More Denton: Reply to Tony (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, July 22, 2015, 14:38 (3412 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

DHW: I don't see the relevance of this to the issue under discussion, which is the theory of common descent.-TONY: The relevance is thus:
5 Skulls, from the same location and time period display the same degree of variation found in almost ALL hominid fossil remains ever found. 
Two possible explanations:
a)Time travelling hominids of different species converged in the same location for a pow-wow during which all died and were simultaneously fossilized. 
b)What we consider different species are all simply humans. 
Occam's razor says B is the most likely correct answer.-I don't have a problem with the argument that Neanderthals, Denisovans, the Dimanisi hominids and homo sapiens etc, were/are all humans. How does that prove they did not descend from earlier forms of life? -DHW: Not a problem, if one set is known to be human and the other ape. But I might have a problem if the skeleton indicated features that made it difficult to classify the creature as ape or human, e.g. bipedalism (the Australopithecines). You yourself later mention the difficulty of “a unified classification”, but I take blurred borderlines as evidence FOR common descent, not against.
TONY: Similarity does not indicate common descent, that is purely an assumption. 
-It is a theory, just as the existence of God, and God's separate creation of humans is a theory. (See below on theories and trust.)-TONY: Yes, I mentioned the problem with a unified classification because our classification systems do not even agree with themselves!! Morphologically we are supposed former apes, genetically, we were once bananas or fruit flies or something. Given the disparity between our classification systems, it should be obvious that they are not a sound basis for rational judgement.-I don't know of any disagreement over the classification of bananas, fruit flies, or for that matter gorillas and homo sapiens. I thought the problems arose over the classification of the so-called hominids and hominins, but you obviously know more about these things than I do, so perhaps you can put me right.-Dhw: You criticize the assumption that “speciation can even occur, though it has NEVER been observed.” But that is the problem. Species exist, and nobody knows how. -TONY: The existence of species is not the issue. The assumption that they CAN change between species is the issue, because it has never been observed. Your comment here is akin to saying it would be rational for me to believe in unicorns because horses and narwhals exist.-It would only be rational for you to believe in unicorns if we knew that unicorns existed (e.g. if we found a fossil). The issue is how the diverse species that we do know of came into existence, and all we have are theories, including the theory that there is a supernatural power who created them all separately. I can only repeat that whichever theory you believe in depends on the extent to which you trust the theorists. I wrote: “As I see it, there is currently no reason for me as a layman to challenge the general consensus among scientists that humans came late on the scene, that the genetic similarities between humans and apes and the admittedly sparse but not non-existent fossil record suggest descent from a common ancestor, and that the patterns David talks of are also evidence that organisms derive from earlier organisms.” (Since you mention that speciation has never been observed, perhaps I should add that no-one has ever observed an organism that did not spring from another organism.) You prefer the version of events set out in ancient manuscripts. -TONY: You know, the irony of this bit here is that, according to that old book that you seem to think is so misguided and untrustworthy, we aren't really supposed to take everything on faith. Imagine that. The bible actually tells people to seek evidence. -That old book, which is actually a collection of old books, is full of wonderful stories, human truths, wisdom, beautiful poetry, and in some sections (but not others) what I see as admirable moral guidance. That does not mean that all its different authors are to be trusted when it comes to history or scientific theories.-As for your quote from Romans 1-19, I do not interpret it as an instruction to seek evidence. It reads to me as a statement that God has shown how great he is, and anyone who can't see that is an idiot. But there we go again - different people have different interpretations of the same text, and nobody can tell us which one is right!