Glenn wrote:
>If you put it that way, I can't prove that any other person I see is human.
> Just because I see a body with a head balanced on it, does not mean that
>there is a person at home inside that object. But I must reasonably conclude
>that there is, even if they look a little different than me. Similarly, if
>the Homo erectus engaged in woodworking (which only man does) and carried
>around ochre (which only man doe) and harnessed fire (which only man does)
>and manufactured stone tools (which only man does), and had both Broca's and
>Wernicke's areas (which only man does), then I see little difference in
>according him some status of humanity just like I accord you the status of
>humanity.
This is circular reasoning. Let's say I hypothesize that there were non-human
creatures that used fire, engaged in wood working, carried around ochre,
manufactured stone tools and had Broca's and Wernicke's area. How would you
disprove me? You would say, "But only man does these things." I am by no
means convinced that this is true. In fact, I believe that God created hominids
to perform the role of ecological placeholder for human beings while he planted
the Garden and prepared to Create Adam. How do these hominids differ from us?
As Hugh Ross points out, the only Biblical difference between animals and
humans is the ability to have a relationship with God. I would, therefore,
believe that these creatures were human if I found something like, "The
Confessions of Saint UGGistine", but not if I found a simple stone tool. Many
non-primate animals are, after all, capable of amazingly sophisticated behavior
and one can only speculate as to what they might be like if they had hands and
an upright posture. (Consider dolphins.)
Glenn's reasoning is also circular when he says, "only man has Broca's and
Wernicke's Areas". Other primates that everyone would agree are non-human
have areas that are homologous to Broca's Area (and I assume Wernicke's as
well) but these areas aren't called Broca's Area or Wernicke's Area because
these areas are associated with speech, and it is possible to demonstrate
that these primates do not speak.
Glenn Continued:
>You misquote me again. I didn't say 'no assumptions'. I said 'no
>evolutionary assumptions.' There is a big difference. All science makes
>assumptions. And indeed there are no evolutionary assumptions here unless
>you are implying that New Guineans are less than human!
I realized the error immediately after sending the post. Oh, well. Sorry.
I would not agree, by the way, that the New Guineans that are supposed to
have been there 60,000 years ago were fully human in the Biblical sense.
(That their skeletons might have been identical doesn't bother me.)
Glenn continued:
>Why must Ross' PC scenario be the standard against which to judge Stonekings
>work? As admitted by you H. erectus MIGHT be human. And I just cited a
>whole lot of data showing that he engaged in uniquely human activities, so
>why do you hang on to Ross? The date is based upon the dating of deposits in
>which New Guinean fossils are found. The dating method is
>thermoluminescence.
Understand me clearly. I do not say I have no bias. I say that materialists
(and even some Christians) are biased when they evaluate evidence for evolution.
I make no secret that I believe in Hugh Ross's PC scenario and, therefore,
will freely admit to interpreting data in the light of what it would predict.
Glenn continues:
>You misunderstand the Eve hypothesis. Each generation some women, like my
>wife, and her sister, fail to have daughters to pass the mitochrondria on to.
> Thus their lineage has died. As generations go on and various
>mitochrondrial lineages die you get fewer and fewer represented. Eventually
>everyone is from the same lineage. This quote illustrates the same thing
>with paternal lineages.
Sorry, this is exactly my understanding of the Eve hypothesis.
Glenn wrote:
>Actually Stoneking's results make a better case for Ross' view than the
>previous results. Thus if anything his bias was in favor of the direction
>you prefer.
Wrong. Let's say the age was 10,000-80,000 years. Stoneking chooses
60,000 years because to report the full range would make this "shockingly
recent" (quoting Shreeve) estimate unpalatable to the evolutionary community.
The data does give the youngest date so far, but that does not mean that
Stoneking's assumptions favored the youngest possible date.
Glenn also asked:
>To my knowledge no one has ever said what you are saying. Can you provide a
>reference? What they say is that the !Kung appear to be the most logical
>common link between all populations, not that the !Kung themselves are
>extremely diverse.
The subject of another post.
In Christ,
robert van de water
associate researcher
UCLA