Evidence for God from Science

Just a quick reply, the most likely scenerio I see is that Netherdals are either pre flood humans, or are and offshoot of pre flood humans that came about after the flood reduced humanity to 8 total, resulting in considerable genetic drift.

Consider this:
Genetic drift is greater when the surviving mebers are few in number, 8 total, with only 3 females of childbearing age, and the males either being Noah or sons of Noah, is about as few as you can get and not have it drift so far that they become non viable and all die off.
Humans pre flood and for a while post flood could live to be 900 years old, and their children could to. That indicates that their genetics were very different from ours, and netherdals genetics are different, so there you go.

Netherdals had bigger brains than we do, if they were animals, what did they use them for? Remember, God created them, whatever they were, why give them such big brains? Why make them look like humans? Why make them interfertal with humans? Are any animals interfertal with humans? Remember also, God saw the creation of humanity, Satan also saw it, Satan has an interest in concealing any evidence of pre flood mankind and their obvious differences, including genetic ones, and thus will do everything in his power to confuse the issue.

Netherdals also acted like humans/ Netherdals buries their dead, do animals do that? They sometimes buried them with flowers, or ceremonial objects http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Neanderth ... a014916153 , indicating a belief in an afterlife, do animals do that? Netherdals did art, and possibly trade http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... -art-human , do animals do that? Flutes, any animals do that? Music and art would indicate symbolism, and thus language, animals do that anyone?

The idea that those big brains were not intelligent like ours, simply put, we don't really know why OURS are intelligent, and we certainly don't know what genetic factors are involved, see here http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010 ... dersta.php . All we really know about netherdal brains, and early cro magnon, are that they were on average bigger than ours. The idea that their genetics did not allow those big brains to be intelligent is not proven. We have no fossilized brains to show exatly what those brains even looked like, and so cannot say that they did or did not have the parts nessissary to think like we do.

In short, Netherdals look like humans, act like humans, breed with humans like humans, and talk like humans. If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, its a duck. And if it isn't, tell me, WHAT IS IT?

BTW, the idea that humans came from africa is not really proven, only that african genes now are prevelent world wide is proven.

The idea that africans are older than other humans is based on the amount of mutation in those genes, or some of them. All this proves is that some post flood decendancts went to africa, and did not mix with other peoples after that, like europeans or asians. That is, people went to africa from their origin of the middle east (Eden), some stayed, becoming more highly mutated since they stayed so long and did not interbreed with others (specifically Bushmen). Some went to africa, then eventually migrated back up through the middle east again (interbreeding with any there, thus makeing those there less mutated and thus looking like they are less old), and on into europe, asia, and eventually the americas. The ones who left africa did not return and mix again with africans, which is why the african genes developed higher mutation rates than others. It should also be noted that the number of mutations only seems to show them migrating out about say 60,000 years ago, however, if they were still living long lives as pre flood and for a while post flood, the average age of a generation wouldn't be 20 years, it might be as much as 200 or more, thus the age estimates could be off by a large amount. Also, if it is only 60,000, mankind is older than that, thus it only shows a fraction of the true mutation that should exist if they really came originally from africa. The genetic line that migrated up from africa seems to be the most successful line, probably by outbreeding the others (shorter lives means more generations in the same amount of time), thus diluting any other post flood lines (such as netherdals) so that the african genes eventually predominate. They could also have simply crowded out any others that were living there, eventually exterminating most of them. In short, of the 3 brothers decendants, Hams are the most successfull (genetically speaking), and that is all the genetic records really show.

They do show two "bottlenecks", one for "mitochondrial eve" said to be 125,000 years ago, but probably MUCH older since she could live to be 900 and thus have children at 200 instead of 20, thus less generations, and thus mutation taking much longer for the same time frame. A second bottleneck is seen in the purely male line, this is Noah, this is estimated to be 65,000 years ago, but they still lived to be 900 then (Noah did), and thus was also probably MUCH older than that. The genetic record thus supports the bible exactly.

The idea that netherdal children grew faster than ours is likely simply wrong, first, how exactly WOULD you need to grow to live to be 900? The answer is, SLOWLY, and, compared to us today, DIFFERENTLY. Thus, using presuppositions (and egged on by Satan who wants no evidence of 900 year old humans around) they say "scientists believe" they grew faster, when actually we know they must have developed slower than us if they wanted to live to be 900. Either you believe those long ages they lived to, or not. If you do, what would we find skeletons wise? Wouldn't it be quite different than today? Is it? Answer, yes, BIG SUPRISE!

