Thank you for this Jim. He dose mention the differences and he gives a very,
very brief discussion of behavior. I stand corrected. However, Lubenow does
compartmentalize the information. Lubenow has a major contradiction on his
hand in his approach and he skips past the effects of the details when the
details should be discussed
On page 120 he says that Homo erectus is human and should be Homo sapiens.
The implications of this are that classically defined Homo erectus and Homo
sapiens are interfertile. When two races today interbreed, they have
children which are morphologically a mixture of traits.
But then Lubenow says, as you quote,
>"Homo erectus demonstrates a morphological consistency throughout its
>two-million-year history. The fossil record does not show erectus evolving
>from something else or evolving into something else...[A]natomically modern
>Homo sapiens, Neanderthal, archaic Homo sapiens, and Homo erectus all lived as
>contemporaries at one time or another. None of them evolved from a more robust
>to a more gracile condition....[A]ll of the fossils ascribed to the Homo
>habilis category are contemporary with Homo erectus. Thus, Homo habilis not
>only DID not evolve into Homo erectus, it COULD not have evolved into Homo
>erectus."
IF this is true that there are no transitional forms(and I don't believe it
is) then LACK of intermediates is evidence for the LACK of interbreeding,
and thus supports the separate species classification.
So Lubenow must believe that they are capable of interbreeding but it never
happened. But since H. erectus was all over the old world, as was H.
sapiens, then it means that nowhere did amorous passions arise between the
two types. If they were human, then this is highly unlikely. Humans
throughout history have long used rape against those they see as different.
They have even engaged in bestiality. So are we to beleive that NO children
were produced during such behavior? Lubenow's rejection of the transitional
forms, undermines his own assumption that they were the same species. If
they can't interbreed, then they aren't the same species.
He also has what I call the Adamic problem. If H. erectus is human, then he
is a descendant of Adam. So how did the morphological differences arise?
Did a Homo sapiens give birth to a Homo erectus? Did a Homo erectus give
birth to a Homo sapien? If one gradually changed into the other, then that
is evoluton, but then Lubenow says that there are no transitional forms. So
I guess Lubenow believes in macromutationalism.
Lubenow does not discuss these types of issues.
>
>The latest evidence supports Lubenow:
>
>"New dates for the Homo erectus Ngandong, Sambungmacan, and Jigar suggest it
>may have survived until 27 to 53,000 years ago. The dates come from ESR and
>U-series dates of tooth enamel from these sites which have previously proved
>notoriously difficult to date. This late date would put them in the same
>geographical region at the same time, or later than, anatomically modern
>Australian finds. Complaints that they might not be erectus have been
>dismissed by Philip Rightmire (an expert on the species) who says "They are
>unequivocally H. erectus". These dates will remain controversial for a long
>time and will have to be confirmed by other techniques (although Rink and
>Schwarcz are confident in the techniques that they have used successfully at a
>large number of other sites around the globe). However, these dates will prove
>highly problematic for Multiregionalists who believe that the Javanese erectus
>were the ancestors of modern Aborigines." (See Swisher III, C. C., Rink, W.
>J., Anton, S. C., Schwarcz, H. P., Curtis, G. H., Suprijo, A. & Widiasmoro
>(1996) Latest Homo erectus of Java: Potential contemporaneity with Homo
>sapiens in Southeast Asia. Science. 274 (5294). 1870-4.)
>
>
><<Lubenow never discusses the behavior of fossil man>>
>
>See pp. 140 - 143.
>
I don't consider that much of a discussion, though. I view it as only a 1
paragraph discussion of behavior, the next two pages are on the hand ax. I
agree with Lubenow, that Homo erectus is human, but we did evolve from him.
Lubenow give none of the evidence for underground mining, the building of
houses, boats, religious sanctuaries, pavements, clothing, carpentry, spear
making, or processor of plants, among all the ancient hominids. I am
putting all this in a new manuscript.
Nor does he mention art in his index nor the world's oldest intentionally
made representational art work, 1.6 million years old.
So while you are technically correct that he discusses behavior, a 1
paragraph ditty is not much of a discussion.
>While I don't agree with Lubenow on dates (though I remain my usual open
>minded self), he has some compelling insights based on the evidence. And this
>conclusion is incontrovertible no matter where you place the dates:
>
>"As far as we can tell from the fossil record, when humans first appear in the
>fossil record they are already human. It is this abrupt appearance of our
>ancestors in morphologically human form that makes the human fossil record
>compatible with the concept of Special Creation. This fact is evident even
>when the fossils are arranged according to the evolutionist's dates for the
>fossils, although we believe the dating to be grossly in error. In other
>words, even when we accept the evolutionist's dates for the fossils, the
>results to don't support human evolution." [pp. 178-179]
I disagree with you here. Anatomically modern man did not appear suddenly,
and Lubenow is wrong that there are no transitional forms between sapiens
and erectus.
"The entire evolutionary process--the transition from develope Homo
erectus to early archaic Homo sapiens, then, finally, into Homo sapiens
sapiens--does not appear to have occurred rapidly. Rather, it was a slow and
continuous development that took as much as half a million years. For this
reason, it is very hard to draw a clear taxonomic boundary between Homo erectus
and archaic Homo sapiens on the one hand, and between archaic and anatomically
modern Homo sapiens on the other. Both Homo erectus and archaic Homo sapiens
display considerable anatomical variation."~Brian M. Fagan, The Journey From
Eden, (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990), p.60
I am going back to writing now, so you can have the last word.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm