Having discussed some of these things with Dean, she is NOT arguing for
language capacity with no language. She is arguing that they did have some
form of language. You are wrong here.
>My comment:
>
>There is a difference between 'religion' and 'religious sense'. H. erectus
>may have performed rituals - but did those rituals have ideologies in the
>same way that religion currently does? I don't know. But I also don't
>think so.
>
>Steven Mithen's Prehistory of the Mind gives a good example of what is
>going through the heads of many evolutionary anthropologists today. He argues
>that with H. erectus, knowledge was context dependent. However, with
>humans, knowledge started to 'flow' across contexts. In sum, we don't
>think like H. erectus.
Mithen does not represent what is going on in the heads of anthropologists
today. He totally ignores any data that contradicts his thesis with nary a
mention of it. See my review of Mithen's book PSCF Dec 1997 p. 273. Mithen
claims that man never worked in bone until the upper paleolithic--wrong(
ivory spear points are found 400 kyr in Spain), claims that there are no
grave goods in any paleolithic burial---wrong. He claims that the oldest
art is 33,000 years old--wrong (Ignores the 70+/- kyr Tata plaque from
Hungary), claims that early man could not make multicomponent tools--wrong
(at Schoningen Germany around 400 kyr ago they made multicomponent tools
i.e. handles for their stone tools)
Mithen's book is rarely referenced in later books.
>Glenn replied:
>
>>Ray, the issue was clouds not CO2 and not the existence of a greenhouse
>effect. Show me why you think the early earth was cloudy! CO2 is not what
>makes the clouds on venus, it is sulfuric acid.
>
>To which I note:
>
>While I admit that the issue of the extent of cloud cover during
>the Archean and Proterozoic is a matter of debate - the driver of the
>greenhouse effect is not. It is carbon dioxide. The atmosphere of
>Venus, for example, is over 90% CO2. That's why the sulfuric acid
>clouds are there. Sulfur rich aerosols have been implicated in
>the formation of clouds on Earth.
No, the sulfuric acid clouds are there because there is sulfur and water in
the atmosphere. THere is no requirment that sulfur accompany CO2.
So are you saying that the earth had clouds of H2SO4 for the first four
billion years? I think the geochemical data would contradict this.
>
>The 'match' between seeing day 4 as a loss of cloud cover during
>the late Archean and Proterozoic may never be resolved on the side
>of science. However, the possibility that the Earth had total
>cloud cover during these epochs has not been ruled out. If anything,
>the arguments that CO2 and other greenhouse gases - such as ammonia and
>methane - explain the 'faint sun paradox' favor the idea that
>the early Earth had total cloud cover.
No, they really don't favor it. Show the pathway. If the clouds were
sulfuric acid that would be inimicable to life and we wouldn't be here.
>
>Note that the phrases discussing 'what the sun, moon and stars do'
>tell us the importance of the epoch and place the observer on the
>surface of the planet. Thus the two tiered pattern is seen in
>day 4.
So, the observer was the first tetrapod? That is when the clouds would have
cleared (at least according to Ross)
>
>My intention is to find a perspective in which individuals can recognize
>that the early chapters of Genesis aesthetically 'match' the evolutionary
>record.
>
>If nothing else, (as you have pointed out) the act of recognition
>differentiates the Genesis 'origin myth' from all other 'origin myths'.
>Through concordism, the Genesis text comes to be seen as a sign of
>the evolutionary record (as well as a sign of God), while the others
>are not.
>
>Also, my pursuit of a 'match' has led me to think of hypotheses in the
>evolutionary sciences that are very different from yours.
>
>For example, I hypothesize that evolutionary psychology may explain
>the evolution of 'human awareness of something beyond nature'. You
>hypothesize that there may be very ancient H. erectus fossils under
>the Mediterranean Sea.
Yes I do hypothesize that.
>
>I see my proposal as consistent with the fact that Christians
>have always taught that humans acknowledge God as part of their very
>being (or nature). I also see my proposal as pertaining to an
>issue that evolutionary psychologists cannot avoid discussing.
>(If not today, then tomorrow.) This is what I mean by 'consilience'.
>Science and the Christian faith, through the perspective of
>art, call one another to mind.
>
>How are any of your hypotheses consistent with what Christians
>have always taught?
Let's see..... THey have always taught a literal creation, a literal Adam,
a literal fall, a literal flood, etc. I think that I am in agreement with
the traditional teaching on Genesis. I don't recall any vision types of
interpretation being advocated until Kurtz in 1857 suggested that Genesis
1 was 7 visions over 7 days.
And I don't recall seeing the doctrine that God is PART of my being. What
Church father taught this?
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
Lots of information on creation/evolution