The Ape Man: Truth or Fiction?

[quote]If I was a teenager, the skeleton fossils would have impressed me, as they once have in the past.[/qutoe]What made you unimpressed? Was a religious reason or a scientific reason?

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But, please do not try to make me believe something is factual just because you display a complete fossil.

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So you accuse scientists of making up fossils, but refuse to look at legitimate ones. Very strange. I believe this is called "close-minded".Well, let's look at the facts. The FACT is that this fossil represents a species whose characteristics are between ape and human. The FACT is, the age of the fossil puts it in an evolutionary time frame that is consistent with the theorized evolution of man. The FACT is that there are numerous fossil finds of this species. The FACTS fit the MODEL, otherwise known as evidenciary support for the theory of evolution.

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You cannot confirm that 'Klein' is Ape-man.

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The fossil contains both human and ape characteristics. It is BY DEFINITION an ape-man. If you don't agree, then by what objective criteria is it NOT an ape-man? Are you denying that this fossil is an ape-man because your bible says otherwise, or do you actually have objective criteria?

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There is no 'middle stage' showing evolving into another.

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So how many fossil species do we need then?

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But, my main point I really wanted to make was that it was a fraud, and along with the ones I already mentioned.

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And it was a fraud perpetrated by a smut rag of a newspaper. Nebraska man was NEVER accepted as a viable hominid fossil by the scientific community. It was SCIENTISTS that claimed it was not a hominid fossil. The only people proclaiming that it was a hominid fossil was the person who dug it up and an Enquirerer-esque rag. How is this a smudge on the face of evolution? In fact, it should be a stain on creationists because they are more likely to believe trumped up stories in newspapers than listen to the scientists themselves.

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I thought the important factor is to get information to facts.
If I understand the explanation, whether it was the professors at the University that I attended, or the archives of a library or a website?

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First, as others have mentioned plagarism is a big no-no. If you want to, go ahead and quote someone but also give them credit for the hard work that went into creating the material to begin with. Also, we also prefer that people also give a summary of the quote which lets us know that the poster understands the material that they are quoting.

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Why then, wouldn't you want to receive information by any means which supports a claim? We do that all the time, whether we acknowledge it or not.

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We don't mind information, but we all have xeroxes and google if we want to copy information. What we want is a discussion, not a quote war. Also, chances are that you would not be able to back up arguments made by your source if you are incapable of summarizing the author's arguments.

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Do you ever get the feeling that some creationists cannot tell the difference between a peer reviewed scientific journal and a tabloid?

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They know the difference. Primary literature is stuff they can't understand, and tabloids uses language that they can understand. This isn't meant to be patronizing (or maybe it is), but I really doubt that most creationists on this website can understand even 10% of the arguments and evidence presented in most peer reviewed journals, or the implications of the evidence within the biological sciences.

Nothingness,Before we jump to another fossil in this thread or another, perhaps you could address the points made by Mark Austin about Nebraska Man in the post above? Within this thread, you have accused the scientific community of fraud and of lying. Being a scientist myself, I would like you to either recant or to explain why you still think fraud is rampant with regard to Nebraska Man. If you think fraud is still ongoing, I would appreciate evidence to back up this claim. I would think that a christian would not leave an unsupported accusation to go on like this.

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Am I wrong?I believe someone just wanted to hear it again. Must have been a perfect person.

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I requested that you state it, I must have missed it the first time. My apologies. And no, none of us are perfect which is why we shouldn't rely solely on man's interpretation of God's word when looking at nature.

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Would it be fair for me to say that Evolutionists could also be misinformed by the 'experts'?

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If you don't mind, I actually work in the sciences and so I have a pretty good idea of how relying on "experts" goes. The bottom line is that every time that a scientist makes a new discovery or puts out a new paper, chances are that his/her ideas are going to be challenged. I don't know for sure, but I am pretty certain that the Boxgrove specimens have been studied by more than one expert in the field, and each of those experts is checking the findings of the others. Within the practice of science there is tons of competition because there is not enough money to go around. Therefore, if you can repetitively show that your competitors are wrong then you have a better chance of getting that money, as well as fame within in your field. Because there is strong competition within the sciences, and each person's finds are also examined by other people, the "expert" opinion can be considered to be reliable. Notice I didn't say that the experts have the final word, but you can rely on their description of the fossils and rely on their placement in the fossil record. It is possible that all of the experts are all misinformed and are missing something important, but that is the exact reason why scientific theories are held tentatively instead of as absolute truth.

