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Author Topic:   Did Homo Erectus build the Tower of Babel?
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2478 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 1 of 51 (479198)
08-25-2008 11:44 AM


This topic is based on an article at Answers In Genesis by Kurt Wise, one of YEC's star performers, with a genuine scientific degree from Harvard (geology).
I think the article will certainly interest some on both sides of the debate here. It shows a completely new and radical interpretation of hominid fossils from a creationist.
For example:
quote:
While the animals were diversifying and spreading out from the Ark, the Bible tells us that humans rebelled against God and stayed in one place, desiring to give themselves a name above that of God. When God forced them to obey His command by creating distinct languages, they dispersed from Babel in small family groups.
In these small populations, built-in human variety revealed itself in large regional differences in brain size and body form, with no discernible difference in intelligence, cultural prowess, or spiritual sensitivity. For example, in Europe are found Neanderthals (neanderthalensis) with larger brains than modern humans, and in Indonesia are found “hobbits” (floresiensis) with smaller bodies and brains than any modern human.
This is supposed to describe the situation some time after the Babel dispersal, because the only hominids immediately after Babel, in Wise's opinion, were small brained Homo Erectus, who therefore must have built the tower.
quote:
Preserved in post-Flood sediments older than any Neanderthals and Hobbits are Homo erectus fossils.3 Aside from the skull, Homo erectus skeletons are virtually indistinguishable from modern humans, so the evidence indicates they are human. And, since humans did not disperse across the world until after Babel, the distribution of Homo erectus across the Old World (Java, China, Africa) suggests they not only date from after the Flood, they also date from after Babel. Homo erectus is thus not only the oldest human fossil we have following Babel but the only human fossil for some time after Babel. From this we infer that the Homo erectus form is probably what humans looked like at the time of Babel.
Complete article here
Wow! Strong stuff, and I would have thought highly controversial in creationist circles. Instead of explaining away non homo-sapiens hominids as deformities or apes, Kurt Wise, a YEC guru, is embracing them as our ancestors, and the implications are that Adam, Eve and Noah were all small brained Homo Erectus, the original "kind" from which Homo Sapiens, Neanderthal, and Homo Floresiensis all evolved.
From an "evolutionist" point of view, we see Wise attempting to squeeze hundreds of thousands of years of our evolutionary history, from erectus to sapiens, into a few hundred years (after Babel and presumably before Abraham).
So, what are we to think of this? Do our EvC creationists agree with Wise's view? And do the rest of us think this is a reasonable direction for Young Earth Creationism to take, or is it madness?
I have to admit that the latter was my initial impression, but maybe Wise is being err...wise. The fossil hominids have to be explained, and more will be unearthed, so is this a reasonable attempt to fit the evidence in with Genesis?
{Admins, this is creation science, so human evolution and origins might be the best place (not a Bible discussion, as literal genesis is assumed)}

Replies to this message:
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Message 2 of 51 (479215)
08-25-2008 12:39 PM


Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

  
gluadys
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Posts: 57
From: Canada
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Message 3 of 51 (479236)
08-25-2008 3:55 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by bluegenes
08-25-2008 11:44 AM


How does Wise deal with the evidence that Homo erectus (and Homo sapiens) dispersed from Africa, not Mesopotamia?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by bluegenes, posted 08-25-2008 11:44 AM bluegenes has replied

Replies to this message:
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bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2478 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 4 of 51 (479238)
08-25-2008 4:06 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by gluadys
08-25-2008 3:55 PM


gluadys writes:
How does Wise deal with the evidence that Homo erectus (and Homo sapiens) dispersed from Africa, not Mesopotamia?
That's a damned good point, gluadys, and he doesn't cover it in the AiG article I linked to. But he doesn't (obviously) accept conventional dating anyway, so it's just one of his many problems.
Another is that there are many archaeological sites that show Homo Sapiens in a prolonged stone-age phase, when he would not have had the technology to build either the Ark or the tower of Babel, yet Homo Erectus, with his small brain and very basic tools is supposed to have built these things.
Frankly, I think this theory of Wise's will divide young earth Christians, because there are loads of obvious problems with it.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 5 by Coyote, posted 08-25-2008 4:20 PM bluegenes has replied
 Message 6 by Granny Magda, posted 08-25-2008 4:22 PM bluegenes has replied

