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 Questions ThreeA larger brain is capable of more things. Neanderthal had bigger brains than we do. Even though Neanderthal modems reveal less complexity of diet, they may easily have been smarter than sapiens if the same era. “The people” are identified by what they eat in many tribes. Dietary restrictions apply to Muslims (Halil) and Jews (Kosher). Some people take these to extremes, dying before dining on the verboten. If primary staples of Neanderthal diet was religiously proscribed while driven to extinction, that would certainly impact their numbers. On the other hand, religions change, often coping with the times, and the Neanderthal existed far longer than our species has. <<• Why do apes lack the ability to build on previous generations’ knowledge? Why do they lack mechanisms for cumulative knowledge? Is that solely due to their brains being different?>> Why do birds suddenly appear every time you are near? Can it be, just like me, they like to be, close to you? How many species have mechanisms for cumulative knowledge? Turns out studies show apes DO train peers on new techniques. Add to that LOTS of behavioral similarities, many detailed in the Desmond Morris book, “The Naked Ape.” <<• Why do apes not possess the ability for complex language? Is that due to their brains being different or do they lack the anatomy to speak a variety of different words?>> Probably brain differences. Animals do have a variety of communication strategies. Whale songs. Frog mating calls. Cattle mooing. A cow calling a calf sounds different from one sounding alarm. A curious fact concerns brain development. Take a big sample of Jurassic animals and calculate brain to body mass ratio. Cretaceous numbers are higher than Triassic ratios. Miocene numbers are higher than any Mesozoic values. Even excluding humans, Pleistocene values exceed Miocene fauna. So overall brains have increased in size, suggesting there must be evolutionary value in supporting greater complexity. Again, how many years separate the Cretaceous from now? 65 million? Development is a slow process, marked by long periods of stasis only interrupted by environmental pressure, either internal or external. Mosquitoes, for example, are not terribly different from varieties that existed a hundred million years ago. Most species undergo more rapid change. |
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@apatzer One thing it was hard for me to initially reconcile was the concept of an entity infinitely more powerful and intelligent than I that also had my best interests at heart. I don’t think we see that often in the world, as I believe the saying, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” and believe that humanity is in a fallen state. That’s why I think it’s imperative to know God from reading the Bible, particularly the Gospels because Jesus Christ was/is God incarnate. I don’t think humans can know God any other way, absent a revelation. It’s been said that people’s initial concept of God comes from how they view their earthly fathers, and I think that’s probably true because that’s kind of their only reference point. But I think once people realize who Jesus Christ was/is, they can get a much more accurate understanding of God. “Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?” (John 14:8-9) “I and my Father are one.” (John 10:30) |
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Your Momma was Eutherian Rh blood factor. Named for rhesus monkeys. When you were born, your mother expelled a placenta out of her uterus, the little sac that surrounded you as a fetus. Hormones kicked in, inducing lactation, which is how you were nursed your first few months of life. That milk is what makes you a mammal as opposed to a reptile or cephalopod or insect. Other mammal features—you are hairy. Internal skeleton. A number of things. Fruit bats have a broken GULO gene, but it s not broken the same way as it is in both humans and old world primates. GULO expresses a protein that synthesizes ascorbic acid (vitamin C) which your body doesn’t produce hence you are subject to scurvy—same as chimps. Why is your GULO gene broken the same way it is in apes? That is a real mystery. |
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Vic 22:14 2. <I’m talking about the achievements of human beings who participated in those achievements,> A self-referential statement, and therefore it can mean whatever you want it to mean, and equally whatever the reader wants it to mean. It is devoid of objective meaning. So are you still attributing the achievements of a long tradition involving thousands of individuals to..... an individual? Each individual? Or the collective community? I can understand your reluctance. No matter what you answer, you are undercutting yourself. Your listing of 'achievements' is also suspect for its anthropocentrism. Sure, there are lots of things that humans, ACTING TOGETHER, have achieved. There are also lots of things that animals have achieved that are way beyond that capability of humans. Whales can dive to depths of hundreds of metres totally unaided; humans can't do this, regardless of their numbers. Are whales a 'special creation'? Or are only human achievements 'vastly superior'? 