A bone to pick: Missing link is evolutionists' weakest

Houston Chronical via WorldNetDaily ^ | July 26 | Jeff Farmer

[Tribune7]

Printer-friendly format July 26, 2002, 6:11PM

A bone to pick: Missing link is evolutionists' weakest By JEFF FARMER

It has been said that if anyone wants to see something badly enough, they can see anything, in anything. Such was the case recently, but unlike some ghostly visage of the Madonna in a coffee stain, this was a vision of our ancestral past in the form of one recently discovered prehistoric skull, dubbed Sahelanthropus tchadensis.

Papers across the globe heralded the news with great fanfare. With words like "scientists hailed" and "startling find" sprinkled into the news coverage, who couldn't help but think evolutionists had finally found their holy grail of missing links?

For those of us with more than a passing interest in such topics as, "Where did we come from? And how did we get here?," this recent discovery and its subsequent coverage fall far short of its lofty claims. A healthy criticism is in order.

Practically before the fossil's discoverer, the French paleoanthropologist Michel Brunet, could come out of the heat of a Chadian desert, a number of his evolutionary colleagues had questioned his conclusions.

In spite of the obvious national pride, Brigitte Senut of the Natural History of Paris sees Brunet's skull as probably that of an ancient female gorilla and not the head of man's earliest ancestor. While looking at the same evidence, such as the skull's flattened face and shorter canine teeth, she draws a completely different conclusion.

Of course, one might be inclined to ask why such critiques never seem to get the same front-page coverage? It's also important to point out that throughout history, various species, such as cats, have had varying lengths of canine teeth. That does not make them any closer to evolving into another species.

A Washington Post article goes on to describe this latest fossil as having human-like traits, such as tooth enamel thicker than a chimpanzee's. This apparently indicates that it did not dine exclusively on the fruit diet common to apes. But apes don't dine exclusively on fruit; rather, their diet is supplemented with insects, birds, lizards and even the flesh of monkeys. The article attempted to further link this fossil to humans by stating that it probably walked upright. Never mind the fact that no bones were found below the head! For all we know, it could have had the body of a centaur, but that would hardly stop an overzealous scientist (or reporter) from trying to add a little meat to these skimpy bones. Could it not simply be a primate similar to today's Bonobo? For those not keeping track of their primates, Bonobos (sp. Pan paniscus) are chimpanzee-like creatures found only in the rain forests of Zaire. Their frame is slighter than that of a chimpanzee's and their face does not protrude as much. They also walked upright about 5 percent of the time. Sound familiar?

Whether it is tooth enamel, length of canines or the ability to walk upright, none of these factors makes this recent discovery any more our ancestral candidate than it does a modern-day Bonobo.

So why does every new fossil discovery seem to get crammed into some evolutionary scenario? Isn't it possible to simply find new, yet extinct, species? The answer, of course, is yes; but there is great pressure to prove evolution.

That leads us to perhaps the most troubling and perplexing aspect of this latest evolutionary hoopla. While on one hand sighting the evolutionary importance of this latest discovery, a preponderance of these articles leave the notion that somehow missing links are not all that important any more.

According to Harvard anthropologist Dan Lieberman, missing links are pretty much myths. That might be a convenient conclusion for those who have been unable to prove evolution via the fossil record. Unfortunately for them, links are absolutely essential to evolution. It is impossible for anything to evolve into another without a linear progression of these such links.

The prevailing evolutionary view of minute changes, over millions of years, is wholly inadequate for the explanation of such a critical piece of basic locomotion as the ball-and-socket joint. Until such questions can be resolved, superficial similarities between various species are not going to prove anything. No matter how bad someone wants to see it.

Farmer is a professional artist living in Houston. He can can be contacted via his Web site, www.theglobalzoo.com

[general_re]

I hit the list, but didn't ping anyone.

[moneyrunner]

"It's an integral part of the delusional system: No one can tell you that you are not following the evidence, that your belief system is irrational."

You have to grow up. Calling someone delusional or irrational in the context of a discussion is name calling. It is, to quote Ann Coulter, the equivalent of children calling each other "penis head."

[AnnaZ]

Nope. That's why I asked the queston in the first place.

 

Feel free to enlighten me then, please.

[jwh_Denver]

Hope I made sense.

