Human Evolution

[Jose]

jcrawford and I have been having some interesting discussions in other threads, which have led to the notion that we really need a thread on human evolution. So, here it is.

The Rules
We want to work from data. Data that is discussed must be accessible in the scientific literature. Personally, I would prefer the peer-reviewed literature, because, as those of us in science know all too well, the peer reviewers are usually one's competitors. Thus, they are typically extremely critical of what we write.

Any other information that is brought to bear must also be accessible to everyone. Where requested, direct quotes from the sources will be important.

The questions for discussion

1. What is the current best understanding of human origins?

2. What "confounds" are there in the interpretation of data?

3. Given that there is always genetic diversity within populations, how easily can we assign hominid fossils to different groups? Here, the term "form-species" is probably most useful, referring to similar fossils with similar forms, but in the absence of information on the capacity for interbreeding. In many cases, different form-species are different species (fossil trees vs fossil insects), but sometimes they are not (fossil leaves vs fossil roots of the same tree).

4. Does information based on fossil data mesh with information based on genetic data? The true history must be genetically feasible. The fossils must have been left by individuals who were produced by normal genetic methods. To be valid, any explanation of origins must incorporate both fossil and genetic data.

5. What are the parts of human history that are most at odds with (some) Christian views, and what suggestions can we offer for reaching a reconciliation?

I will begin by posting the following genetic data, which is pictorial representation of the differences and similarities in mitochondrial DNA sequence of a whole bunch of people. Relative difference/similarity is proportional to the lengths of the vertical lines. Horizontal lines merely separate the vertical lines so we can see them.

How do we interpret these data?

[If appropriate, I will edit this post to ensure that the OP of this thread lists the important questions.

[Cathar1950]

Maybe..lol
But I think plants were doing their thing and O2 just got plentiful.
But Randon and chance are often misunderstood. It isn't that random.
It seems to be limited to what is available as Jose pointed out Things that adapt, to things that don't work, die. I am paraphrasing of course.

[Scrotum]

Maybe..lol
But I think plants were doing their thing and O2 just got plentiful.
But Randon and chance are often misunderstood. It isn't that random.
It seems to be limited to what is available as Jose pointed out Things that adapt, to things that don't work, die. I am paraphrasing of course.

Being serious for awhile, i think the whole thing of "its to big of a chance" and so forth, as the Christians always claim, seeming not to understand that "chance" (possibility) is a Human concept to describe certain things.

If Life is "to big of a chance to have just happened" then is not the GolfBall landing on THAT spot such an enormous unlikely event that that to, must been an act of God ?


They seem not aware that you can not apply likelihood to certain things, in that way. First we have the facto, what says Human beings are the peak of the Universe? Christians? Clearly so, i would never say such a stupid thing, i doubt even Otseng, whom is a "liberal" Christian would say such a thing.

Continuing on this path of likelihood, What is the likelihood that we would be able to produce such an amazing thing as a Computer, all the components, all the complexity, how would we mere humans be able to do it? Indeed, it must be God.



I wish to point to the God Believer reading this thread, that if i would ask my little brother of 11 years of age, about the similarities between humans and ape's, i have no doubt that he would see with his own eyes, no "Evolution indoctrination", that we are pretty similar. And also would be able to draw the conclusion we evolved in some fashion from them.

I did this when i was young, I saw this, with no education, no basis, i simple drew a logical assumtion. Strange eh? Like i understood Terra to be a Sphere/Roundish, even when i did not understand the details of gravity, i simple draw the assumtion. Also that we been around for a long time, much longer then 200 years, or 1000 years, or 6000 years..

I think one of the main reasons we have so many creationist in United States (it almost only exist there), is because of the lack of time conept americans seem to have. Do not missunderstand me now, i am not Bashing americans in that sense, it simple is that they think 100 years is aloot, so ofcourse 6000 years would be mind boggling for them, and millions of years cant be possible, no, we refuse to accept, wight? Whiles we have other States thats been around for Centuries, and we see a bit further (education also plays arole, but like i said, i did not mean to bash americans).

[Cathar1950]

I know some one who has twice hit a hole in one. If it were not for his lying friend that was a witness I wouldn't believe it.
Chance?
We American could be a little humble now and then.

[QED]

I think one of the main reasons we have so many creationist in United States (it almost only exist there), is because of the lack of time conept americans seem to have. Do not missunderstand me now, i am not Bashing americans in that sense, it simple is that they think 100 years is aloot, so ofcourse 6000 years would be mind boggling for them, and millions of years cant be possible, no, we refuse to accept, wight? Whiles we have other States thats been around for Centuries, and we see a bit further (education also plays arole, but like i said, i did not mean to bash americans).

No, we'll not tolerate any American bashing here, but it does raise an interesting question which received a number of replies. Seeing as this is wildly off-topic I have split the follow-up posts off to a brand new topic titled: Is Creationism influenced by American history. Please continue to respond to the issues there. Back to Human Evolution...

[Cathar1950]

No, we'll not tolerate any American bashing here, but it does raise an interesting question which received a number of replies.

Oh come on a little self basing can't hurt..lol. Being a super power and all we should be able to handle it. Granted there is some growing Anti-American currents but some are our own making.
We have some flaws.
The new forum sounds interesting.
We Americans have their own myths too.