  
Coyote
Member (Idle past 2107 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 5 of 51 (479244)
08-25-2008 4:20 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by bluegenes
08-25-2008 4:06 PM


Problems
Frankly, I think this theory of Wise's will divide young earth Christians, because there are loads of obvious problems with it.
Wise's approach directly contradicts another creationist's ideas:
Creationist John Woodmorappe, in his The non-transitions in ”human evolution’-on evolutionists’ terms claims that the change from modern man, i.e., Adam and Eve, to Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, and Homo neanderthalensis took place after the Babel incident, which is usually placed after the global flood and in the range of 4,000 to 5,300 years ago.
The implications of this are huge: Woodmorappe's perceived change from modern man to Homo ergaster would require a rate of evolution on the order of several hundred times as rapid as scientists posit for the change from Homo ergaster to modern man! This is in spite of the fact that most creationists deny evolution occurs on this scale at all; now a creationist has not only proposed such a change, but sees it operating several hundreds of times faster and in reverse!
The creationists can't even agree among themselves, and, because they are doing creation "science" (religious apologetics), there is no way to evaluate among conflicting ideas.
But because they are doing creation "science" instead of real science, this isn't a problem.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by bluegenes, posted 08-25-2008 4:06 PM bluegenes has replied

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Granny Magda
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Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 6 of 51 (479246)
08-25-2008 4:22 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by bluegenes
08-25-2008 4:06 PM


More Problems
From the Wiki article on Homo erectus;
quote:
The discovery of Turkana boy in 1984 has shown evidence that despite H. erectus's human-like anatomy, they were not capable of producing sounds of a complexity comparable to modern speech. They may have communicated with a pre-language lacking the fully developed structure of human language but more developed than the basic communication used by chimpanzees.
How does that gel with a story that revolves around language?

Mutate and Survive

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by bluegenes, posted 08-25-2008 4:06 PM bluegenes has replied

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bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2478 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 7 of 51 (479250)
08-25-2008 4:35 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by Granny Magda
08-25-2008 4:22 PM


Re: More Problems
Granny Magda writes:
How does that gel with a story that revolves around language?
It just makes things easier for God, as he only had to invent a few hundred words or so per language when doing the Babel curse, instead of the thousands per language Homo loquacious sapiens would have required.
Of course, there may have been problems in Ark and tower construction, although modern builders have been known to get by with "pass the fucking whatsit" level of verbal communication, could Erectus have managed the architectural drawings for a skyscraper, I ask myself?

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bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2478 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 8 of 51 (479253)
08-25-2008 4:44 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by Coyote
08-25-2008 4:20 PM


Calling creationists.
Coyote writes:
Wise's approach directly contradicts another creationist's ideas:
This is the kind of thing I wanted to ask our local EvC creationists about. What is their favoured view of the hominid fossil record, and who evolved into whom when, where, and why?
I'm fascinated by all this speeded up evolution. But if we came from Erectus, as Wise seems to think, then that's a damned interesting piece of micro-evolution, IMO.

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Beretta
Member (Idle past 5598 days)
Posts: 422
From: South Africa
Joined: 10-29-2007


Message 9 of 51 (479298)
08-26-2008 10:01 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by bluegenes
08-25-2008 11:44 AM


