'Missing link' in human history confirmed after long debate

originally posted by: Barcs
No, Kent. If that happened it would debunk evolution. Evolution is the accumulation of small changes. A dog doesn't suddenly turn into a cat. How do you not know this???? This is basic evolution 101.

Proof of evolution would require showing that an organism can change into another organism. But all experiments show that there are particular boundaries that cannot be crossed. For example, bacteria that were claimed to have evolved after exposure to an antibiotic actually returned to baseline expression once the antibiotic was removed:

"...a rapid emergence of resistance and fast reversibility to the non-resistant phenotype when the antibiotic is removed from the medium." (ncbi source)

They originally thought antibiotic resistance was evidence for evolution, but actually it is just amplifying genes that are already present. It turns out these epigenetic alterations are inheritable. Because epigenetic changes during the lifetime of an organism are inheritable, this is actually a demonstration of Lamarckism. So at this point, there is more evidence for Lamarckism than evolution. Scientists untainted by bias are realizing this by now, but it will take a while for the average fan boy and sci(fi)blogs to realize it is a broken theory.

a reply to: cooperton

Please post a paper which demonstrates your opinion.

BTW, still waiting for you to reply to Materials and Methods.

originally posted by: Phantom423
a reply to: cooperton

Please post a paper which demonstrates your opinion.

You can't think for your self? You need the paper gods to tell you?

Lamarck's Theory: If an organism changes during life in order to adapt to its environment, those changes are passed on to its offspring.

This is exactly what we see with epigenetic inheritance

"(epigenetic inheritance) means that a parent's experiences, in the form of epigenetic tags, can be passed down to future generations." source

This is actually what allows antibiotic resistance, not evolution. These inheritable epigenetic alterations have limits because it can only decrease to no expression, or increase as high as the overall equilibrium of the organism would allow. It also works off increasing or decreasing the expression of already existent genes, again demonstrating it is not evolution.

a reply to: cooperton

You ask the same of everyone else. Now it's your turn.

a reply to: cooperton

Sure thing. I didn't know you were the authority in academia of what evidence is acceptable and what is not.

a reply to: cooperton

BTW, Lamarck was one of the first (besides Darwin) to characterize "evolution". His conclusions were wrong. But like Darwin, he had limited technology to explore his hypothesis.

Lamarckism (or Lamarckian inheritance) is the hypothesis that an organism can pass on characteristics that it has acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime to its offspring. It is also known as the inheritance of acquired characteristics or soft inheritance. It is inaccurately[1][2] named after the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829), who incorporated the action of soft inheritance into his evolutionary theories as a supplement to his concept of orthogenesis, a drive towards complexity.

The theory is cited in textbooks to contrast with Darwinism. This paints a false picture of the history of biology, as Lamarck did not originate the idea of soft inheritance, which was known from the classical era onwards, and it was not the primary focus of Lamarck's theory of evolution. Further, in On the Origin of Species (1859), Charles Darwin supported the idea of "use and disuse inheritance", though rejecting other aspects of Lamarck's theory. Many researchers from the 1860s onwards attempted to find evidence for the theory, but these have all been explained away either by other mechanisms such as genetic contamination, or as fraud.

Later, Mendelian genetics supplanted the notion of inheritance of acquired traits, eventually leading to the development of the modern synthesis, and the general abandonment of the Lamarckism in biology.

Despite this, interest in Lamarckism has continued.

en.wikipedia.org...

Lamarck is best known for his Theory of Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics, first presented in 1801 (Darwin's first book dealing with natural selection was published in 1859): If an organism changes during life in order to adapt to its environment, those changes are passed on to its offspring. He said that change is made by what the organisms want or need. For example, Lamarck believed that elephants all used to have short trunks. When there was no food or water that they could reach with their short trunks, they stretched their trunks to reach the water and branches, and their offspring inherited long trunks. Lamarck also said that body parts that are not being used, such as the human appendix and little toes are gradually disappearing. Eventually, people will be born without these parts. Lamarck also believed that evolution happens according to a predetermined plan and that the results have already been decided.

Once again, you rewrite history to suit your agenda. What are you going to do when the Ark and the rest of the crap Ham hawks goes down the sewer?

originally posted by: whereislogic

Cause all the other facts points to A. sediba being 100% ape.

