New Dinosaur Species Found in India

There is no such demarkation as "fully man." Even in the modern human genome there is quite a bit of genetic variation. There would have been a point at which the population that would become human would no longer be able to mate with its contemporaries. It's a population thing, not an individual thing. I wish I could make you understand this.

Perpetual evolution professor placemaker !

No, as being portrayed as the lowest form of human in the line of evolution. Darwin taught that species would evolve upward. By portraying blacks as low man on the totem pole (apparently consistent with Darwinism) they (evolutionary artists) are saying not as highly evolved as whites. Darwin, while he personally did not want them mistreated, provided an open door for racism against whomever even in very the titling of his book The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection , or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. While less racist that some of his followers, Darwin still seemed to believe in the superiority of white Europeans: ""I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit.... The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world."

Still, some of his followers took it even further. Thomas Huxley stated ""No rational man, cognizant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the white man. And if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and our prognathous relative has a fair field and no favour, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried out by thoughts and not by bites." Along those lines, justifying his actions upon evolutionary theory, the world was "blessed" with the likes of Adolf Hitler. Hitler believed that blacks were predominantly ape and Jews were close to full ape. Hitler believed the theory about blacks because of Darwin.

So, while Darwin may have not have been a rabid racist himself, his theory provided perfect soil in which the roots of the most hideous kinds of racism could grow. Before you say the Bible promoted slavery, I would say the Bible really didn't make a judgment call on slavery and certainly never said certain people should be slaves upon racist grounds. In the Jewish law, a certain arrangement was set up for slaves, but also an arrangement where they would be freed. Paul, recognizing the situation at the time in Rome in which slavery was widely practiced encouraged Philemon to free Onesimus, his slave, but did not demand he do so (he did do some serious arm twisting). You can't justify racism based on Scripture. But racist ideas have flourished in a Darwinian atmosphere, and drawings such as the ones we typically see of evolution, reinforce the idea.

Says you. God created man in His image, gave him intelligence and reasoning capabilities unlike any other creature. This makes him FULLY man. I wish I could get YOU to understand that.

There is no single "intelligence" or "reasoning capability." Intelligence and reasoning covers a spectrum from the severely mentally retarded to super geniuses. Which ones were given God's reasoning abilities?

...What's wrong with this scenario: 65+ millions of years ago zillions of dinosaurs roamed the Earth, but something (probably a meteor strike) killed off 99+% of them 65 million years ago. Nonetheless, a few tiny populations of 1-4 different species survived the disaster, and lived in remote (or underwater) areas and had baby dinosaurs and so on until present day, remaining undiscovered (albeit spotted on rare occasions)...

That's approximately the story of the metasequoia (dawn redwood). they were known from cretaceous fossils, but a stand was found in China in the 1940s. http://www.icogitate.com/~tree/dawn.redwood.timeline.ac10.htm

There is no such demarkation as "fully man."

Haven't we all met a few geniuses and retarded folks in our lives? Haven't we all met a few "shaved ape" strongmen and humans more classically built? Which ones are more fully human? How would anyone decide that?

"shaved ape" placemarker

Also, it appears that the agreement seems to be working. Great job Alamo-Girl and PH!!

Not to detract from them, but a lot of the credit goes to the Admin Mod who canned als.

I just finished the "gospel of Thomas" and will go now and read some of the others. That one looked familiar. I might have read it after watching the movie Stigmata.

It was like a notebook of sayings and had recounted a number of Christ's parables and teachings from the Sermon on the Mount along with other sayings which don't comport with the Word. Generally, it did not "ring true" in my Spirit as I read through it - as the Gospels of John, Matthew, Mark and Luke do.

On to the next one!

Adam and Eve (who were created in God's image, not given the fullness of God's intelligence. They weren't gods, so they didn't have the benefit of omniscience). Problems with intelligence and reasoning are a result of degeneration which was the result of the fall.