Homo erectus
Kurt Wise writes:
Preserved in post-Flood sediments older than any Neanderthals and Hobbits are Homo erectus fossils.3 Aside from the skull, Homo erectus skeletons are virtually indistinguishable from modern humans, so the evidence indicates they are human.
Bluegenes writes:
From an "evolutionist" point of view, we see Wise attempting to squeeze hundreds of thousands of years of our evolutionary history, from erectus to sapiens, into a few hundred years
It doesn't appear to me that Wise is attempting anything on the subject of hominids. He says quite clearly that Homo erectus skeletons are virtually indistinguishable from modern humans meaning that they are our human ancestors, not our apeman evolutionary relatives.
If humans scattered from a central postion and became isolated populations, they would have had subsets of the original genetic variation and thus would have had anatomical differences though they would have been entirely human nonetheless.
Kurt Wise, a YEC guru, is embracing them as our ancestors, and the implications are that Adam, Eve and Noah were all small brained Homo Erectus, the original "kind" from which Homo Sapiens, Neanderthal, and Homo Floresiensis all evolved.
Nonetheless and despite any localized population variations, they were all human, so they are our ancestors after all since all humans are related.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by bluegenes, posted 08-25-2008 11:44 AM bluegenes has replied

Replies to this message:
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Coyote
Member (Idle past 2107 days)
Posts: 6117
Joined: 01-12-2008


Message 10 of 51 (479305)
08-26-2008 10:33 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by Beretta
08-26-2008 10:01 AM


Re: Homo erectus
Your whole post is nonsense.
The time frame doesn't work. The evolution from Homo erectus to modern man took some 2 million years, not 3,000 years.
The skeletons of Homo erectus and modern humans are not "virtually indistinguishable." The postcranial bones are close, but the crania are very much different. Ever study any of these skulls? You might try it some time; you might even learn something.
Humans are not descended from Neanderthals.
There is no evidence for a global flood.
The was insufficient time for humans to spread from the Near East after a purported flood and 1) repopulate the world, 2) evolve into the modern races, and 3) evolve into Homo erectus and the other fossil hominids. Besides, we have genetic evidence from before the time purported for the flood and it shows continuity. I have that from my own research. A skeleton dated to over 5,000 years in age is linked by mtDNA to living descendants. No replacement by Noah's type of mtDNA. (This disproves the flood right there.)
Perhaps, if you study a little more science and a little less creation "science," you might be surprised at what you find.

Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2698 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 11 of 51 (479307)
08-26-2008 10:37 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by Beretta
08-26-2008 10:01 AM


Re: Homo erectus
Hi, Beretta.
Beretta writes:
bluegenes writes:
From an "evolutionist" point of view, we see Wise attempting to squeeze hundreds of thousands of years of our evolutionary history, from erectus to sapiens, into a few hundred years
It doesn't appear to me that Wise is attempting anything on the subject of hominids. He says quite clearly that Homo erectus skeletons are virtually indistinguishable from modern humans meaning that they are our human ancestors, not our apeman evolutionary relatives.
If humans scattered from a central postion and became isolated populations, they would have had subsets of the original genetic variation and thus would have had anatomical differences though they would have been entirely human nonetheless.
The point of this argument was that current science places Homo erectus around 1 and 2 million years ago, and Kurt Wise is trying to fit the same process into the 5-6000?-year period since Eden. Actually, it would have to be a much shorter period, because the "Homo erectus form," as Wise puts it, is clearly no longer extant, which means that it went extinct some time ago, probably even before Christ. That would require the evolution of a fully modern human into an ape-faced, small-brained Homo erectus within just a few thousand years.
And, just to clarify, here is what Wise is proposing that Adam's and Eve's and Noah's skulls looked like:
And here is what we look like today:
In short, Noah had a muzzle (prognathism), huge jaw muscles, no nose to speak of and a heavy brow ridge. In fact, he looked suspiciously like a short-faced chimpanzee with a big brain and little canines:
Kurt Wise is proposing that we evolved from something that looks as much like a chimpanzee as it does a human.

-Bluejay
Darwin loves you.