Correction, that is the parts (fossil fragments of bones) that haven't been mixed up with human remains, as explained regarding Homo habilis and A. sediba in the video below starting at 3:06 with the keypoints regarding A. sediba discussed starting at 13:41. Which includes some other supposed evidence other than about the subject of teeth, bipedalism or tool-use that is used to support the claim that this is a singular species that fits "between early humans and their predecessors" rather than "a mixture of human and ape" remains, quoting from what's mentioned at 3:06. The most interesting stuff between 16:00 - 21:12, haven't seen much of the rest after that:

a reply to: whereislogic

Why is it you never post research, only silly dishonest youtube videos?

originally posted by: cooperton

originally posted by: Barcs
No, Kent. If that happened it would debunk evolution. Evolution is the accumulation of small changes. A dog doesn't suddenly turn into a cat. How do you not know this???? This is basic evolution 101.

Proof of evolution would require showing that an organism can change into another organism. But all experiments show that there are particular boundaries that cannot be crossed. For example, bacteria that were claimed to have evolved after exposure to an antibiotic actually returned to baseline expression once the antibiotic was removed:

"...a rapid emergence of resistance and fast reversibility to the non-resistant phenotype when the antibiotic is removed from the medium." (ncbi source)

They originally thought antibiotic resistance was evidence for evolution, but actually it is just amplifying genes that are already present. It turns out these epigenetic alterations are inheritable. Because epigenetic changes during the lifetime of an organism are inheritable, this is actually a demonstration of Lamarckism. So at this point, there is more evidence for Lamarckism than evolution. Scientists untainted by bias are realizing this by now, but it will take a while for the average fan boy and sci(fi)blogs to realize it is a broken theory.

I would like to see experiments demonstrating exactly how supernatural intelligent design supposedly happened. Blood samples, spectrometer readings, a diagram of anatomy or a map showing where exactly I can go to observe divine meddling in action and measure its properties. Can you do that for us? I've seen more research on a ghost hunters episode than most of these anti evolution threads.

Notice it's still called the theory of evolution and not the law of evolution?

That's because it's still theory.

There's no way to recreate results or synthesize such, so they can only theorize about how evolution works.

Even within the same species we have different types of creatures. Look at the k9, they have close to a hundred different types of dog, yet they didn't evolve that way, they were breeding them for that result.

Evolution may be more akin to selective breeding than natural occuring changes. That's what I see anyway.

originally posted by: ADVISOR
Notice it's still called the theory of evolution and not the law of evolution?

That's because it's still theory.

There's no way to recreate results or synthesize such, so they can only theorize about how evolution works.

Even within the same species we have different types of creatures. Look at the k9, they have close to a hundred different types of dog, yet they didn't evolve that way, they were breeding them for that result.

Evolution may be more akin to selective breeding than natural occuring changes. That's what I see anyway.

Do you know the definition of the word "theory"?

a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena

Theory is not a fancy word for fan fiction. You can't just invent a theory and find real world examples to support it. That would be religion.

originally posted by: ADVISOR
Notice it's still called the theory of evolution and not the law of evolution?

That's because it's still theory.

So are you also claiming that biological aren’t made of cells? Because that’s call “cell theory”. No scientific laws at work there. Likewise, Newtonian gravity, plate tectonics... both Scientific Theories as well. Or that pesky one showing that all matter is made of atoms.

There's no way to recreate results or synthesize such, so they can only theorize about how evolution works.

You’re using the layman’s definition of theory, not the scientific definition in this sense. In science, theories make predictions that can be observed and tested. Just like I don’t see any new data demonstrating that our bodies aren’t composed of cells, no data that indicates any alternative hypotheses to test against the THEORY of Gravity or Plate Tectonics.

Unless you’re here with some sexy New data falsifying the MES or any of the other Scientific Theories I’ve
Mentioned?

Even within the same species we have different types of creatures. Look at the k9, they have close to a hundred different types of dog, yet they didn't evolve that way, they were breeding them for that result.

Good example. See, there are still wild dogs in the world and we can track rates of genetic change in wild breeds against the genetics of demosticated breeds and we can go even farther back and test the genetics of the earliest known canine companions to human populations. Testable, observable and independantly reproducable data. Sounds like pretty sound science to me when we can see the mutation rates in real time over the last 20 Ka and Discern between more feral and more domesticated populations based on genetics alone without seeing a single piece organic remains.

Evolution may be more akin to selective breeding than natural occuring changes. That's what I see anyway.

Evolution “MAY” be more akin to selective breeding than naturally occurring changes?

When you begin your thesis with “Evolution MAY...” and your supporting evidence is “that’s how you see it anyway”, it simply shows how little you know about science in general (not grasping the difference between layman’s terminology and using it in place of scientific terminology for example) and your limited understanding of the actual science behind the MES and deciding that how you view the MES and 160 years of investigation doesn’t fit because you see it differently yet don’t use any sort of evidence To actually support your position all while taking a tone of superiority as if you have those awful proponents of evolutionary biology right where you want them by using an argument that’s so week even Kent Hovind, AIG and the ICR don’t even attempt to use it anymore.

