AProudLefty (06-17-2021)
AProudLefty (06-17-2021)
Doc Dutch (06-17-2021)
Doc Dutch (06-17-2021)
Well, that doesn’t answer the question.
But the answer is ‘no’. It’s not possible to be objective about interpreting fossils.
Why do I get the idea I’m the only actual skeptic here lol? I don’t claim to know exactly how we got here and I’ve played this game from both sides of the debate. Though I am a Christian I think there’s some merit to the argument that interpreting Genesis limits God in a sense.
The problem with allowing an infinitely omnipotent Being into the equation is that He could play tricks with time, for example. Once I concluded that, I was liberated. I don’t ‘need’ anything to be true because evolution doesn’t prop up my belief system. Nor does it prop up my unbelief. Evolution functions as a hedge against religion and Christianity in particular.
But in my mind they are two totally separate realms of thought. So I’ll sit here and poke holes in it just to entertain myself.
Coup has started. First of many steps. Impeachment will follow ultimately~WB attorney Mark Zaid, January 2017
Acknowledging scientific uncertainty and asking well framed questions is being a skeptic.
Denying evidence right in front of one's face is being a denier.
I have no idea what the precise relationship is between. Austapithicus, Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo sapiens meanderthalis, and Homo sapien sapiens is.
It is an are of active research, and the odds are there was no one simple stepwise evolutionary genealogy, but a mosaic of inbreeding and cross pollination between archaic human subspecies or variants.
But there is not a single reasonable person who could look at the four million year record of archaic human variants leading up to anatomically modern humans, and not be able to recognize evolutionary progression is in play.
Move over, DNA: ancient proteins are starting to reveal humanity’s history
Proteins dating back more than one million years have been extracted from some fossils, and could help to answer some difficult questions about archaic humans.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01986-x
It helps to assume that human evolution has occurred. As pointed out—and as you tacitly conceded, interpreting fossils is a subjective enterprise. If one *assumes* evolution they are more apt to ‘see it’ in the fossils.
I can’t think of another area of science that operates that way.
And it’s not your fault the Australopithecus——> Man sequence is jumbled. Australopithecus was clearly a kind of ape like animal but the rest are quite arguably human. The one real test of speciation is the interfertility test: if a Homo erectus could mate with a Homo sapiens and produce fertile offspring—they are the same species. But that experiment is impossible so we are forced to speculate.
There is *plenty* to be skeptical about with evolution. And it’s broader and more ‘ambitious’ claims would probably be rejected except there’s nothing to replace it with. At least nothing that can be considered given science’s commitment to philosophical naturalism.
Coup has started. First of many steps. Impeachment will follow ultimately~WB attorney Mark Zaid, January 2017
Cypress (06-18-2021)
All areas of science include subjectivity, opinion, and speculation.
Repeatability and self-correction are generally what set science apart from other intellectual endeavors.
Fossils are hard, tangible data. They can be directly observed, measured, compared, tested.
The higgs boson, quarks, and quantum entanglement cannot be observed or even directly detected. No one one has ever seen them. We can only infer their existence by indirect detection and higher mathematics.
I am pretty sure anatomically modern homo sapiens did not overlap in time with homo erectus. To the extent we have homo erectus DNA, it was not by direct procreation, but passed down a genetic pathway through intermediate variants of archaic humans.
I do not see how a reasonable person, using their mental faculties of induction and inference, could possibly look at the four million year record of a progression from archaic human variants up to anatomically modern homo sapiens and still declare that biological evolution is in grave doubt.
Originally Posted by Darth Omar
It helps to assume that human evolution has occurred. As pointed out—and as you tacitly conceded, interpreting fossils is a subjective enterprise. If one *assumes* evolution they are more apt to ‘see it’ in the fossils.
I'm sorry, this is just pathetic. You have no hand. Fold already.
No, it is NOT subjective. Observing relative differences in objects and similarities between them is NOT subjective. Get out a fucking ruler a measure the distance between your big toe and your prehensile tail,
same as a Gibbon's right? That is not subjective.
Religion is inimical to science and that's why you are engaged in a futile attempt at apologetics.
Cypress (06-18-2021)
Theists are fighting a losing battle trying to fit God in the gaps of various and sundry scientific theories.
Those gaps are always closing.
A better question theists could pose, is where did the universe's laws of physics come from? Why does order rather than chaos underlie them? And why is there something rather than nothing?
Those are genuine metaphysical questions, and if I were looking for providential design those are the questions I would ask.
Those are the perennial questions they do ask, but some pervert them and try to shove them in my kids school textbook a la
Kitzenmiller v Dover. (sp?) Yes agreed, they should stick to philosophy.
The relative degree of chaos v order is something I am unconvinced about either way, as to which may predominate.
So I find the fact that there is enough order for us to "know things" and frankly, predict anything let alone
everything, does not suggest a designer in any way. The reasoning becomes circular and unsolvable immediately.
Well if we only knew more we would know more. Why don't we know more? The is not enough order? Therefore there is no god?
The corollary is equally unappealing intellectually. So I file that question in my debate while enjoying adult beverages file.
I'm no longer in philosophy 101 and stopped smoking dope in college.
I will offer this, if there were a god who wished us to know him, he would have hired better advocates on earth.
Cypress (06-20-2021)
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