Why this question?
Why? Why couldnât cognitive skills develop gradually over 5 million years?
You are quoting me out of context. Please, reread the exchanges I had with @Rumraket and you will understand the point.
Because your comment suggested Neanderthals are needed to bridge that cognitive gap when there are earlier species that do that just fine.
No, my comment didnât suggest that, not at all. My point was that evolutionary theory need to posit the existence of bridging species between some type of australopithecine ape and modern humans and that these at least some of these bridging species had to be cognitively inferior to modern humans. And it happens that at the time of their discovery, Neanderthals were indeed seen as a bridging species with lower cognitive capacities. Granted, this view is not hold anymore. But the fact remains that such bridging species are a requirement of evolutionary theory, even if as of today, they remain elusive.
Ok. So what is the issue you are having?
Are you claiming that Homo erectus was at the same cognitive level as modern humans? If so, I would like to see that evidence.
Your confusion seems to be mounting. You still havenât shown that the reason why paleontologists infer lower cognitive capacities of various discovered hominid fossils is because of some requirement of evolution, as opposed to just straightforward inferences from the actual evidence. It still very much looks like this is what youâre doing: Pretending that if and when paleontologists are doing that, it is simply to conform to some ârequirementâ instead of just inferring it from physical evidence such as anatomy, technology, culture and so on.
Of course, the conclusion that human intelligence itself is a product of evolution is an inference from evidence too. Primates are generally among the most intelligent species known on the planet(certainly among mammals at least), and among the primates, the great apes appear to be more intelligent than the rest, and among the great apes, humans appear to be most intelligent.
These ideas arenât just invented in some dream, theyâre implied by that very evidence just described. In that vein, it is interesting to note that there are also transitional hominini species that exhibit various degrees of those markers of intelligence on can infer from fossils and achaeology: Body anatomy (especially cranial), technology, social structure, diet, culture/arts and so on. It is fatuous to insist evidence for the gradual evolution of human intelligence remains âelusiveâ. Take your blinders off.
I mean what is next here, do you doubt actual human history too? Were there the bronze or stone ages in your reality or did the 20th century just sort of pop into existence?
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I thought that this latest blog by Todd Woods relevant to the discussion, presented from his usual YEC with a dash of nuance position. He places Neanderthals in the fully human camp, but is not so sure of other hominins.
âŠopinions about Neandertals in the early twentieth century perceived them as animalistic brutes that were barely more advanced than gorillas. Ralph Soleckiâs discoveries at Shanidar cave (see the aforementioned Nandy) made people rethink things. Thereâs still a lot of discussion of just how âadvancedâ Neandertals were, but I canât think of anyone who looks at Neandertals as no more clever than gorillas. More recently, discoveries have challenged the sort of linear view of human evolution that assumed (based on ecology) that there could only be one hominin species alive at any one time. If there were two hominin species alive at the same time, they would compete, and one species would drive the other to extinction. Genetic evidence of interbreeding with Neandertals indicate that Neandertals and humans did not always fight to the death when they met. The discoveries at Flores (mentioned above) and Rising Star ( Homo naledi ) both reveal hominins different from Homo sapiens that exhibit impressively human-like behaviors (sea faring in the case of the Philippines, and burial of the dead in the case of H. naledi ) at the same time on the conventional timescale that Homo sapiens existed or could have existed.
To a theologian on the subject of hominins
I think you are fooling yourself. Maybe this quote from Contested Bones could make you see whatâs going on:
Evidence does not « speak for itself ». All evidence must be interpreted. When it comes to the field of paleoanthropology, the fossil evidence has always been interpreted in light of the evolutionary view of human history. The ape-to-man story did not arise by scientific observations; it arose as a philosophical driven speculation, based on Darwinâs early writings. The ape-to-man story was narrated before any hominin fossil had been named. It is from within this ape-to-man framework that the paleo-community now admits they cannot make « evolutionary sense » of the hominin fossils. We suggest that the reason they have this problem is because they are interpreting the fossils in light of a flawed ideological presupposition that the Darwinian mechanism explains everything, even us. We wish to be open and transparent, and acknowledge that we too have our own presuppositions which affect our interpretation of the hominin fossils. We are not confessing a scientific sin - in fact, all honest scientists should openly disclose their preconceptions and philosophical commitments. Such « open disclosure » is essential to a scientistâs professional integrity.
And here is another quote (from the American Scientist, 1978) in the same vein:
My reservation concern not so much this book [R. Leakeyâs « Origins »], but the whole subject and methodology of paleoanthropology⊠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 to 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.
David Pilbeam, Professor at Harvard University, curator of paleoanthropology at the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology and National Academy of Sciences member.
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So you are denying the existence of numerous papers that look at cranial anatomy and tool use in earlier hominid species?
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The fact that you think itâs okay to just paste a random quote stripped of any context and expect that this somehow contributes in any useful way to the conversation is a fairly telling statement about the intellectual rigor youâre employing.
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Not at all. Why this question? I am simply relaying R&Sâs conjecture according to which, based on the available paleoanthropological evidences, there are only two basic genera, Australopithecus (apes) and Homo (humans) and that these two genera do not have an ancestor - descendant relationship. I really donât see how this view would lead one to deny « the existence of numerous papers that look at cranial anatomy and tool use in earlier hominid species ».
Quotes arenât evidence.
Sanford ignores much of the evidence, as do you.
Quotes are not evidence. Evidence has been requested from you, but you donât respond with evidence. Why is that?
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Those papers refute your argument that we conclude diminished cognitive abilities in ancestral species because we are forced to by the theory of evolution. This isnât true, as shown by those papers.
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To contest the Rupe and Sanford quoteâŠ
The ape-to-man story did not arise by scientific observations; it arose as a philosophical driven speculation, based on Darwinâs early writings. The ape-to-man story was narrated before any hominin fossil had been named⊠We wish to be open and transparent, and acknowledge that we too have our own presuppositions which affect our interpretation of the hominin fossils. We are not confessing a scientific sin - in fact, all honest scientists should openly disclose their preconceptions and philosophical commitments.
All hypothesis is by definition speculative, but Darwinâs early writings, and subsequent development of paleoanthropology, has been driven by scientific observation, not philosophy. Scientists are in no need of absolution here; the scientific iniquity is all in Rupe and Sanfordâs rejection of the evidence of natural processes in nature.
It is from within this ape-to-man framework that the paleo-community now admits they cannot make « evolutionary sense » of the hominin fossils.
Says who? Honestly @Giltil, would you make this statement?
As far as the Pilbeam quote mine goes, a lot has been uncovered in the past four decades, and the data is not so sparse anymore. There is now much fossil evidence for transitional branching, with confirming consilience from genetics, and in accordance with validated general principles of evolution.
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Quotes are generally meaningless to anyone in the sciences, and itâs even worse when the quote is from someone seen as both incompetent and dishonest. So no, I doubt quoting from âContested Bonesâ will be informative to anyone.
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Thanks for starting out with several obvious lies so we donât have to bother reading further.
Some of the fossil evidence for paleoanthropology was discovered in the early 1800s, before there even was an evolutionary view of human history. Neanderthals were recognised as being distinct from Homo sapiens in 1856. Prior to that they were considered to be Homo sapiens remains, and for a long time they were considered by many to be just deformed Homo sapiens remains.
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Yes it did. The relationships between humans and other apes (we are, after all, apes too) are implied by the nesting hierarchy of our shared derived characteristics. This fact can be inferred in the total absence of fossil apes (hominini or not), merely from the characteristics of living primates.
Sanford is fooling you straight out of the gate, and youâre falling for it.
Blather.
Because the physical evidence from extant living primates implied it already even before Darwin(see Linnaeus). Now of course, the fact that such fossils were subsequently found only makes sense on evolution.
There is simply no reason why such fossils with such ages and characteristics should exist on creationism, nor why the current human population should still contain individuals carrying alleles which, when expressed, are associated with more âprimitiveâ anatomical characteristics. All of this is a product of our evolutionary past, and the fact that we share common ancestry with other primates.
Just where the hell do I go to find this statement by the worldâs âpaleo-communityâ? Not some dude in the late 1970âs. The âpaleo-communityâ.
Oh look, more blather. So is the âpaleo-communityâ now also signing on to some purported âideological presuppotionâ that âthe Darwinian mechanism explains everythingâ? Where and when was this established?
Seriously, how can you buy this bs? Is there anything this clown can write you will be embarrassed to reproduce here?
Ahh, the âwe all have presuppositionsâ false equivalence. Sure, we all have presuppositions, itâs just that some are more nuts than others. If you agree with Sanford this all comes down to presuppositions, then you have made this discourse a waste of time. Then you have simply turned any and all of these types of discussions into an exercise in taking turns stating things the other side could never accept because you take it to be in conflict with your foundational assumptions. Is that really where you want this to go?
I have to reject this kind of âassumptionâ Mexican standoff. Rational people should be able to agree on a set of uncontroversial epistemological premises to use as the foundation to guide our thinking regarding scientific investigations. Some of those must be that we generally prefer theories that explain, predict, and account for more data with simpler and quantifiable mechanisms.
Creationism has none, as it isnât a scientific theory at all, but a foundational assumption.
There is neither method nor theory, only and simultaneously an assumed conclusion. Investigation in creationism is window dressing. A cargo-cult science.
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Yes, a lot has been uncovered since 1979, but these new discoveries have made things much more confusing, not clearer.
Here is what Meredith Small from Cornell University said about this:
For anthropology students 30 years ago, learning human evolution was a breeze. It went from Australopithecus to Homo habilis to Homo erectus to various Homo sapiens. It was a straight shot that one could learn in a few minutes late at night while cramming for an exam. But in the late 1970, we entered a golden age of human fossil discoveries that has repeatedly punched holes in the naĂŻve idea that our evolution would be that clear, clean, and straight. Like most animals, humans have a checkered past, and our family album is now full of side branches and dead ends⊠The straight line has blossomed into spreading, rather uncontrolled bush and we donât like it. We want our history to be nice and neat, but the fossils keep messing us upâŠwe want the last 200000 years of human evolution, the time when Homo sapiens appeared, to make some kind of sense, but it doesnât.
And here what Schwartz and Tattersall states in a paper published in Science(2015):
If we want to be objective, we shall almost certainly have to scrap the iconic list of names in which hominin fossil specimens have historically been trapped, and start from the beginning by hypothesizing morphs, building testable theories of relatedness, and rethinking genera and species.
Bottom line: despite the new discoveries made since 1978, Pilbeamâs quote remains relevant.
For the record, here are links toward the two quotes above:
So more transitional fossil humans have been found, and we have found evidence that most of them continued interbreeding for a long time in the periods where they coexisted?
Please step out of your ladder thinking for a moment here and realize that evolution is a branching tree process, and that speciation is gradual and takes a lot of time. Rates of gene flow between populations can fluctuate up and down as they go through different periods of relative isolation and mingling.
Wow, thatâs soo hard to understand. I know creationists are used to simplistic dichotomous thinking, but your continued confusion here is getting ridiculous.
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