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.

[nygreenguy]

What I have shown is that from human experience in the domestication of animals, there is not much significant change in morphological features in animals to account for common descent.

As with everything, this is a gradient. I would like to ask you, what is novel? Is the human hand vs. the bats wing novel?

Yes, there is a gradient. And this makes many things difficult to classify because there is no clear delineation for many things. As for novel, it would be something that is new that has never existed before.

Well, possibly excluding chemicals, this is impossible. This would require violating the principal of gradual change. I always have been critical of the pigeonholeing scientists do with species and things like traits. Nature doesnt know what a species it, nature cant tell a feather from a non feather. If we were around to observe the evolution of feathers, there wouldnt be a point to where we could say "ok, now THIS is a feather" Our transitional fossils still dont show us the full scope of the change, it just gives us pieces of the puzzle. It shows us things which are quite similar, but are still discernible from each other so we get what looks like novel features, but really its impossible to say when that non-feather became a feather.

Does any of this even make sense to anyone?




Now, some macro-evolution has been observed, but I dont think this is what you are asking for.

Also, why dont fossils count as macro evolution? Do you think scientific observation is restricted to that which can can actually watch the whole process?

[otseng]

Would you please define "man" as he exists in your model?

Mankind is the descendants of Adam and Eve.
Humans can only replicate with other humans.
There is no varying degrees of being a human. Either something is 100% human or 0% human.

What attributes must this being have to be considered man? The man which you claim is "above and apart from the animals", and which was created by god "some tens of thousands of years ago" must have a set of unique features not present in any other animal. What are they?

It is not physical that really differentiates man from the animals (though there are some). Rather, the main things that differentiates man from animals are the immaterial aspects.

Humans have consciousness and are sentient beings. Humans are aware that they have awareness.

Humans have a moral sense. They have a sense of right and wrong. And they can decide between right and wrong. They feel guilt and shame when they do things wrong. They feel things are unfair and unjust when others do something wrong.

Humans can think deeply and create complex things. We have developed technology to overcome our physical limitations and can go do the deepest oceans, fly in the sky, and go to the moon.

Humans have complex languages. Our ability for complex languages it intimately tied with the ability to think and create complex things.

Humans have a bent towards the supernatural. Almost all cultures in history around the world have some sort of religion.

[LiamOS]

Mankind is the descendants of Adam and Eve.

How'd you conclude this?

There is no varying degrees of being a human. Either something is 100% human or 0% human.

If I'm not mistaken, what SailingCyclops was asking was:
"What are the defining traits of a human, or what criteria must be fulfilled for something to be considered human?"

Humans have consciousness and are sentient beings. Humans are aware that they have awareness.

How does one define consciousness, and then determine whether or not it is present?

Humans have a moral sense. They have a sense of right and wrong. And they can decide between right and wrong. They feel guilt and shame when they do things wrong. They feel things are unfair and unjust when others do something wrong.

What are 'right' and 'wrong'? Are psychopaths not considered human, by your definition(If we apply what is likely your idea of right and wrong)?

Humans can think deeply and create complex things. We have developed technology to overcome our physical limitations and can go do the deepest oceans, fly in the sky, and go to the moon.

How does one define thought?
Many animals fit this criteria to varying degrees.

Humans have complex languages.

As do some animals.

[otseng]

One interesting thing is that dispersion of humans from mtDNA data and Y chromosome data is similar. Yet, mtEve and yAdam span a difference of up to 100,000 years apart. From what I can tell, evolutionary theory does not predict that the migration patterns would be similar. Yet, this would logically follow from the Human Creation Model.

Thats because it doesnt really have as much to do with evolution as it does ecology. However, could you explain your point a little better (bolded) I dont really understand what your point is.

The migration patterns for both mtEve and yAdam are virtually identical. East Africa then branching out to the Middle East and rest of Africa. From Middle East branching out to Europe and Asia. From Asia to Australia and North America. From North America to South America. Now why would yAdam have a similar migration if he is tens of thousands of years later than mtEve? If man was all over the world at the time of yAdam, why would yAdam also originate in East Africa and also replace all other male lines in the same pattern at mtEve? The more parsimonious explanation was that the migrations of mtEve and yAdam happened at the same time, not separated by tens of thousands of years.

Yes, the migration patterns would be, because the last common ancestor of both mt-eve and y-adam predates the migration patterns.

