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.

[sinebender]

in response to....What I want, is not an attack on evolution, which you seem to be continuing, but rather evidence for the positive claim for special creation.

I think the evidence you are looking for is the mathematics, the golden triangle, the fibonacci number sequence in how it applied to the human body. Evidence of design.

[sinebender]

design- The golden section- a precise way of dividing a line, music or anything else-is showed up early in mathematics. It goes back at least as far as 300 B.C., when Euclid described it in his major work, the Elements. Moreover, the Pythagoreans apparently knew about the golden section around 500 B.C. The oldest examples of this principle, however, appear in nature's proportions, including the morphology of pine cones and starfish. Further more, "The golden section is thought by some people to offer the aesthetically most pleasing proportion."
Euclid, a Greek mathematician wrote the Elements which is a collection of 13 books . It was the most important mathematical work up to present days. In Book 6, Proposition 30, Euclid shows how to divide a line in mean and extreme ratio which we would call "finding the golden section point on the line." Euclid used this phrase to mean the ratio of the smaller part of the line, to the larger part is the SAME as the ratio of the larger part, to the whole line. Euclid in Elements called dividing a line at the ratio 0.6180399.. : 1 , dividing a line in the extreme and mean ratio. This later gave rise to the name golden mean, golden ratio and even the divine proportion.
In order to describe the golden section, imagine a line that is one unit long. Then divide the line in two unequal segments, such that the shorter one equals x, the longer one equals (1 - x) and the ratio of the shorter segment to the longer one equals the ratio of the longer segment to the overall line; that is, x/(1 - x) = (1 - x)/1. That equality leads to a quadratic equation that can be used to solve for x, and substituting that value back into the equality yields a common ratio of approximately 0.618. We shall use the Greek letter phi for this Golden Proportion . Also, we shell use Phi for the closely related value 1.6180339887...


The Golden Section, also known as Phi, is manifested in the structure of the human body. If the length of the hand has the value of 1, for instance, then the combined length of hand + forearm has the approximate value of Phi. Similarly the proportion of upper arm to hand + forearm is in the same ratio of 1: Phi .The human face abounds with examples of the Golden Section. The head forms a golden rectangle with the eyes at its midpoint.The mouth and nose are each placed at golden sections of the distance between the eyes and the bottom of the chin.Phi defines the dimensions of the human profile. Even when viewed from the side, the human head illustrates the Golden Proportion.The human body is based on Phi and the number 5.The number 5 appendages to the torso, in the arms, leg and head. 5 appendages on each of these, in the fingers and toes and 5 openings on the face.The human body illustrates the Golden Section or Divine Proportion, also.The Divine Proportion in the Body The DNA cross-section is based on Phi.A cross-sectional view from the top of the DNA double helix forms a decagon. A decagon is in essence two pentagons, with one rotated by 36 degrees from the other, so each spiral of the double helix must trace out the shape of a pentagon.The ratio of the diagonal of a pentagon to its side is Phi : 1.So, no matter which way you look at it, even in its smallest element, DNA, and life, is constructed using phi and the golden section!The DNA molecule, the program for all life, is based on the Golden section. It measures 34 angstroms long by 21 angstroms wide for each full cycle of its double helix spiral.34 and 21, of course, are numbers in the Fibonacci series and their ratio, 1.6190476 closely approximates Phi, 1.6180339.There are many examples of the Golden Section or Divine Proportion in Nature. For example,the eye, fins and tail all fall at Golden Sections of the length of a dolphin's body. Phi is frequently expressed in many of Nature`s creations, and by varying the angle between adjacent radii, a number of Natural spirals and leafshapes can be created. The Fibonacci numbers form the best whole number approximations to the Golden number. Plants illustrate the Fibonacci series in the numbers and arrangements of petals, leaves, sections and seeds.Plants that are formed in spirals, such as pinecones, pineapples and sunflowers, illustrate Fibonacci numbers. Many plants produce new branches in quantities that are based on Fibonacci numbers.