3. I believe God created humans so the “special creation” took place from the first human. Another self-referential answer! Of course it took place 'from the first human'! If it took place earlier, that 'first human' wouldn't have been the first human, and if it happened later that 'first human' wouldn't have been human! So please say WHEN or WHAT was the first human. I don't need his name and address, just an approximate year, or perhaps a defining event known to science, or a specific characteristic, or which of many fossil humans it happened to. 4a). <If you don’t know the difference between a human being and an animal, I can’t help you.> I know what I would consider the difference between a 'human' and a non-human 'animal' among living things today. Exactly where to draw that line in terms of the fossil record is trickier, as I have already explained because at a generation-by-generation scale the differences are imperceptible at each single step; much like "At what precise age, to the nearest second, does a boy become a man?" What I'm asking is for you to say when YOU think this differentiation happened. You're the one advocating a 'special creation', which implies a sharp break, so you should have much less trouble. 4b). <This seems like an irrelevant and meaningless question designed solely to bicker and argue.> As I have already explained, this is a key question. Your assertion of 'special creation' is based on there being a distinct and clear difference between 'human' and 'animal'. If this question (what is 'human' and what is 'animal'?) is 'irrelevant and meaningless', then it follows logically that any thesis asserting that humans are inherently different from animals is equally meaningless. You have just demolished your own thesis (yet again!) 4c). <That may explain your interest in muddling around that definition, but it doesn’t interest me.> My interest is in understanding what you are asserting. Without defining your terms, your assertion is meaningless. If what you are saying doesn't interest you, that says everything that needs to be said. |
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Like I said before, tell me what you think and believe and stop trying to say what I think and believe because you don’t know and you never get it right. Your whale example is faulty because it relies on the word “unaided,” and humans can dive as deep as whales due to the ingenuity and intelligence of humans. When a whale lands another whale on the moon, let me know. 3. I don’t know when God created the first human, but I believe the first human was created by God and did not evolve from another species. 4. You’re not listening to me. I don’t believe humans evolved from another species so I don’t believe any differentiation happened. There is no “sharp break” that occurred between animals and humans because God created animals separately and directly and humans separately and directly. You seem to spend a lot of time judging and refereeing instead of listening and understanding. Keep it up and I just won’t bother engaging with you as it’s quite obnoxious. |
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Al Gore It wasn’t Al Gore. He never claimed to have invented the internet. Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn credited with developing the Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), the foundational protocols that allow different networks to communicate. Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, the HTML markup language, the URL system, and HTTP. While Oliver Heaviside patented the concept of a coaxial cable in 1880, Lloyd Espenschied and Herman Affel are credited with inventing the first practical coaxial cable in 1929. Robert Metcalf and David Boggs invented Ethernet. Building on the ideas of J. C. R. Licklider, Bob Taylor initiated the ARPANET project in 1966 to enable resource sharing between remote computers. Taylor appointed Larry Roberts as program manager. Roberts made the key decisions about the request for proposal to build the network. He incorporated Donald Davies' concepts and designs for packet switching, and sought input from Paul Baran on dynamic routing. Others invented copper wire, electricity, and so on. Many were involved in circuit design and various computer components. I’ve no idea where you really want to go with all this. We could look at a bird’s nest and marvel at the complexity and wonder of it. Obviously birds must be special creations—nests prove this. How? |
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The fact you and Bob are trying to compare building a bird’s nest and whale diving to landing a man on the moon shows how absurd your and Bob’s position is. A human being can replicate a bird’s nest and dive as deep as a whale. Any animals compose a symphony or build a skyscraper? Build an airplane or car? Indoor plumbing? A dishwasher? How about a crossword puzzle? And if you want to truly include every human being who was involved in creating the Internet, you’ve gotta start with all the gents who discovered electricity. Because it’s hard to see the Internet working without it. |
