On Mon, 29 Jun 1998 21:20:11 -0500, Glenn R. Morton wrote:
[...]
>SJ>Thanks for this. The first point is that this defeats your own
>>view that Adam was an australopithecine or Homo habilis:...
>>who lived 5.5 million years ago:...If fire was only mastered
>>"400,000 years" ago, then clearly this conflicts with the idea that
>>australopithecine or Homo habilis/erectus had the technology to
>>build a three-decker Ark 5 million years before:
GM>>Stephen, you are so silly on these things which is why I have
>>almost ceased reading anything your write.
Because Glenn has "almost ceased reading anything" I "write", I have
resumed addressed my responses to Glenn's posts to the Group.
GM>>I didn't say that fire was only mastered 400 kyr ago. You are
>jumping to conclusions. What I said was that if neanderthal's
>ancestors used fire it is difficult to exclude neanderthal from the
>human race.
I know what Glenn said-I addressed it *later* in the message which
he claims to have deleted unread. I said this was only my "first point".
GM>The first evidence of controlled use of fire is from 1.6 myr ago
>at Swartkrans, SA. Amazingly the only bones found there are
>Australopithecine. And I have mentioned this before and you keep
>forgetting.
Actually I really could not recall Glenn ever mentioning this. But I
checked back on my Reflector mail received for the word
"Swartkrans" and I found that Glenn had posted a few messages
mentioning fire at Swartkrans. But I found no messages from me
debating it. So it seems this is something I had not noticed.
But no matter. The first use of fire "1.6 myr ago" is as much against
Glenn's 5.5 mya Adam/Noah view as the first use of fire 0.4 mya. The
following timescale makes this clear:
---- 400 kya
---------------- 1.6 mya
------------------------------------------------------- 5.5 mya
0....|....1....|....2....|....3....|....4....|....5....|....6
GM>"Interestingly, though, despite the fact that Member 3 has
>produced only australopithecines, it is from here that traces of fire
>are known. These occur in the form of burned stones and bones,
>heated to temperatures typical of campfires. Member 3 times were
>the only point in the early history of the cave at which hominid
>occupation of the cave entrance might have been possible, and this
>might account for the fact that burned objects occur only in that
>member; however, Brain prefers the idea that the introduction of fire
>took place between Member 2 and Member 3 times. As to the fire
>user (for Brain is as reluctant to conclude that a fire maker was
>involved as he is to affirm that the fire was used in cooking), few
>doubt that, despite the lack of fossils, it was the gracile hominid
>ascribed to Homo-- but to what species of Homo?" ~ Ian Tattersall,
>The Fossil Trail >(New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), p.
>202-203
This doesn't support Glenn's claim that "The first evidence of
controlled use of fire is from 1.6 myr ago at Swartkrans, SA.":
Firstly, "Member 3" is the *latest* of the strata, dating from "1.5 to
1.0 myr old":
"Such faunal comparisons suggest that Swartkrans Members 1 and 2
fall into the time range of about 1.9 to 1.6 myr ago, with Member 3
somewhat younger, around 1.5 to 1.0 myr old." (Tattersall I., "The
Fossil Trail," 1995, p201).
Secondly, as Glenn's own quote says, the "As to the fire
user...Brain..." (ie. "C. K. Brain of the Transvaal Museum", who
Tattersall describes as a "leader in" the "renaissance of
australopithecine studies in South Africa), "...is as reluctant to
conclude that a fire maker was involved as he is to affirm that the fire
was used in cooking..." (Tattersall I., "The Fossil Trail,", 1995,
pp199,202)
GM>So maybe my theory isn't as crazy as you continually claim!
I have never claimed Glenn's theory is "crazy", but I find it interesting
that he uses that word of his own theory!
I just think Glenn's 5.5 mya Adam/Noah theory is *wrong*, both
Biblically and scientifically. And I also think you are inconsistent to
destructively criticise Christian apologists like Hugh Ross for
allegedly being out of step with anthropology, when you are more out
of step with anthropology than they are.
>SJ>The second point to make is that if Neandertal man is a totally
>>different line from Homo sapiens, then he (Neandertal) cannot be
>>human in any Biblical sense. The evidence is mounting that
>>Neandertal and Homo sapiens, for all their similarities (which you
>>emphasise), were also profoundly different (which you ignore).
>>Here is the latest:
GM>Ridiculous Stephen and I didn't read the rest of your post.
How does Glenn know that what I said was "Ridiculous" if he "didn't
read the rest of" my "post"?
What Glenn found "ridiculous" was an extract from a recent article
from NATURE, the world's premier scientific journal, which claimed
that because "Humans" (i.e. Homo sapiens) "are...unique among
mammals in lacking facial projection...whereas the face in all other
adult mammals, including Neanderthals, projects to some extent in
front of the braincase" and this is caused uniquely by an "early
reduction in the length of the sphenoid, the central bone of the cranial
base from which the face grows forward", therefore "Neanderthals
and other archaic Homo should be excluded from H. sapiens."
(Lieberman D.E., "Sphenoid shortening and the evolution of modern
human cranial shape," Nature, Vol 393, 14 May 1998, pp158-159)
GM>There are lots of native American tribes which were totally
>wiped out by plague and they have left no descendants. There are
>the Greenland Vikings which also left no descendants since
>everyone in Greenland in 1410 died out or their descendants died
>out due to starvation. Thus the Greenlanders and the Native
>americans were also a separate lineage from us and they left no
>descendants. So I guess they weren't human in a biblical sense
>either.
I don't know what Glenn's argument is here. My post didn't even have
the word "descendant" (or it's cognates) in it! But to answer Glenn's
point, "the Greenland Vikings" and "Native americans" *were* Homo
sapiens. Neandertals were *not*:
Steve
"Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented."
--- Dr. William Provine, Professor of History and Biology, Cornell University.
http://fp.bio.utk.edu/darwin/1998/slides_view/Slide_7.html
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Stephen E (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ sejones@ibm.net
3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Steve.Jones@health.wa.gov.au
Warwick 6024 ->*_,--\_/ Phone +61 8 9448 7439
Perth, West Australia v "Test everything." (1Thess 5:21)
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