[jcrawford]

The Adam and Eve Model is premised on the same scientific data geneticists and paleoanthropologists use. Creationists just have a different interpretation of the data.

We are talking at cross purposes here again--another example of The Language problem. I understand that "a model is premised on the data" means that the data were used to build the model initially. That's why I said this was silly. I suspect that you understand that "a model is premised on the data" means that it is possible to find data that support the model.

These are wildly different things. In my world, you would be saying that the authors of Genesis knew the genetics, and built their A&E model upon it. In your world, you would be saying that there are data that are consistent with the A&E model--data that were discovered millenia after the model was built.

Yes, as I quoted from Ann Gibbons in Science about mitochondrial Eve on a prior post, "Using the new clock, she would be a mere 6,000 years old."

I think we are agreeing here, but because our use of The Language is different, we don't realize it.

Yes, it's a matter of taking the other person's mental make-up, philosophy and POV into consideration while trying to understand what they are saying, even if we don't agree or like what they are saying. As a teacher you must know how difficult it can be to explain something to someone when they don't agree with your explanation.

[jcrawford]

As creationists, we belive that Adam and Eve were fully human in every genetic way possible. What evidence do you have to prove or show that the first African people on earth were fully human or that a sub-human African 'species' called Homo heidelbergensis evolved into an African 'species' of Homo sapiens capable of driving H. heidelbergensis into African and European extinction?

Well, first, let's comment on this summary of some of the paleontological data by Alan Walker and Pat Shipman, presented in The Wisdom of the Bones.

Walker and Shipman indicate the earliest known (at least, known at the time of publication of the book) fossils that can be classed as H. erectus (or if you prefer, genetic variations of the general form of H. erectus) in various parts of the so-called "Old World." Walker uses the erectus the erectus diaspora as one bit of evidence that erectus were good hunters, which is the main purpose of presenting this figure.

First, let's ask whether we consider this interpretation of the fossil data to be reasonable. What do you say?

Of course it's a "reasonable" interpretation of the fossil data according to neo-Darwinist logical progressions of human 'species' gradually evolving out of African ape and monkey ancestors in neo-Darwinist African time. At the same time, it is totally unacceptable to many creationists for those very reasons. Some of us find neo-Darwinist claims that Arabic, Semitic and Islamic ancestors originated from African Homo sapiens whom neo-Darwinists further claim originated from common ancestors of African apes and monkeys to be a highly offensive and insulting form of ancestor racism.

We don't accept the reliability of neo-Darwinist fossil dating techniques or the neo-Darwinist division and classification of our ancestors into several human races and species.

[jcrawford]

However, it still remains a good opportunity to present and explore different points of view in the creation/evolution perspectives on human origins, which I believe, was one of your original points in framing your OP. I assume that you also take it for granted that neither side in the debate will, as a result of debate, switch sides, and that the best that may be expected and hoped for, is the opportunity to express, explain and justify our own rationale for believing what we do about human origins and come to terms with the fact that we are trying to present two different and separate ideologies using the same language.

Well said. The tricky part is figuring out when we are disagreeing over substance, and when we are miscommunicating. After all, I know what I mean, and you know what you mean... Let us keep this in mind as we proceed.

Ok, I'll present the data from a creationist POV and you present it from a neo-Darwinist POV. That way we'll know which language we are using ourselves and which language we are listening to from our opponent.

[jcrawford]

The individuals in the diagram are grouped only by DNA sequence similarity.

I would need to know more about the "individuals" represented in the diagram in order to properly evaluate the sequence similarities. How many people in each geographic group were sampled and where? This is what I would consider relative and pertinent data which is only abstractly represented in the graph. How, and on what basis were the sample groups selected and by whom? Was the original data collected from every ethnic group in every country in the world? How do we know that a particular ethnicity is purportionally represented in the graph?

We have already discussed the use of the chimpanzee as the outgroup. Note the difference in terminology here: "outgroup" vs "common ancestor." Perhaps the following diagram will help:

One can do a comparison of various types of furniture. Different items can be grouped according to how many similarities or differences they have. It is possible to link all of the furniture to other classes of "house stuff" as well; here, a refrigerator is used to represent "other house stuff." The fridge is the "outgroup." It is obviously not a common ancestor.

The fridge is also obviously not something to be seated on and serves no purpose in demonstrating the wide variety of furniture which may be suitable to sit on. The only purpose a chimp or fridge serves by being included in a grouping of similar objects is to contrast the difference between them.

Let's forget about the chimp and the fridge and try to get some more data on the individuals represented in the graph of human diversity. What was the total sample group - in the hundreds or thousands? How many of the individuals in the sample were born in China, India, Indonesia, Africa, the rest of Asia, Europe and the Middle East? Does the sample include South Americans and Central Americans as well as representatives from all the Pacific Islands and Australia? How were individuals of mixed ancestry accounted for?

[jcrawford]

The interesting question is: what happened in previous years to give rise to this particular set of relationships?

It seems that earth changes were happening and evolutionary changes keep up and fill in places that are open. We have found life forms at all kinds of places we didn't think life could exist. Life is pretty resilient and adaptable. Which is a good thing. I tend to thin that these changes happen due to the world they live in and are not just random or chance. Life forms developed lungs because there was air.

Do you know how human beings evolved from common ancestors of African monkeys and apes, Cathar1950?