I accept that uniqueness in reproduction is a biological fact, and that some traits will seep through while others will be left behind. I don't see a reason to believe why this would contradict any religious or spiritual belief, including Creation. You may call that "random mutations", I prefer to call it genetics. In any event, they give a unique touch on the next generation. We're on the same page at this point, regardless.
A mutation is a term for changes in an organisms genetics and it can occur on different levels up to and including chromosomal.
I'm sure apes have a lot in common with other walking mammals as well. But contradictory evidence points out that apes and humans have different numbers of chromosomes per cell. It would take a drastic change in the course of many years in order for a generation of apes to become a generation of men.
Your right, a one generation leap is drastic – which is why we are not discussing a one generation change and looking at many generations over a large time scale separated by geography with breeding and interbreeding between populations. Also as far as chromosomes go look into the polyploidy of angiosperms and plant speciation (observable and testable) as well as Downs Syndrome and Klinefelter's; examples where chromosomes don’t quite match up.
Scientists found out that it was likely to be a man with medical problems and that you'd find in a human skull. An authority reported in Nature, 1970, that every Neanderthal child's skull studied so far showed signs compatible with severe rickets.
Their assertions are disproven by the mitochondrial DNA evidence which shows them as different from modern humans
It's an interesting find, and in a way contradicts what many evolutionists believe (correct me if I'm wrong) - that man progressed from an ape, and man will continue to progress into something more robust than its current form. As a Creationist, I find this to be a plus rather than a minus in support of my views. I believe that we have been on Earth just about as long as any other creature.
Evolution is not by definition a progressive thing, it is merely favouring the most competitive and best suited organism for a specific niche, in the context of human evolution there were definitely a lot of dead ends of which we are the sole surviving species; in terms of physical robustness and intellect we are probably not entirely unique among homonoids and given different conditions would have been outcompeated.
Two sides to every story.
"It may well be that Homo erectus was a true man, but somewhat degenerate in size and culture, possibly because of inbreeding, poor diet and a hostile environment"
- Henry Morris, 1974
Funny, degenerate in culture – and all from stone tools – I question the assertion given the regional extent of this species and the morphological differences that show up consistently.
I see as much pro-creation support in this finding as I see pro-evolution support, if not more.
How so?
In a 1995 biology text published by Prentice Hall, the two authors state: "At the present time, scientists cannot agree on how many species of Australopithecus there were or whether or not they were the ancestors of human beings."
And that is correct, just like we don’t think that Archaeopterix was the ancestor of true birds – evolution is always taking place and it will usually lead to dead ends (hence extinction), species that go nowhere – it is very likely that from common ancestors a variety of species of early homonoid arose, we certainly have evidence to that effect, this does not disprove evolution it simply puts a context on the fossil record, an important distinction that must be made by any objective observer.
One of the reasons why scientists have debated this is because the Australopithecus findings strongly resemble apes. That doesn't necessarily imply that they are in fact a finding that supports ape > man evolution. For example, the living pygmy chimpanzee walks upright. It doesn't necessarily defy Creation.
But it totally supports evolution.
[qupte]There were many features on this finding that baffled evolutionists: its tiny stature, for starters. It was just as short as "Lucy," the alleged 3.8-million-year-old adult female, who was discovered in Ethiopia. The postcranial skeleton was just as ape-like as "Lucy", who was, according to the evolutionist timeline, two million years older than this 1.8-million-year-old female.[/quote]
There is an uncertainty regarding the age of the Earth - given the Homo habilis finding for example - we found it to be flawed when taken literally. Granted, it is a good tool to give us an idea of the chronological timeline in the occurance of these findings. As you may know, salt is entering the sea much faster than it is escaping it. If this was really happening for billions of years at a similar rate, there would be much more salt in the sea.
Firstly 3,000,000 years is small fried on the canvass of 4,500,000,000 years that we have. Secondly the concept of the residence time for elements, elements cycle through the Earth, it is a dynamic system; salt is being removed from the oceans through halite dissolution, sea-spray at the margins, zeolites on the sea floor etc. at a rate equal to addition, it is in equilibrium – the most obvious proof of this contention is that seawater salinity changes through time are reacting to the amount of freshwater locked up in ice and not continuously being increased, the system is in equilibrium. Furthurmore the addition of salt does not come dominantly from freshwater as the freshwater streams bring in carbonates.