:

[GrumpyMrGruff]

Is it not originally assumed that ERV is assumed to not have a function? That they just "sit quietly"?

This characterization only holds with respect to viral behavior. As has been previously pointed out, spawning actively infectious retroviruses isn't good for survival. However, loss of viral activity has no bearing on whether natural selection jury-rigs an ERV for host-beneficial functions after it is in the host genome. Conversely, some ERVs contain viral genes which are not completely inactivated and can promote retrovirus-related diseases such as cancer[1] and MS.[2]

For the most part I'll stick to evidence and not theological speculation, but I think it's decidedly odd that a designer littered all of our cells with broken viruses, especially when some may randomly cause the same diseases as exogenous viruses.

Also, ERV was considered to be a small part of the genome, around 1%.

"In humans, endogenous retroviruses occupy about 1% of the genome, in total constituting ~30,000 different retroviruses embedded in each person's genomic DNA."
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc ... troviruses

However, the number discovered is now closer to 8%.

"There are many thousands of endogenous retroviruses within human DNA (HERVs comprise nearly 8% of the human genome, with 98,000 elements and fragments[9]). All appear to be defective, containing nonsense mutations or major deletions, and cannot produce infectious virus particles."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous ... troviruses

How did 8% of the genome originate from mistakes from viruses? This is more problematic if most of these are found to have a function.

1% versus 8% is a bit of a non sequitur. More sequence information was processed between 2000 (1%) and 2004 (8%), leading to more identified ERV sequences.

You're also focusing on a false dichotomy here. There is no reason to assume that ERVs must be completely inactive genetic elements OR have host-beneficial functions. The only functions that need to "sit quietly" are the pathogenic ones. So far as mutation and natural selection are concerned, ERVs are just a few more bits of genetic raw material which may or may not be co-opted for the benefit of the host. Mutations which reactivate pathogenesis are selected against (due to cancer, MS, etc.), but mutations which benefit the host will be selected for.

Conversely, some partially activated retroviruses, retrotransposons, do appear to make many "junk" copies within a genome.[3] This is an ongoing process in living organisms and may be inherited. Like recently acquired (human-only) ERVs, patterns of human retrotransposon variability can be used to look at human lineages. (Retrotransposon copies are some of the genetic elements that give rise to the iconic 'DNA fingerprinting' banding patterns in forensics.) But like ERVs, a subset are shared by multiple species in the same genomic locations and can be used to infer inter-species relationships.[4] Again, nothing says that old retrotransposon copies can't be retrofit for new functions via natural selection.

I don't see the problem you think is posed by host-specific ERV functions. Arguably the burden of 8% viral junk DNA is less problematic if some of that DNA has been co-opted so that it is no longer junk, but functional. An even greater percentage of our genome is made up of randomly replicating junk sequences regardless.

Also, the prediction that I mentioned before is that we will continue to find functions for ERV and that they will not all just be considered "defective" and "containing nonsense mutations". However, if they are all indeed found to be completely functionless, it would make more sense that it is an inactive remnant from an ancestor.

See the above regarding function. Again, why is it either-or? Why do they all need to be completely functionless? I'll make my own prediction, though it may be a while before I can dig up the relevant papers: ERV sequences shared by all primates, all mammals, etc. (and therefore thought to have been acquired by a distant ancestor) will be more likely (on average) to have host functions than ERVs shared by only great apes or those found only in humans (or recently acquired ERVs in any other genus/species). Why: Mutation and natural selection will have had more time to co-opt old ERVs than those incorporated only recently.

Stating this more strongly, comparative genomics would falsify the concept of species descent/modification if resampling different traits (different genes, ERVs, etc.) inferred the same tree no more frequently than when using randomized data. In other words, all noise and no signal would be evidence against shared ancestry.

If ERV is indeed functionless, yes, what you stated would make sense.

More on this below...

The preponderance of genomic sequence data (including ERVs), mtDNA sequence data, karyotypic evidence, and fossil distribution are consistent with a single ancestral tree.

