What is the current theistic explanation for archaic human fossils?

[DeMotts]

There's quite a body of fossils that exist that illustrate a variety of archaic humans, from australopithecines to Homo rhodesiensis, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo naledi, Homo ergaster, Homo antecessor, and Homo habilis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_h ... on_fossils

For the theistic anti-evolutionists on the board: how do you explain such a variety of human fossils? What are australopithecines? How do they fit in with the creation story of the bible? Do you believe these fossils are legitimate or forgeries?

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #0]

I suppose that is the creationist's view, but science tells us that humans evolved over several million years from a great ape ancestor, and we can measure a general increase in brain volume over time coinciding with more complicated tool use, structure building, hunting and food preparation advances, etc. Putting 2 and 2 together implies that along the evolutionary path intelligence levels did increase over time.

But the accumulation of knowledge and the ability to disseminate it widely is what has allowed us to advance from a Homo sapien of 200K years ago to the humans of today. The 200K years old version may well have had roughly the same intellectual capacity as we have today ... but had an infinitely smaller knowledge base to draw on to educate the population. So you have to distinguish between raw intelligence capacity, and accumulated knowledge.

Yes, I am very familiar with your view. So you are saying that the smarter a person is the more evolved they are. So those that have an IQ of 140 are more evolved than those that have an IQ of 100. At what point does a person cease to be human because they are not smart enough?

Sanger believed she was ‘working in accord with the universal law of evolution’.12 She maintained that the brains of Australian Aborigines were only one step more evolved than chimpanzees and just under blacks, Jews and Italians.13 When arguing for eugenics, Sanger quoted Darwin as an authority when discussing ‘natural checks’ of the population, such as war, which helped to reduce the population.14 Her magazine even argued for ‘state-sponsored sterilization programs’, forcibly sterilizing the ‘less capable’.15

https://creation.com/margaret-sanger-da ... eugenicist

Evolution is a dangerous belief that causes one group of people to believe that they are better than another group of people. It is a logical progression if man did evolve then he has still to be evolving.

[JoeyKnothead]

Evolution is a dangerous belief that causes one group of people to believe that they are better than another group of people. It is a logical progression if man did evolve then he has still to be evolving.

Evolution is independent of one's beliefs, like how truth is independent of religious belief.

Considering biblical claims that atheists can do no good, you've got some projection going on.

Of course humans're still evolving. Why, just about a hundred years ago many Christians were seeking to annihilate the Jews from the face of the earth, but now act all buddy-buddy with em.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #161]

Yes, I am very familiar with your view. So you are saying that the smarter a person is the more evolved they are. So those that have an IQ of 140 are more evolved than those that have an IQ of 100. At what point does a person cease to be human because they are not smart enough?

That's not at all what I'm saying. Within the existing population of humans, there is a spread in intelligence levels (eg. as measured by IQ levels). No one in that Gaussian distribution is any more or less evolved than any other. If that is how you interpreted what I wrote earlier then you completely misunderstood it. My point was to compare the general intelligence levels of members of the genus Homo along the entire evolutionary path (habilis to sapien). From the brain case volumes, artifacts left behind, etc. it is clear that there was a progression in general intelligence levels over time. So it is true that human intelligence has evolved over time, but what evolved most is brain size and structure leading to more capability for sapiens compared to, say, erectus. This is completely different and unrelated to whatever spread there is in human intelligence levels among the existing population.

At what point does a person cease to be human because they are not smart enough?

You'll have to ask that to Inquirer ... he's the one claiming that intelligence level is a defining characteristic of a "human." I've asked this question multiple times with no response.

Evolution is a dangerous belief that causes one group of people to believe that they are better than another group of people.

No ... that is called racism.

It is a logical progression if man did evolve then he has still to be evolving.

Of course ... who said otherwise. Come back in a million or two years (if we haven't wiped ourselves out by then) and there will no doubt be evolutionary changes that can be observed in Homo sapiens. The process doesn't stop for some reason unless it is extinction.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #163]

That's not at all what I'm saying. Within the existing population of humans, there is a spread in intelligence levels (eg. as measured by IQ levels). No one in that Gaussian distribution is any more or less evolved than any other. If that is how you interpreted what I wrote earlier then you completely misunderstood it. My point was to compare the general intelligence levels of members of the genus Homo along the entire evolutionary path (habilis to sapien). From the brain case volumes, artifacts left behind, etc. it is clear that there was a progression in general intelligence levels over time. So it is true that human intelligence has evolved over time, but what evolved most is brain size and structure leading to more capability for sapiens compared to, say, erectus. This is completely different and unrelated to whatever spread there is in human intelligence levels among the existing population.

So why do you believe that has stopped? What makes you believe that brain size and structure has stopped evolving? Besides for the implications of having a belief like this.

At what point does a person cease to be human because they are not smart enough?
You'll have to ask that to Inquirer ... he's the one claiming that intelligence level is a defining characteristic of a "human." I've asked this question multiple times with no response.

This is a question that those that believe in evolution have to answer not creationists. Creationists believe that humans were given their intelligence by God. There would be no smart enough or dumb enough all were created by God.

Of course ... who said otherwise. Come back in a million or two years (if we haven't wiped ourselves out by then) and there will no doubt be evolutionary changes that can be observed in Homo sapiens. The process doesn't stop for some reason unless it is extinction.

