Did humans descend from other primates?

[McCulloch]

Man did not descend from the primates.

Did humans descend from other primates?
Are humans primates or should there be special biological taxonomy for humanity?
Please cite evidence.

[otseng]

Rather than giving predictions on evolution, I'm asking for predictions on human evolutionary theory. And the reason I ask for a list is so that everything will be out in the open at one time. Otherwise one can just give a post-hoc "prediction" to account for any evidence. And since I've already produced my lists, I also expect the same to be producible by evolutionists.

You act like they are divisible. Unlike creationists, we dont put humans in a different category. There is no such thing as human evolutionary theory.

I normally try to address posts in sequence, otherwise I'm going to lose track of things. But this one is such a fundamental issue that it deserves immediate attention.

What exactly do you mean by "there is no such thing as human evolutionary theory"?

[nygreenguy]

Rather than giving predictions on evolution, I'm asking for predictions on human evolutionary theory. And the reason I ask for a list is so that everything will be out in the open at one time. Otherwise one can just give a post-hoc "prediction" to account for any evidence. And since I've already produced my lists, I also expect the same to be producible by evolutionists.

You act like they are divisible. Unlike creationists, we dont put humans in a different category. There is no such thing as human evolutionary theory.

I normally try to address posts in sequence, otherwise I'm going to lose track of things. But this one is such a fundamental issue that it deserves immediate attention.

What exactly do you mean by "there is no such thing as human evolutionary theory"?

First, I tried to respond from the comfort of my backyard on my ipod, but the pda version doesnt let you reply, its a read only.

So, this may just be semantics, but well see. My problem is with this statement:

Rather than giving predictions on evolution, I'm asking for predictions on human evolutionary theory.

See, the 2 are inseparable. There is only one theory of evolution, and it applies to all life. There is not a separate one for humans. If you want to know about human evolution, then you just say human evolution. To call it "human evolutionary theory" implies that there is such a thing, which there is not, as I showed before.

Make sense?

Also, to clear up the issue of prediction and what not, I suggest reading this. Its a cross of philosophy and science and is pretty good!

[Fisherking]

"With genetic manipulation and intensive production technologies, it is common for modern dairy cows to produce 100 pounds of milk a day— 10 times more than they would produce in nature."

http://139.78.104.1/breeds/cattle/

Sounds to me like you are wrong, man has indeed made large morphological changes in cattle(and other animals)in the last 10,000y

I wouldn't consider milk production a large morphological change. A high milk producing cow and a low milk producing cow are still cows.

So, there appears to be a limit to microevolutionary changes when we breed animals. And if there is a limit to artificial selection, why should we expect natural selection to be limitless?

There is no limit, given time. Man has been at this evolution business for about 10-15 thousand years and we have already created new species.

Like what? Which of these species man has supposedly created even comes close to resembling micro-to-man evolution, or that the apparent barrier in morphological change has been crossed?

Imagine having a few hundred MILLION years to act on creatures more complicated than a single cell.

Thats exactly what evolutionists do -- the only problem is that there isn't any evidence to suggest that we should.

You really don't have to imagine anything, we have lots of fossils of the myriad of different lifeforms nature created, including men.

"There seems to have been almost no change in any part we can compare between the living organism and its fossilized progenitors of the remote geological past. Living fossils embody the theme of evolutionary stability to an extreme degree...We have not completely solved the riddle of living fossils." Fossils (1991) p.101, 108 Niles Eldridge)

"Anatomy may fluctuate over time, but the last remnants of a species usually look pretty much like the first representatives. " (Stephen Jay Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory 2002 p.749)

Yes, I would agree that we have observed speciation. But, it would be quite an extrapolation to show that this demonstrates evolution of (non-human) primates into humans.

It is not extrapolation at all. Man is a primate, there are men who left fossils that were quite different from men today, yet they were men as they used fire.

If they were that different it would be an extrapolation. If they were basically the same no extrapolation would be needed. All the evidence suggests the later.

