Posted on 08/25/2014 7:28:24 AM PDT by fishtank
Ah, but then we couldn't run around saying how smart we were, that WE cracked the code, WE figured it out! :)
I agree with you. St. Augustine of Hippo was one of the greatest theologians Christianity has ever produced--he wrote a whole book on the Literal Interpretation of Genesis and sheepishly admitted he was asking more questions than he was answering. He offered competing interpretations and then left it up to others to decide which one was better. I wish we could be so humble today!
Personally I favor the idea that the 6 days describe prehistoric earth and include what we know as the geologic eras. And the Garden of Eden was likely somewhere in the lower Sumerian plain in the Neolithic ca. 6000-4000 BC. I don't believe it's a coincidence that this time and this place are "the Cradle of Civilization".
I read a suggestion that modern humans gained an advantage over Neanderthals because they acquired the ability able to organize themselves into larger social groups. Whereas Neaderthals formed family-based clans of maybe one or two dozen, Cromagnons formed larger groups of fifty to two-hundred members. This gave them two advantages (1) they could apply their greater numbers to the smaller Neanderthal group, and (2) the same political skills which allowed to them hold such larger groups together gave them the ability to execute military strategies beyond a simple free for all. In short, early humans learned to conduct organized warfare with armies.
I know that the German word thal is now spelled tal, but that's no reason for changing the spelling of an historic name.
They were Neanderthals.
Cold weather tends to produce the calories needed to survive from the local fauna. The Inuit diet has been studied and the calories and nutrition they derive from their diet is readily available.
There are many different ideas on what helped to wipe out the Nean. Diet could have been a factor in the form of a virus via food. Like we see today in ebola, sars, etc, any virus that can jump a food chain.
Humans could simply have not been affected as more. Perhaps like the early past with common bacteria helping to wipe out the Injuns here.
What would that agenda be?
I’ve seen plenty of men that were a wooden club and an animal skin away from being a Neandertal.
I have always thought that the passion and conviction that so many have defended the “neanderthal is another species” argument was so much hokum.
I mean, come on, the evidence was slight. The anthropologists that studied bones disagreed, but the DNA fellow claimed it was so, on just a few tests. Now more tests have been done, as the evidence goes the other way.
What was the agenda? I have my suspicions, but no hard evidence, so I will say no more. Think abbout it, if you choose, or not. I could well be mistaken.
Are we not men?
Read all about it in Jean Auel’s ‘Clan of the Cave Bear’ books.
We’ve come to essentially the same conclusions. It’s why all this evolution talk doesn’t phase me. Clearly, we live in a world of enormous order, despite the advantage entropy plays. I worship a God of order, laws and logic.
Wouldn’t lions and tigers be the same species then, or wolves and coyotes?
If they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring they are, by definition, members of the same species.
Actually, several cross-species interbreeding produces fertile offspring. While it does tend to be more rare, there are some hybrid zones producing fertile offspring (like the beefalo) that have caused that biological definition of species to be changed.
They changed the definition????
Why wasn’t I told sooner!
(Thanks though)...
I don’t know about officially official changed, but there is a concept known as the ‘species definition problem’.
Quick pull from wikipedia:
- The species problem is a mixture of difficult related questions that often come up when biologists define the word “species”. Definitions are usually based on how individual organisms reproduce, but biological reality means that a definition that works well for some organisms (e.g., birds) will be useless for others (e.g., bacteria).
- Over two dozen distinct definitions of “species” are in use amongst biologists.
Definition per biology-online:
- (2) An individual belonging to a group of organisms (or the entire group itself) having common characteristics and (usually) are capable of mating with one another to produce fertile offspring. Failing that (for example the Liger) It has to be ecologically and recognisably the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species#Biologists.27_working_definition
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