However, as for actual fossil evidence of a common ancestor, it is lacking. As for genetic similarities, if species share morphological similarities, it would make sense that they also share genetic similarities.

This line of reasoning might hold in genes and regulatory elements controlling morphology (e.g., homeobox genes, bone morphogenetic proteins, hedgehog genes, etc., and their promoters), but it cannot logically be extended from morphological features to all genetic sequences in an organism. However, we infer the same ancestral tree regardless of the genetic sequences we examine (whether morphogenic or not).

ERVs are genetic sequences too, and are compared the same way. Presence or absence of an ERV at a particular genome location isn't the only thing to consider. We can compare sequences of shared ERVs at the same genomic location just like we look at shared genes. Bear in mind that regardless of whether an ERV has acquired a host-beneficial function, it will most likely have its own pathogenic genes broken by mutation (a few known examples don't - cancer, MS, causing ERVs). By the chemistry of DNA, there are many, many possible broken sequences and only a few sequences that "work" (pathogenically or otherwise). Even when there is no known beneficial function, ERVs shared by multiple species at the same genomic location all tend to share the same pathogenically inactivating mutations. Probabilistically speaking, there is no a priori reason to expect this without common descent: Any of the many, many possible inactivating mutations would do. However, when we look at retroviral genes at the same genomic position across humans, chimps, and gorillas, we see that they are broken the same way. ERVs at different genomic positions are broken different ways, but each position shares the same inactivating mutations with its cross-species counterparts. Regardless of host-beneficial functions, the most parsimonious explanation for this pattern (accounting for known molecular mechanisms) is that each location's ERV was pathogenically inactivated once in an ancestor. These inactivated copies were then inherited by descendant species. Conversely, convergent evolution of all these inactive ERVs from different initial states is exceedingly unlikely.

I do not believe I said that. I did state: "How about if I find an ERV common to primates (including chimps), but not found in humans?"

I was referring to (and Goat was responding to) post #40 where the 'common to primates' part may've been implied, but it wasn't stated. We read too literally. No biggie.

Incidentally, this seems at odds with your earlier claim that the host-specific functions of some ERVs imply their design. Different human populations have different total numbers of ERVs. While we all have some ERVs in common (including those inherited from our common ancestor), various reproductively isolated human populations have accumulated different ERVs at different positions in their genomes. Just as inter-species ERV distributions make sense in light of evolution, this pattern makes sense in light of virology and population genetics... but not in light of your assertion that ERVs were specifically engineered in the genome. If they're designed to serve a purpose, why do some human populations need different types and numbers of ERVs? Did the Designer continue to tinker after Adam and Eve?

If there are ERV differences in humans, it would not show that humans evolved. It would only either show that a virus infected a certain group or that there would be differences in genotype/phenotype in populations.

True, but within the patterns of isolated HERV acquisition one sees primate evolution writ small. When a lineage of humans shares a unique ERV at a particular genomic position, that ERV shows the same pattern of inactivation across the isolated breeding population. Some human-only ERVs were acquired on the course of the human migrations. Their unique mutations show the same patterns of hierarchical organization among descendant human lineages that we see writ large across ERVs of the great ape genomes.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 79:

>some snipping for brevity and clarity<

The problem is that even a one-celled organism turns out to be far more complex than anything which man has yet built.

That depends on one's perspective. Given a once celled animal is composed of x atoms, I can think of far more complex structures of human origin.

The odds against even the simplest parts of a one-celled animal arising via chance are known to be far beyond astronomical.
Of course, no available amount of time would suffice for trying to overcome those kinds of odds, least of all the piddling four billion years which evolutionists claim as an age of the Earth. You're still looking for an event with odds like 1 to ten to the 167,887 power EVERY YEAR for a billion years, assuming one-celled animals are supposed to have arisen in a billion years.

This doesn't take into account that these one celled animals are likely products of previous evolutionary steps, and that these modifications may be occurring simultaneously.

