The Hidden History of Humanity

[UBERDOINK]

it is amazing that you jump on piltdown man, the ONLY thing that really wasn't talked about, merely referenced. If you read the story of piltdown man, which took 40 years to expose, it's not very different from the story's surrounding quite a lot of the fossil "evidence" which are surrounded with controversy of one type or the other.

What about the other FACTS... can you address them? or like most of the scientists, just gloss over all the other facts and keep reiterating your own position, or create a paper dragon argument from one sentence that side steps everything else.

Facts be damned!

 

[aNorthernSoul]

I think the big thing that raises flags for me is when information like some of the stuff Cremo presents is discovered there seems to be a lack of serious investigation or public disclosure (ugh, the UFO field makes me cringe at that word now) on the discovery... not always, but in many of the cases. Of course, could this be because the find is more questionable? I suppose it's possible but it seems like many of these things are stashed away and not really looked too deeply into or discussed let alone disclosed to the general public. I'm not saying there isn't something sinister, but I suspect tenure and peer relations may play a role.

 

[Kandinsky]

What about the other FACTS... can you address them? or like most of the scientists, just gloss over all the other facts and keep reiterating your own position, or create a paper dragon argument from one sentence that side steps everything else.

Hiya UD,
I've read your posts in this thread several times. I think you make a good argument for questioning the theory of human evolution. In fact, I think you've made one of the best arguments, in a thread on this topic, I've read in some time. Most detractors of human evolution fire blanks.

That said, referring to the quotes you've used, there's an element of 'glossing over the facts' in your own posts. A couple of your quotes are fairly condemning, but taken in context are not. I guess everyone is guilty of choosing 'facts' to suit their beliefs.

Your interpretations of the Ann Gibbons article and the Lluc findings don't reflect the interpretations I've since read. The Gibbons article is reproduced (in full) here...sci.anthropology.paleo: Re: early hominid femur wades.


A different interpretation of the 'Lluc' ancestry reveals that the specimen is an opportunity for science to gain a better understanding of the population movements 'out of Africa.' Rather than 'fudging' or simply ignoring the evidence, it provides a challenge for our understanding..

Anoiapithecus brevirostris may also help illuminate where hominids originated. Some paleontologists have pointed to the kenyapithecines as the most primitive hominoids, suggesting they are the ancestors of all other hominids. These primates, which have been found in Africa and Eurasia, date back to the Middle Miocene era, roughly the same time period as Anoiapithecus brevirostris. However, Lluc's features are a peculiar mix of those resembling modern hominids, Eurasian kenyapithecines, and afropithecids, another group of primitive hominoids found in Africa.

12 Million Year Old Hominid With Human Features Discovered In Spain - evolutionary biology - io9

Maybe I'm biased? Probably. Science isn't claiming to know all the answers. Our history isn't a clearly defined map based on the archaeological evidence. It's just a broad interpretation of the evidence we have. One that's gradually becoming more defined with every decade that passes. Our present understanding of human evolution and history is a work in progress. It's not complete, but it has integrity. The structure is cross-braced by supporting evidence. Science is in flux always, ever adapting and changing.

One thing I've not been able to understand from your posts here is your alternative position. You've made many good points without offering your interpretation.

 

[Schuyler]

it is amazing that you jump on piltdown man, the ONLY thing that really wasn't talked about, merely referenced. If you read the story of piltdown man, which took 40 years to expose, it's not very different from the story's surrounding quite a lot of the fossil "evidence" which are surrounded with controversy of one type or the other.

Piltdown man took about two years to expose; it's just that the majority of the public didn't listen to the reasoned voices that said it was fake, probably because they didn't yell loud enough. Marcellin Boule published a paper in Anthropologie and said the jaw was that of an ape in 1915. But it was in French. Franz Weidenreich nailed it even better in 1923 when he said the jaw was that of an orangutan, the skull was human, and the teeth had been filed down, which is exactly what happened. How do you et off claiming it took forty years when it's been documented that it was exposed at the time? Here's the documentation which you can look up: La paléontologie humaine en Angleterre, L'Anthropologie, t. XXVI.