Very good post. I went to both sites and bookmarked them. I did read all of "No Transitionals" and the conclusion of "29 Evidences critique". I'll read that later. But this is highly unusual that pro evolutionist scientists rule out the "fish analogy" as a way of proving evolution. I just don't ever run into this type of reading on evolution.

I can see you're much more knowledgeble on this subject than I am. What do scientists think they will have to find that in their minds they can prove evolution?

[Aquinasfan]

Brigitte Senut of the Natural History of Paris sees Brunet's skull as probably that of an ancient female gorilla and not the head of man's earliest ancestor.

I can just picture the lab-coat-wearing, pitchfork-carrying scientists storming Brigette's castle office. Kill the heretic!

Too bad they don't print articles like this in the papers here in Boston.

[VadeRetro]

You have to grow up.

You need to wake up.

[VadeRetro]

It's been said better by a recovering delusional anyway:

Morton's Demon.

[PatrickHenry]

Thanks for the ping. I had missed this thread.

[f.Christian]

And religious dogma is not science. If you have noticed, our religious views have evolved over the centuries too.

Culture--bias--ideologies just like smuck-schlock science/evolution does evolve...this is voodoo/mold---MORPHOLOGY!

Truth--science--creation never changes!

First of all---ALWAYS is philosophy...our conception of the universe--reality--humanity and God/theology.

Science and social science are laws/principles of philosophy/reality concerning technical/physical/moral aspects of the dual physical-spiritual(soul) nature of the universe.

Evolution does not rise above an ideology/superstition---a subconscious-DEAD knee jerk attempt only...to form an intelligent explanation of anything real!

More like an urban legend---mass hysteria with a political/financial/social agenda!

Dogs--dogmas---rigor mortis is evolution...anti-PHILOSOPHY-reality/science/Truth---LIFE too!!

[AnnaZ]

From your link here: no global flood ever

 

1.  We would expect to observe a uniform, worldwide blanket of randomly sorted boulders, cobbles, sand, and silt overlain by a layer of clay.  This blanket would overlie any pre-existing geologic record.  Since the Flood allegedly took place a mere 5000 years ago, this evidence should still remain with very little erosion. But this worldwide blanket does not exist.

It all depends on what one expects to see, I guess.

 

from: http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:-52vQFM_9vsC:library.thinkquest.org/10131/geology_visual.html+shells+on+Mt.+everest&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

 

 

A large fossil in the backyard of a house
with a girl standing on it.
Credit: Mahabir Pun

 

There are many big ammonite fossils in the Muktinath area of the Kali Gandaki valley, Nepal at around the elevation of 12,000 ft above sea level. This is one of the proofs that the Himalayas were indeed once under water. For many people who have faith in the Hindu religion, ammonite is one of the many forms of their Lord Vishnu. They keep the fossil in their worship room and worship it.

I think the argument on a lot of these issues has to do with time... i.e. those who believe in a Guiding Hand can understand rapid chaotic influences whereas those who believe in "naturalism" see a vast amount of time needed for things to have resulted in that which we see today. The evolutionist's Miracle Worker is Time.

 

 

pi not being 3...

 

Hidden Codes in the Bible: The Value of Pi by Chuck Missler Koinonia House Ministries

When I was a teenager, I was confronted by a skeptic (a Unitarian, actually) concerning an apparent discrepancy in 1 Kings 7:23. This passage deals with Solomon's Temple and the products of Hiram the Bronzeworker:

And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about. (1 Kings 7:23)

The huge cast bronze basin in 1 Kings 7:23 was 10 cubits (note 1) in diameter and its circumference was 30 cubits, which is mathematically inaccurate. Almost any schoolboy knows that the circumference of a circle is not the diameter times 3, but rather, the diameter times a well-known constant called ("Pi").

The real value of 7r is 3.14159265358979, but is commonly approximated by 22/7.

 This is assumed, by many, to be an "error" in the Old Testament record, and is often presented as a skeptical rebuttal to the "inerrancy" of the Scripture.

How can we say that the Bible is inerrant when it contains such an obvious geometrically incorrect statement? How do we deal with this?

24-Hour Hot Line

It is interesting that whenever we find such a thing, we should simply take it to the Throne and claim the commitment Jesus made His disciples:

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. (John 14:26)

Is this really true? Then why don't we resort to it more often?