Natural selection is a primary mechanism of evolution.

originally posted by: Gargoyle91

Natural selection is a primary mechanism of evolution.

Thanks to the evolution of the human brain and problem solving skills.

originally posted by: Barcs
a reply to: whereislogic

Why is it you never post research, only silly dishonest youtube videos?

Why do you always dismiss (or diss) research and peer reviewed publications by pointing out it happens to be discussed and presented in a video that allows pictures of fossils to be shown and the video to even run in the background so one can possibly multitask (especially upon a second or third hearing)? Because the published articles, papers and research discussed and quoted don't fit your marketing narrative?

a reply to: TzarChasm
Red herring. Quick, quick, let's not talk about evolution anymore, certainly not any details about or evicence why A. sediba might not be best described as "early humans" or a "'Missing link' in human history" or "a 'missing link' in humanity's family tree" as claimed in the news article in the OP. Don't want anyone waking up to or looking into the inconvenient facts that don't support or even contradict that storyline.

Also the reason they aren't addressed or even mentioned in neither the OP's news article nor the paper attached to it nor by anyone else but me in this thread. Gee, I wonder why...

originally posted by: whereislogic

originally posted by: Barcs
a reply to: whereislogic

Why is it you never post research, only silly dishonest youtube videos?

Why do you always dismiss (or diss) research and peer reviewed publications by pointing out it happens to be discussed and presented in a video that allows pictures of fossils to be shown and the video to even run in the background so one can possibly multitask (especially upon a second or third hearing)? Because the published articles, papers and research discussed and quoted don't fit your marketing narrative?

Why do you never refute (or offer a rebuttal) to the evidence (or peer reviewed research) that supports evolution (or modern synthesis)? Why must every sentence (or long paragraph) contain so many tangents (parentheses items useless to the conversation), that make the conversation (discussion / argument) unbearable (especially when trying to talk science) to all of us reading?

talkorigins.org...


On the real, I tried reading your last posts, I just couldn't get past the first lines. Try to be direct and to the point without so many ramblings.

originally posted by: LookingAtMars

...'Missing link' in human history confirmed after long debate

I'm not sure this really is THE missing link. I don't see much proof in the PDF, which is linked in the news article linked above. The fossils they have of these skeletons are interesting.
...
The reconstructed image of Australopithecus sediba is quite attractive

So the evidence (the facts) discussed in the book Contested Bones (details in the video further above) point to the fossils labeled “Australopithecus sediba” actually being a mixture of ape and human remains rather than a single species.

So not a missing link in human history between an apelike creature* and man. *: or an ape, see my comment in the thread Is The Boskop Species of Mankind Evidence Against Evolution? on how to phrase this particular part of the evolutionary storylines or how evolutionists have phrased it in the past.

Some interesting quotations as quoted from that book regarding A.sediba and several other articles from evolutionists that book is quoting from.

“A. sediba has a strange mix of human and australopithecine qualities. Some say that if the various bones had been found separately, they would have been assumed to belong to different species.”29

This was first noted by Steven Churchill, evolutionary paleoanthropologist at Duke University and co-author of a number of the papers published in Science describing Sediba's remains.

Churchill notes, “If we found [the specimens] as separate parts, we'd probably think they came from different species....”He writes “if” we found them as separate parts. Actually, most of the remains were found as separate parts. Only a few of the bones were found in anatomically credible association. The site consisted of a mixed bone bed of many types of different animals; most of the bones were not found physically connected to one another. Thus it is possible that Sediba is not a legitimate species, but may be a mixture of bones from more than one species, as was the case with Habilis (see chapter 8). As we will show, there are multiple lines of evidence supporting this view.

Those details being available in the video entitled: Review of "Contested Bones".
After 16 minutes, see link a couple of comments back.

I could find the first quotation here:
2015 preview: Meet more of your long-lost cousins | New Scientist

originally posted by: whereislogic
Actually, most of the remains were found as separate parts. Only a few of the bones were found in anatomically credible association. The site consisted of a mixed bone bed of many types of different animals; most of the bones were not found physically connected to one another.

They have to misrepresent the data to fit their theory. If there were millions of years of transitional species as proposed by the theory, there would be countless samples to demonstrate it. Yet they have to re-assemble bones, and have yet to find one complete crania of any of these supposed missing links. Think about how many individuals of these theorized missing link species would have lived over the span of millions of years, and how many skeletal remains they would have left behind. Yet we find nothing compelling that this ever actually happened.