There is also several find of what looks like ahlf cro magnon, half netherdal tribes, as well as some that are apperently neither netherdal or cro magnon, but definatly human. These look like eviddence both of the change from pre flood man to post flood, and evidence of the severe genetic drift that happened, as it must, after the flood. In some cases, that resulted in them drifting so far they died out, such as the one island of "hobbit" humans skeletons they found.

And when you see words like "the majority of scientists believe" ( or "broad consensus ") ask yourself, do they believe, do they really BUH LEEEEVE? I mean, what is this, science, or religion? http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.pdf Is this based on belief, or actual hard evidence? The links I saw show a lot of "belief" and rather scant evidence to support the idea that netherdals are not humans. With scant evidence, and what there is being easily swayed by pre suppositions (reconstructing skeltons is ALL about pre suppositions), the "belief" of the scientists may be just that, only belief. And if you were Satan, ask yourself, what would you do about skeletons of pre flood humans who lived to be 900 years old? What sort of "belief" would you suggest to cover up this sort of thing?

In short, if you are confused by the idea that netherdals look like us, act like us, and talk like us, but are not us, well, YOU SHOULD BE!

BTW, the reason for many animals being very similar to us genetically, even to one celled organisms being similar, is because most of our DNA is describing the minute, down to the molecular level, making of each individual cell. The cells that earthly life is made up of are quite similar, because they have to be to work. The DNA that regulates how different cells next to other cells turn into other things is another matter entirely, and makes up a minority of the DNA (you can read about that here, if you have not already done so above http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010 ... dersta.php ).

As for "junk DNA, more and more it turns out to not be junk. That "junk" encoding actually is just encoding we don't understand fully yet, it turns out that it helps to regulate how the "non junk" turns out. It is sort of like spaces and puncuation in between words. There is also a lot going on with RNA as well. replication is actually MUCH more complicated than just DNA.

I have noticed something as well, they tell us how different netherdals are to us genetically, but only the genetics of "the important parts", what about the rest? They tell us that we are genetically similar to apes (two arms, two legs, so you would expect us to have some geenetic similarities, as compared to say that of an octopus with 8 legs and gills). They DO NOT use the same criteria to compare us to netherdals. What is the similarity of the TOTALITY of our DNA between us and netherdals, comparing us the same way they compare us and apes? Why have you never seen this comparison? See that link above again, are they really sure that the small parts of the DNA they deign to compare between us and netherdals are the right ones? Is the small part of the DNA that they only want us to compare only using fallacious arguments like Special Pleading (Stacking The Deck) or Excluded Middle (False Dichotomy, Faulty Dilemma, Bifurcation), http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skep ... ml#special , the idea to focuse our entire attention on only the part of the DNA, and their opinion of it, that they want us to see, while NOT letting us look at any DNA evidence that would support anything they don't want us to know. In short, are they really telling us to ignore that little man behind the curtain?

Lastly, notice how, on the pictures shown in this thread earlier, that the main difference you see between modern mumans and netherdals is netherdals have bigger jaws. Bigger jaws hold more teeth, smaller jaws hold less teeth. If we decended from netherdals, and our jaw sized became smaller, what would happen if the number of teeth we had was still the same? Can you say WISDOM TEETH? They kind of make sense now, don't you think?

dayage wrote:I was making this for another debate I am having, but I'll put this here too.

Neanderthals are not humans

Neanderthal's DNA is too different. It is that difference that allowed scientists to determine that humans may have interbred with Neanderthals. The amount of nuclear DNA that non-Africans have received from Neanderthals is only 1-4%. This agrees with the findings from mtDNA studies, which, because of its smaller size, could not detect any interbreeding.

Africans show no signs of Neanderthal interbreeding. They do not have Neanderthals in their blood. This rules against Neanderthals as being our ancestors. If they were our ancestors, we should have lots of evidence for interbreeding (lots of their DNA in ours). If Noah was a Neanderthal, his genes should be in all human genomes and at high levels.

This information fits well with the Biblical account. Humans originated and stayed in the Mesopotamian/Arabian areas until after the Tower of Babel. At that point, most of the descendants of Japheth and Shem seem to have moved northward and most of Ham's descendants seem to have moved toward Africa.

