"Plenty?"
So, there is no missing link, this eons old question being puzzled over is a myth, there is a fossil record from primate to modern man that defines our evolution?
"Plenty?"
So, there is no missing link, this eons old question being puzzled over is a myth, there is a fossil record from primate to modern man that defines our evolution?
The problem with a missing link (aside from it being us and thus hard to see) is that it assumes everything changed all at once. This might happen (and if you compare h. Sapien to h. Erectus you'd see the jump we made) but usually evolution is a slight incline. There's no missing link between dinosaurs and birds for example, they were simply reptiles with feathers until 1 day they weren't reptiles anymore and if you were looking for a single 'missing link' species to define the transition point, you'd never find it.
Aside from it "being us?"
Gee, you would have thought scientists wouldn't have puzzled over this for so long and realized the missing link was them. You woulda thunk they could have figured this all out rather than puzzle over it for centuries. You an anthropologist, David?
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As I said, if you have to point to a single species that fits the 'missing link' BS, we're the closest thing.
I believe the question has been puzzled over longer than you're aware, the fossil record getting to modern man is quite incomplete, with adaptation and evolutions separating us from primates, there should be quite an extensive one. Truth is, modern man blows every theory of evolution out of the water. Our ability to reason, to discern right from wrong, our ability to control instinct...is quite unique....and not evolved in other mammals.
So myou would be quite wrong there.
Actually we were pretty stupid until 50,000 years ago, our species predates our intelligence by 150k years.
The "missing link" was originally coined by biologists that had a hypothesis that man was related to apes, but were missing the fossil evidence, the finding of "java man" had filled the gap in the hypothesis, as well a many other fossil finds have really rendered the whole missing link argument toothless.
My issue isn't with evolution, it is the use of the theory to subjugate religious people.
Several times I have seen the pro evolution argument refer to people with religious beliefs as idiots or dark age through backs. This shows prejudice, a rather unfounded one. As I said before I graduated from a private Jesuit prep school where it was required that I attend theology classes, but 95% of my graduating class continued on to college.
Compared to public schools that force secularism on students Jesuit and other religious private schools are leaps and bounds beyond the pathetic dismal failure known as public schooling.
Given the choice with my kids, religious private school that may teach about creationism us still a way way way Bette choice than the juvenile penitentiary known as public school. There is no contest whatsoever. Learn to go to school with kids that are just taking breaks between jail sentences, or learn about a really decent moral code that reflects 95% of the world in one way or another, it's an obvious choice.
Again, you must not have read the article. It is not saying that children be taught a "lie", just they cannot be flunked based on a teachers prejudice.
When you force people to believe something you have lost freedom. Same goes for forcing people not to believe it.
Now of you want people to deny their beliefs and pay lip service to the educational system, I must ask what is the point?
But I know the point, it isn't about science or fact, it's about purging the believers. There is no other reason to flunk a child that believes in creation, other than to tell them that they are stupid for having beliefs. Good thing public schools are completely inept at preparing students for adult life.
Subjects are based on the nearest approximation to truth we have, growing out of constant peer-scrutiny at the upper end. Nobody is purged from English, say, for believing in the Book of Genesis, but if a child is studying a science subject - or, indeed History beyond a certain level - it is silly to have them do it if they deny its basic assumptions (if you want to call them that) in favour of some unchallengeable belief. That is the whole point: in education, everything is challengeable, but the challenges are meant to come from grown-up, educated people. If you want to start private schools which teach only what you believe your religion to say, fine - though they will have very little in the way of reputation. If you wan't to spend public money on your private cranks, however, you are no better than some dictator enforcing nonsense, surely?
again you missed any point, mainly with the need to insult people you disagree with by calling them cranks, a particularly nasty habit of yours.
This area of science has no real value but to paleontology.
And again I will say this, in the United states the private religious prep schools who teach this creation belief are over 100 times the superior to public schools in every way. So out isn't just a bunch of private school cranks, its the leadership, the backbone and the best and brightest in our nation that attend these schools.
The top people in the greatest nation on the planet, sorry not cranks.
The record is constantly unfolding as new discoveries are made, evidence is studied, and the extremely rare fossil comes to light. Recent advances in DNA sequencing have added much to the understanding of our evolution, as well as the ways in which the Homanins interbred to create what we are today.
A missing link will never be found, as it cannot have existed. We did not simply pop into existence one day but rather "Became" what we are over a very long time. There is no Chimpman to be found...there are chimps, and there is man. We have found early incarnations of both, but as the two are separate branches of evolution the inherently cannot be both.
As for something to link us to a primate beginning, yes, there is enough to make it clear this is an acceptable explanation:
"
Known as "Ida," the nearly complete transitional fossil is 20 times older than most fossils that provide evidence for human evolution.
It shows characteristics from the very primitive non-human evolutionary line (prosimians, such as lemurs), but is more related to the human evolutionary line (anthropoids, such as monkeys, apes and humans), said Norwegian paleontologist Jørn Hurum of University of Oslo Natural History Museum. However, she is not really an anthropoid either, he said."
Ancient Human Ancestor 'Ida' Discovered | LiveScience
Well, I'm sorry, but if you really believe the bit I stress above, you are a total crank. Who cares if you are the Lord High Executioner, lad: children study reality, not your bossy fantasies.
Everyone is a crank if they don't agree with you? I would rather my kids believe a religious fantasy than the fantasy you believe.
Iolo is a disappointed academic. It makes him angry that people not as smart as he believes himself to be are in charge of, well, everything that has any real value.
While I would not want to argue with someone who believes secularism is a religion (I just never heard of that before), academically, secularism is classified as a principle that involves two basic propositions. The first is the separation of the state from religious institutions. The second is that people of different religions and beliefs are equal before the law.
Exactly. The "record is constantly unfolding." Or that is what I'm to understand on the topic. And so it's a fascinating subject, one shouldn't then be quick to dismiss viewpoints in contradiction to their own. It sounds like a learning process for all of mankind, where did we come from.
And therein lies the puzzle. The missing link....the fossil record itself simply anfd matter of fact, doesn't exist. This "very long time" tecoyah, is a solid theory. But we are a complex animal. Evolution would have required we attain the ability to reason, the capabilities of abstract thought. Evolution if I'm not mistaken includes adaptations and changes due to great migrations and modern man does seem to evolve himself.....but there is a massive gap is there not? There is some...interruption, some massive gap that is unexplained.
I know about Ida and Lucy. Where are what must be obvious fossilized traces of our evolution? Doesn't it stand to reason....stand to science itself....that an obvious record of this "very long time" of evolution could and would be all over the globe?
Fossilization is an extremely rare event, as is the excavation in the exact spot of this event. It is likely such evidence indeed exists somewhere...and with luck we may eventually find it. It is important to understand how this field of science functions to grasp the reasons our understanding is and always will be incomplete.
The incomplete nature of the fossil record however, does indeed exists, is very real, and makes a beautiful sense. When the standards of logical thought are applied to the alternate (Creation) theory, it fails on virtually every level as there is nothing to study beyond an old book.
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