No Established connection between humans and primates

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@Roy

You have said that “There is no empirical chain connecting modern humans to any primate ancestor through a series of gradual increments in cognition, language, symbolic reasoning, or consciousness.”

But you now admit that “fossils… can’t show cognition, grammar, abstraction, morality, or consciousness”.

If fossils can’t show cognition, language, morality etc, then obviously we’ll never have an empirical chain of connection for those in fossils because that’s not possible.

So your entire argument appears to be that we haven’t found what cannot possibly exist.

And yet, @Remiel-Wise wrote this in the opening post:

Even within the hominid fossil record, what we observe are distinct categories: hominids that operate almost entirely by instinct, with limited symbolic behavior, and then the sudden emergence of Homo sapiens with full cognition. The missing intermediates are not minor gaps. They are fundamental discontinuities.

Somehow, @Remiel-Wise was able to determine from fossils that earlier hominids operated almost entirely though instinct, had limited symbolism, and had much lower cognition than modern humans. We may need to start asking which @Remiel-Wise we are talking to.

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@Remiel-Wise

Roy, I think the real difference between us is no longer scientific but philosophical. You’re correct that fossils cannot show cognition, grammar, self-awareness, or moral architecture. That’s precisely the point: if the tools of paleontology cannot detect those properties, then any claim of a gradual cognitive transition is an interpretation, not empirical demonstration.

Whether this transition was gradual or punctuated, the evidence still shows common ancestry and the influence of evolutionary mechanisms.

@Remiel-Wise

the empirical chain gets us close biologically, but it stops short at the one place where the human difference actually lies, the mind, the symbolic self, consciousness, moral reasoning, abstract thought.

Stops short? We have the genetic differences between our genomes and the genomes of other apes. Those differences are the reason we are different from those other species.

@Remiel-Wise

Not a denial of fossils, not a claim that physical evidence should show the unshowable, but a recognition that the decisive human uniqueness lies precisely where the biological data cannot speak.

Why can’t it? Why can’t we look at the differences between our genomes and understand why we are different from those other species? Why can’t we use scientific tools to understand how those differences came about?

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@Remiel-Wise

When I said fossils show hominids operating “with limited symbolic behavior” or “mostly by instinct,” I’m not claiming fossils reveal cognition directly. I’m saying that the archaeological signature associated with those fossils reveals the limits of symbolic behavior.

How do we know we have all of the evidence?

@Remiel-Wise

You also asked why this matters.
It matters because the entire evolutionary argument for human uniqueness depends on a smooth cognitive gradient that the evidence simply does not demonstrate.

Why does it depend on a smooth cognitive gradient? Why can’t there be sudden jumps, or uneven changes?

[Roy (Roy (Listener twice correct))]

@Remiel-Wise

Roy, I think the real difference between us is no longer scientific but philosophical. You’re correct that fossils cannot show cognition, grammar, self-awareness, or moral architecture. That’s precisely the point: if the tools of paleontology cannot detect those properties, then any claim of a gradual cognitive transition is an interpretation, not empirical demonstration.

That would also apply to a claim of sudden cognitive transition.

Your precise point has just neatly skewed your own claim.

@Remiel-Wise

Where you and I diverge is what we do with that gap.

You seem comfortable filling it with an assumed continuity: “It must have happened, even though we have no way to observe it.”

Where we actually diverge is that I respond to what people say, whereas you make up fake quotes that bear no resemble to anything that was actually said, and ‘respond’ to those.

At which point we’re done, at least until you desist.

I will make one final point though:

@Remiel-Wise

In other words:

• The body follows a biological chain.
• The mind does not.

That should be:

• The body follows a biological chain.
• We cannot tell whether the mind does or does not.

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@Remiel-Wise

1. “How do we know we have all the evidence?”
   We don’t. Nobody does.
   And that’s precisely why you cannot assert a demonstrated cognitive transition.

You seem to exempt yourself from your own criteria.