People need to sit back and realize how meaningless the theory of evolution is, and stop blindly ignoring all the evidence that suggests it did not happen.

a reply to: cooperton

Yep, they'll continue the tired old argument of Darwin that the fossil record is so sparse that they can't provide the (key) evidence for their storylines. Conveniently referring to it as small gaps in knowledge that will be filled as new evidence is discovered, implying they have some evidence as a basis for their claims anyway even as they acknowledge the (key) evidence is missing. But they won't acknowledge that is actually the only type of evidence that should count as evidence, fossils that indicate a transition between those organisms that are claimed to have an evolutionary relation. So that leaves nothing in terms of fossil evidence if they're conveniently missing from the fossil record. Arguing that every fossil you find represents an organism in transition (perhaps using the term "transitional fossil", "transitional forms", "intermediate forms" or "transitional species") because everything is always evolving is not going to change a damn thing about that situation, it's just playing around with words avoiding and dodging the issue that Darwin adequately described as the major issue to his proposed storyline, and then dismissed with the same excuse: 'oh the fossil record is so sparse and incomplete, maybe we'll find them in the future'. Followed by a bunch of people misrepresenting and misclassifying fossils to pretend they've found them and their collegues contesting their misclassifications while promoting general agnosticism regarding the matter, as if it's not clear that these transitional fossils (fossils that demonstrate a specific transition between specific different kinds of organisms, not a vague everchanging storyline) that would actually count as evidence, are still missing, and they're missing, because they were never there in the first place cause there was no transition of the kinds described in the evolutionary storyline (all its versions that includes bushes and trees as opposing suggested concepts to represent the evolutionary ancestral relations).

Note the interesting quotation in that book "Contested Bones" from the evolutionist David Pilbeam, Professor at Harvard University, curator of Paleoanthropology at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology:

"My reservations concern not so much this book [Richard Leakey's Origins] but the whole subject and methodology of paleoanthropology. But introductory books – or book reviews – are hardly the place to argue that perhaps generations of students of human evolution, including myself, have been flailing about in the dark; that our data base is too sparse, too slippery, for it to be able to mold our theories. Rather, the theories are more statements about us and ideology than about the past. Paleoanthropology reveals more about how humans view themselves than it does about how humans came about. But that is heresy.” - American Scientist 66 (May-June, 1978), pp. 378-379.

Context can be found starting at 11:20 below. A very interesting book review chock-full with relevant research regarding the ape(like)-to-man evolutionary storyline:

"Contested Bones" (Part 1 - Prologue and Chapter 1 "Power of the Paradigm") 1-27-2018 by Paul Giem

Earlier in this comment I referred to the behaviour of "conveniently referring to it [the missing fossil evidence for their evolutionary storyline, any fossil evidence] as small gaps in knowledge that will be filled as new evidence is discovered, implying they have some evidence as a basis for their claims anyway even as they acknowledge the (key) evidence is missing." This is demonstrated in the usage of the word "inference" by the evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould quoted in part/chapter 2 below. The google dictionary says regarding the word "inference":

"a conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning." But in the same sentence where he claims that the lines (branches) drawn in in "the evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks" are based on inference (implying being "on the basis of evidence") he admits that it's "not [based on] the evidence of fossils". But most of those trees are presented as if they are based on the fossil record (they often also appear in magazines or other forms of media about paleoanthropology, not genetics; and drawn according to the proposals of paleoanthropologists, not geneticists), he won't admit to that. See full quotation at 5:06 below (around 3 minutes some things I mentioned earlier concerning Darwin's excuse are discussed in more detail):

The whole expression "gaps in the evidence" (Richard Leakey and David Pilbeam at 17:03) as used in the context of fossil evidence, implies there is other fossil evidence for the proposed transitions (that are constantly under debate as to their details) that is not part of these supposed "gaps", but there isn't and they are contradictory admitting to that, often in the same statements although carefully hidden in a convoluted use of language that I hereby tried to somewhat unravel. So it isn't even a matter of just filling in a few gaps, as the situation is falsely twisted. It is one huge gap, or rather, one huge lack of evidence for any version of any evolutionary storyline that involves one kind of organism evolving into another different kind.

The situation is not much different regarding the so-called genetic 'evidence' (or evidence from genetics). Just as lacking and unreasonable, conveniently twisted and misrepresented to sell a failed philosophy with its origin in religious philosophy, Mother Nature (Gaia)-worship and Pantheism. Also the same behaviour of quickly pointing to the other fields of research if anyone challenges their supposed 'evidence', as in, 'ok, we don't have the evidence, but they do, go look or ask there'.