Much about science - especially evolutionary biology - should be accepted as theoretical. I say that because there are always new findings that defy what you were taught to believe. W.B. Provine, an atheistic evolutionist, admits, "Most of what I learned of the field [evolutionary biology] in graduate (1964-68) school is either wrong or significantly changed."
Yes, he is saying that science changes and that the theories to explain the facts adapt and change – the state of knowledge is constantly evolving and wrong ideas are discarded for ones that offer better explanations, biblical literalists see this as an admission of weakness in science I may only venture on the basis that they see their tome as the unchanging truth but to a scientist this is plainly stating what the philosophy of scientific investigation is, it is never going to be the 100% unchangeable truth because the potential to be disproved is inherent to theory; it may require some very extraordinary evidence to do so but it will be possible.
All dating methods assume unproven theories to contend the age of the earth. Due to the contradictory findings, they should not be taken literally. They should be reformed, and I'm sure there are scientists who are working to reform the methods of carbon dating and other timescaling methods as we speak.
Bollocks, our understanding of radioactive decay is rooted in application of physics and mathematics for the theoretical as well as experimental observation; Carbon dating is useless beyond a few thousand years and we use other radioisotopes to calculate ages; results are internally consistent and are applied in economic geology where they yield big payoffs.
My point about Genesis withstanding the test of time is that if Genesis claimed that dinosaurs existed thousands of years before we found the fossils, it would take a leap of faith to believe "the hype." Many skeptics before our time would pound believers for believing something so apparently ridiculous without anything to back it up with.
It doesn’t matter what is claimed, what matters is the evidence; the evidence contradicts a literalist interpretation of genesis.
Yes, there are birds to this day that heavily resemble dinosaurs, and an ID Theorist would surely contend that if not standing dinosaurs, then pterosaurs, were either on the Ark, or they were able to flee the flood by simply flying above it. I have no doubt in my mind that some birds that still exist are heirs of pterosaurs.
Pterasaurs are reptiles, birds are flying dinosaurs – there are big morphological differences between the two that distinguish them (namely the manner of flight, birds with their fused carpals and tarsal bones with flight muscles on a big keel and pterasaurs with their thin membranes and elongate fingers.
Furthurmore your pissing on your own shoes by saying that an "ID theorist" would be using the arc in their argument, since ID proponents constantly try to argue (but have failed in a court of law) that ID is not religion or repackaged creationism. ID is religion; your use of the term in the context of the fantasy tale that is Noah just lets the mask slip.
The evidence leads me directly to the extinction of dinosaurs (and the survival of mankind), climate change, natural disasters, and such. Given that dinosaurs had different genetic makeup, it is possible that they rotted out much quicker than homo sapien remains did.
Human beings and Dinosaurs DID NOT LIVE TOGETHER. That is the first and most obvious flaw in the logic train, secondly while there are obviously differences between Dinosaurs and Mammals we are still made of the same types of organic material and would have decomposed at the same rate. The argument that you are making contradicts taphonomy.
There are many theories out there as to why carnivorous dinosaurs became extinct, as did many plant-eating dinosaurs. Many evolutionists accept the theory that they were eliminated by an asteroid. If this were the case, than why didn't this kill off apes? Better yet, why didn't it affect our health at all? We've seen what the Atomic Bomb can do to genetics, Hiroshima and Nagasaki comes to mind.
Well it didn’t kill off the apes because they didn’t exist then, secondly the Alverez hypothesis has taken a beating recently given that the Chixculub Impact occurred 300,000 years before the K-T Iridium Layer, it was not the impact that occurred when the Dinosaurs went extinct. The current thinking is delving into the micropalaeontological evidence for climate change (reversals in Foraminifera coiling and the like), it is very cool stuff and yields insight into the mechanisms of mass extinction which may help us understand out current, if true, biodiversity crisis.
Did the earth adapt changes that made it incapable for dinosaurs to live on? Surely they weren't the only creatures that became extinct.
That’s right, you ask the logical question; the K-T event saw off a lot of species across many taxa, we lost the ammonites for good, mammals took a beating but pulled through, the Dinosaurs mostly went extinct bar the birds and a lot of gastropods were lost; the evidence is consistent with a period of large scale environmental stress across the entire globe.