I don't see how this explains that the migration patterns would be similar.

Yet, you seem to be avoiding the question about 'how do you explain the last common ancestor for microcephaline lived a total of 800,000 YEARS before MT-eve?

Please explain that. You seem to be avoiding that question.

I don't think I'm under compulsion to explain everything that is mentioned that does not contain an argument and evidence to back up the argument. Elaborate on your point and I'll then attempt to address it.

[Goat]

Would you please define "man" as he exists in your model?

Mankind is the descendants of Adam and Eve.
Humans can only replicate with other humans.
There is no varying degrees of being a human. Either something is 100% human or 0% human.

And what does that mean? What is human. If they manage to make a chimp/human hybrid, are Chimps human?

How does that model explain

1) the Mt-DNA 'eve' is 100,000 years older than the y-adam'
2) The last common ancestor for the gene that regulate brain growth is 800,000 years older that the MT-dna eve?

[McCulloch]

Mankind is the descendants of Adam and Eve.

This looks a whole lot like begging the question.

Humans can only replicate with other humans.

Yes and cats can replicate with other cats. Speciation is impossible. The ark was really overcrowded. Or are you making the claim that only humans are exempt from evolution?

What attributes must this being have to be considered man? The man which you claim is "above and apart from the animals", and which was created by god "some tens of thousands of years ago" must have a set of unique features not present in any other animal. What are they?

It is not physical that really differentiates man from the animals (though there are some). Rather, the main things that differentiates man from animals are the immaterial aspects.

Humans have consciousness and are sentient beings. Humans are aware that they have awareness.

Do you see sentience as an all or nothing thing? I don't. Humans do seem to have the greatest degree of sentience of all of the animals. But other animals have the greatest degree of other attributes. The difference between the apparent sentience of a starfish and a chimpanzee is greater than the apparent difference between the sentience of a human and a chimpanzee.

Humans have a moral sense. They have a sense of right and wrong. And they can decide between right and wrong. They feel guilt and shame when they do things wrong. They feel things are unfair and unjust when others do something wrong.

So does my cat. There are evolutionary explanations for humans' moral sense.

Humans can think deeply and create complex things.

Yes, humans are smart. [sarcasm]Therefore we could not have evolved. [/sarcasm]

Humans have a bent towards the supernatural. Almost all cultures in history around the world have some sort of religion.

We love to tell stories. In fact, we prefer to explain stuff with stories. We personify inanimate forces.

[McCulloch]

Humans have complex languages.

As do some animals.

Which other animals have communication systems which can be properly described as complex language? Essential to the definition of language is the systematic creation, maintenance and use of systems of strongly arbitrary symbols, which dynamically reference concepts and assemble according to structured patterns, in order to form expressions and communicate meaning. Although some other animals make use of quite sophisticated communicative systems, and these are sometimes casually referred to as animal language, none of these are known to make use of all the properties that linguists use to define language.

[LiamOS]

Not knowing the exact definition of language out of hand, I was incorrect.

[SailingCyclops]

The term "man" keeps on being thrown around haphazardly. What defines something to be a "man"?

I attempted to get just such a definition from you way back on page 27

Would you please define "man" as he exists in your model? What attributes must this being have to be considered man? The man which you claim is "above and apart from the animals", and which was created by god "some tens of thousands of years ago" must have a set of unique features not present in any other animal. What are they?

What makes god's creation of man unique? What test can we use to determine if a creature is man or beast?

At the time, you ignored this question. It would be helpful at this time for you to define EXACTLY what YOU mean by "man" within your "creation model".

Within your paradigm, what is man, and what is beast?

Bob

[SailingCyclops]

Which other animals have communication systems which can be properly described as complex language?

Dolphins?[center][youtube][/youtube][/center]

Essential to the definition of language is the systematic creation, maintenance and use of systems of strongly arbitrary symbols, which dynamically reference concepts and assemble according to structured patterns, in order to form expressions and communicate meaning. Although some other animals make use of quite sophisticated communicative systems, and these are sometimes casually referred to as animal language, none of these are known to make use of all the properties that linguists use to define language.

The video above demonstrates this. Bear in mind in the above case it's Dolphins learning our language, we have yet to learn theirs.

See also: Dolphin Speak -A Language of Infinite Complexity & Sophistication
And: Human Language And Dolphin Movement Patterns Show Similarities In Brevity

Bob