Which proves my point made earlier. Darwinism has no foundation for placing value upon human life. We are just seen as more highly evolved forms from an original source that happened by chance. There is no foundation, other than human opinion, for any kind of moral judgment and that opinion could vary from place to place and we legitimately would have no foundatin for stating it is wrong. In the Darwinist world, one can NOT say with a rational basis that Bin Laden was evil. One can say I don't like what he did, but his majority rule may say it was perfectly okay.

I just finished the Apocalype of Adam. I recognized it, as I did the gospel of Thomas. So I went to the Pseudepigrapha texts, and sure enough, that is where I first read it!

The Pseudepigrapha however also includes the Midrashic book Life of Adam and Eve which is dated to the first century A.D. That particular book clearly describes Adam and Eve being in Paradise and includes sections which Satan blaming his banishment on Adam, Eve's recounting how it all happened, repentance, etc.

This is quite fascinating - especially the overlapping between the texts of Nag Hammadi and the Pseudepigrapha!

What I also have observed is that, unlike TalkOrigins, creationist websites don't provide links to the 'opposition' or even to the article they are rebuting

I find that telling. If they were confident they were right, they'd post such links.

I know evolutionists believe that the changes occurred gradually. My point was at some point man was fully man. Unless every single creature gained that full manness at the same time, he was mating with something that would have been less (even if it only slightly less) human than he was.

Okay, let's see if I can explain it this way...

First, part of your confusion (in this, and in a lot of other topics in this thread) comes from your insistence on declaring that things must be 100% A or 100% B. The living world is not so black and white. The range of living things is a continuum more often than it's either/or. And not just across time, either -- several people have asked you to ponder the existence of "ring species", but I haven't seen you tackle it yet.

Furthermore, creationists often fail to appreciate the significance of the "nested hierarchies" of living things. It's as incorrect to say that a specific creature must be *either* a human *or* an ape as it is to say that a creature must be *either* a lion *or* a cat. Ponder that one for a moment, and then you'll be ready to understand the point of the essay You Are an Ape. Please read it.

Finally, even if you cling to the view that there's some "required" combination of genetic differences which, as soon as they're acquired, turn a "mere ape" into a "human", *bang*, that still doesn't make the evolution of one into the other a problem, or create any "breeding impossibilities". Here's how it works...

First, keep in mind that even if the "special" combination of genes which make primate DNA be considered human DNA has to all be present before *you'd* finally agree to label the resulting organism "finally human", a creature with only, say, 99% of those genes would still look pretty darned human and not so "classicly" apelike, since it would consist of 99% of the things that "separate" humans from apes. It'd only be missing one little thing out of the full set, so only one part of it would still be "apish" -- for example maybe it'd have more of a protruding brow than most people but all other human characterstics.

The other thing to keep in mind is that any one (or five, or fifty, or...) genetic differences is usually not enough to prevent interbreeding. The genetic differences just "mix and match" in members of the popuation, in the same way that both the blue-eyed gene and the brown-eyed gene swirl through human populations without any big deal.

So now that you've got some of the background, the way in which an "ape" population would evolve into a "human" population is straightforward. At some time a mutation X1 appears in the birth of a member of the population which offers some small advantage by virtue of being a small improvement (which in this example happens to bring the individual slightly closer to the advantages of being "humanlike"). The change is likely to be barely noticeable to those around him, perhaps he stands just slightly more upright, or has a slightly larger brain, or his hands are just a bit more talented, or he can voice a slightly wider range of sounds -- whatever. It's due to a small DNA change within him which just happens, by luck, to make a biochemical improvement to a particular protein in his body in a way that makes some function in his body perform just a touch better than was possible without the change. So, unlike many other mutations in the population, which made no difference, or the ones which caused damage to the functioning of the affected individual and got weeded out by natural selection, the individual who was lucky enough to receive X1 does a little better than the others in his species, and passes on his new X1 gene when he has children.

