What is the current theistic explanation for archaic human fossils?

[DeMotts]

There's quite a body of fossils that exist that illustrate a variety of archaic humans, from australopithecines to Homo rhodesiensis, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo naledi, Homo ergaster, Homo antecessor, and Homo habilis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_h ... on_fossils

For the theistic anti-evolutionists on the board: how do you explain such a variety of human fossils? What are australopithecines? How do they fit in with the creation story of the bible? Do you believe these fossils are legitimate or forgeries?

[Jose Fly]

I do not see how you can classify fossils as coming from an intelligent being either, so as I said ten times, you have some explaining to do.

Huh? What do I have to explain? You've made up your own personal criterion for classifying fossils and can't seem to understand why no one else is adopting it.

It's like if I decided on my own that in order for a person to be a "Christian", they must believe that Jesus was a zombie. Would it be reasonable for me to expect everyone else to go along with that? Do I get to demand everyone else explain why they don't adopt my made-up criterion?

I think the answer is obvious....it's your personal made-up criterion, so you should appreciate how it's only meaningful to you, and not expect it to be meaningful to anyone else.

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Inquirer in post #108]

I simply do not know, I cannot say, what evidence (remember that word?) can you show me that these fossils came from creatures possessing something like human intellect?

What are you defining as "human"? Is it only Homo sapiens? We know that the earllest Homo sapiens (eg. the Omo remains from around 200K years ago) were hunter gatherers, and the overlapping Homo members sapiens, neanderthals, denisovans, etc. also were. But the only insight into their relative intelligence levels is what they left behind, and measures of brain case size as a possible indicator.

The brain cases of ergaster/erectus and earlier examples were smaller than modern humans, but larger than habilis or chimps, etc. Brain size got progressively larger, and changed in structure (eg. more neocortex) along the evolutionay path. So you'd expect intelligence to have also increased and this is evidenced by stone tools and their complexity, use of fire, etc. All of that has to be considered along with the fossil evidence to try and estimate how "smart" these earlier Homo members were.

If Homo sapiens from 200K years ago had the same intellectual capacity as we do today (because of the same brain size and structure), but were infinitely "dumber" because knowledge had not developed and spread at the time (no written languages, etc.), then they may have been only slightly more intelligent than Neanderthals (with similar or even larger brain size) of that time. Where do you draw the line on how intelligent an earlier Homo member had to be to be considered "human"?

https://www.livescience.com/how-many-human-species.html

[Inquirer]

I do not see how you can classify fossils as coming from an intelligent being either, so as I said ten times, you have some explaining to do.

Huh? What do I have to explain? You've made up your own personal criterion for classifying fossils and can't seem to understand why no one else is adopting it.

Well I'm certainly not going to use your chosen criteria" since that excludes one of the very things that makes humans human, I make no apologies for my emphasizing this either.

It's like if I decided on my own that in order for a person to be a "Christian", they must believe that Jesus was a zombie. Would it be reasonable for me to expect everyone else to go along with that? Do I get to demand everyone else explain why they don't adopt my made-up criterion?

Sorry, this is irrelevant lets stick to the subject which is concerned with supposed "archaic human" fossils, if you don't feel comfortable discussing science scientifically then go to some other thread, there are lots for you to choose from certainly if Christianity and Jesus is on your mind.

I think the answer is obvious....it's your personal made-up criterion, so you should appreciate how it's only meaningful to you, and not expect it to be meaningful to anyone else.

We either make up criteria or we pick and choose an already existing one, but whichever, that's simply reality Mr. Fly, we're no so different after all, think about it.

[Clownboat]

Good grief. You are clearly implying that intelligence level is a factor in determining if a creature is human or not.

Yes, of course I am and I'm not implying I'm saying it plainly and clearly and have been for the past three pages of this discussion for God's sake!

Readers, let me remind you of post 90 from this thread:
Inquirer: Is this an admission then that I never said "IQ is a criterion for classifying fossils"?

Without some knowledge of their intellectual abilities we're dealing with apes that look similar to humans

You just admitted that we have no knowledge of their intellectual abilities and then determined that they are apes that look similar to humans.
This is lost on you isn't it?

A corner stone of science is basic sound logic, remember that.

Trying to slay us with irony?

[Jose Fly]

Well I'm certainly not going to use your chosen criteria" since that excludes one of the very things that makes humans human, I make no apologies for my emphasizing this either.

I don't have my own personal criteria; I defer to the experts. You OTOH reject the experts' methods and instead utilize your own personal, made-up criterion.

So no need to try and project your approach onto me.

It's like if I decided on my own that in order for a person to be a "Christian", they must believe that Jesus was a zombie. Would it be reasonable for me to expect everyone else to go along with that? Do I get to demand everyone else explain why they don't adopt my made-up criterion?

Sorry, this is irrelevant lets stick to the subject which is concerned with supposed "archaic human" fossils, if you don't feel comfortable discussing science scientifically then go to some other thread, there are lots for you to choose from certainly if Christianity and Jesus is on your mind.

I'll do whatever I like, and in this case the analogy is entirely on-point.

We either make up criteria or we pick and choose an already existing one, but whichever, that's simply reality Mr. Fly, we're no so different after all, think about it.