That's assuming a cell might have developed ala evolutionism over a billion year time span without being destroyed by outside forces as Struss notes. Realistically, the cell would probably have to completely form from scratch in less than one day.

Gross misunderstanding of evolutionary theory.

Aside from the impossible odds, there is another problem just as bad. All versions of abiogenesis require a "pre-biotic soup", a rich amalgam of the major kinds of building blocks required for living cells in the ancient oceans of the world. Such a concentrations of proteins etc. would leave traces in the rocks of those oceans; unfortunately for the evolutionists of which there is no evidence.

Proteins are very unlikely to become fossilized, given their soft composition.

Why do people still believe in evolution when it was disproven over 140 years ago by Louis Pasteur. Pasteur proved that life comes from life, life cannot come from nonlife. Omne vivum e vivo. Evolution requires spontaneous generation in order to have the “first cell�.

Only to those who lack understanding of evolutionary theory. No credible biologist proposes one celled biotics were the first step.

Like Pasteur said in Sorbonne, Paris (1864): “It is dumb, dumb since these experiments were begun several years ago…Never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover from the mortal blow of this simple experiment! “No, there is now no circumstances in which it could be affirmed that microscopic beings come into the world without germs, without parents, similar to themselves.�

It amuses me when theists argue against "spontaneous generation" - when that is exactly what they propose occurs with their god.

...the evolutionist just chooses to believe in what they know to be impossible.

I object to this slur, and find your use of it typical of those who don't understand evolutionary theory - regardless of that theory's accuracy.

The reason that germs become resistant to antibiotics is that they loose DNA and thereby loose what the antibiotic reacted with. This can be by loosing a pump in the cell wall, change a control gene, or loose the enzyme the antibiotic attacked.

Incomplete data may produce incomplete conclusions.

[Grumpy]

sinebender

The golden section

Has nothing to do with the subject, numerology is not science.

I think the evidence you are looking for is the mathematics, the golden triangle, the fibonacci number sequence in how it applied to the human body. Evidence of design.

And then the lead turns into gold.

If you follow the fossils backwards, you find nothing.

You find other fossils all the way back to single cells. There are gaps, but there are also detailed lineages, it's like a long film movie that someone ran over with a lawn mower, if you examine each clip it will give a bit of information about the whole, given enough clips and enough study the clips can be arranged in an order that gives you an idea about what the film was about. Fossils are the clips, the history of life is the movie. The movie can be understood even if not all the frames are recovered(not every fossil is recovered, not every species has an unbroken line of recovered fossils(yet).

there are no intermediate fossils. there are no transitional fossils.

This is just false. Whether by ignorance or intent it is actively promoted by Creationists and is complete garbage as science...





"In the beginning there was Archaeopteryx…" Most combatants in the debate agree that Archaeopteryx is the first bird. Recovered from limestone quarries in southern Germany, Archaeopteryx is a 145 million-year-old, crow-sized skeleton covered in feathers. There is no disputing that Archaeopteryx had feathers, they are clearly preserved along with two of the seven known specimens, and feathers are a distinctly birdie feature. But the skeleton of Archaeopteryx is distinctly non-bird-like with a long bony tail, teeth instead of a beak and claws on the wings. The Birds-Are-Dinosaurs group contend that, if feathers had not been found with Archaeopteryx, it would have been identified as a small dinosaur (in fact the five specimens without feathers had previously been identified as the small dinosaur Compsognathus)."

http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/dinobird/story.htm

Recent articles have Steven J gould(sic) still looking for the hopeful monster.

Stephen Gould
1941-2002

Were these articles from Heaven? Or were the articles about research he is doing in Heaven and written by psychics?

Please find out something about the things you disparage BEFORE you post.

Grumpy

[sinebender]

the golden ratio is not numerology. do your homework before you comment.

