On Wed, 25 Sep 1996 22:07:48, Glenn Morton wrote:
SJ>None of this supports Glenn's view that this was in any sense a
>developed member of the genus Homo. Even at 4.2 mya, *1.3 million
>years after* Glenn's putative 5.5 million-year old Adam, this would
>still be only "early members of genus Homo". I therefore stand by
>what I said: "Glenn...claims that Adam was a 5.5 million-year old
>Homo habilis, without a scrap of scientific or Biblical evidence!
>There is *not one* scientific authority anywhere who believes that
>Homo habilis existed 5.5 million years ago".
GM>Stephen: Sophistry is unbecoming you.
Agreed. That's why I don't use it! :-) What I have written above is
the plain, unvarnished truth. The fact that Glenn has to resort to
bluster and ad hominem remarks rather than face the facts, merely
underscores the weakness of his argument.
SJ>Even if we grant the facts that Glenn cites in his "Early Man
>(Hopmo) at 4.2 myr" post , namely: 1. the hominid to which the
>fossilised lower left humeral fragment known as KNM-KP 271 belonged,
>had an upper arm similar to Homo sapiens; and 2. it lived 4.2
>million years ago; it does not not support Glenn's theory that Adam
>was a "Homo habilis" who "existed 5.5 million years ago". Apart
>from a huge 1.3 million year gap, all it would show is that an
>unknown hominoid had an upper arm similar in shape to modern man.
>Glenn seems to be claiming that if a homoinoid had one part of a
>bone that was similar to modern man, then the rest of its body and
>brain must also be similar to modern man?
GM>At one time you told me that I could not find evidence that Homo
>lived prior to around 2 million years. Here I go out and find that
>evidence and how you move the bar. Shame, shame.
There is no "shame" for three reasons:
1. AFAIK I never said that Glenn "could not find evidence that Homo
lived prior to around 2 million years". I have done a search through
my old mail for the words "2 million years" and I cannot find where I
ever said anything like that. I did find an instance of another
Reflectorite saying something like it, so perhaps Glenn is getting
me mixed up with someone else? If Glenn persists in his claimn that I
said that he "could not find evidence that Homo lived prior to
around 2 million years", then perhaps he would be kind enough to post
it?
2. Even if I did say it (which AFAIK I didn't) how does that help
Glenn's argument? Whether I was right or wrong, whether I am using
"sophistry" or not, whether I am guilty of "shame" or not, does not
advance Glenn's argument *one iota*.
3. I granted that *if* this 4.2 mya Kanapoi humerus fragment was
early Homo (which I am not conceding it is, since many
anthropologists don't), then it still doesn't help Glenn's claim that
Adam was an early Homo who lived 5.5 mya. Unless Adam was specially
created, he would have had a long line of ancestors, advancing in
morphology, culture and technology, reaching back millions of years
before the in-filling of the Mediterranean 5.5 mya. There is *no*
evidence for this, and indeed the evidence is of a *beginning* of
development in morphology from perhaps 4 mya (eg. bipedalism, brain
size, etc) and then later of culture and technology *beginning*
after this, at perhaps 3 mya..
Unless Glenn can come up with some evidence that a fairly advanced
form of the genus Homo existed *5.5 million years ago (not just in
some aspects of bone morphology, but in culture and intelligence),
then his theory is not worth wasting any more Reflectorite bandwidth
on.
God bless.
Steve
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