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LOL Jules Verne wouldn’t publish “From Earth to the Moon” for another forty years, fueling the imaginations of von Braun and the others who would get us there. You seem wedded to the belief our technology is a gift from God, like the fire of Prometheus, as opposed to something we figured out on our own. God smiled, and allowed us to prescribe thalidomide to control nausea in pregnant women, and mRNA vaccines to save millions from the ravages of COVID. I fail to see how that makes us any more special than Neanderthal, who lacked flush toilets and electric lights. The Amish lack flush toilets and electric lights. We would never have landed on lunar soil were we all living in an Amish paradise. |
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Lord Shiva |
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Opps |
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Sorry I meant to write (innate), my phone changed it to inmate. One of these years I'll be smart enough to proofread my text before I send it rather than after. Maybe one decade |
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Not at all and never said that. I believe the ability of humans to discover and invent technology is a gift from God. The two are not the same. If the Amish lack flush toilets and electric lights, that’s a self-imposed limitation, not an inherent limitation. They have the ability to have flush toilets and electric lights; they just choose not to. Whales haven’t gone to the moon because they choose not to. They lack the ability to. What makes conversing with you and Bob so tiresome is continually having to correct your misrepresentations of what I think and believe. Why not stick to stating what you think and believe? |
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Rocket Surgery A distinction so fine it’s akin to the difference between light at 680 nm and light at 681 nm. Can we just go with the simpler Apatzer interpretation that the big brains are God’s gift, whether we prefer dumping into a golden flusher one must crank ten, fifteen times, or resting our laurels on a bare outhouse plank Amish style? The tech seems to be a distraction, as only God blessed Americans ever set boots on the moon. |
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It’s not a fine distinction at all. You think God giving man the ability to put together a jigsaw puzzle is the same as God handing man a completed jigsaw puzzle? <<Can we just go with the simpler Apatzer interpretation that the big brains are God’s gift, whether we prefer dumping into a golden flusher one must crank ten, fifteen times, or resting our laurels on a bare outhouse plank Amish style?>> How does the theory of molecules-to-man evolution explain one species being light years ahead of every other species in terms of abilities, capabilities and accomplishments? <<The tech seems to be a distraction, as only God blessed Americans ever set boots on the moon.>> Not a distraction at all, but a manifestation of man’s status as a special creation. |
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Lord Shiva I don't understand why you feel the need to say things like the following... "Can we just go with the simpler Apatzer interpretation that the big brains are God’s gift, whether we prefer dumping into a golden flusher one must crank ten, fifteen times, or resting our laurels on a bare outhouse plank Amish style?"~LS Did I say that? No Do you like it when people miss-represent your position or put words into your mouth? Because I don't. Sir you are too busy trying to plow your point across rather than actually read and take time to digest what other people are actually saying. That is poison to good communication and conversation. |
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Reinterpreting The DoI states something about all men are endowed by their Creator… (Note the DoI pronoun). This just seems as straightforward as unto the Amish God bequeathed the ability to fashion wooden planks into fly drawing latrines, and unto others the ability to acquire golden thrones for their morning ablutions. Doesn’t the essential attribute in Vic’s argument boil down to brain difference? Human primate brains have capabilities a little bit beyond the brains of simians? If that is the case then what we do with that brain obviously ranges from Naked and Afraid to weighing the Higg’s boson. The fact some chose one thing and others chose something else isn’t critical to aptitude, only illustrative of it. Like in “Good Will Hunting” where the math genius is content just sweeping floors, and solving advanced problems as a lark. |
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A little bit beyond? Based on abilities, capabilities and accomplishments, I’d say light years beyond. And you seem to be suggesting that apes simply choose not to build cars, skyscrapers, airplanes and spacecraft and simply choose not to compose symphonies and great works of fiction and nonfiction, rather than they’re incapable of it. That’s where your whole Amish analogy falls apart. The Amish choose to live the way they do. Apes don’t. |
