Which of these are human? 
You can tell a human being from a rodent, right?
Posted on 01/30/2006 10:27:35 PM PST by Sweetjustusnow
The two scariest words in the English language? Intelligent Design! That phrase tends to produce a nasty rash and night sweats among our elitist class.
Should some impressionable teenager ever hear those words from a public school teacher, we are led to believe, that student may embrace a secular heresy: that some intelligent force or energy, maybe even a god, rather than Darwinian blind chance, has been responsible for the gazillions of magnificently designed life forms that populate our privileged planet.
How did they get the DNA from the distant ape-like common ancestor?
This little "organized matter performing specific functions" bit is your bizarre little feat of illogic. I've already explained multiple times why there is a vast logical chasm between observing a fact of nature one the one hand and attributing it to a cause on the other, when there is no causal connection between the two. You can steal a base in baseball, not in science.
And I what I was saying by "Everyone knows that this 'intelligent designer' is supposed to be Jehovah." was explaining that one of the reasons ID is inherently supernatural is that the originators and adherents of ID lie and say that they aren't concerned with the identity of this supposed intelligent designer (that's so they can violate the Constitution but get away with it.), but everyone with a brain, an ounce of reason, and the functional ability to read knows that they are all talking about the particular god that they believe exists. Since most all of them are radical Christians, that would be Jehovah (Unless you prefer to call him Jesus or Allah or some other damned thing.)
How is it that intelligent design cannot take place by means of natural laws?
If it were so, then the study of those laws would be science, but the inference that they were the creation of this god would be religion, because the god inference, itself, is untestable.
The only thing "untestable" about it is that one perhaps may not directly observe the intelligent designer. Science makes inferences all the time, without directly observing this or that force of nature.
Wrong. As soon as we posit an entity that exists beyond the strictures of nature, then science has no ability to say anything about that entity, because there is no way to determine, test or predict anything about that entity, because science can only deal with nature. The entity which, by definition, exists beyond nature, is not thereby bound by nature, and therefore cannot be bound by that which science can, by its nature observe and use.
If the entity need not abide by the laws of nature, then no experiment can say anything about the entity because there is no way to account for the possibility of the entity avoiding the experiment. If the entity is bound by the natural laws, then the experiment cannot say anything about the entity because it can only detect the natural laws.
And to the extent that science observes things indirectly, it is not supernatural things which they are being observed. It is parts of the natural world which cannot now be examined otherwise, which are examined in this fashion. The posited "intelligent designer" is, by the premise of ID, not of nature.
It is plainly apparent that you would rather discard the evidence than entertain the possibility that it points to an intelligent designer. Your dismissal of the evidence is not due to scientific veracity, but your own preconceived bias.
The only bias I have is a bias in favor of the scientific method and in true science. If you want to mix science and religion, that is your problem. But don't expect me to pat you on the head and tell you it is okay to do so.
Any stage of development. The minute that egg is fertilised it has a unique genetic code that distinguishes it from other humans. As long as it is growing, it is alive. Why should the issue of what stage of that persons life he is in at the moment be the deterimining factor of whether or not he is human? He is not any less human at two minutes from conception than at 90 years. It's still the same person, it's just a matter of age and age is a pretty poor criteria for determining a person's humanity.
"You appear to expect humans to wear a bar code defining them as either human or not human. Biology isn't like that. Categories are fuzzy."
Raw logic rarely applies in science. Intelligent design is not a proof. An intelligent cause for organized matter is merely a reasonable inference. That is why the proponents of intelligent design state their case in a qualified manner, saying the presence of organized matter that performs speicific functions may best be explained by intelligent design. It is a general statement and shaping principle that has guided western science for centuries, and guides it to this day.
You have not demonstrated in the least why the presence of organized matter performing specific functions, when understood as a product of intelligent design, must ipso facto be rendered supernatural and therefore beyond the realm of science. You've only demonstrated a self-chosen bias that in and of itself determines how you interpret the evidence. I hope you don't think yourself more "scientific" on that account, but you probably do.
Which of these are human?
You can tell a human being from a rodent, right?
If science cannot define a human, then how do you know if a fossil was from a human or not? There must be scientific parameters that are used. I just am having trouble finding out what they are? Language, brain size, DNA? Help me out here.