And when they existed modern man did not

...by definition, or they wouldn't be modern

The further back in time we go, the less like modern man these creatures were.

How sure are you that the evolutionists trying to validate evolution aren't a little mixed up on which fossils are men and which are monkey creatures?

Four million years ago the only features that defined man(upright stance and opposable thumb)were on a creature that was otherwise a modified chimp in features. The oldest primate fossils are about 35 million years old and share features like grasping feet and opposed thumbs and big toes, it appears that when it was alive it was one of the only primates in a world of lemurs and thus the likely ancestor to ALL primates(including man). And no, no modern man fossils have been found from that time period.

So were they men or modified chimps, or is this one of those things we should try to imagine?

[otseng]

No, it does not need to be explained, because it did not happen. mtEve was an unremarkable person of her generation. She had children, more than likely a few more than the average number. Her contemporaries also had children. Her children had children and her contemporaries' children had children. Some of her children mated with the children that were not from her lineage. Eventually, over many generations, the descendants of this one person intermarried and traveled and exchanged so much that all of humanity could call her one of their ancestors. Of course, we all have other ancestors, but this one is statistically important because her genes are in everyone. The other female lineages did not die out, however.

Here's another illustration.

Let's assume that at time 0, there are n females. We'll call label them F1 to Fn. mtDNA is only passed from mother to child. Now, let's say 100,000 year passes. Every single person would be then be able to trace to only one female that existed at time 0. It could be anyone from F1 to Fn. As n increases, it would be less likely to trace back lineage to any particular female at time 0. As n decreases, it would be more likely to trace back lineage to a particular female. What we see is that all trace back to one particular female. The most reasonable solution to this is that n equals 1.

To clear up some of your misunderstandings, read up on pedigree collapse and Most recent common ancestor.

How exactly do these clear up things?

Yes, but my point is that the most recent common male ancestor, according to the flood model, of all humanity is Noah. The most recent common female ancestor, according to the flood model could be Eve. There are only about ten generations between Eve and Noah. Genetics show that there should be about 100,000 years between the most recent common female ancestor and the most recent common male ancestor. Not a mere ten generations.

First, I do not claim that the geneology lists in the Bible are exhaustive. They would only indicate the minimum number of generations. Also, as I mentioned elsewhere, the 100,000 year figure is not an absolute figure. And I see many other places that uses a 50,000 year figure. Also there is evidence that mtDNA mutation rate is not as slow as assumed.

[GrumpyMrGruff]

[That macroevolution is currently considered to be accumulated microevolution[1]] confirms my point. Macroevolution would be an extrapolation of microevolution. It is an inherently unobservable since it requires a long period of time.

By analogy in physics: In a few billion years, the Andromeda galaxy is slated to collide (or have a near miss) with the Milky Way. We cannot observe an event that takes billions of years. However, nobody is voicing skepticism about the collision because we cannot observe it from beginning to end (we may indeed be extinct). Extrapolation? Sure. What's wrong with that?

I discuss this in my post on parsimony:

As with any historical investigation, we have to apply mechanistic knowledge (in forensics: physics, chemistry, etc.; in phylogeny: biochemistry, genetics, population genetics) to infer past events from necessarily incomplete data. Whenever we perform phylogenetic analysis (tree-building) on species' ERVs (or their other traits), we are asking a question incorporating mechanistic knowledge

There are many geological processes (even in weird young earth formulations) that occur on timescales longer than human (especially primitive human) lives. By this logic, we should be skeptical of occurrences like plate tectonics because we cannot observe the splitting and converging of continents (only the centimeter movements of the plates on human times scales). Extrapolating backwards independently suggests past super-continents that are remarkably consistent with fossil biogeography (incidental evidence of evolution). Projecting ahead tells us that western California is going to be making a break for the Pacific. These qualitative differences (different continents, different land masses) arise from many small quantitative changes (plate movements) over long periods of time.