Some of Japheth and Shem's descendants may have committed bestiality (Ex. 22:19; Lev. 18:23, 20:15-16) with Neanderthals and given birth to viable children. As the nuclear DNA study stated, it would only take a few of these incidents to give the 1-4% Neanderthal signature that we see across European and Asian populations.
http://www.eva.mpg.de/genetics/pdf/Gree ... l_2008.pdf
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Ad ... ne.0002700
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/328/5979/710.full
http://www.pnas.org/content/100/11/6593.long


Neanderthal morphology and development differ from humans.

Neanderthal Birth canals differ from humans
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/20/8151.full

Baby Neanderthals differ from human babies
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Neanderth ... a014916153

Neanderthals had a different face
http://www.pnas.org/content/101/5/1147. ... c2eac1888a

The Neanderthal's overall skeleton differed from humans in many ways
http://www.illustrationsource.com/stock ... o-sapiens/

Human brains developed differently
http://www.eurekalert.org/images/releas ... io8442.pdf
Also, listen to the 11/10/10 podcast about their brains
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/science ... d265539001

Neanderthals developed faster than humans. This, along with the fact that their babies had the same thick bones and other anatomical features, rules against these features being caused by living much longer than modern humans.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/ ... 7.full.pdf


Neanderthal "arts" compared to human art. With Neanderthal, it is always guess work.

Neanderthal "carving" 35,000 years old
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3256228.stm

Neanderthal "flute"
http://www.ukom.gov.si/en/media_room/ba ... hal_flute/
http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/pdfs/d ... 314-09.pdf

Neanderthal "painting." It's the white shell that may have pigments. 50,000 yrs
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... -art-human

Human carving 30,000+ yrs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_man_o ... ein_Stadel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Hohle_Fels
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2679675.stm

Human painting 30,000 yrs
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/prehist ... ntings.htm

Human flute 40,000 and 30,000 yrs
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... ument.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8117915.stm

Human clothes 30,000+ yrs
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 142352.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 233037.htm

Well here's the problem. We are sexually compatible with these "animals"? That we can reproduce offspring with them? Has this been possible with any other animal in history. So why them.

derrick09 wrote:Great stuff Gman, as far as you know if any of these human/chimp intermediates did indeed ever exist would palentologists have already found some of them? From what I've heard the overall fossil record is almost complete and as you say above, the human or ape to human fossil record is still incomplete. Now I know that it's impossible to dig up the entire earth, but as much has been dug over the decades don't you think we would have found some by now? Thanks and GB.

Sahelanthropus
Age: 7 million years
Discovered: July 2001 to March 2002


Orrorin tugenensis
Age: 6.2 to 5.6 million years
Discovered: 2000

Ardipithecus kadabba
Age: 5.6 million years
Discovered: 1997

Ardipithecus ramidus
Age: 4.4 million years
Discovered: 1992

Australopithecus anamensis
Age: ~4 million years
Discovered: 1965

Australopithecus afarensis
Age: 3.7 to 2.9 million years
Discovered: 1973

Australopithecus bahrelghazali
Age: 3.6 million years
Discovered: 1995

Australopithecus africanus
Age: 2–3 million years
Discovered: 1924

Kenyanthropus
Age: 3.5 to 3.2 million years
Discovered: 1999

Paranthropus aethiopicus
Age: 2.7 to 2.5 million years
Discovered: 1985

Paranthropus boisei
Age: 2.6 to 1.2 million years
Discovered: 1959

Paranthropus robustus
Age: 2.0 to 1.2 million years
Discovered: 1938

Homo habilis
Age: 2.3 to 1.4 million years
Discovered: 1962

Homo rudolfensis
Age: 1.9 million years
Discovered: 1972

Homo ergaster
Age: 2.5 to 1.7 million years
Discovered: 1949

Homo georgicus
Age: 1.8 million years
Discovered: 1991

Homo erectus
Age: 1.8 to 1.3 million years
Discovered: 1891

Homo heidelbergensis
Age: 600,000 to 400,000
Discovered: 1907

Neanderthal
Age: 600,000–350,000
Discovered: 1829

There are many more finding I have not included for lack of time.
Our knowledge has expanded with more finds.