In this case, the Lord ultimately brought to our attention some subtleties usually overlooked in the Hebrew text (2). In Hebrew, it reads:

A Spelling Lesson

The common word for circumference is Here, however, the spelling of the word for circumference, (In the text above, each word also has a leading as a conjunction for the masculine singular noun.)

In the Hebrew Bible, the scribes did not alter any text which they felt had been copied incorrectly. Rather, they noted in the margin what they thought the written text should be. The written variation is called a kethiv, and the marginal annotation is called the qere

To the ancient scribes, this was also regarded as a remez, a hint of something deeper. This appears to be the clue to treat the word as a mathematical formula.

Numerical Values

The Hebrew alphabet is alphanumeric: each Hebrew letter also has a numerical value and can be used as a number.

The has a value of 100; the has a value of 6; thus, the normal spelling would yield a numerical value of 106. The addition of the with a value of 5, increases the numerical value to 111. This indicates an adjustment of the ratio 111/ 106, or 31.41509433962 cubits. Assuming that a cubit was 1.5 ft. (3) this 15-foot-wide bowl would have had a circumference of 47.12388980385 feet.

This Hebrew "code" results in 47.12264150943 feet, or an error of less than 15 thousandths of an inch! (This error is 15 times better than the 22/7 estimate that we were accustomed to using in school!) How did they accomplish this? This accuracy would seem to vastly exceed the precision of their instrumentation. How would they know this? How was it encoded into the text?

Implications

Beyond simply these engineering insights of Solomon's day, there are more far-reaching implications of this passage.

1) The Bible is reliable. The "errors" pointed out by skeptics usually derive from misunderstandings or trivial quibbles.

2) The numerical values of the letters are legitimate and apparently can carry significance.

The Hebrew alphabet is alphanumeric: each Hebrew letter also has a numerical value and can be used as a number.

This, in itself, is a major controversy among some. There are some who maintain that the numerical assignments in the Hebrew alphabet were borrowed from the Greek alphabet in a later period, and the influence of Pythagoras, et al. (580-500 B.C.) However, the Babylonians also employed "gematria" (the numerical values of letters and words) during the time of Sargon II. The wall at Khorsabad was supposed to have been built according to the numerical value of Sargon's name. (4) The Hebrew use of an alphanumeric alphabet also predates these assumptions.

 

 

...the earth not being flat...

Did Bible writers believe the earth was flat?

No, this false idea is not taught in Scripture!

Some Bible critics have claimed that Revelation 7:1 assumes a flat earth since the verse refers to angels standing at the "four corners" of the earth. Actually, the reference is to the cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west. Similar terminology is often used today when we speak of the sun's rising and setting, even though the earth, not the sun, is doing the moving. Bible writers used the "language of appearance," just as people always have. Without it, the intended message would be awkward at best and probably not understood clearly. [DD]

In the Old Testament, Job 26:7 explains that the earth is suspended in space, the obvious comparison being with the spherical sun and moon. [DD]

A literal translation of Job 26:10 is "He described a circle upon the face of the waters, until the day and night come to an end." A spherical earth is also described in Isaiah 40:21-22 - "the circle of the earth."

Proverbs 8:27 also suggests a round earth by use of the word circle (e.g., New King James Bible and New American Standard Bible). If you are overlooking the ocean, the horizon appears as a circle. This circle on the horizon is described in Job 26:10. The circle on the face of the waters is one of the proofs that the Greeks used for a spherical earth. Yet here it is recorded in Job, ages before the Greeks discovered it. Job 26:10 indicates that where light terminates, darkness begins. This suggests day and night on a spherical globe. [JSM]

The Hebrew record is the oldest, because Job is one of the oldest books in the Bible. Historians generally [wrongly] credit the Greeks with being the first to suggest a spherical earth. In the sixth century B.C., Pythagoras suggested a spherical earth. [JSM]

Eratosthenes of Alexandria (circa 276 to 194 or 192 B.C.) calcuated the circumference of the earth "within 50 miles of the present estimate." [Encyclopedia Brittanica]

The Greeks also drew meridians and parallels. They identified such areas as the poles, equator, and tropics. This spherical earth concept did not prevail; the Romans drew the earth as a flat disk with oceans around it. [JSM]

The round shape of our planet was a conclusion easily drawn by watching ships disappear over the horizon and also by observing eclipse shadows, and we can assume that such information was well known to New Testament writers. Earth's spherical shape was, of course, also understood by Christopher Columbus. [DD]

The implication of a round earth is seen in the book of Luke, where Jesus described his return, Luke 17:31. Jesus said, "In that day," then in verse 34, "In that night." This is an allusion to light on one side of the globe and darkness on the other simultaneously. [JSM]

"When the Bible touches on scientific subjects, it is entirely accurate." [DD]

Read more...