I will go so far as to say that extrapolation from observed mechanisms will always provide the most parsimonious explanations for events occurring over long time scales, especially when these events predate any historical record. To invoke new mechanisms always increases unknowns in a explanation, reducing parsimony.

You suggest that macroevolution is somehow qualitatively mechanistically different from microevolution (and thus invoking a less parsimonious unknown). Below, I will outline why your invocation of macro- vs. micro-evolution is a false distinction.

As for "no known biological mechanism which stops accumulation of genetic changes", this can be demonstrated in the breeding of animals. Though we can produce a variety of animal breeds, there is no example that I've seen where any major novel morphological features have been produced. Hair length and color can change. Length of necks, legs, beaks, ears, etc can change. Features from different animals can be combined, but no new major features arises. So, there appears to be a limit to microevolutionary changes when we breed animals. And if there is a limit to artificial selection, why should we expect natural selection to be limitless?

You haven't demonstrated that there is a limiting mechanism at work within artificial selection. You've pointed out that some thousands of years are insufficient to produce phenotypic change which will satisfy your version of macroevolution (which can conveniently be set higher than anything we have artificially selected thus far). Grumpy gives a good example of whole-body morphological change in the auroch-to-domestic cow transition, but the definition of macroevolution you offer below is so vague that you will be able to exclude any particular cases should you so choose.

What I mean by macroevolution is major novel morphological features between different species. "An example of macroevolution is the appearance of feathers during the evolution of birds from theropod dinosaurs."
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 017#321017

"Novel morphological features" is too vague, as is the subjective qualifier "major". (Rapid evolution of cecal valves in Pod Kopiste wall lizards? Not 'major' enough for you, I suspect.) What I am looking for is an objective evaluation I can perform on traits to determine if they are micro- or macro-evolutionary. I am not looking for a list of comparisons: 'The appearance of trait X is macro; the appearance of Y is micro; the appearance of Z is macro...' I don't think this objective criterion can be provided. Why? Well, first you should read the remainder of the wiki article you linked to.[1] Your previous quotations seemed a tad - ahem - out of context. Your problem is this: In Filipchenko's day, no one knew about modern molecular genetics. The 1920s saw the beginning of the neo-Darwinian synthesis: Mendelian genetics was beginning to be incorporated, but without understanding of DNA, nobody knew the physical mechanisms by which these Mendelian traits segregated during reproduction. Thus, it was still a valid possibility that large 'macroevolutionary' phenotypic changes might occur via qualitatively different mechanisms than lesser variation. Today, we know that phenotypic differences (however great) stem from quantitative changes in genotype between the respective species' genomes. We also know of a set of mechanisms capable of spanning these genotypic differences over time: Mutation and selection.

As continents change by the slow drift of tectonic plates, phenotypes change by the slow accumulation of mutation.

I don't want to stray from primate evolution, but I'll briefly address your example above: Reptilian, avian, and mammalian skins all contain the tough and fibrous proteins known as keratins. It is more parsimonious to think that keratins existed in the common ancestor of all three groups rather than independently evolving multiple times. In addition to the skin, keratin also appears in the hair of mammals and the feathers of birds. Phenotypically, these represent qualitatively different structures, but genotypically, they represent quantitative differences in developmental and keratin genes - quantitative differences which, in the absence of known anti-evolutionary mechanisms, can be spanned by mutation and natural selection given sufficient time. You see vast differences; I see slightly different forms of keratin (with slightly different amino acids arising from slight genotypic differences) and quantitative sequence changes in developmental genes.

You suggested that analogous gene similarity might arise due to similarity of designed function.

I don't necessarily claim that, but I don't rule it out either.

In a previous post, you say:

As for genetic similarities, if species share morphological similarities, it would make sense that they also share genetic similarities.

If I follow this line of reasoning, should I consider the following a prediction of the creation model? Organisms with similar functions (e.g., bats and avians, whales and fish) should have very similar genes related to their shared function.