But wait, you ask, he's a "mutant", wouldn't that prevent him from mating with all the rest of the population since they don't have X1? No, it wouldn't, any more than your brown-eyed gene would prevent you from having children with a blue-eyed man. The "owner" of X1 mates with a woman who has the original form of the gene, call it Q1. Due to ordinary genetics, each of their children will have 2 X1's, or 2 Q1's, or 1 X1 and 1 Q1, by random chance. But because X1 gives a survival boost, more of the children who drew X1's from the genetic deck will have their own children than those who missed out. And so on and so on across generations, causing X1 to become more and more prevalent in the population than the competing "obsolete" Q1. Statistically, eventually X1 will "fix" in the population by virtue of being the only variety of that gene existing in the population, the Q1's having gone extinct when the last few individuals who still had a Q1 either didn't manage to have children, or had children but their children drew X1's from their parents genetic "deck".

So now the whole population is made of individuals with X1 genes and no Q1 genes.

Repeat this process for X2, another gene change which is a step along the road from "apeness" to "humanness". Then for X3, and X4, and... Finally, at some point the population will have genes X1 through X(N-1) out of the N genes which you believe are required to make them "fully human". They already look and behave pretty much entirely human, since they have almost every genetic feature which makes a species human, but you're still unwilling to declare them human because they're missing X(N), the last gene of the set. Okay, fine -- repeat the process I described above about X1 to gene mutation X(N). The first individual which gets that mutation is now "fully human" in your book. Hooray for him. However, he really isn't noticeably different from the other members of his species, since he only varies from them by a single genetic difference. So other than being the guy (or girl) who loses that last tiny remnant of "apeness" which is barely even noticeable in the population (maybe jaws on average protrude just 3% more than his or his offspring will), he has no problem having children with the mate of his choice, because they only differ by a single mutation. And eventually his X(N) gene spreads through the population over the next fifty generations until the old-style Q(N) gene gets replaced by it, and all of his kind are now 100% human instead of 99.9% human as they had been before the X(N) mutation.

And note that all the above is *standard* population genetics, *extremely* well established as ordinary processes which occur all the time in nature. It's not just an "imagine if" story.

Also note that I've simplified it somewhat by implying that, for example, mutation X46 wouldn't happen until mutation X45 had finished "fixing" in the population. Instead, it's just as easy for it to occur and be spreading into the population *while* X45 is in the process of doing so as well, for example. But this just makes the process even *more* likely, not less. There are always multiple sets of alleles floating around in populations without ill effect -- if there weren't we'd all be identical and homozygous clones.

Frankly, though, I don't think we're fully human *yet* -- if nothing else, we really need to get rid of the ape genes we still carry that cause these damned wisdom teeth which fit nicely and were useful in the longer ape jaw but just get jammed up and cause health problems in the rear of our smaller more human jaw. It looks as if we're still waiting for X(N) and haven't quite gotten the "full human" transformation finished just yet...

[vitamin C synthesis].. Something to keep in mind is the original *prediction* of ToE ws that there would be some evidence of the genes needed for ascorbic acid sythesis in those species that can't make it.

Another prediction that turned out to be true.

Reference

Charles Darwin rings up there at the top of my No integrity list.

Why? When did he ever lie, maliciously smear someone he disagreed with, or otherwise act in a way that showed a lack of integrety?

Two things come to mind here. First, I Corintians 13:11, and secondly the old saying, "birds of a feather".
Darwin and integrity in my opinion, just do not belong together at all.
Darwin would be a perfect liberal if there is such a thing. He, if alive today, would no doubt be head honcho for the Aclu and would fight with all his might to eliminate God from America, England and the world.
I could give you a long list as long as your arm as to how he lacked integrity, but you would not understand even one of my reasons I have no doubt whatsoever.

Okay, let's see if I can explain it this way...

First, part of your confusion (in this, and in a lot of other topics in this thread)
Yes, wise master.

comes from your insistence on declaring that things must be 100% A or 100% B.
Oh, like things must be 100% by chance and 100% non-supernatural???

The living world is not so black and white. The range of living things is a continuum more often than it's either/or. And not just across time, either -- several people have asked you to ponder the existence of "ring species", but I haven't seen you tackle it yet.
I already agreed speciation (sp?) takes place. With ring species you still have types of salamander and types of herring gulls. Mutations may have caused them not to be able to breed with one another any more. However, they are still fundamentally gulls.