More recent expeditions took advantage of date of strata and geographical location to key in on hopeful sites.
This lead to additional discoveries.

This list above is a good example of philosophy in motion. It is not really science but a belief system. How it get's into science books is amazing. In many cases the skeletal remains are so fragmented that the scientist have no real clue what they are looking at but assign it to a human ancestry anyways.

Sadly...

Gman wrote:This list above is a good example of philosophy in motion. It is not really science but a belief system. How it get's into science books is amazing. In many cases the skeletal remains are so fragmented that the scientist have no real clue what they are looking at but assign it to a human ancestry anyways.

Sadly...

But wouldn't the fragments be like puzzle pieces. You're just putting together whats there.

The difference is with a puzzle, you have the picture on the box to guide you. The pieces fit and it is clear. In this case we have people with a philosophical world view and they are placing the pieces (reshaping them I would contend) to fit the picture they have in their mind.
For example:

How about old Ardipithecus ramidus? That is the picture you see below. However, there is actually little difference between this and modern apes such as chimps and the bonobo. In fact the bonobo shares characteristics that are claimed "revolutionary," in most articles. Yet, the bonobo lives today, in a very close region of Africa to where these remains are found.


Another point. The skull on the left is real. The rendering on the right is fantasy. The immagination of an artist. So, take an ape skull and add human like lips, eyes and ears, and wallah! Transitional species. The only problem is we don't have those ears, eyes, lips, skin, etc. Nada, zip, zilch.

So let's start from the top. Our lovely list provided by our friend has 2nd in the chain, Orrorin tugenensis. So, here is what we have.
Yes, a clear puzzle piece. Not. Oh, did I mention that everything in the picture is believed to represent five individuals?

How about next on the list. Ardipithecus kadabba

Ardipithecus kadabba is, "known only from teeth and bits and pieces of skeletal bones." [Gibbons, Ann (2009). "A New Kind of Ancestor: Ardipithecus Unveiled". Science]
whew! Compelling.

What I have pointed out is just from simple Google searches. You can examine the evidence. Evidence is not exclusive to a worldview. Examine it for yourself and you will see that what is being done borders on the criminal. it is deceptive and shows that there is an AGENDA. Science and evidence do NOT speak for themselves. They must be interpreted. Anyone with half a brain can look at this and scream BS at the conclusions that are being drawn. Another example of how our current eductation system doesn't teach people to think for themselves. It tells them what to think, and then continutes in these brainwashing tactics.

Good point J. The point being is that the evidence is way too incomplete for any "real" conclusion at the moment. Therefore for someone to say that it is a slam dunk for macro evolution is not appropriate.

It's very easy to see here how these debates can turn into philosophical ones, especially when the science is flaky..

Interesting Gman, as far as no real or solid conclusion at the moment as far as the whole evolution debate is concerned. I assume we will probably never know 100% for sure which side is right, but in terms of who is most likely right or which side has the most momentum going, one could get enough of a sense on who is right couldn't they? Like for an example, in politics, a few weeks ago, news and political polls shown that there was probably going to be a huge surge in republicans many days, if not weeks before the election, and thus the general public got the idea that the momentum was on the republican's side. Now there was always the possibility the slight possibility that the polls could have been wrong and that the republican's would not have made the surge like they did, but the odds and the cumulative evidence thus far at that time were way against that. Now when you apply that same technique to the creation/evolution debate if you were someone who doesn't have a axe to grind on either side nor have any emotional connections to either side, if you were per se, just coming out of a coma and just relearning everything and this was the main thing you were studying at the time, being as objective as humanly possible, do you think the creation or even ID side has the momentum behind it, or would you say it's still like a 50/50 toss up creation/ID and evolution? When you take away the emotional connection that you (and I have) for Christianity and thus the creation side, are you still as confident? Now when I do that or try to do that, I'm still siding with the creation/ID side, now that may be because I still smell a rat or a agenda like Jlay says on the evolution side but as of now they evolutionists have not done enough to show that they are being as objective as possible, as if they are running from something and or hiding something. Not to mention, the evolution side is not doing a good enough job in responding to people like Fauz Rana and Stephen Meyer. So until I start seeing some blockbuster results and not just more "possible" transitional fossils but ones that STICK or stand up to counter examination then I'll start giving darwinian evolution more credit, but until then it still looks to me to be a sinking ship.