I do not make a claim about this either.

I'm aware. I was simply taking the reasoning in your previous post (reproduced above) to it's conclusion.

Are you saying that organisms that have similar morphological features and would also have totally different genome sequences would falsify your theory?

Several times now, I've made a point about how evolution may be falsified by genetic data. Evolution provides an explanation by which dissimilar structures can fulfill similar functions (convergence of bird and bee wings) and how similar structures can serve dissimilar functions (divergence whale flippers and human hands). You might protest that this allows for anything - 'it's unfalsifiable.' On the contrary, evolutionary theory also requires that we infer (as we continue to find) the same ancestral tree for all genes in such organisms - not just the ones that give rise to convergent/divergent structures. This is a side effect of mutation and natural selection operating on reproductively isolated species. I can see no a priori reason to expect this pattern if the organisms were designed. Can you provide one? 'The designer could've done it that way' doesn't cut it. The designer could've done anything - you refuse to discuss the scope and limitations of its methods. What reasons do we have to think it should've done it that way?

If possible, please define patterns (or lack thereof) of genetic similarity among extant organisms which cannot be accounted for by a designer. If this cannot be done (because a designer can be invoked to explain any pattern), will you concede that design is unfalsifiable by molecular genetic evidence (unlike evolution)?

It's not necessary to specify the tools used by a designer to infer a designer. I do not need to know the tools used by the sculptors of Mount Rushmore to infer that it was a product of intelligence rather than natural forces.

I disagree strongly for the reasons I outlined in this previous post. At the very least, you need to know that Mt. Rushmore is predated by intentional tool-users (potential designers). With knowledge of the material properties of granite and the physics of moving the associated mass of rock, you would need to know if those tool-users wielded sufficient technology (e.g., explosives) to selectively subtract granite from the rockface. Further, by knowing that tool-using sculptors of the period often polished their creations, you could examine the rock of micro-abrasions consistent with the method (as opposed to weather from natural erosion).

If I was ignorant of the history of Mt. Rushmore, I could infer design from careful examination of the site and prior knowledge of the tools available to early 20th Century craftsmen (and prior knowledge of the existence of 20th Century craftsmen). There is no rigorous or objective way (without appealing to prior knowledge about designers) to infer design from an apparently significant pattern in nature. Appeals to intuition don't cut it. Humans are notorious bad pattern detectors:


Figure 1: The Face on Mars - Monument or Mountain?

Anyway, back to the two falsification criteria you provided in this post:

Falsified by:
- A gradual transition is found from animals to humans in the fossil record.
- Genetic changes from one species to another and leading to humans are identified.

Regarding the demand for a sequential list of genetic changes between species...

But this is impossible because we can't genetically sample extinct intermediate forms.

This is not entirely true, but I would agree that it is generally true. However, it is entirely possible that in the future we would have the genome mapped for all extant species. And then determine all the genetic changes necessary to go from one species to another.

I have to disagree again. First of all, it is not clear how having all extant genomes will allow us to infer the step-wise mutations between them. There are infinitely many trajectories of incremental genome change that can get you from one extant genome to another. Additionally, many of these paths through 'sequence space' are blocked because of they decrease fitness - natural selection would prevent these paths from being traversed. We cannot tell which is which for the same reason we cannot predict a priori whether a mutation will be beneficial/harmful/neutral: We cannot infer phenotype from genotype, and we cannot predict whether a phenotype will have a reproductive advantage without knowing it's environment. We can't recreate extinct ecosystems to test the fitness of these infinite intermediate forms.

Second, where along these paths is the common ancestor? Knowing extant genomes cannot tell you what the ancestral genome looked like. Even if we could identify the true trajectory of mutations between two species (we can't), this wouldn't tell us where the ancestor was along the trajectory. The path goes in two directions: The mutations may be traced from one genome to another, but they originally radiated from the common ancestor (somewhere along that path) toward each extant species. We couldn't find this location from extant sequences.