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Brain Geometry Obviously God is not passing out Manna. Simians solve simple jigsaw puzzles. Did God grant them that capability? <<Can we just go with the simpler Apatzer interpretation that the big brains are God’s gift, whether we prefer dumping into a golden flusher one must crank ten, fifteen times, or resting our laurels on a bare outhouse plank Amish style?>>. LS <<How does the theory of molecules-to-man evolution explain one species being light years ahead of every other species in terms of abilities, capabilities and accomplishments?>> Why do our brains so closely parallel simian brains, right down to mating behavior and other things? If I wanted man to regard himself as a special creation, there would be no new world nor old world primates beyond us. No obvious evolutionary pathways. No fossils of hominid forebears. None of this implies God doesn’t exist, only that for unknown reason God chose not to make evidence of special creation obvious. Bob suggests any possible configuration could be explained by natural forces apart from God’s deliberate handiwork, but on that I disagree. He used star arrangements, making the good point humans might simply have crafted alphabets spelling God’s name on the basis of existing arrangements. But it goes far deeper than that. I understand you’re not YEC, but suppose all radioisotope dates yielded 6000 years? Suppose continental drift wasn’t a thing, but instead we could show sea floor spreading was limited to a mere 6000 years? If the distance to the most distant stars we can observe did not exceed 6000 light years? I would be YEC in that world. |
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<<How does the theory of molecules-to-man evolution explain one species being light years ahead of every other species in terms of abilities, capabilities and accomplishments?>> |
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Seems To Be I’ve no idea how you drew that conclusion. You’ve seen 2001: A Space Odyssey. The obelisk sings to the apes, and one of them wields the thigh bone to smash his enemies, and at the end the antelope rib is lofted into the air to become an orbiting space station. It’s like that. A long, steady progression of tools. I look at the Jersey Shore girl, or the Kardashian sisters, and I think—they ain’t got what it takes to land boots on the moon. Even if they had seen it done. I don’t mean to be sexist—plenty of men are meatheads too. The Whiskeyleaks DUI hire Pete would have no idea how to go about it. |
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Tech Breakdown These were collaborative efforts of many thousands of people. Gemini says: 1. Brain Size and Complexity: Increased Size: The human brain is significantly larger than those of our primate relatives, with a threefold increase in endocranial volume since early hominids like Homo habilis. Neocortex Expansion: The neocortex, the outer layer of the brain responsible for higher-level cognitive functions, expanded disproportionately, leading to increased processing power and complexity. Increased Neurons and Synapses: Humans have a far greater number of neurons and synapses (connections between neurons) compared to other primates, facilitating enhanced encoding, integration, and transfer of information. White Matter Increase: Humans have more white matter in the temporal cortex, which reflects more connections between nerve cells and a greater ability to process information. 2. Genetic and Molecular Changes: Gene Duplication and Modification: Evolutionary changes occurred through gene duplication, where ancestral genes are duplicated and the copy evolves into a related gene, leading to new or modified functions. Changes in Gene Expression: Alterations in non-coding DNA sequences, which regulate gene expression, allowed existing genes to be "re-purposed" for new functions. Human-Specific Genes: Researchers are actively investigating human-specific genes and their role in brain development and function, such as the modified FOXP2 gene associated with speech and language. SRGAP2C: The human variant of the gene SRGAP2, SRGAP2C, enables greater dendritic spine density which fosters greater neural connections. |
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No one said one guy did. <<These were collaborative efforts of many thousands of people.>> So why haven’t the collaborative efforts of many thousands of apes resulted in an accomplishment even remotely similar to what humans have accomplished? |