So some today would be more evolved than others and the trait just has not become fixed in the population yet. So humans that have a brain that is more developed would be more evolved.

[Jose Fly]

Evolution is a dangerous belief that causes one group of people to believe that they are better than another group of people.

From Henry Morris's (the "father" of modern creationism) The Beginning Of the World, Second Edition (1991), pp. 147-148:

The descendants of Ham were marked especially for secular service to mankind. Indeed they were to be 'servants of servants,' that is 'servants extraordinary!' Although only Canaan is mentioned specifically (possibly because the branch of Ham's family through Canaan would later come into most direct contact with Israel), the whole family of Ham is in view. The prophecy is worldwide in scope and, since Shem and Japheth are covered, all Ham's descendants must be also. These include all nations which are neither Semitic nor Japhetic. Thus, all of the earth's 'colored' races,--yellow, red, brown, and black--essentially the Afro-Asian group of peoples, including the American Indians--are possibly Hamitic in origin and included within the scope of the Canaanitic prophecy, as well as the Egyptians, Sumerians, Hittites, and Phoenicians of antiquity.

The Hamites have been the great 'servants' of mankind in the following ways, among many others: (1) they were the original explorers and settlers of practically all parts of the world, following the dispersion at Babel; (2) they were the first cultivators of most of the basic food staples of the world, such as potatoes, corn, beans, cereals, and others, as well as the first ones to domesticate most animals; (3) they developed most of the basic types of structural forms and building tools and materials; (4) they were the first to develop fabrics for clothing and various sewing and weaving devices; (5) they were the discoverers and inventors of an amazingly wide variety of medicines and surgical practices and instruments; (6) most of the concepts of basic mathematics, including algebra, geometry, and trigonometry were developed by Hamites; (7) the machinery of commerce and trade--money, banks, postal systems, etc.--were invented by them; (8) they developed paper, ink, block printing, movable type, and other accoutrements of writing and communication. It seems that almost no matter what the particular device or principle or system may be, if one traces back far enough, he will find that it originated with the Sumerians or Egyptians or early Chinese or some other Hamitic people. Truly they have been the 'servants' of mankind in a most amazing way.

Yet the prophecy again has its obverse side. Somehow they have only gone so far and no farther. The Japhethites and Semites have, sooner or later, taken over their territories, and their inventions, and then developed them and utilized them for their own enlargement. Often the Hamites, especially the Negroes, have become actual personal servants or even slaves to the others. Possessed of a genetic character concerned mainly with mundane matters, they have eventually been displaced by the intellectual and philosophical acumen of the Japhethites and the religious zeal of the Semites.

[EarthScienceguy]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #163]

Evolution is a dangerous belief that causes one group of people to believe that they are better than another group of people.


No ... that is called racism.

Yes, this is what the belief in evolution causes.

"Racism: the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another." https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racism

Unless you are saying that man is no longer evolving.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #164]

So why do you believe that has stopped? What makes you believe that brain size and structure has stopped evolving?

I don't, as I explicitly stated in my last post. Evolution has no stopping point and I've never suggested otherwise. Are you reading the posts?

This is a question that those that believe in evolution have to answer not creationists. Creationists believe that humans were given their intelligence by God. There would be no smart enough or dumb enough all were created by God.

Again ... ask Inquirer. I'm no creationist and believe (from evidence) that humans evolved from a great ape ancestor and things like brain size and structure (and intelligence level) was part of that process.

So some today would be more evolved than others and the trait just has not become fixed in the population yet. So humans that have a brain that is more developed would be more evolved.

What do you even mean by "more developed" than others, especially regarding a human brain? Homo sapien brains are pretty much all the same as far as general morphology. None are "more developed" than another. There are certainly people who are more intelligent than others as shown by Gaussian IQ curves, but that spread is small compared to the huge difference in intelligence between the average human and the average chimpanzee, for example. Human brains have evolved to be far more capable than a chimpanzee's brain, but within modern humans their brains are all at the same general evolutionary stage by definition. The spread in intelligence level (eg. IQ) among modern humans is a completely different thing that you appear to be confusing with evolutionary change.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to EarthScienceguy in post #166]

Yes, this is what the belief in evolution causes.

"Racism: the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another." https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racism

Wow ... so you now think evolution causes racism? I'd suggest a good Evolution 101 book or website as you couldn't be more wrong on that one. Here are a couple of links to get you started:

https://scienceandsociety.duke.edu/does-race-exist/

https://ncse.ngo/evolution-and-origin-races

Unless you are saying that man is no longer evolving.

Again ... I never said any such thing.

[JoeyKnothead]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #163]

Evolution is a dangerous belief that causes one group of people to believe that they are better than another group of people.


No ... that is called racism.

Yes, this is what the belief in evolution causes.

"Racism: the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another." https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racism

Unless you are saying that man is no longer evolving.

Just gonna ignore that whole Christians and the holocaust deal?

[DeMotts]

[Replying to DrNoGods in post #163]

Evolution is a dangerous belief that causes one group of people to believe that they are better than another group of people.


No ... that is called racism.

Yes, this is what the belief in evolution causes.

"Racism: the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another." https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/racism

Unless you are saying that man is no longer evolving.

Considering that race isn't even a scientific term and is not used in any scientific sense it's pretty absurd to tie an acceptance of evolution directly to racist attitudes. If someone is racist it's because they're... racist.