Third, we have a complete chimp and human genome. We can compare all the differences. You claim that having all sequences (and their comparative differences) will allow us to trace lineages among all species. Let's start small. How can we do this with the chimp and human genomes? Have you secretly collected the Millennium Prize for P=NP? Even if you did, sorting through infinite trajectories in a high-dimensional space (without being able to predict if a point in the space is biologically feasible) sounds impossible to me.

Basically, the first piece of evidence you ask for is impossible to obtain. Even the genome sequences for every living organism on earth constitutes a necessarily insufficient data set to do what you suggest.

What about the other falsification criterion: Find the true fossil phylogeny of hominids.

Due to the same inability to genetically sample these fossil species, we will probably never have a definitive phylogeny for them.

I would agree with this.

Then why did you ask for it? And why do you expect anything but the following indeterminacy of fossil phylogenies? As I tried to say with the whale fossil analogy, fossil constitute insufficient evidence to form a unique phylogeny. They can show that intermediate forms have existed over time, but we cannot tell if they are direct ancestors or close relatives of direct ancestors.

But, let's restrict the discussion to human ancestry from the primates. What chart can you produce on the evolution of humans?

Here are a few competing phylogenies all consistent with known fossils as of 1999:


Figure 2: Hominid phylogenies and associated biogeography (from Strait & Wood [2])

In this figure, the cladograms sort species by morphological similarities (since we lack genetic info). These are used to construct the phylogenies (in which vertical black bars represent fossil dates).

One last note on this subject: You suggest that these data would falsify your creation model, but it seems to me you are simply setting an impossibly high bar for the data. We can't give you the former without DNA that has long since degraded. We can't give you the latter to the certainty you desire because fossil evidence - while useful - cannot give the precision that genetic evidence does for extant species.

It might be high, but I don't think impossible.

See above.

Your falsification criteria are unreasonable - we cannot expect to ever obtain them from available data. And note that (looking at a historical process) we must make conclusions from data that is necessarily incomplete.

Can you give falsification criteria for your model which do not invoke evolution? After all, maybe neither is correct.

I do not know of a third model. And no literature I've come across mentions any other explanation other than evolution or special creation.

You should not need to invoke another model to provide falsification criteria for your own model. Finding a pattern of genetic similarity inconsistent with evolution is not evidence for creation. The pattern I find is irrelevant (only that it disagrees with evolutionary predictions matters). Likewise, what data can we never find if your model is true? If your model is truly predictive, you shouldn't need to invoke another model. Simply pick a prediction made by your model and negate it. Your previously stated predictions were vague. Saying that mankind originated in the Mideast isn't a prediction; it's a statement about the past. What evidence should we look for in the present to confirm or deny this? Likewise, you say mankind can be "traced" to a single couple. What methodologies (applied to what currently available data) are used to perform this trace? What patterns in this data would contradict it?

Also bear in mind that evolution doesn't necessarily select for long life. Many diseases with genetic components (like some types of cancer) have late onset - typically near the end of human's reproductive window. These genes-of-interest are "immune" to natural selection because they don't penalize reproduction. They may cause death, but only after copies have already been passed to children. (And those copies won't affect the children until they've been passed to grandchildren...)

As you stated - "Mutations which reactivate pathogenesis are selected against (due to cancer, MS, etc.), but mutations which benefit the host will be selected for."

Duly noted. To be rigorously correct, I should have included the disclaimer "without medical intervention." MS can cause crippling neurological effects. Individuals responsible for their own basic necessities may well die due to incapacitation. This is less likely when infrastructure is in place to support them (though MS patients have a high suicide rate). Even cancer mortality (especially for childhood onset cancers which could otherwise kill before reproduction) have greatly improved outcomes with treatment.

What evidence can be shown that harmful mutations are selected out in humans?