“I’m saying that the archaeological signature associated with those fossils reveals the limits of symbolic behavior.”– @Remiel-Wise

That’s an assertion with no evidence to back it. We don’t have enough evidence to determine the limits of symbolic behavior.

@Remiel-Wise

You can’t simultaneously argue that the evidence proves continuity
and then,
argue that the evidence may be incomplete when continuity is questioned.

I am citing a biological continuity of common ancestry, and we have the evidence. How cognitive abilities plaid out in that history we don’t know.

@Remiel-Wise

2. “Why can’t there be sudden jumps or uneven changes?”
   If you grant that possibility, then you’re no longer describing classical gradualistic evolution.

That’s just a strawman. The theory of evolution allows for punctuated jumps.

@Remiel-Wise

And once you acknowledge discontinuity, you’ve allowed the very philosophical space
in which theological explanations are permitted to operate.

What?

I am acknowledging that there is no reason why the rate of change in cognition should be gradual. I never said anything about discontinuity. You’ve never demonstrated a discontinuity, and even admit that none of the evidence we have can evidence a discontinuity.

[Roy (Roy (Listener twice correct))]

@Remiel-Wise

T_aquaticus, you’ve just raised two questions that actually undercut the very certainty you’re arguing from.

1. “How do we know we have all the evidence?”
We don’t. Nobody does.
And that’s precisely why you cannot assert a demonstrated cognitive transition.

He hasn’t asserted that. Nobody here has asserted that.

This entire thread is yet another attempt at flogging tatterdemallion effigies.

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@T_aquaticus

If you think the theory shouldn’t make those predictions,

Been here before. Not doing it again.

If you do not understand the fallacy I cannot explain it to you.
(like everything else we argue about. You make solid rules and comparisons, without understanding exceptions or problems)

Richard

[adamjedgar (adam james edgar)]

@Roy

The main information I find in your post is your awareness of the range and variation of fossil hominids that have been found, especially with regard to their differences in cranial capacity.

It might help if you could explain how a level of self-awareness, language complexity and abstract reasoning ability can be determined from skeletal remains.

Because science tells us that cranial capacity and cognition correlate directly…the more brain matter, the smarter we are compared with known examples in the current animal kingdom.

Btw, dont bother playing the “oh but what about an octopus” game…that is not relevant here. The argument is much bigger than that.

This is an darwinian evolutionary claim so your statement there is falsified directly by the very science your entire world view hinges upon!

Cross reference mate…for goodness sake stop straw plucking from your own rule book and bloody cross reference.

[adamjedgar (adam james edgar)]

@T_aquaticus

Me: We observe that CpG substitutions are by far the most common type of mutation that occurs in human populations. If humans and chimps share a common ancestor then we would expect to see these mutations dominate the differences between the genomes, and they do.]

Can you explain the following in light of your comment there?

“CpG islands are usually unmethylated and associated with gene activity, the overall mammalian genome is depleted of CpGs due to frequent mutation of methylated CpGs”

Do we as Christians accept that God provided these differences in creation by decay when the foundational theme of the bible teaches that decay came after the fall amd that Christs atonement for the “wages of sin is death” is a restorative process…ie new heavens and a new earth where there will be no more suffering, no more tears, no more pain, no more death?

I mean for the Christian faith, the flood of Noahs clearly shows that the suffering and death of judgement applies to all life, everything God saw was corrupted by evil…not just humanity! This is a fundamental Christian standard…to the Christian, the Day of Atonement points to a literal future outcome/event…the gospel and the Second Coming of Christ, the millenium and restoration of the world back to its pre-sin state.

There is no room in Darwinian Evolutionary theory for a destruction of tue earth by fire and brimestone and it evolving back into a state suitable for habitable life 1,000 years or less! Darwinian evolution theory demands it took 10’s of millions of years to get to that!

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@adamjedgar

Can you explain the following in light of your comment there?

“CpG islands are usually unmethylated and associated with gene activity, the overall mammalian genome is depleted of CpGs due to frequent mutation of methylated CpGs”

If memory serves, if CpGs were evenly distributed then we would expect about 4% of the genome to be made up of CpGs. Instead, only about 1% of mammalian genomes is made up of CpGs. This is the depletion they are talking about.