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Vic 13:26 That's an incredibly bold thing to say, coming from you! 1. You still haven't answered many questions put to you, the core one being "Who do YOU think are 'humans' in the sense of 'special creation'?" I've even tried to help out by offering options, in case you need help, or you can come up with your own. Yet you remain silent. And this is not the only question you have ignored. 2. The question you say hasn't been answered HAS been answered. "How does the theory of molecules-to-man evolution explain one species being light years ahead of every other species in terms of abilities, capabilities and accomplishments?" I said it was a combination of intelligence sufficient to use language so techniques can be taught from generation to generation, and social structures that permitted specialisation of labour. This meant that knowledge could be passed on and later generations could build on that inheritance rather than having to start from scratch each time. Shiva pointed in the same direction when he said "How many species have mechanisms for cumulative knowledge?" Your question has been answered. Now it's time for you to answer the core questions put to you. I'll be back after work. |
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I don’t answer questions that have nothing to do with the basic point I’m making as I see such questions as an unnecessary diversion and distraction. I’m sure science has defined humans as distinct from animals. I’m content with whatever that distinction is as it’s really irrelevant to the point I made about humans being a special creation and appears not to recognize that I believe humans were made separate from animals and there was no point at which humans and animals became differentiated, |
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Answer Me, These Questions Three I don’t know why. Why is the free neutron half-life ten to 14 minutes, why can no one pin this down, and why is that baryon stable when bound in certain atomic nuclei? If science knows I sure don’t. Why is the GULO gene broken in old world primates same as in humans? Hard to imagine of the myriads of mammals this gene just happens to break in humans and nonhuman apes the same way. I do my best to answer any question. And to ask insightful ones when I can. Chimps do band in communities. Why haven’t they designed digital computers? Maybe they didn’t need to decipher German Enigma codes. Chimps cannot make fire. That is a first step in developing any technology using God’s brain gift. <<I don’t answer questions that have nothing to do with the basic point I’m making as I see such questions as an unnecessary diversion and distraction. I’m sure science has defined humans as distinct from animals.>> You’re sure wrong on that score. Humans are animals, not distinct. We suffer some of the same STDs found in chimps. Gemini: Several parasite species, including Giardia duodenalis, Entamoeba histolytica, and Plasmodium species, are known to infect both humans and chimpanzees, highlighting the potential for zoonotic transmission. |
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Brains Three isn’t that big of a difference. How many times bigger is a Great Dane compared to a chihuahua? More than three, I bet. Or how many times bigger is an emu to a hummingbird? Nature has produced variations far greater than the little difference in ape/hominid brain capacity. www.ukri.org Quote: As early humans faced new environmental challenges and evolved bigger bodies, they evolved larger and more complex brains. Large, complex brains can process and store a lot of information. That was a big advantage to early humans in their social interactions and encounters with unfamiliar habitats. Over the course of human evolution, brain size tripled. The modern human brain is the largest and most complex of any living primate. Brain size increases slowly From 6–2 million years ago During this time period, early humans began to walk upright and make simple tools. Brain size increased, but only slightly. Brain and body size increase From 2 million–800,000 years ago During this time period early humans spread around the globe, encountering many new environments on different continents. These challenges, along with an increase in body size, led to an increase in brain size. Brain size increases rapidly From 800,000–200,000 years ago Human brain size evolved most rapidly during a time of dramatic climate change. Larger, more complex brains enabled early humans of this time period to interact with each other and with their surroundings in new and different ways. As the environment became more unpredictable, bigger brains helped our ancestors survive. humanorigins.si.edu I recommend checking the links, as charts and graphs might hold answers to some of your questions. |
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Forget about whether humans are a special creation or what the differences are between humans and the most advanced animal species. Can we at least agree that a vast gulf as described in the first paragraph exists? |
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Lord Shiva |
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Agree Technologically, yes. Physiologically? Not so much. Monkeys scampering into the trees are unmatched by human gymnasts. And gorilla strength is unparalleled. |
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My Mistake I could have sworn I saw a post by Apatzer clarifying Vic’s comment on brains. Must have been my fevered imagination—it obviously isn’t there. I falsely attributed an intelligent response to someone who hadn’t made one after all. My apologies to all concerned. |
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