Is this something else for Creationists to think about?

[naomi24]

http://www.guardian.c...-people-species-human

[birdie1971]

I expect that this story will send the creationist propaganda machine into overdrive in an attempt to discredit and distort the evidence of these findings.

[goodlife]

That why widespread lying can cause damage both to individuals and to society as a whole. Few would dispute that fact. Why, then, do people deliberately tell what is untrue? And is every untruth a lie? True Christians don,t have that problem.

[sandyRoe]

Remains of The Yeti?

[naomi24]

Goodlife, Please define a 'true Christian'. If you don't then I have no idea what you’re talking about and therefore your post is meaningless.

[Old_Geezer]

Confused. Don't they already believe all is created by God and that God can create anything it wants, including apparent new species of human ? I suspect it is already covered.

[flip_flop]

Surely they were put there to test faith weren't they? (isn't this the spurious, ridiculous argument they use for the exisitence of dinosaur fossils?).

[emmie]

many will not believe it, not if it means that have to re-evaluate their entire thinking, after all if there ever comes a day when it's proven that God does not exist, then their world will crumble and fall. Can't see that happening any day soon. the more the scientists discover about our world and it's inhabitants and their beginnings then they should at least consider that much of what is written in the bible, and other religious tracts are indeed flawed.

[Davethedog]

As OG and Flip_flop say: This is a test of faith, put there by god and of course as carbon dating is a fraud they cannot be 14,000 years old, I wonder if they know when god put them there?

Alternatively this is a fraud perpertrated by science to try and enforce the totaly discredited theory of evoloution. After all only the gullible believe in science.

[jomifl]

Goodlife, can you tell the difference between a lie and the truth?

[ludwig]

I suppose you could argue that everything is put there to test our faith.

Everything we experience is concocted by god and fed to our consciousness, Matrix style. It's all designed as a massive test of faith for each individual.
This sidesteps every argument against god, and explains why there's such evil in the world - because it's not real, it's just a test, to see how we respond to it. Dinosaurs, fossils, Answerbank, planet earth and the universe. The whole shebang.

[Davethedog]

And thats why faith is faith. You only know for sure when your dead.

The thing that gets me, is I won't be able to say "Told you so"

[ludwig]

// The thing that gets me, is I won't be able to say "Told you so" //

That's probably what the religious think about it as well. :o)

[Clanad]

So... perhaps our perennialy venerable members of thier respective Gradgrind sister (brother?)hood, 'naomi24' and 'birdie1971', could give only a slight bit more insight as to why this discovery has any bearing on either evolutionary or creationisitc worldviews.

Having read the various reports prior to this thread, it appears the information surrounding the Yunnan Province fossilized remains presents as much stress for evolutionists as it does creationists in that any population living for centuries if not millenia in proximity to 'modern' h. sapiens-sapiens calls into question exactly how the evolutionary theory fits.

No presentation of the discovery I've read indicates any co-discovery of tools, rituals, pottery or other attributes nearly always present when true homo sapien fossils are uncovered . That may come later, but the dearth of such information is instructive, leading one to accept the possibility that these examples may be "..."It's possible these were modern humans who inter-mixed or bred with archaic humans that were around at the time," explained Dr Isabelle De Groote, a palaeoanthropologist from London's Natural History Museum.

"The other option is that they evolved these more primitive features independently because of genetic drift or isolation, or in a response to an environmental pressure such as climate."

According to Niles Eldredge and the late Stephen Jay Gould, the fortuitous accidents, adaptations, beneficial DNA mutations and other stochastically defined events that produced modern man could only happen once. Any "replaying of the tape" would produce different results according to their seminal work titled "Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phylectic gradualism". Therefore, such discoveries as the 'Red Deer People' hold the possibility of collective anosognosia for both worldviews... in my humble opinion.

[Davethedog]

Clanad I think you missed something the OP is "Is this something else for Creationists to think about?" not "This is" and its better to stick to the facts rather than the realms of fantasy, isn't it. This article doesn't say it is it says maybe. However given that the skeletal remains are 14,000 years old I would say that that would give any Creationist food for thought.

Sorrt I couldn't couch this in intellectual hyperbole but my BS meter is running low.

[Clanad]

As is any meaningful content to your answer dave...

[Davethedog]

I think far more salient than yours.

[vetuste_ennemi]

<<... and other stochastically defined events...an alternative to phylectic gradualism... hold the possibility of collective anosognosia for BOTH (my stress) worldviews..>>
Love it, Clanad, super stuff! No need to simulate humility: I've seen through that. Especially admire the the skill with which you insinuated your hexasyllabic word of the day (a new one to me).
But please clarify your point about punctuated equilibrium. If Gould (RIP) is right are you saying that creationism and neo-Darwinism are both equally wrong?

[naomi24]

Dave, You’re right – Clanad did miss something in the question – maybe because he was too busy thinking about Dickens. ;o)

[Clanad]

No, vetuste (interesting moniker, that). Gould sought to reconcile the fact of 'stasis' found in nearly all fossil evaluations which contradicts the graduated evolutionary paradigm taught by the more accepted Darwinian school.
Moreover, Gould, et al, stated that a conventional evolutionary model would never be repeated. The confluence of supposed events used to construct such a model would, necessarily, be only retrodiction, which can be a major problem in our current discussion re: Red Deer People.

Gould was, very obviously, an evolutionist, but was troubled by the sudden appearance of full blown fossil examples in the strata with no predecessors, lasting for (in many cases) millenia and becoming exctinct with no evidence of change throughout its existence. He sought to rationalize this fact by proposing "Punctuated equilibria" (as previously stated). He had many critics, but many anthropologists support his views still.

The problem is made more complicated by a distortion of creationism by the 'Young Earth Creationists', who insist the Earth is only several thousands of years old and who provide easy fodder for evolutionists, when, in fact, there are alternative views that not only accomodate the obvious age of the Earth, but, when calmly discussed, provide an alternate, perhaps equally viable Gedankenexperiment...