But, doesn't the Bible refer to "the four corners of the earth." How can a spherical earth have corners? Answer...

Who invented the concept of a flat Earth? Answer...

---

I actually have broken several self-imposed FRules by even posting to you (not you personally... just your "type").

 

I know nothing I write to you will be respected or considered and that I've been added to the 'tard list. Not that I care, really. I just hate to waste what little posting time I have these days. (I'll take a medved and feel like this is info for newbies/the undecided.)

 

Have a nice day!

[PatrickHenry]

I'll jump in, if you don't mind, with just one comment on the "pi problem." If, as you say, the ancient Hebrews were aware of the value of pi, then it should not have been necessary for them to have given any more information than the diameter of the "molten sea." But they felt it necessary to also give the circumfrence, perhaps not realizing that anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of geometry wouldn't need that detail, because with a diameter of ten cubits, the circumfrence was already obvious.

1kings
7:23 And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.

[moneyrunner]

I realize that your posts here are primarily designed to aggravate, but if you are so sure of your position would you not like to persuade?

Childish taunts are the very opposite of persuasive. They often reveal an underlying emotional problem; a need to "get back." It's not healthy.

In any case, may you find what you are looking for. Go in peace.

[Sabertooth]

By now, naturalistic explanations should have earned the privilege of being the default assumption in cases in which we don't know the explanation. Assuming anything else amounts to punting.

Actually, there should be no assumption at all where we don't know the explanation. Nothing is lost by waiting while the answers are gleaned,and a naturalistic explanation is the likely outcome anyway.

Ironically, "naturalistic explanations" are, at their core, a punt, since the question, "What caused or causes nature?" is unanswered. And unanswerable... by science.

A naturalistic explanation for nature would be a tautology.

[f.Christian]

Creation/God...Christianity---secular-govt.-humanism/SCIENCE---CIVILIZATION!

Originally the word liberal meant social conservatives(no govt religion--none) who advocated growth and progress---mostly technological(knowledge being absolute/unchanging)based on law--reality... UNDER GOD---the nature of GOD/man/govt. does not change. These were the Classical liberals...founding fathers-PRINCIPLES---stable/SANE scientific reality/society---industrial progress...moral/social character-values(private/personal) GROWTH!

[medved]

I know nothing I write to you will be respected or considered and that I've been added to the 'tard list. Not that I care, really. I just hate to waste what little posting time I have these days. (I'll take a medved and feel like this is info for newbies/the undecided.)

That's really all you're trying to do here, i.e. put ammunition into the hands of people who will ultimately be fighting these evo wars in courtrooms, school board meetings etc. etc. Ultimately, this is a political issue and will be settled at ballot boxes and in courtrooms. You're not going to educate committed evolutionists.

[Junior]

That's really all you're trying to do here, i.e. put ammunition into the hands of people who will ultimately be fighting these evo wars in courtrooms, school board meetings etc. etc.

I noticed you conspicuously left out the halls of research.

[balrog666]

That's really all you're trying to do here, i.e. put ammunition into the hands of people who will ultimately be fighting these evo wars in courtrooms, school board meetings etc.

Ammunition, huh? Wouldn't information in the form of facts be more useful to everybody?

[Doctor Stochastic]

That's lying for grammar?

[AnnaZ]

If, as you say...

 

But I don't say. I just quote people who I feel are better studied in these issues, in this case Chuck Missler...

 

But they felt it necessary to also give the circumfrence...

 

 ...who deals with the alpha-numeric properties in the piece I posted.

 

Again, it doesn't matter. There are certain people who do not want the Bible to be true. I was one of them, and I know firsthand the hubris. I don't write this to insult you, or your fellow travellers, but just to state that I know the revelation of truth is as much internal as it is brought about by external evidence. "There are none so blind as those who refuse to see". I think an eye must open on the inside first.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Not really. You didn't bring up Nazis.