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Replies to this message:
 Message 12 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 08-26-2008 1:57 PM Blue Jay has replied

  
AlphaOmegakid
Member (Idle past 2876 days)
Posts: 564
From: The city of God
Joined: 06-25-2008


Message 12 of 51 (479327)
08-26-2008 1:57 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by Blue Jay
08-26-2008 10:37 AM


Re: Homo erectus
Bluejay writes:
Kurt Wise is proposing that we evolved from something that looks as much like a chimpanzee as it does a human.
Shame on you Bluejay. A person as wise and educated as you should know better than to make a statement like this.
You should know that there are many bones in homo erectus and chimpanzees and not just skulls. It is interesting how you even think the skulls are more similar between chimpanzees and homo erectus than from erectus to sapiens. It just shows how a little knowledge and a few pictures can deceive.
Chimpanzees have a brain size of 400 cc's avg. Homo erectus has a brain size of 1000cc's average. That is 250% increase in brain capacity in roughly 1-1.5MY in evolutionary time. Homo sapiens have a brain capacity of about 1350 cc's average. That's about a 35% increase from homo erectus in 1-1.5MY in evolution time. Could it just be possible that one is evolution and one is not? Even artists models of homo erectus look nothing like a chimpanzee, but they do look like homosapiens.
Source = Cranial Capacity
I have a feeling Kurt Wise knows just a little bit more about this subject than you have demonstrated.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Blue Jay, posted 08-26-2008 10:37 AM Blue Jay has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 15 by bluegenes, posted 08-26-2008 3:23 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied
 Message 30 by Blue Jay, posted 08-26-2008 6:18 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

  
LucyTheApe
Inactive Member


Message 13 of 51 (479329)
08-26-2008 2:07 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by Coyote
08-26-2008 10:33 AM


Re: Homo erectus
coyote writes:
The was insufficient time for humans to spread from the Near East after a purported flood and 1) repopulate the world,
You're kidding coyote, right? Try P(t)=Cekt and see how long it takes to repopulate the world. 2 million years is nonsensical.
Also a quick calculation will show that a human dragging his feet could walk around the world in a couple of years.
2) evolve into the modern races
It's the evos that claim the ridiculous times required for things to change, humans in particular are excellent adaptive creatures.
I have that from my own research. A skeleton dated to over 5,000 years in age is linked by mtDNA to living descendants. No replacement by Noah's type of mtDNA. (This disproves the flood right there.)
Eves' no doubt!
Edited by LucyTheApe, : No reason given.
Edited by LucyTheApe, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 10 by Coyote, posted 08-26-2008 10:33 AM Coyote has replied

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Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 14 of 51 (479335)
08-26-2008 2:51 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by LucyTheApe
08-26-2008 2:07 PM


Re: Homo erectus
Try P(t)=Cekt and see how long it takes to repopulate the world. 2 million years is nonsensical.
Does P(t)=Cekt accurately model human populations? What was the world's population in 1AD with this model? How many people were there in 1980 according to this model? What are the variables needed so that the population in 1AD and 1980 are consistent with what we know about the world populations during these times?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 13 by LucyTheApe, posted 08-26-2008 2:07 PM LucyTheApe has replied

Replies to this message:
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bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2478 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 15 of 51 (479343)
08-26-2008 3:23 PM
Reply to: Message 12 by AlphaOmegakid
08-26-2008 1:57 PM


YEC opinions on erectus.
AlphaOkid writes:
I have a feeling Kurt Wise knows just a little bit more about this subject than you have demonstrated.
Kurt Wise certainly knows about his subject. What I'm wondering is, how many of our EvC creationists agree with him.
After Babel, according to Wise, we find nothing but H. erectus, who disperses over the planet, then evolves into H. sapiens (both us and neanderthal) and also H. floresiensis.
This means erectus to us in a very short time. There are transitionals (archaic H. Sapiens with brow ridge) Microevolution or Macro?
So, having read Kurt Wise's AiG article, Alpha (and all other YECs), do you agree with his analysis?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 12 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 08-26-2008 1:57 PM AlphaOmegakid has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 23 by AlphaOmegakid, posted 08-26-2008 5:45 PM bluegenes has replied

  
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