The Non-Evolution of Modern Man

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Artists originally drew the neanderthal as a sort of a stooped ape-man. The first skeletons anybody turned up in the Neander valley (Thal in German) were diseased and arthritic; more recent reconstructions show something which was clearly not one of us, but which was not altogether frightening:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/matternes1.gif

The next closest hominid would have been homo erectus, which was visually and almost certainly genetically much further removed from modern humans than neanderthal:

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2004/TECH/science/02/12/coolsc.thickskulls/vert.homo.erectus1.jpg

Thus we always used to see pictures of a sort of an evolutionist chain of being showing a progression of increasingly sophisticated hominids ending with the homo erectus and then the neanderthal, and then modern man.

The assumption was that we had evolved from the neanderthal. But there was always a big mystery as to why nobody ever found evidence of crossbreeding between modern man and the neanderthal despite evidence that the two groups had lived in close proximity for long periods of time in places such as the Levant:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1511/is_n9_v16/ai_17199047

That presents a problem for evolutionists; in order to be descended from something via any process resembling evolution, at some point, you have to be able to interbreed with the something.

Then, starting in the late 1990s, DNA studies began to explain the mystery. Neanderthal DNA was extracted from several specimens and it turned out that neanderthal DNA was about halfway between ours and that of a chimpanzee; that plainly ruled the neanderthal out as a plausible human ancestor since the genetic gulf is simply too wide. We could no more interbreed (and produce offspring) with neanderthals than we could with horses.

http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0020057

This leads to a logical conundrum which evolutionites so far have been unwilling to face. "Too far genetically removed to be descended from" is a transitive relationship. In other words, if the neanderthal is too far removed from us for us to be descended from him and all other hominids are FURTHER removed, then logically we could not be descended from ANY of them.

Scientists who buy into evolution so far have been unwilling to face that one. The claim you read is that we and the neanderthal are COUSINS, both descended from some more remote ancestor, which is usually given as homo Heidelbergensis, a type of late erectus:

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

That's basically like claiming that dogs could not be descended from wolves, and therefore they must have descended directly from fish; it's basically idiotic.

The basic reality is that there is nothing on this planet which modern man could plausibly be descended from via any process resembling evolution.

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[+4] - rosborne979 - 09/02/2009Gunga does have at least one redeeming characteristic; he doesn't curse at people and call them names.

@gungasnake,

Gunga..

Your forgot to mention that modern humans have about 95-98% the same DNA as chimpanzees.

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@parados,

So what?

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@gungasnake,

gungasnake wrote:

...The next closest hominid would have been homo erectus, which was visually and almost certainly genetically much further removed from modern humans than neanderthal:

you may be onto something for once;

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20080906/i/r1296512317.jpg?x=400&y=266&q=85&sig=GdXoK7Dha2qUo870lzdcwg--

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@gungasnake,

Are you unable to do the math?

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@parados,

What math? All we're talking about here really is logic. Ever had a logic course??

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@gungasnake,

Oh.. logic.. like this?

Quote:

Scientists who buy into evolution so far have been unwilling to face that one. The claim you read is that we and the neanderthal are COUSINS, both descended from some more remote ancestor, which is usually given as homo Heidelbergensis, a type of late erectus:

That's basically like claiming that dogs could not be descended from wolves, and therefore they must have descended directly from fish; it's basically idiotic.

Actually it is NOTHING like claiming dogs are descended directly from fish.
You might want to learn about taxonomic classifications.
Saying 2 species descended from an ancestor in the same genus is not the same thing as saying 2 species descended from an ancestor in the same Phylum.

1 Reply

@parados,

Again, what we're talking about here is the fact that the neanderthal is now viewed as too far removed from us to be a direct antecedent and all other hominids are FURTHER removed. How then could we be descended from ANY of them and how is a claim of our being descended from a more remote hominid THAN the neanderthal not idiotic?

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@gungasnake,

Neanderthal is a cousin, not an ancestor. This has been known for some time now I believe (decades). There may also have been cross-breeding between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon, blurring the genetic distinctions.

Our ancestral line extends back millions of years. How is it idiotic to realize that any given ancestor could be further removed than a recent cousin, while realizing that the cousin is not an ancestor?

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@rosborne979,

>Neanderthal is a cousin, not an ancestor....

Take a reading course and then, after you learn to read, take a logic course.

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@gungasnake,

My cousin is not my direct antecedent and our great great grand father is further removed than my cousin so how can we both be descended from my great great grand father?

Your logic is impeccable gunga. I guess you just proved you don't have any relatives.

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@gungasnake,

gungasnake wrote:

>Neanderthal is a cousin, not an ancestor....