Evolution generally requires assumptions which would embarrass a used-car salesman. A list amounting to a small sampler of these would include:
The normal Darwinian version assumes that minute differentials in some capability will drive a multi-thousand generation process of change from one kind of creature to another. In real life, who lives and who dies will be far more powerfully determined by such things as fights, disease, bad luck, volcanic eruptions, floods, predation (in real life, groups of adult predators take what they want, and not just the sickly or unfit...), wars, accidents...
Evolutionists assume that the tiny handful of strange animals which their hundred-year search for intermediate fossils has turned up constitutes a case for evolution. That is plainly idiotic; evolution requires that the vast bulk of all fossils ever found should be intermediate forms and Gould, Eldredge, and numerous other serious paleontologists are now clearly on record to the effect that there are no meaningful intermediate fossils.Evolution assumes that natural selection can select for hoped-for as opposed to real functionality. For instance, in the case of proto-bird, it is supposed to select on the basis of traits which lead towards the hoped-for ability to fly over a period of thousands of generations. It won't. If it selects for anything at all, it will select for traits which are useful NOW, while traits which might be useful a million years down the road will do some sort of a random walk about a mean.
Evolution assumes and requires that, despite an overwhelming neutral and harmful mutations, it is ALWAYS the beneficial mutation which survives and propogates through a population, just as we know from experience that it is always the good which drives out the bad in government work, teaching, academia, politics...
Evolutionists generally assume that categories of evidence which could be interpreted many ways constitute unquestionable proof of evolution. In particular, they invariably assume that the rare fossil records of sequential changes indicate evolution. There is no reason to assume this; using the same logic, a junkyard or museum with Chevrolets from 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958... could be seen as evidence that the 58 Chevy had evolved from the 54 model.

[sinebender]

..the evolutionist just chooses to believe in what they know to be impossible.


I object to this slur, and find your use of it typical of those who don't understand evolutionary theory - regardless of that theory's accuracy.
(WHY?.....it's a quote from Stephen J. GOULD. HE IS YOUR GUY. HE IS THE ONE BEING QUOTED HERE. HE IS THE ONE WHO CLAIMS EVOLUTION HAS NOTHING....THAT HE WOULD 'RATHER BELIEVE IN THE IMPOSSIBLE, THEN TO BELIEVE IN A CREATOR')

It amuses me when theists argue against "spontaneous generation" - when that is exactly what they propose occurs with their god.

(the difference is, you take God out of the equation- your comment shows a complete misunderstanding of the Bible and of the Creator. Christians do not believe in Spontaneous generation. We believe the Big Banger did some Banging)

[otseng]

you have to show that ERV is in other great apes but not in chimps.. that has not been shown to be true.

Even if it is shown, it would be simply explained as a deletion in the chimp line.

At the risk of repeating ad infinitum, here are the list of homo sapien predecessors

Australopithecus robustus
Australopithecus boisei
Homo habilis
Homo georgicus
Homo erectus
Homo ergaster
Homo antecessor
Homo heidelbergensis
Homo sapiens sapiens

What exactly are you claiming with this list of hominids?

You made a claim 'We don't know what the human ancestors were', I just gave you the list of the human ancestors. That is the human LINEAGE. You said we don't know, I just showed we do.

OK, let's look at the list of supposed human ancestors...

Australopithecus (Paranthropus) robustus

Not a human ancestor.

The pair, named Orpheus and Eurydice after the Greek mythological lovers, are 1.5 million to 2 million years old and have been identified as Paranthropus robustus, a hominid line that went extinct about 1 million years ago.

"They are not direct ancestors of modern humans but are more like 'kissing cousins' of our ancestors," Lee Berger said after a news conference, where the pair — discovered in 1994 but revealed only now — were put on public display for the first time.

http://www.trussel.com/prehist/news195.htm

This species, Paranthropus robustus, seems to have died out leaving no descendants.

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permane ... umans6.php

Australopithecus boisei

Not a human ancestor.

Australopithecus aethiopicus, robustus and boisei are known as robust australopithecines, because their skulls in particular are more heavily built. They have never been serious candidates for being direct human ancestors.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/sp ... tml#boisei

Homo habilis

Not a human ancestor.