They didn't need to. Your question has no bearing on how the ERV evidence works.
Of course it doesn't because that would require answers which you don't have.
'Human', like any biological category, is fuzzy. If we find a specimen of Homo habilis, we can determine from the bone morphology that it's a hominid, but we need measurements of the brain case and other bones to decide on the classification. And, of course, like all fuzzy classifications, biologists disagree. Some like to create a new species for every fossil, others are 'lumpers'. But what they'll probably all agree on is the fossil is close to the direct lineage of modern humans.
So humanity is determined by apperance? Is a wax figure human? You know that the genetic information contained in those cells determines what kind of creature it is. If any of those embryos were grown in an environment other than the mother, it still would grow into the creature that the genes determine not the environment.
Militant smirking ignorance placemarker
The original debate was over how you determine what is human. You're saying, practically speaking, you can't, since I presume you're neither adept at DNA sequencing nor implantation, and implantation is a low-probability event anyway. And a mere 30 years ago, no one would have been able to.
I don't wish to deny you or Ichy the right to your beliefs, but I demand that you recognize the difference between a biased view, and evidence.
The Australopithecines
Humans, apes, and monkeys are members of the Order Primates. Under evolution, all primates are related and the chimpanzee is the closest living relative to humans, and humans are descended from a common ancestor they shared with chimpanzees (see Figure 3). There is essentially no fossil evidence of the supposed evolutionary ancestors of chimpanzees and other living apes,2 however there are some species believed by evolutionists to be ancestors, or close relatives of the ancestors of humans. The majority of "hominid" fossils have been divided into two taxonomic categories: the genus Australopithecus and the genus Homo (which includes our species, Homo sapiens).
Australopithecines (literally meaning "southern ape") are a genus of extinct hominids that lived in eastern Africa (see Figure 4) from about 4.2 million years ago (Ma) until about 1 Ma.10 Some evolutionists think they are ancestral to humans (see Figure 9), however it has also been argued they are a "side-branch" of the line that led to humans, and not direct human ancestors.12 The four most common species are Australopithecus afarensis, Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus robustus, and Australopithecus boisei.13 The two smaller and "gracile" forms, africanus and afarensis (the species which includes the famous fossil "Lucy", see Figure 5) are thought by evolutionists to be those most closely related to humans (see Figure 9).
Australopithecines stood about 1-1.5 m in height and had relatively small brains between 370 and 515 cubic cm (cc)14, 15--a range that extends only slightly beyond the brain size of a chimpanzee (see Table 1). Though there are fossils creating a general grade of increasing skull sizes from Australopithecus into modern Homo, the fossil record indicates that about 2 Ma, skull sizes began a "dramatic trajectory" that ultimately resulted in an "approximate doubling in brain size."14 This "rapid evolution" is not uncommon with regards to the origins of characteristics of the genus Homo.
The australopithecine mode of locomotion has been a point of controversy. Many evolutionists believe they were "bipedal" (i.e. walked on two legs). Early studies thought the pelvis of australopithecines was a clear-cut precursor to Homo-like bipedality,16 while many later studies of australopithecine locomotion found it to be different from that of modern apes, but also very different from that of humans--a distinct mode of locomotion.12, 17 One study found sharp differences between the pelvic bones of australopithecines and Homo, and, lacking intermediate fossils, proposed a period of "very rapid evolution corresponding to the emergence of the genus Homo."18 Other recent studies have found that the handbones of Lucy are similar to those of a knucklewalking ape,19, 20 and that their inner ear canals, responsible for balance and related to locomotion, resemble small inner-ear canals of the great apes rather than larger canals found in humans and other members of the genus Homo.21 The most common consensus is that australopithecines were adapted for both tree-climbing and at least semi-upright walking,25 walking differently from humans and living apes.50
However, australopithecines were apes and were very different from humans. One reviewer said that ecologically speaking, australopithecines "may still be considered as apes."23 Harvard paleoanthropologist William Howells mentioned that the arboreal bipedalism of Lucy was "successful in serving Lucy's purposes," but "not something simply transitional"50 to the locomotion of modern humans. These are important clues as to whether or not australopithecines were fully bipedal hominids and ancestral to humans.
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1146
I see why it would be difficult to define humans.
Good.
You are wrong. Good day.
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