If PC's, like you, accept the radiometric dating, why do you then reject the
radiometric and other dating of the earliest Neanderthals, which you yourself
said might be fully human. The earliest Neanderthal was from 230,000 years
ago from Ehringsdorf, Germany and from Pontnewydd cave, Wales, dated at
225,000 years (See, Stringer and Gamble, _In Search of the Neanderthals,
Thames and Hudson, 1994, p. 66). Either date would place your human
Neanderthal long before the time frame that you are say true humans arose.
And remember that Golan Venus from 330,000 years ago in the Jerusalem
Museum. If that date is correct, then for your view to be true, i.e., a late
creation of Adam, you must ignore the artistic expression of a man PRIOR to,
and more "PRIMITIVE" than Neanderthal.
I wrote:
>>GM>You send him off to the State University. As part of his or her
>undergraduate degree, they have to take a humanities elective. Having heard
>all their lives how evolution can't be true, they are curious to see for
>themselves the strength of the anthropological data and they decide to take
>Physical Anthropology 101, as I did. After learning the following, they
>wonder how good your explanation of how Science and the Bible fit together
>is. Here is what they learn.<<
Stephen replied:
>>Glenn appears to be recounting his own personal story? His conflict
seems to have been acute because presumably he had been reared with strong
YEC views of an Earth that is only 10,000 years old and a Flood that covered
the whole world?<<
I was not raised in a YEC family. My father was never a believe, he hated
Christians. My mother was not sane. I became a YEC in college through the
well-meaning, but misguided efforts of the christians who discipled me.
Their efforts set me up for a major crisis of faith, 20 years later.
Stephen wrote:
>> The same acute degree of conflict between Bible vs science need not occur
with PC.<<
You have already set up that conflict by ignoring the anthropological data
and insisting on a recent creation of Adam.
Stephen wrote:
>>I understand some fire evidence has been re-interpreted as natural
fire? In any event I would not see the use of fire as unusual in a
hominid with emerging intelligence.<<
I thought you didn't want to explain mankind by evolution and yet you have
several times talked about "emerging intelligence". You are inconsistent
here. If you believe that Man was not derived from the ape or ape-man, then
the "intelligence" of those critters has nothing to do with the intelligence
of man.
As to the fire being re-interpreted, I have not heard of this suggestion.
Besides it would be amazing to find that natural fires occurred just where
mankind camped and rarely occurred anywhere else.
I wrote:
>>GM>"Remains of red deer, elephant, an extinct species of rhinoceros,
>mountain goat and wild boar reveal the hut dwellers' tast for
>meat...animals...were hunted rather than scavenged. Shells of
>oysters, mussels and limpets...resources of the sea....little to
>suggest what plant foods were collected...<<
Stephen replied:
>>I presume this is added to disprove YEC's original vegetarianism
theory?<<
No. Since I believe that the flood was prior to this time, the love of meat
in fossil man would require that if the Bible is historically accurate, then
the Flood, and subsequent consent for meat eating occurred before this time.
Stephen, Think about what I am saying in the context of my views.
Stephen wrote:
>> Seriously, primitive art is not necessarily
diagnostic of full humanity.<<
I fear that the evidence means nothing to you. Your belief that your
interpretation is the right one is more important than really matching the
data of science with the data of the Bible.
I wrote:
>>GM> There are two approaches to explaining this data away.<<
Stephen replied:
>>Glenn could have said "explaining the data" without adding the "away"! :-)
The "away" assumes that Glenn infallibly knows that his TE
interpretation is the only right one?<<
Stephen in constructing any worldview, one must do one of two things with a
data point. 1.You either believe it, and incorporate it into the viewpoint,
or 2. You disbelive it and explain why it is not a data point. There is no
third option. In the case of evidence for campsites, 330,000 year old art
etc, your view must explain why those data are not really data against your
view. This is why you keep saying that they are not evidence of "full
humanity" You are explaining the data points away, not incorporating them.
What animal creates statues of itself? Name one. If you can't, then
refusal to see this as a sign of humanity becomes evidence that you don't
WANT to see them as humanity.
I do not assume that I infallibly know that my TE view is the only right one.
I do know, that my view is the only one that can accomodate things like the
recent discovery of the Golan Venus without major alterations or mental
gymnastics to avoid the obviously conclusion that some human, 330,000 years
ago, had enough spiritual awareness to carve a statue of his wife or
girlfriend.
Stephen quoted Erickson:
>>"Man is distinguished by the presence and use of complex symbolism or,
more specifically, of language. While the making of tools and burial
of the dead point to a fairly sophisticated pattern of behavior, it is
language which makes possible the type of relationship with God which
would be experienced by a being created in the image of God. On this
basis, one can correlate the beginning of man in the full biblical
sense with the evidence of a great cultural outburst about 30,000 to
40,000 years ago. The first man is not to be identified with
Neanderthal man, but somewhat later, probably with Cro-Magnon man.
(James W. Murk, "Evidence for a Late Pleistocene Creation of Man,"
Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation 17, no. 2 (June 1965):
37-49).<<
There is no way that a non-written language can be fossilized. This extreme
view of man's behavior would not believe that there is no evidence that a
soul existed until a language was proven. Since the first written language
is from around 3000 B.C. I guess there were no evidence of a soul in man
prior to that time. This inspite of evidence of cities prior to that time.
But as you say, building Nests (homes), even close together, does not
constitute evidence of humanly activity. After all, a home is just a complex
nest. Maybe you're correct. And since the earliest language is Egyptian, I
guess that means that Adam was an Egyptian.
All the quotes you have about language are based on no evidence of a physical
nature. How do you fossilize a spoken language. There are cultures today
which do not produce much in the way of physical artifacts, e.g. the !Kung of
the Kalahari. Reliance of cultural artifacts in this case to define humanity
excludes a prehistoric version of the !Kung.
glenn