "why are there still wolves if dogs evolved from them?"

Humans did not evolve from any of the modern ape species so you are still straw-manning,

Until you are to recognize that there is difference between a chimp-human hybrid and human ancestors, I don't think I can help you. It's basically the same as trying to explain the difference between a poodle-chihuahua hybrid and a wolf. You'd think the difference would be obvious.

Why would I do that? I do not use today's science to explain the past. I use it for today. It's interesting that you automatically relate it to the past when I stated no such thing. You are geared for uniformitarianism which is wrong.

As for the rest of your argument, it's more of the same thing. Instead of providing answers and getting agreement for your case you are claiming fallacies to try and win the debate.

And I am not using the chimp-human hybrids to argue anything about evolution. I am using it as evidence to support creationism. Why you continue to think it has to do with evolution is beyond me? I do expect an explanation of why which you haven't provided. Instead it very nicely fits the creation theory.

What can I say in regards to your beliefs of evolution? You do not make a persuasive case. It's very sketchy. No wonder people lost interest .

I didn't want to state what some creationists believe of homo naledi because not enough information has been put forth from the finding group. Some think it's a fraud like the Piltdown Man. However, we are all keeping an open mind until they put forth more information although it has been a while.

Wolves and dogs fall under natural selection which is accepted by everyone. What you're stating is not natural selection, but additional new information in the DNA. That's not hundreds of amino acids, but thousands and thousands. This isn't like nylonaise, but beyond what is possible except to the evolution believers and their "leap of faith." Evolution IS a religion.

I thought you would want to discuss Tiktaalik because it falls under biological evolution and it is one of the key events for evolution. Oh well, we save it for another day.

 

[Zosimus]

Your alternative being what? That they were designed in that way? Sure, it's possible, but that would be tantamount to a deceptive intelligent designer, which is something that creationists are not likely to accept. Basically no different than arguing that a fingerprint was supernaturally created at a crime scene instead of being put there by the person that it seems to belong to. If the designer is willing plant deceptive evidence into our DNA, then there's no telling what else about our world might be deceptively designed too. Basically, it would undermine the position that we can trust anything about reality to support any conclusion, including those evidences that creationists use to support their own arguments. That's why I didn't mention this particular possibility, because it is self-defeating.

There's this thing called Google. If you go to http://www.google.com.pe/ you can put in words and Google, sometimes called a "search engine," will link you to articles that talk about things that interest you. For example, I went to Google and typed in: "explanations ervs" and immediately got linked to:

http://www.reasons.org/articles/A-Common-Design-View-of-ERVs-Encourages-Scientific-Investigation

Upon skimming the article, I found that the Christian apologist does not say, "It just happened to be that way by pure dumb luck."

 

[Parsimony]

Why would I do that? I do not use today's science to explain the past. I use it for today. It's interesting that you automatically relate it to the past when I stated no such thing. You are geared for uniformitarianism which is wrong.

And I am not using the chimp-human hybrids to argue anything about evolution. I am using it as evidence to support creationism. Why you continue to think it has to do with evolution is beyond me? I do expect an explanation of why which you haven't provided. Instead it very nicely fits the creation theory.

Alright then, if human-chimp hybrids have nothing to do with evolution then our inability to create them has nothing to do with the validity of common descent. So it's irrelevant.

As for the rest of your argument, it's more of the same thing. Instead of providing answers and getting agreement for your case you are claiming fallacies to try and win the debate.

I mentioned the ERVs and pseudogenes. They make a good case for common descent. I even described in a previous post how it is so.

What can I say in regards to your beliefs of evolution? You do not make a persuasive case. It's very sketchy. No wonder people lost interest.

Not persuasive to you, perhaps. I've noticed that you have not provided any further responses about isochron dating. Is there nothing more you can say against it?

I didn't want to state what some creationists believe of homo naledi because not enough information has been put forth from the finding group. Some think it's a fraud like the Piltdown Man. However, we are all keeping an open mind until they put forth more information although it has been a while.

If they think it's a fraud, then they'll have to provide evidence for that.

Wolves and dogs fall under natural selection which is accepted by everyone. What you're stating is not natural selection, but additional new information in the DNA. That's not hundreds of amino acids, but thousands and thousands. This isn't like nylonaise, but beyond what is possible except to the evolution believers and their "leap of faith."

Changes of hundreds of amino acids are possible but not thousands? What makes you say that? Sounds like you are saying that DNA can only mutate so much, and if that is true, then there must be something in our cells that keeps mutations from occurring beyond a certain limit. What is the thing that does that? I'm not aware of anything inside of cells that can keep mutations from happening with 100% efficiency.

Evolution IS a religion.

Only if you have a very liberal definition of what constitutes a religion (which would no doubt end up including a lot of other things that most people would not consider religions).

I thought you would want to discuss Tiktaalik because it falls under biological evolution and it is one of the key events for evolution. Oh well, we save it for another day.

Like I said before, you'll have to tell me what you want to discuss specifically about Tiktaalik.

There's this thing called Google. If you go to http://www.google.com.pe/ you can put in words and Google, sometimes called a "search engine," will link you to articles that talk about things that interest you.

No duh.

For example, I went to Google and typed in: "explanations ervs" and immediately got linked to:

http://www.reasons.org/articles/A-Common-Design-View-of-ERVs-Encourages-Scientific-Investigation

Upon skimming the article, I found that the Christian apologist does not say, "It just happened to be that way by pure dumb luck."

That was exactly my point, actually. They don't think it could have happened by pure dumb luck, which would make independent insertion an unacceptable alternative. The selectivity of viruses is insufficient to explain independent insertion. If they want to posit some super-selective viruses existing in the past to explain it, then they will have to provide the evidence for such super-selectivity. Actually, super-selectivity is not supported by the pattern of ERV insertion, because ERV copies can be found distributed throughout the genome. For example, copies of the ERV known as HERV-K(HML-2) have been found on 11 different chromosomes. If there were once super-specific viruses in the past, the ERVs were not among them.

Likewise, if they think they were designed in, then they'd have to explain not only why God would design disease-causing agents into our DNA from day one but also why there are multiple copies of the same viruses in homologous positions between humans and chimps. What I find especially bizarre is the suggestion that ERVs were originally designed in and eventually gave rise to viruses. Genes sequences in human DNA managing to free themselves, develop their own mechanisms for packaging their genome, reinfecting other cells to program them to produce more copies of themselves and develop methods to avoid or fight the immune system? That sounds like an extreme form of evolution in itself. That's not exactly in line with what creationists accept as possible...