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Everybody has their experts, which always seem to come to a differnt conclusion. That's one of the reasons for all the confusion, do you agree?

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But when your 'expert' is an electrical engineer who is a devout fundamentalist christian you would tend to hold that expert's opinion as being suspect. However, when multiple experts, all of which are academically trained in comparative anatomy, physiology, taxonomy, etc. their opinion is much more trustworthy. If experts with this type of expertise are disagreeing on a subject then you indeed have a point of contention. However, if one side is unable to show through objective evidence that the others are wrong, then you really don't have a point of contention.

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If it's alright with you, let's start with the Homo Heidelbergensis. What is your opinion on this fossil?

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The common theory in science is that Homo heidelbergensis is the parent species of both humans and neanderthals.Below is a great site on an overview of the characteristics of H. heidel:Homo Heidelbergensis - Modern Human Origins

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And then the funy thing that caught my eye was the following observation. "EVEN BEFORE JOHANSON ASSEMBLED" Lucy's remaining bones, he could see that she has been BIPEDAL.

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No, the funny thing is that you want to ignore the transitional nature of the teeth, skull, foramen, knee joint, pelvis, and feet and prefer to shout "unfair" instead. Look at the pelvis that has been offered. Which other pelvis does it most resemble, chimps or humans? Look at the feet supplied. Which other feet does it most resemble, chimps or humans? Now, which species is bipedal, chimps or humans? You seem to prefer quotes from the popular press instead of the actual fossils themselves. Why is that?

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soap opera details of personal prejudices , bitter rivalries and twists of fortune that frequently make science as Machiavellian as politics."

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Sound about right. That is how it is in my field (gram positive infectious diseases). So, maybe I can give you an insider's look into how that quote actually applies to the practice of science. There is always a war-like mentatility between labs that compete for the same grant money, and this tends to breed personal rivalries between well known figures in any branch of research science. However, what determines the winner in any scientific battle is the objective evidence. Whoever is able to better support their theories and hypotheses is the one that gets the most grant money the next go around (with a few exceptions here and there). Who ever writes the best papers with the biggest breakthroughs gets to present their work to a larger audience instead of being stuck in a corner presenting a poster. This is exactly why science is trustworthy, because each scientist doesn't want the other one to be right. Therefore, each theory has been cross-checked from here to Sunday. I have done exactly that. I have checked the results from a paper that our lab thought was wrong. However, they turned out to be right because we were able to repeat their experiments (hence another strength of science, repeatability). It is not a war of opinion, but rather a war of evidence.

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Is Homo Hibilis composed of various fossils? A simple yes will do, or a simple no. I want to see if evolutionists are also objective to the evidence, which they claim to be.

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Homo habilis is under scrutiny. This species is represented by skull KNM-ER 1470: It dates to about 1.9 million years ago. Some have argued that H. habilis should be combined with H. erectus, but those arguments seem to be failing since the evidence just isn't quite there. Also, the recent find of new hominid fossil may result in H. habilis being combined with another species. From Skull KNM-ER 1470 : The strange thing is that creationists are very confused on what KMN-ER 1470 resembles. Gish claimed at first that the skull was that of a modern human, and then later claimed that it was an ape. Lubenow claims that H. habilis is human. So, it seems that creationists are in more of a quandry as to where this skull belongs than evolutionists have ever been.

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Was this confirmation communicated to the other lab? I guess the larger question is, when labs are in stiff competition where none wants to give any advantage to the other, not even so minor a thing as a hint that their findings have been confirmed, how is successful replication communicated. Or is silence the confirmation?

