by cofty 14 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
we humans must be very new on the scene, since there are so few examples of humans evolving from something else.
Actually there is an excellent collection of fossils of our pre-human ancestors. There will be threads on that later in the series.
I'm out this evening but I will respond to your other questions later. Thanks
Sowhatnow, in the absence of maestro Cofty, may I say that polar bears and humans are new kids on the block geologically speaking.
We have evidence for Homo sapiens around 100,000 years before present (bp). We have indications for H sapiens existing fifty thousand years before that and therefore it would be assumed in the nature of things that Humans arrived on the scene perhaps more than 200,000 years bp.
The real expansion took place around 40,000 bp when recognizably human cultural artifacts become abundant, things such as spear throwers, bows and arrows, bull roarers, boomerangs, complex stone tools and sewing. This was the start of cave paintings in the Dordogne in France. These people are called Cro Magnon ('Big hole' in translation from the first find location) yet these humans although looking just like us actually had skulls thicker than ours and yet only forty thousand years ago.
I don't know if data Dog was serious with this : " mmm... They could be different animals made by God from using DNA in different combinations."
But if they were special creations, they would not contain the "switched off " genes that they do, which occasionally are not so switched off, so we see whales with "legs" today on occasion, and even Humans with tails of course.
Sowhatnow - I'm not clear about your specific question but hopefully some of the following points will be helpful.
Very few living things have the honour of leaving behind fossils. The conditions necessary to become a fossil are relatively rare. There are millions of fossils that have been found but these represent just a few snapshots in the history of life. Here is a link to a good article that describes the process....
Remember too that as well as the line leading to the ancestors of whales there are other lines leading to species like hippos. Life is a bush not a ladder.
There have been a number of mass extinctions in history. Animals don't adapt in order to cope with the environment. If things change rapidly then some species will disappear and others will thrive as a result. The ancestors of all mammals was a small creature that kept a low profile during the period when dinosaurs ruled the world. With the mass extinction it made it possible for them to thrive and evolve into all sorts of new niches. Without that there would have been no humans.
Hmmm... They could be different animals made by God from using DNA in different combinations. - DD
I think you have missed the point entirely.
Why do we find adaptive radiations on oceanic islands but not on continental islands?
Why do species on oceanic islands resemble others on the nearest mainland even when the environments are radically different?
Why do oceanic islands only have species that can get to the island?
Why are there no land mammals, freshwater fish, amphibians or reptiles?
Biogeography is a massive dilemma for creationists. Anybody who doesn't think so needs to read some more on the topic.