Debates continue over whether H. habilis is a direct human ancestor, and whether all of the known fossils are properly attributed to the species. However, in 2007, new findings suggest that the two species coexisted and may be separate lineages from a common ancestor instead of H. erectus being descended from H. habilis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_habilis

Meave Leakey, of the Koobi Fora Research Project, who led the discovery team with her daughter, Louise Leakey, said: “Their co-existence makes it unlikely that Homo erectus evolved from Homo habilis. The fact that they stayed separate as individual species for a long time suggests that they had their own ecological niche, thus avoiding direct competition.�

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/s ... 224912.ece

The dates for erectus have become earlier and earlier, while habilis remains have been found in later and later deposits, making a lineage involving habilis ancestral to erectus increasingly unlikely.

http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/homoerectus.htm

Homo georgicus

Dubious if a human ancestor.

it has been suggested that Homo georgicus represents a link between the two (with an age of about 1.8 million years, the remains of H. georgicus date to a period when H. habilis and H. erectus overlapped in time). However, this proposal has not gained acceptance.

For the present, it's fair to say only that H. georgicus represents a new and perplexing twig on the hominid bush.

http://www.macroevolution.net/homo-georgicus.html

Homo erectus

No consensus on classification, ancestry, and progeny.

There is still disagreement on the subject of the classification, ancestry, and progeny of H. erectus, with two major alternative hypotheses: erectus may be another name for Homo ergaster, and therefore the direct ancestor of later hominids such as Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens; or it may be an Asian species distinct from African ergaster.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_erectus

Accordingly, erectus is one of the better-known members of genus Homo, especially in terms of its well-established place in paleoanthropology. This has begun to change, however, and now some question its place in human evolution.

http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/homoerectus.htm

Is possible that it is human.

Those who see erectus as a modern human ancestor, either see the Asian specimens as a dead-end side branch, or see all the ergaster, heidelbergensis, and erectus specimens as belonging to Homo sapiens.

http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/homoerectus.htm

This further implies that H. sapiens and H. erectus are one and the same species which is changing gradually with time, and any species disctinctions made in it are entirely arbitrary and have no biological meaning.

New Scientist May 3, 1984

Homo ergaster

Unsure if it is a human ancestor.

Homo ergaster is one of the more problematic of somewhat accepted species designations currently tossed around in anthropological literature. Each individual researcher that sees ergaster as a valid taxon sees different specimens as belonging or not belonging to the taxon. Many researchers deny any validity to the species at all. On the whole though, most researchers see too little difference between ergaster and erectus to form the basis of a species of the former, separated from the latter. As a general rule of thumb, one can consider most attributed ergaster specimens to be early erectus geographically confined to Africa (however, this is not a hard and fast rule).

http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/homoergaster.htm

Erectus and ergaster cannot both be human ancestors.

Those who accept the validity of ergaster usually consider erectus an evolutionary dead-end that went from Africa into Asia, and went extinct there.

http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/homoerectus.htm

Homo antecessor

There is conflicting views on homo antecessor.

Some sources say that it is not an ancestor of humans.

She has been tentatively identified as a member of a species called Homo antecessor, or “pioneer man�, and lived 300,000 to 400,000 years before any other early humans — or hominins — are known to have reached Western Europe.

These first Europeans, however, are unlikely to have been direct ancestors of Homo sapiens.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/s ... 626645.ece

Neither this view nor Homo antecessor as a species is widely accepted. Many believe that H. antecessor is an ofshoot of Homo ergaster and that it died off without issue, possibly during the glacial periods of 800,000-600,000 years ago.

http://www.christopherseddon.com/2008/1 ... essor.html

Another says that it is actually human.