Furthermore, creationists often fail to appreciate the significance of the "nested hierarchies" of living things.
Assuming there is a nested hierarchy of thing (it's a man made classification based upon his observance, but his observance can often be skewed or distorted), why would such a thing be a problem for creationists? God could have arranged things in groupings as such and reused certain design ideas in the process. It does not mean that everything in that grouping is descended from the same ancestor. That's what evolutionists don't seem to appreciate. Just because there are similarities, does not equal macro evolution. God, being a very very wise individual, likely knew what design features would work the best for the creatures he was creating and created several creatures with similar features (including similar DNA if need be).

It's as incorrect to say that a specific creature must be *either* a human *or* an ape as it is to say that a creature must be *either* a lion *or* a cat. Ponder that one for a moment, and then you'll be ready to understand the point of the essay You Are an Ape. Please read it.
Says YOU. You say it is incorrect. I disagree.

Regarding the article you linked. The Pekinese is a DOG. It was the result of breeding other DOGS. It will never be anything other than a DOG, and it will never produce anything other than other DOGS. NOT Macroevolution.

Part two of the article:> A giraffe has never given birth > to a horse, as far as we know it. An ape has never given birth to a man.

> I will give a million bucks to anyone who can observe an ape giving

> birth to a human. Even your mother, if such were true.

Apes beget apes, and Man is an ape,
which means that a man's mother is also an ape.
Apes have given birth to man
just as birds beget ducks
cetaceans beget dolphins
and canids beget dogs.

Saying man is an ape does not make it so. A group of bonehead scientists getting in a room and saying he is an ape doesn't make it so. God called him MAN. He is a man.

The rest of the article is a bunch of statements about how modern man classifies man that proves zilch. To that I would answer...

You are a HUMAN.

You were created in the image of God with a spirit and a soul and an ability to discern right from wrong.
You are a man. You were created with an intelligence that exceeds any human being, and intelligence which allows you to create or destroy, to write poetry or music, to make machines, tools, and things which can make life better or worse.

You are a man, you were created with a yearning to know more, to explore, or to just be true to yourself. You know the difference.

You are a man. You are capable of sin, and of acting righteously. You make laws based upon the standards of your Creator and have a basis for valuing each human life within His law.

You are a man, you build buildings to shelter yourself, make clothing to clothe yourself, grow and hunt food to feed yourself, and if you are fortunate, you surround yourself with others who love and cherish you as well.

You are man. You organize, theorize, legitimize, ostracize, idealize, and energize. You have emotions, you have whit, you have creativity, you have imagination. You are built and designed to be the person that God created you to be, in spite of the fall and you are loved by the Creator who made you and died to bring you closer to Him. You may try to theorize Him away, or just innocently explain things without use of mentioning His activity, but you can not be rid of Him and He is ever watching You, drawing You, calling You, and loving You. While He loves all of His creation and will one day cause their groaning to cease, He loves you most of all- for you are man, His special treasure, His jewel, the one He sent His Son to redeem, and the one He wants to save. Oh, you may claim to be something less than what you are, but it will not change the person that God created you to be. No, you are not an ape. You are created in God's image and are precious in His sight. You are man.

As to the rest of your post. Icheneumon, I have already stated that there can be a ton of variation within a species, but not the kind evolution requires. Dogs are dogs. Cats are cats. Fish are fish. Plants are plants. And human beings are human beings.

Incidentally, just because the wisdom teeth don't appear to quite fit- how does that mean they came from an ape mouth? There were giants in the days of Noah. We were probably just bigger back then before the climactic change of the flood.

I can understand your misunderstanding from the post which you quoted. I know evolutionists believe that the changes occurred gradually. My point was at some point man was fully man.

I would say that there are people walking around now, dressed in shirts and jeans, that are not fully human. A few examples are; Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy and the 2 guys who killed Jesse Dirkhising. So I don't believe we've reached the point yet where we're all fully human.