Why do you make it personal, uberdoink? I've tried very hard in this exchange not to make it personal. Piltdown Man is something I'm interested in and know something about. Discussing it supports my overall thesis of how science works. I still don't know what your issue is, really.

I am no under no obligation whatsoever to play point counterpoint with you. I am not writing for you or two you as much as I am discussing points I think the others reading this exchange may be interested in. I think some of the points you bring up continue to be wrong or irrelevant to the issue. I see little point in repeating myself for a third or fourth time. You obviously have a point of view you won't give up, so so be it. It doesn't matter to me.

What about the other FACTS

You don't have facts. You have anecdotes and sound bites. They don't count. To summarize:

Cremo does not have facts either. He also has anecdotes. He apparently thinks that if he amasses enough anecdotes, he's proven something. But if you add shit to a pile of shit, you just have a bigger pile of shit.

Cremo is also quite biased in that he's attempting to prove his beloved ancient Vedic texts that suggest humanity somehow 'devolved.' The fact is, I think he is right from a spiritual perspective. If you accept for the sake of argument the idea that we reincarnate from a higher plane to an earthly existence, then I can see the point. In fact, he says that on his own web site. But to claim that we, as earthly creatures, somehow devolved on the Earthly plane of existence, is absurd. There's not a shred of evidence to support it.

The evolution train has left the station. There will always be a few creationist hold outs who will live their loves attempting to probe otherwise, but fortunately, they are no longer in charge.

 

[UBERDOINK]

You don't have facts. You have anecdotes and sound bites. They don't count.

Fact:
"They remain big black holes often millions of bases in length in every chromosome."
Your conclusion that DNA can tell give us concrete answers about our past is... wrong. It may help point to answers, but if there are still millions of bases unknown in every chromosome, and every DNA scientist agrees there is more to the make up of an organism than what we currently find in DNA. Then how can you point to that as a clear proof of evolution?

The evolution train has left the station. There will always be a few creationist hold outs who will live their loves attempting to probe otherwise, but fortunately, they are no longer in charge.

Who is in charge?

“Powerful people have confidence in what they are thinking. Whether their thoughts are positive or negative toward an idea, that position is going to be hard to change,” said Richard Petty, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at Ohio State University.

“The strength of the argument made no difference to those who played the boss – they obviously weren’t paying attention when they felt powerful,” Petty said. “Those who played the employee, who were made to feel powerless, paid a lot more attention to the arguments. They weren’t as confident in their own initial beliefs and weighed the arguments more carefully.”

This study points out facts about human behavior, which agrees with the Economist Magazines findings of 40-60% of scientists that say they fudge their findings to fit their theory's, which is also supported by empirical psychological reports that prove it's a basic human trait and scientists are more susceptible to it than most.

People tend to seek information that they
consider supportive of favored hypotheses or
existing beliefs and to interpret information in
ways that are partial to those hypotheses or
beliefs. Conversely, they tend not to seek and
perhaps even to avoid information that would be
considered counterindicative with respect to
those hypotheses or beliefs and supportive of
alternative possibilities (Koriat, Lichtenstein, &
Fischhoff, 1980).

so, why isn't evolutionary theory susceptible to confirmation bias, when empirical data proves, and supports the fact that scientists are people, and people do this naturally?

 

[Schuyler]

For those of you who are interested, here are a few sites that list some of the major hominid fossil finds.

A Look at Modern Human Origins - Paleoanthropology and Human Evolution Resources

NOTE: This site is not working well today. It has some sort of technical problem, though you can get to a few of the pages.

Of all places: Wikimedia Error is actually a pretty good rendition along with pics.

Human Ancestors Hall: Introduction is an interesting and complex site. Human Ancestors Hall: Tree shows the complexity of the issue. This is FAR different than the prevailing theories of the sixties, which suggested the line went from us to Homo erectus to australopithecus. Note this one does NOT suggest we descended directly from Homo erectus, but from a common ancestor to both.