Homo antecessor is an extinct human species (or subspecies) dating from 1.2 million to 800,000 years ago, that was discovered by Eudald Carbonell, J. L. Arsuaga and J. M. Bermúdez de Castro. H. antecessor is one of the earliest known human varieties in Europe. Various archaeologists and anthropologists have debated how H. antecessor related to other Homo species in Europe, with suggestions that it was an evolutionary link between H. ergaster and H. heidelbergensis, although Richard Klein believes that it was instead a separate species that evolved from H. ergaster.[1] Others[who?] believe that H. antecessor is in fact the same species as H. heidelbergensis, who inhabited Europe from 600,000 to 250,000 years ago in the Pleistocene.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_antecessor

Also, Homo antecessor and Home erectus cannot both be in the human linage:

If the Gran Dolina (Homo antecessor) fossils do represent a new species, the human family tree must be revised. ... In this scenario both Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis are off the line leading to modern humans.

http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/gran.dolina.html


http://100falcons.wordpress.com/2009/06 ... ntecessor/


Homo heidelbergensis

There is also conflicting views on Homo heidelbergensis.

There is not a general agreement at this time as to how Homo heidelbergensis fossils should be classified. Some paleoanthropologists prefer to classify the more recent ones as archaic humans or archaic Homo Sapiens. Likewise, some of the earliest Homo heidelbergensis are classified as Homo antecessor or even late transitional Homo erectus.

http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_1.htm

The status of Homo heidelbergensis as a distinct type of hominid is controversial. Many researchers maintain the facts disallow any clear distinction between Homo erectus and early Homo sapiens. They say that heidelbergensis is simply a name imposed by humans on fossils that should be regarded as transitional and that specimens assigned this name should in fact be regarded as either "late Homo erectus" or "archaic Homo sapiens."

http://www.macroevolution.net/homo-heidelbergensis.html

It could be that Homo heidelbergensis was actually human. And it's interesting that Homo heidelbergensis was actually larger than modern humans.

But because H. heidelbergensis had a larger brain-case — with a typical cranial volume of 1100–1400 cm³ overlapping the 1350 cm³ average of modern humans — and had more advanced tools and behavior, it has been given a separate species classification. The species was tall, 1.8 m (6 ft) on average, and more muscular than modern humans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_heidelbergensis

These digs have uncovered large numbers of tools, along with the evidence of hunting, the use of fire, and burial practices. Homo heidelbergensis may have been one of the first hominids to bury the dead, and archaeologists have also found evidence of other cultural rituals.

Homo heidelbergensis had a larger brain when compared to other hominid species, and a body type which appears to be very similar to that of modern humans, although Homo heidelbergensis was somewhat taller.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-was-homo-h ... gensis.htm

[sinebender]

your bring up archaeopteryx? if we were playing a card game this would be embarrasing. like throwing out a spade when we are playing hearts. You kidding me?
What a joke. In 1861 a fossilized feather was found in the limestone deposits in Solnhofen, Germany, near Eichstatt. It was considered valuable since it reportedly came from the late Jurassic strata- and there were supposed to be birds back then. Soon, another fossil was offered for sale by the owners of the same quarry. It was a bird with feathers with the head and neck missing. The British Museum paid a couple hundred thousand for it. So in 1877, another bird with feathers was offered for sale- and this one looked like it had the head of a small dinosaur. In l985, six leading scientists, including Fred Hoyle, examined the fossil- and found it to be a hoax...another piltdown man so to speak, another Ernst Haeckel manipulation, to further the cause of evolution, because of an embarrassing lack of evidence. I can't wait for you to bring up the gill slits in embryology, or have you got that far yet. You keep saying we creationists don't understand evolutionary thinking......on the contrary, we understand fraud very well.

Like i said, you would rather believe in the impossible rather than what has really happened

[otseng]

in response to....What I want, is not an attack on evolution, which you seem to be continuing, but rather evidence for the positive claim for special creation.

I think the evidence you are looking for is the mathematics, the golden triangle, the fibonacci number sequence in how it applied to the human body. Evidence of design.

Moderator formal warning.

I already gave a general warning not to post things irrelevant to the OP, but you continue to do it. Be reminded that this is against the rules.

4. Stay on the topic of debate. If a topic brings up another issue, start another thread.