Say, Jlay, you mentioned agenda with evolutionists, I guess you have seen this thread of mine from many weeks ago

http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... er+problem

I think many evolution and secular science groups are part of this as well, they are all part of a big happy (and red) family. And somehow if they are not all part of that (red) family, they certainly want to silence, demean and undermine Christians in any way possible. And when you ask yourself, "what could possibly be their main goal, their end goal or ultimate purpose with all of this?" if it isn't this one world,secular,and state centered agenda than WHAT IS IT? And why are they working so hard to shut Christians and Christian ideas out of the public square? Just doing it out of irritation or for fun, or for "better science and better science education" just doesn't make any sense if it were for those reasons alone we wouldn't see things get as heated as they do with atheists, evolutionists and their respective groups, we would still have debate and discussion but it would be more like pre tribulation and post tribulation Christian debating and discussing the tribulation. It would be much more mild, more civil and there would be more respect for each other. I mean you don't see the post tribulation Christians wanting to fully silence and demean the pre tribulation Christians? As far as I know that doesn't go on so why should it with the Christian/atheist or creation/evolution debates? But anyway, those are some interesting things to ponder.

Some of the biggest problems scientists face regarding our family tree is lack of evidence. In the case of the Neanderthal and other species there is simply not enough skeletal remains to make a sound judgement. It should be noted here that there have only been a handful of neanderthal sites ever found and only a few of those found had complete skeletal remains. If evolution were true, we should be finding thousands of these sites. Therefore it is questionable science at best. For all we know, these people or primates had birth defects or a vitamin deficiency.

I've got to hand it to God however. God did not leave us a solid paper trail to our origins. There are so many questions. But now I think I see why. I think it all has to do with our free will. If God would have made it blatantly obvious to our origins or past through science, an easy to follow paper trail, then NO ONE could deny His existence. But no. God didn't do it that way, He has got us questioning our science, questioning the very evidence that would lead us to Him. In a way, however, if you didn't want to make robots, invading your creations free will, this is the proper way to do it. This way you would question the very existence of God.

Is there a God or isn't there one? Can He be found via science? Possibly yes, possibly no... YOU make the choice.

God is smart.......

Did you know people can be part of a conspiracy and even be aware of it? In fact Hitler accomplished this with some sickening results.

I'm not equating evolutionists to Hitler, only using that to illustrate a sad reality. The same trait of human behavior that leads people into religious cults is the same one that can cause them to propagate Darwinian evolution as a fact. And if you don't know how to look for it, you will miss it. People may think they are being entirely sincere and reasonable, when in fact they aren't.

Another example is the fallacy of equivocation. Let me give you an example.
"We know evolution is true because we see evolution happening all the time."

It is the misleading use of a term with more than one meaning. For example the word evolution in this sentence is being taken from two meanings, and then one meaning is being applied to the other use of the word, even though the two have different meanings in the context.
Yes we can see evolution happening all the time. But we also know that the word evolution has many differing meanings and applications.

Yet this is one of the most common principles that Darwinist's defend their worldview from.
We see natural selection happening. (Which of course we all agree on, Creationists and evolutionists alike.) Natural selection is testable and verifiable. But the word 'evolution' is ambiguous at best.
1. Natural selection is true.
2. Natural selection is a form of evolution.
3. Therefore, evolution is true.

This is a valid argument. However, there is a problem in premise two, and it has to do with the fallacy of equivocation. This is equivocating 'evolution,' which in its simplest form means change, to be the same thing as goo to you evolution that Darwinism believes.

Good point... I believe there is no such thing as philosophy free science. Everyone says you can divorce philosophy from science, or that evolution is "neutral" toward science, but if you give completely naturalistic explanations for life then by default you are upholding the naturalistic view. All you have to do is add time, chance, and natural selection as your god and whola, you have your own philosophy/religion.

Everyone is religious... Everyone. I always have to laugh when I see atheists try to deny this fact. They are just as religious as anyone else.

That is why I gave up on that religion long ago...

Yes, and that is why it is so essential to be able to spot logical fallacies.

I know most of you do not like AIG, but Jason Lisle does a most excellent job lecturing on this very subject.
He is an astro-physicist and avid YECer, but you can still learn a lot. Well worth the watch.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/PublicS ... 6,229.aspx