It's actually amazing we've got so much. Unless a species is advanced enough to bury its dead, the likelihood of an individual becoming a fossil is quite low as scavengers will tear apart and spread remains very quickly.

So much for putting all the fossils on a single table. These fossils exist and people have to deal with that fact. Of course, perhaps it's true that God put all those fossils in the ground to test our faith.

 

[conor]

Uberdoink, you seem to be taking an ideological stance against the current scientific understanding of where and when we came from. When someone says "there is evidence to show that homosapien sapien has been around for longer than the current understanding suggests", then there needs to be evidence for such a claim. When somebody points out that your evidence isn't entirely verifiable, or that it is misleading, and you automatically say "that's not right, he's arguing with me", and you defend your claims to the point where they are undefendable any more, well that's an ideological stance.

So what is your ideological stance? Perhaps it is that human history, or civilised human history, has been around for longer than science claims it to have been. You may be right about that. There have been many worldwide events and disasters that could easily have destroyed all traces of any fledgling civilisation. I bought an issue of New Scientist today that had an article on how man could have been using extremely high heat fiftty thousand years ago to make sharp tools. If true, that would be a pretty amazing discovery.

The sad fact of the matter is that the rule is, with very few exceptions, that the further back in time you go, the more hazy things become, and the more open to conjecture they are. So in that respect, you are right.

But scientific evidence is pretty correct in the sense that it gives us something concrete, something that is subject to peer review, and therefore has it's claims tested often before it is published in a mainstream newspaper. The one thing I have learned from a couple of years of collecting New Scientist every week is that scientists are constantly finding things and musings on the possibilities of such a finding, but also you find voices of doubt (often in the same article), and that's fine because peer review is how science works, and that means that a concensus can only be reached after A LOT of debate and evidence is presented.

Cremo's work, it seems, does not stand up to such scrutiny, or maybe some of it does, but it is buried beneath layer upon layer of anecdotes and questionable results. "Forbidden Archeology", the title, suggests that there is some conspiracy afoot, or at the very least that scientists will scoff at such notions automatically. Well, I can tell you that at the moment there are fresh and lively debates going on about such things at the moment without saying "well, you know, some guy told some guy...". When there is evidence to that favours one theory over another, then that theory will take precidence, but the debating never ends. That is the way of science, and the empirical method, one of the pillars of human understanding.

To say that I believe that human history is older than we currently think it is is OK. I believe that! But do I have any evidence to back up my belief? No. So scientific method rolls on, slowly giving answers to questions, answers which only lead to more questions. And I suspect, but cannot prove that mankind is slightly older than previously thought.

You seem to think, however, that mankind has to be older than the established view, because ideologically you are against the ideology of the established view.

IMO ideology is never productive when dealing with such matters. It actually reminds me of the whole Left vs Right thing in politics, where each side is thoroughly convinced that the other is completely wrong and only out to screw the other side. When both sides think that, then you're headed for trouble.

Most scientists, IMO, don't think like that, and instead are much more interested in evidence. Except maybe for Richard Dawkins, and he only does it when he steps away from science to talk about God.

 

[Schuyler]

Excellent answer, conor. The thing I object to is when people try to throw you in one camp or another because you disagree with something they believe when I am actually at odds with both sides. In archaeology there are two diametrically opposed sides in that professional archaeologists have a very precise way of laying out a site and digging for artifacts. You establish a grid, tie it to the closest survey marker, and dig precise little squares, carefully noting the stratigraphy, and plod along slowly, never getting done. The opposite side are the 'pot hole diggers' and collectors, who are vilified by the pros. It gets very nasty sometimes, particularly when it involves antiquities and 'national treasures.' Don't go diving off the coast of Greece for treasures or you'll get thrown in jail.