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Silence is usally taken as confirmation. Sometimes confirmation is given unofficially at conferences such as the American Society of Microbiologists General Meeting which attracts up to 30,000 microbiologists. Also, strong papers are usually orally presented at these conferences and competitors will often either challenge the new work with questions or data from their lab or simply stay silent and nod a few times.On the other hand, I have personally seen investigators publish retractions after other labs have written numerous emails trying to figure out how to repeat their experiments. Often, contamination of samples is usually to blame, especially when dealing with purified toxins or proteins.Most methodologies are usually verified by numerous investigators (such as dating methodologies) and then those verified methodologies are applied to different samples. So usually the most critical part of any experiment are constructing controls to verify that the methodology is working and controls to verify the validity of your samples. If someone is able to show that you need an additional control (for instance, your toxin prep may be in 1% DMSO [a chemical used to solubilize certain chemicals] and so you need a 1% DMSO control) then the data from those samples is questionable. If another lab is able to show that the demonstrated effect is due to 1% DMSO and not to the toxin in question then you are in deep trouble.Overall, I would say that confirmation of the most contentious evidence is usually handled within the peer reviewed literature. If a methodology is accepted within the scientific community, and that methodology is used to derive the data for the paper, then that data is often accepted without much fanfare. If a ground breaking paper or theory comes out, you can bet that their findings are tested either through direct confirmation or through testing the hypothesis through falsification. A theory usually isn't accepted until quite a few different investigators from competing labs verify it through different lines of investigation. Hope this wasn't too drawn out.

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His teams studies concluded that bipedalism of fossilised fossils. He said that their research on the balance mechanism of the cochlea of the ear, and his findings were 'CONCLUSIVE' that Australopithecus could not have been bipedal. And yes, and also that Australopithecus was human-like.

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NOTHINGNESS, before I continue, just a word of advice. Before you claim that either evolutionists are faking pictures as you accuse in one message, or that scientists have come to a certain conclusion you might actually want to check out what they actually are trying to say.Spoor et al. did not claim that australopithicenes were quadrapeds. Their claim was that Lucy and others were not obligate quadrapeds. That is, they very well could have walked upright but that they probably didn't all of the time. They never concluded that bipedalism was out of the question. This is a lie that creationists continue to spread unjustly."It is concluded that any link between the characteristic dimensions of the human canals and locomotion will be more complex than a simple association with the broad categories of quadrupedal vs. bipedal behavior." (Spoor and Zonneveld 1998)That is, they never claimed that 1) Australopithecines were completely quadrapedal, 2) That the semicircular canals were the final word on the issue.This message has been edited by Loudmouth, 08-18-2004 01:06 PM

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In reference to similarities. Similarities does not prove that we come from the same "ancestor", rather that we come from the same "designer".

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This is exactly what we are discussing in The "common creator" myth thread. You should come on over and check it out for yourself. You may even want to participate, it is up to you. For now, let's not get sidetracked and focus on the claim that there are no transitional fossils for common ancestory for ape and human.

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There is no transitional fossil bridge to even get involved with monkey to man theory.

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Yes there is, as we have plainly shown. There are fossils that have both ape and human characteristics. BTW, it is ape to human, not monkey to man. Monkeys are a different group of primates.Please explain how after all of this debate that you now claim that there are no fossils that could possibly link man to ape. Are you just going to stick your head in the sand and shout "Is not, is not, is not" without actually engaging in a discussion?Also, cars don't reproduce so they are a poor analogy for reproducing populations that undergo mutation and selection.

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I would not consider that Ape Man. I already explained somewhere why similarities does not make us ancestors to the apes.

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So what characteristics would you expect in a real transitional between apes and humans if evolution were correct?

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First of all, it would have to have concrete evidence in the -base- of the theory before anything could get started. How could you expect me to even consider the possibility, when the base of the theory has so many gaps between the transitions -before- ape to man?

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But you could use the same evasionary tactic that you are using with the hominid fossils. You could claim that they were separate species that only look like a progression. You are being very inconsistent.

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Clear that up first before I can even consider giving you certain transitional characteristics that I would expect.

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No. You claim that a transition between ape and man should look differently than Lucy. Therefore, I want the characteristics that Lucy does not possess and the list of characteristics that a true transitional should have.

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You see, before we can deal with the ape to man transition, we need to clear up the base first. It soulnds basic, but it's extremely important. I'm sure you already know that.

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Fine, let's clear up the base. A transitional fossil should share characteristics of both ape and human. Voila, Lucy fits.Your evasionary tactics are quite transparent.

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I'll give it to you straight forward. A real transitional-any way you wish to define it-does not exist. Therefore, no ape man exists. I already explained my reasons for it. I do not need an elaborate hypotheses-none needed.

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Then why are you arguing about Lucy's ape like characteristics? According to you, God could have made an ape that had a skeleton that looked exactly like a humans and it still would be an ape. If you say that an ape-man transitional does not exist because of your religious convictions, then why are you making scientific arguments? You might as well claim that the sky doesn't exist and therefore it can't be blue.