Again, the sickle cell allele is a good example. Many African Americans are descended from sub-Saharan Africans brought via the slave trade. These African populations have endemic sickle cell allele frequency in excess of 11%. In less than 20 generation in a malaria-free environment (effectively fewer due to the introduction of medical treatment a few generations ago), this number has dropped to about 8.5% among African Americans. I realize there are confounding variables here, but that's a ball park estimate.

Cystic fibrosis is another good example. Up through the early 80s, the median age of death was 18.[3] Half of all affected individuals died within 4 years of reproductive maturity. This negative selection keeps the prevalence of CF alleles low.

You have been vague about your use of the phrase "selected out". Natural selection keeps harmful allele frequencies low. When they're low, they are more likely to be wiped out by random genetic drift.

I probably can't go much farther on this argument without knowing the percentage values of harmful, neutral, and beneficial sequences resulting from a mutated virus. So, I'll drop this argument until we know more about these percentages.

This (slightly out of date) article notes that there are approximately 175 nucleotide mutations per genome per generation.[3] In other words, we each have approximately 175 novel nucleotide changes not inherited from either parent. As I noted above (because we cannot predict phenotype from genotype from in most cases) we can't make a priori statements about fitness.

[Zeeby]

No, it does not need to be explained, because it did not happen. mtEve was an unremarkable person of her generation. She had children, more than likely a few more than the average number. Her contemporaries also had children. Her children had children and her contemporaries' children had children. Some of her children mated with the children that were not from her lineage. Eventually, over many generations, the descendants of this one person intermarried and traveled and exchanged so much that all of humanity could call her one of their ancestors. Of course, we all have other ancestors, but this one is statistically important because her genes are in everyone. The other female lineages did not die out, however.

Here's another illustration.

Let's assume that at time 0, there are n females. We'll call label them F1 to Fn. mtDNA is only passed from mother to child. Now, let's say 100,000 year passes. Every single person would be then be able to trace to only one female that existed at time 0. It could be anyone from F1 to Fn.

I think this is the misunderstanding - actually a later person would probably be able to trace to many of the original females (for instance, you have two grandmothers). As time progresses, the number of females each person can trace to becomes larger, and so the number of people who can't trace back to any individual female (say F1) becomes smaller, and eventually 0. At this time everyone can trace back to F1, but the other lines have not died out.

[tar2]

Otseng,

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... e-h&page=2

How far back can we go in this way? If we try to trace all life on our planet, we are constrained by the earth's age of 4.5 billion years. The oldest bacteria-like fossils are 3.5 billion years old, so this is the upper estimate for the age of life on the earth. The question is whether at some point before this date a last common for all forms of life, a "universal ancestor," existed. Over the past 30 years the underlying biochemical unity of all plants, animals and microbes has become increasingly apparent. All organisms share a similar genetic machinery and certain biochemical motifs related to metabolism. It is therefore very likely that there once existed a universal ancestor and, in this sense, all things alive are related to each other. It took more than two billion years for this earliest form of life to evolve into the first eukaryotic cell. This gave rise to the last common ancestor of plants, fungi and animals, which lived some 1.6 billion years ago.

Although the exact mechanisms of evolution can seem unsatisfying, my guess is that the more we know, the more sensible they will become. The fact remains, that it happened. Life on this planet retains a certain kind of pattern. Patterns built from patterns, built from patterns. Plants have DNA, cells, metabolism, structures, systems, all that grow from a seed that contains the patterns, and instructions on how to proceed to grow and maintain, obtain energy and use it to maintain the pattern, and bear fruit that contains the seeds, the whole pattern, that can continue the pattern even after the brief life span of the individual organism. All life forms have this continuation of previous patterns thing going. Some split down the middle and grow two. Some have male and female parts, each giving half of their pattern to the next generation.

All the evidence points to humans being part of this scheme. Part of life on Earth.

We can trace our basic pattern back through our parents, grandparents...Lucy in Africa and beyond.