I remember one time when I was involved in a Native American dig in Marymoor Park near Seattle. On the one side we had the professor, Dr. Greengo, a militant archaeologist and on the other side we had my older cousin, a pot hole digger and rock collector. Greengo was angry with me for defending my cousin because he had made some very good finds and really knew his stuff. He correctly predicted the rock I had just dug up was a chopper, for example, much to his delight. My cousin was angry at me because I was pointing out his finds meant a lot less because he really didn't know where he had gotten them. He insisted he knew right where the cave was, dismissing grids as a lot of extra work. I had no friends that day.

I believe in the scientific method just like I believe in the couch I'm sitting on. It exists and though it proceeds slowly, it WILL get there, like that combination lock I mentioned several posts ago. But I get frustrated with 'science' for having an extremely narrow viewpoint. It's like they are missing the forest for the trees. I, too, suspect that Homo sapiens goes back further than is now believed. If someone came up with a in situ skeleton that was not an intrusive burial dated 100,000 years ago, I wouldn't be all that surprised. I also suspect there was a fairly extensive Renaissance-era civilization about 14,000 years ago in India that got wiped out--and I've got some damned good evidence, I think, that this is so, and it may very well be what those Vedic texts are addressing. Science won't look at it seriously, and there's no billionaire willing to finance the research, so it's just going to have to sit.

I remember one of the first stories I read, I think in the fifties, was the story of discovering a sheet of melted sand, glass, in the desert of New Mexico several feet beneath an identical sheet of glass created by an atomic bomb test at Trinity. The conclusion was that there had been an ancient civilization that had atomic weapons. They had wiped themselves out, and this second layer of glass was the proof!

So where is a sample of this glass layer? Nobody knows. Who found it? Umm, a guy. How deep was the layer? Not known. Wasn't that place pretty radioactive? Don't know. Are you sue this 'glass layer' was exactly the same as the upper layer? Not sure. Who analyzed it? Don't know. So when you scrutinize these stories and anomalies, they tend to vanish into a thin cloud the closer you get.

Show me the beef!

Now, I'm outta here for a long weekend away.

 

[UBERDOINK]

Most scientists, IMO, don't think like that, and instead are much more interested in evidence. Except maybe for Richard Dawkins, and he only does it when he steps away from science to talk about God.

But isn't Dawkins a great example of the prevailing scientific viewpoint? If for example, data came to light that just might lead towards a new understanding of evolution, or even more disturbing, evidence that would point away from evolution... how do you think Dawkins and his like, would interpret that info?

I guess my point is, science is about interpetation, and that interpetation forms a belief. Multiple interpetations can be placed on the data, so no one can say they have empirical evidence of a theory of origins.

If there was empirical evidence of macro evolution wouldn't they be replicating it in classrooms? instead they validate their ideas with computer models etc. built TO validate the idea... i.e. confirmation bias.

You will of course point to bacteria and bug experiments, where the organism "evolves" various immunities etc. But there are no experiments that prove those mirco evolutionary changes will create macro evolutionary changes in complex organisms e.g. where a fish will become a lizard. That is only inferred from their interpetations of the data.

My point isn't that cremo is right, or that he's got all the facts. My point is that cremo has as much chance of being right as pretty much anyone else, that would take a stack of facts and just put their own spin on them.

I never understood how evolutionists vilify intelligent design guys when both are just reinterpeting data to fit their pet theories. The data itself is silent when it comes to the big picture.

14 or 1400 partial skull fragments and teeth etc. can never point to a concrete answer, that data can only be interpreted as part of a larger ideology.

there really isn't much "proof" for anything, so why do we act like the voice of the minority is crazy, instead of just saying, hey that's a new viewpoint and may be just as valid.

 

[conor]

But isn't Dawkins a great example of the prevailing scientific viewpoint? If for example, data came to light that just might lead towards a new understanding of evolution, or even more disturbing, evidence that would point away from evolution... how do you think Dawkins and his like, would interpret that info?