I defer to the experts, you don't and make up your own personal criterion. Those are quite different.

[Jose Fly]

Good grief. You are clearly implying that intelligence level is a factor in determining if a creature is human or not.

Yes, of course I am and I'm not implying I'm saying it plainly and clearly and have been for the past three pages of this discussion for God's sake!

Readers, let me remind you of post 90 from this thread:
Inquirer: Is this an admission then that I never said "IQ is a criterion for classifying fossils"?

Without some knowledge of their intellectual abilities we're dealing with apes that look similar to humans

You just admitted that we have no knowledge of their intellectual abilities and then determined that they are apes that look similar to humans.
This is lost on you isn't it?

A corner stone of science is basic sound logic, remember that.

Trying to slay us with irony?

It's bizarre, isn't it? I sometimes still think he's trolling.

[Inquirer]

Good grief. You are clearly implying that intelligence level is a factor in determining if a creature is human or not.

Yes, of course I am and I'm not implying I'm saying it plainly and clearly and have been for the past three pages of this discussion for God's sake!

Readers, let me remind you of post 90 from this thread:
Inquirer: Is this an admission then that I never said "IQ is a criterion for classifying fossils"?

Without some knowledge of their intellectual abilities we're dealing with apes that look similar to humans

You just admitted that we have no knowledge of their intellectual abilities and then determined that they are apes that look similar to humans.
This is lost on you isn't it?

A corner stone of science is basic sound logic, remember that.

Trying to slay us with irony?

Read all of my posts, none of them contain the string "IQ is a criterion for classifying fossils", so Mr. Fly was wrong so attribute that to me.

It seems that you and some others here simply dislike being disagreed with so much, that you attack the person on all sorts of specious grounds when you are unable to attack their arguments.

Fossils alone cannot tell us if some other species was "human" several of you have objected to me saying this rather reasonable, obvious fact yet I still have no idea if you, brunum, Dr.NoGods or Mr.Fly agree or disagree with it!

[Clownboat]

Well I'm certainly not going to use your chosen criteria" since that excludes one of the very things that makes humans human.

You error here in thinking you are using Jose Fly's criteria. Jose Fly is not a taxonomist. It is taxonomists that you disagree with.

A taxonomist is a biologist that groups organisms into categories. A plant taxonomist for example, might study the origins and relationships between different types of roses while an insect taxonomist might focus on the relationships between different types of beetles.

These are the people you disagree with. The rest of us are trying to figure out why and if we should amend our thinking. So far, the conclusion of taxonomists seems apt, but I'm open to being shown as to why you think they are wrong in their conclusions. You will need to do better than pointing out the obvious fact that we don't know some IQ scores. Perhaps the IQ argument is the best you got?

It seems that you look to things we don't know about to form your beliefs when looking to things we do know, then forming beliefs would be much more logical.
Knowing if groups were hunter gatherers, or if they used tools is to use info we have.
You want to ignore that they were hunter gatherers and that they used tools to instead focus on their IQ score that is unknown to us. This is nonsensical.

[Jose Fly]

Read all of my posts, none of them contain the string "IQ is a criterion for classifying fossils", so Mr. Fly was wrong so attribute that to me.

So why did you bring it up in a thread specifically about classification of fossils?

Fossils alone cannot tell us if some other species was "human"

Again.....why, because you say so?

several of you have objected to me saying this rather reasonable, obvious fact

So now it's a "fact" simply because you have declared it to be so. Wow....just who do you think you are?

[Inquirer]

Well I'm certainly not going to use your chosen criteria" since that excludes one of the very things that makes humans human, I make no apologies for my emphasizing this either.

I don't have my own personal criteria; I defer to the experts.

You choose your experts don't you?

You OTOH reject the experts' methods and instead utilize your own personal, made-up criterion.

Even if that were true what of it? If your only real argument against what I said is to pick some "experts" and then use an argument from authority how does that settle the matter?

So no need to try and project your approach onto me.

We each choose our experts, you do, I do, everyone does.

It's like if I decided on my own that in order for a person to be a "Christian", they must believe that Jesus was a zombie. Would it be reasonable for me to expect everyone else to go along with that? Do I get to demand everyone else explain why they don't adopt my made-up criterion?

Sorry, this is irrelevant lets stick to the subject which is concerned with supposed "archaic human" fossils, if you don't feel comfortable discussing science scientifically then go to some other thread, there are lots for you to choose from certainly if Christianity and Jesus is on your mind.

I'll do whatever I like, and in this case the analogy is entirely on-point.

I see, argue against a silly analogy that you just made up (didn't you just object to me doing that?) rather than argue against what I actually said, same old same old Mr. Fly.

We either make up criteria or we pick and choose an already existing one, but whichever, that's simply reality Mr. Fly, we're no so different after all, think about it.

I defer to the experts, you don't and make up your own personal criterion. Those are quite different.

No, this really won't do Mr. Fly. You are permitted to pick your experts but I am not? But even this is derailing the discussion, it is a scientific fact that humans are characterized by their high intelligence, this is not my criteria it is an objective fact - do you agree or disagree - can you answer this question? or only continue to attack me for asking it?