Retroviri, junk DNA, mutations, infections, ingestion...all sorts of ways that the patterns can change and intermingle, be actuated or repressed. Hard indeed to trace the exact history, explain exactly what happened and when. But so what. The easy fact to except is that us humans are part of it. The hard fact to except is the one you are claiming, that we are not part of it. That Adam and Eve popped into existence with no history, no parents, no pattern to continue.

Either we are part of the whole progression, or there is magic involved.

I don't believe in magic. There is always a mechanism.

Perhaps we will find that life began more than once on Earth, sulphur based life on the sea floor for instance. Or several parts of current patterns starting independently and then merging in certain ways, but whatever the case, it is evident that the patterns maintained by trees, and the patterns maintained by humans are similar in their general scheme. How we exist, is not unlike how a tree exists, when compared to say, how a hurricane exists, or how a snowflake exits, or a diamond, or a hunk of shale.

We are more closely related to a tree, than a hunk of shale.

And more closely related to a chimp than we are to a snake.

Regards, TAR

[tar2]

The hard fact to except is the one you are claiming, that we are not part of it. That Adam and Eve popped into existence with no history, no parents, no pattern to continue.

Late edit. I meant accept not except.

[otseng]

I normally try to address posts in sequence, otherwise I'm going to lose track of things. But this one is such a fundamental issue that it deserves immediate attention.

What exactly do you mean by "there is no such thing as human evolutionary theory"?

So, this may just be semantics, but well see. My problem is with this statement:

Rather than giving predictions on evolution, I'm asking for predictions on human evolutionary theory.

See, the 2 are inseparable. There is only one theory of evolution, and it applies to all life. There is not a separate one for humans. If you want to know about human evolution, then you just say human evolution. To call it "human evolutionary theory" implies that there is such a thing, which there is not, as I showed before.

I understand that the theory of evolution is foundational to the discussions here. I'm not saying that they are unrelated.

However, it does not necessarily follow that human evolution is true if evolution is true. For example, I accept microevolution, but that does not mean I accept monkey to man. Even some Christians accept evolution from single-cell to hominids, but believe that man was specially created.

If no human evolutionary theory exists, then I might as well just rest my case now. There is then nothing to compare the human creation model to. My model would be the only thing presented to account for human origins that has a set of descriptions of the model, a set of predictions that follows from this, evidence that supports the predictions, and a set of ways to falsify it.

And what if I had not presented the human creation model and simply said that since I believe in Creationism, then that is sufficient to show that humans were created? I don't think many would buy that argument.

Also, to clear up the issue of prediction and what not, I suggest reading this. Its a cross of philosophy and science and is pretty good!

Are you suggesting that evolution cannot make any predictions?

[nygreenguy]

I understand that the theory of evolution is foundational to the discussions here. I'm not saying that they are unrelated.

Its not foundational to the discussion, it IS the discussion

However, it does not necessarily follow that human evolution is true if evolution is true.

Actually, it totally follows. There is no logical or scientific reason to exclude humans from the evolutionary process

For example, I accept microevolution, but that does not mean I accept monkey to man.

I cant think of a single scientist that accepts monkey ro man either.

Even some Christians accept evolution from single-cell to hominids, but believe that man was specially created.

So what? They are not an authority.

If no human evolutionary theory exists, then I might as well just rest my case now. There is then nothing to compare the human creation model to. My model would be the only thing presented to account for human origins that has a set of descriptions of the model, a set of predictions that follows from this, evidence that supports the predictions, and a set of ways to falsify it.

Firstly, you never gave us a model. I think you need to re-examine what a scientific model is. You are trying to create a theory.

The plain old TOE is sufficient to compare your model to, we just limit it to a single species.

And what if I had not presented the human creation model and simply said that since I believe in Creationism, then that is sufficient to show that humans were created? I don't think many would buy that argument.

I personally think it would be better than trying to make something unscientific scientific.

Are you suggesting that evolution cannot make any predictions?

No, I was trying to (if you see what statement of yours I quoted was) is clear up some of your misconceptions of after the fact explinations.