There are a lot of scientists very annoyed with Dawkins and how he presnts this to the public like a grand battle between the believers of God and the believers of non-belief. The way he pops up on science shows about evolution, talks about some really great stuff, and then at the end goes "which shows there isn't a God". I'm not sure about God myself. But I don't watch shows or read books about scientific things to prove to myself or anyone else that God does or doesn't exist - I watch them because I am curious.

Dawkins is the exception to the rule, IMO. Scientists normally stay out of these kinds of things, and are normally a pretty cautious bunch. In fact, I would group both Cremo and Dawkins into this same category broadly speaking. On a scale of "Crank"iness Dawkins is probably still fairly low, but he's on there, but for different reasons to Cremo. My instinct is that Cremo is probably a bit higher on that scale.

By a bit I mean a lot.

 

[Kieran]

'The Ape is the closest match, we have to a human that there is. 99% of DNA, i believe. "Dogs and "Horses" also have DNA,that is similar to us Humans. Darwin, theorys, have a logical to them, 'but to me', it doesnt explain everything. Why, Do apes have less hearing than we do "why, do there brains have less capacity to think than we do, "why, have they not evolved as species themselves? and the must important ,'for me' being a human "why, if we do have an afterlife? how does the notion, that we were once a primitive group, but due to circumstances in the planet changed and developed into human beings "how" could we have such an awareness of such a thing, if all we are was something primitive?

The awareness of humans, suggests indeed something is quiet different being a human to any other animal.I dont, have a problem with the scientific viewpoint for our creation, but maybe only maybe "we have gaps and i know, Fossils have been found, they only suggest by reconstruction something that maybe have been our ancestors.

"Could we say for sure? that speech or actually thinking, was impossible, or that the level of liveing standards were very primitive, are we assumeing too much?
Even for dinosaurs are we assumeing too much also. 'How, can we be sure what we are being told is the actual reality? Nobody, has ever see one, fossils tell us something, not everything.

Creation, is largely, based on the idea that "God" created man in his own image. OK, if that is right, he created man first, as Ape hmmm strange?

Problems, i have with the idea of creation. Around 324AD Emperor Constantine convened the council at Nicaea, mainly because of civil war with the pagans led by licinus. 'Still, to this day, the church(Rome believe pagans are the enemy), but if you look actually, Pagan, believes in Astronony and the Afterlife, might actually have some truths to them. What are we talking today 'about people'!!! Pagans, in alot of ways taught the same, but different in some ways, like we do about the ufo topic.

As a politician Constantine 'realised he' needed to consolidate the loose christian communities around Europe. It failed, too many warring factions were wanting their ideas to be adopted and accepted.

Constantine imposed his will and declared jesus christ divinity. Scholars from Eygpt,siad during the council, if Jesus was really a God should'nt it been so easy to resist tempation and sin, "since after all, 'he', was a God, but if he was really human, 'he' Jesus, should get more respect in being able to resist sin?

Constantine, eventually just did away with people who opposed his beliefs and of the new church.
Pagans eventually conquered Rome in AD476 ' 'but, the Christian ways, is want many people believe in today. Even, do it is being to fade somewhat in recent years due to scandals.

The concept of the "Devil", believe it or not, was actually stolen from ancient jew texts and simply adopted by the New church. It was a theological weapon,used to create evil, by the New church, with christianity being the only cure to help you.

The Bible is book of storys."Lucifer is siad to have revolted against God, were after the battle haveing lost was sent to "Hell" "lucifer was mad that God gave man free will" Angels had no free will, so this angered lucifer.Well ironies, if the Angels had no free will, 'how, were they able to revolt, answer that one anyone? plus if God created evil and led it continue, how can God be all good?, could god 'who' is all good have anything to do with evil?

It could been a war in the heavens long ago, maybe? but due to christian influences was changed, it might be possible?

Maybe, storys existed at that time "of something unknown" , but have long being forgotten, only ever now being told in Folklore and myths?
The true nature of any war and the events were used by the church to form the story of God and the Devil?