[...]
>
> An enigma is something you CAN'T EXPLAIN with current knowledge.
>That's what the experts say about all this. And current knowledge, when it is
>locked into an evolutionary framework, is certainly not going to be able to
>move to what really happened:
>
> "In all evolution there is no transformation, no 'quantum leap,' to
>compare with this one. Never before has the life-style of a species, its way
>of adapting, changed so utterly and so swiftly. For some fifteen million years
>members of the family of man foraged as animals among animals. The pace of
>events since then has been explosive...an instant on the evolutionary time
>scale." [Pfeiffer, The Emergence of Society, pp. 28-29]
>
> How to explain this explosion? Special creation. Any other view either
>skews the physical evidence, or skews the Bible, or both. I'm not willing to
>do either.
>
Thanks to Jim for posting this review of Shamanism. Despite my unease
at developing criteria for establishing "humanity" I think this is certainly
something very interesting and worthy of some discussion.
It seems to me that Jims argument has two aspects, (1) some criteria
for "human" (2) some time scale over which this criteria became
established. So Jim is arguing not just for the existence of a unique
something we call "humanity" but also that this unique something
was specially created. Several brief (I hope :) comments:
a) The argument seems to have changed somewhat from that involved
with tool making. Tool making would have to be considered an innovation,
so to be consistent with the arguments in this post it seems to me that
the key is not how long tool making was in a static condition but rather
how rapidly tool making appeared. Anyone know what the time-frame was?
b) How fast is fast? If we concede that the appearance of Shaman art occurred
in an instant on an evolutionary time scale, how long did it take on a special
creationary time scale?
c) What exactly is meant by "evolutionary time scale". I can see two
possibilities: (1) a time scale associated with the actual historical
record of evolution (fact of evolution), i.e. associated with observations
based on the fossil record etc. (2) a time scale associated with a particular
theory of evolution , i.e. orthodox neo-darwinistic gradualism. In other
words, in this interpretation we say things like "wow I don't think this
could have happened according to Darwinistic mechanisms because
these take a long time"
I suspect that (1) is being used in the Pfeiffer quote above, but that
Jim may be basing his argument for special creation on (2).
Brian Harper
Associate Professor
Applied Mechanics
Ohio State University