@adamjedgar

Do we as Christians accept that God provided these differences in creation by decay when the foundational theme of the bible teaches that decay came after the fall amd that Christs atonement for the “wages of sin is death” is a restorative process…ie new heavens and a new earth where there will be no more suffering, no more tears, no more pain, no more death?

That is going to be up to each Christian, I would suppose. If they find it necessary to hold Christian beliefs that run counter to observed reality, then that is their choice. It would be something akin to the Biblical Flat Eathers.

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@adamjedgar

Because science tells us that cranial capacity and cognition correlate directly…the more brain matter, the smarter we are compared with known examples in the current animal kingdom.

Where does it tell us this? Reference?

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@RichardG

If you do not understand the fallacy I cannot explain it to you.

I can’t understand what you are claiming if you refuse to explain it.

@RichardG

@T_aquaticus

Common ancestry is a scientific theory that makes a long list of predictions

Yeah,

You see what you expect. Big deal.

Richard

What do you mean by “You see what you expect”? Are you saying there aren’t as many CpG mutations as claimed? Are you claiming the theory of evolution doesn’t predict how many there should be? What do you mean by it?

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@Remiel-Wise

Until more evidence, or persistent lack there of comes to fruition or not, both sides can choose to stand their ground… fair?

There’s already mountains of evidence, and the theory of evolution explains it really, really well. If you have a better explanation for the data, then present the data and your explanation. We could start with the spectrum of substitution mutations mentioned earlier in the thread if you want.

[adamjedgar (adam james edgar)]

@T_aquaticus

Where does it tell us this? Reference?

No one, I presume, doubts that the large size of the brain in man, relatively to his body, in comparison with that of the gorilla or orang, is closely connected with his higher mental powers. We meet the closely analogous facts with insects, in which the cerebral ganglia are of extraordinary dimensions in ants; these ganglia in all the Hymenoptera being many times larger than in the less intelligent orders, such as beetles…

The belief that there exists in man some close relation between the size of the brain and the development of the intellectual faculties is supported by the comparison of the skulls of savage and civilized races, of ancient and modern people, and by analogy of the whole vertebrate series.

Charles Darwin.

Edit oh and theres this…

[Gary_M]

AI: The evidence for a common ancestor between humans and great apes is very strong, supported by multiple lines of scientific evidence including genetics, the fossil record, and comparative anatomy. Genetic studies show humans and chimpanzees share about 98.8% of their DNA, and the human chromosome #2 is evidence of a fusion event between two ancestral chromosomes. The fossil record and comparative anatomy reveal a transition from an apelike ancestor to modern humans, showing key developments like bipedalism and changes in brain size over time.

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@T_aquaticus

What do you mean by “You see what you expect”

Concept definition
an abstract idea:

Definition of abstract
existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence:

And that is your problem.

You cannot think in abstract. You need an example, preferably tangible and physical

That is why I cannot explain it to you.

Richard

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@Remiel-Wise

We should run a study on material and atheist individuals not possessing the ability for abstract thoughts and reason

No, it is seen as an insult, even though it is not.

Abstract thought is the antipathy of scientism and the scientific method, even though it is embedded in science. The problems arise when the abstract includes exceptions and anomalies, or data that is either no longer available or beyond the vision of the scientist. Evolutionary theory includes such abstracts but the scientists on this forum refuse to acknowledge their existence

Trying to point out abstracts just gets comments about "Because you say so. or “give me data” (Brent Spiner is in such high demand)

Richard

[Apistos]

Promise?

What fallacy?

What exceptions?

What problems?

[Apistos]

We are primates.

[Apistos]

@Remiel-Wise

Nope… that’s your claim… you can be of monkey material, have at it… I’ll stay special, thanks LOL… you doubling for the next King Kong movie AP?

Right. I concede. Your ignorance is superior to all knowledge.