Take a reading course and then, after you learn to read, take a logic course.

gungasnake wrote:

The claim you read is that we and the neanderthal are COUSINS, both descended from some more remote ancestor, which is usually given as homo Heidelbergensis, a type of late erectus:

Who needs a reading course? Maybe you should read what YOU wrote gunga before correcting people when they repeat what YOU wrote.

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@gungasnake,

Logic would dictate, from the sheer fact that I, a biological being, am here now, descended from a human being many thousands of years in the past. Of course, there is no evidence this human being ever existed and all I have around me to show for the reproductive efforts of this individual are my family--e.g. "cousins," among others.

Why not, then, could the same be said for the human race as a whole? Is it not logical to conclude we have a racial ancestor deep in the distant past, lost to the fossil record due to the winds of time and decay?

The alternate "hypothesis," if you could even nearly call it that, is that humans popped into existence all of a sudden one day without a preceding natural process causing it, or to put it otherwise, a natural cause. In other words, in this "hypothesis" we were all put here out of thin air by some unknown power. Gungasnake, I say the theory of evolution as it explains our presence on this planet, --which is based on evidence and not just the scribblings of a bunch of uneducated bearded story tellers who existed thousands of years ago when some civilizations lacked even the scientific ability to deduce that the earth is round--is on the order of a million times more probable, sensible, and logical then saying we did not arise through evolutionary processes. Maybe evolutionary theory has its kinks, but then, it is far more a sound proposition than saying we popped into existence out of thin air with no other explanation.

The other explanations? Intelligent design? Creationism? How can you test those and how do they at all account for the fact that observable, predictable, and sometimes replicatable natural processes cause things to happen in this Universe and not some invisible, mysterious magical force that just makes things pop out of thin air. Come on, when's the last time you saw a baby pop out of thin air?

I guess if you did, then we should all start praying.

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@buzongtang,

I think Gunga usually goes more for the "aliens abducted our ancestors and tweaked them genetically and returned them to Earth" theory, rather than the traditional religious fantasy's.

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@buzongtang,

Quote:

Why not, then, could the same be said for the human race as a whole? Is it not logical to conclude we have a racial ancestor deep in the distant past, lost to the fossil record due to the winds of time and decay?

A few of the problems (there are many)...

The Haldane dilemma: it would take trillions of years, not a measly few thousand or few tens or hundreds of thousands.
The increasing body of evidence that dinosaurs, much less human ancestors, are only a few thousands or tens of thousands of years back in the past (e.g. the blood cells and soft tissue found in the trex bone in Montana three summers ago).
The broken link between us and the closest hominid (neanderthal). I.e. the proven inability of the neanderthal to serve as a plausible direct predecessor for modern man and the fact that all other hominids were FURTHER removed from us THAN the neanderthal. That leaves nothing on the planet which we could plausibly be descended from.
The fact that virtually all of the so-called human ancestors below the neanderthal and homo erectus turn out to be frauds of one stripe or another. "Lucy" for instance turns out to be a monkey (David Menton "Lucy, She's No Lady").

I mean, there's (a lot) more, but that should do for starters.

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Fish, insects, and birds are distant cousins, too, but we're not descended from them.

The fact that we have closer cousins from which we are not descended means nothing.

Go get a life, Gunga.

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The problem we have here is that science is a matter of fact: religion is a matter of assertion.
I think Evolution certainly has flaws in it. However It is a neat general theory.
Nothing in the bible states that it is literally true> Jesus didn't argue once that any of the bible was meant to be taken literally.
When religion comes into conflict it always loses: facts are not up for debate.Sorry.

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@Fountofwisdom,

Real science theories (as opposed to evoloserism) do not require being hyped, war-gamed, or re-written every ten years. Evolution is not about science, it's about lifestyles; it's about wanting to feel good about being an idiot.

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@gungasnake,

gungasnake wrote:

Evolution is not about science, it's about lifestyles;

Evolution is a scientific theory which explains the biological systems which we find in nature. It has nothing to do with lifestyles or philosophies.

The only people who think evolution is about "lifestyles" are people who don't understand evolution (such as yourself for example). Or, people who are afraid of something and seek to pin their fear on the object of their own bias.

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@gungasnake,

gungasnake wrote:

This leads to a logical conundrum which evolutionites so far have been unwilling to face. "Too far genetically removed to be descended from" is a transitive relationship. In other words, if the neanderthal is too far removed from us for us to be descended from him and all other hominids are FURTHER removed, then logically we could not be descended from ANY of them.

Not quite: True, all presently living hominids are too far removed for us to be their decendants. (Or for them to be ours.) But according to the standard story of human evolution, we all decended from common ancestors who lived long ago and are now extinct. ("Long ago" means hundreds of thousands of years in the case of the Neanderthals, millions of years in the case of chimpanzees.)

In this scenario, your logical conundrum evaporates.

1 Reply

The Non-Evolution of Modern Man

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