10-2009 Humans Arrive

Humans Arrive It’s not debatable! Kanook Oct, 2009 Albeit we’re a strange animal, it is important to point out (in some cases) that we are a unique species that is far superior to any species existing on our ‘Blue Marble’. And if by chance we don’t destroy each other it appears that sometime in our foreseeable future we’ll take our uniqueness and travel amongst the stars – we dream! So far our technology has shown us just how unique our existence is, and will continue to be, tucked away here on the outer reaches of the Milky Way some 26,000 light years from its center. We have one major characteristic that other animals don’t seem to posses; our desire to reach out beyond our Earth and touch the stars, in other words our drive for exploration goes far beyond the drive to search for food. It appears our minds not only need the stimulation, but demand the necessity to do so, why is a good question we all must ask from time-to-time. Take a young child outside on a cool clear night with no moon and observe them as they scan the heavens with wide open eyes, albeit for a short while as their attention span is somewhat short or watch an elderly person in the same environment who was twitching and turning (if not asleep) calm down swinging on a porch as shooting stars light up the evening sky. As Earthlings it appears the stars are our home. Simon Conway Morris1 and Richard G Colling2 are two scientists who believe in “designed evolution”, where nature was intricately and ingeniously planned to eventually create you and me and where not as Darwin believed we’re accidental beings in a chance world/Universe. The question, what have scientists discovered about our origins, are we simply advanced apes or is it true we are unique and distinct? As you know I am not an expert in the field of our origin, but I do read and study a diverse number of theories, whether they are in my field of electricity, the history of countries, or war and the origin of man and his environment, yes including the latest flap about Global Warming which is one of the primary subject splashed throughout all of media’s today, with too much emphasis on man’s contribution. It is not my intention to debate the origination of our human species, just to lay out some facts and arguments for and against “intelligent design”, and what leading scientists have discovered about our origins. Just a simple quest chasing some evidence that points to us being unique and distinct. Since, in a majority of some I have encountered, we are unique and distinct, than it would lead strength to argument that we have been designed. This contrary to the findings that our scientists have found some fossils that reveal there are some apes that have humanlike features, these particular members of the ape family that the scholars label “hominids” are clearly not human, but a evolutionists believe they eventually 1 2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Conway_Morris http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_G._Colling

became us. Consider that these scholars consider that life is merely just one large family tree (or bush). And have been busting their tails searching under every loose rock they can turn looking for fossils that confirms Darwin’s theory of macroevolution, of our species. They are trying to remove the thought that if no evidence is found and that Homo sapiens “suddenly” appeared with qualities and trait distinct from other forms of life, that the possibility that we have been designed become apparent. Perish the result! At one time or the other, even you might have visited a museum where you might have seen a slightly erect ape-like creature that presumably became us – in lieu of this I know that you or your children have seen exhibits and drawings in biology textbooks that imply that there is a solid fossil evidence to support that such fossils have been discovered. In fact, paleoanthropologists have uncovered pieces of bones and skull fragments from a variety of primates they “consider” human ancestors. Ardipithecus ramidus3, the oldest of these finds, is dated at over 4-million years old. Homo habilis4 and Homo erectus5 are depicted as more recent members of our family tree, although it appears convincing it unravels when the facts are made clear. Henry Gee, the chief science writer for Nature writes, “The intervals of time that separate fossils are so huge that we cannot say anything definite about their possible connection through ancestry and decent.” Here we have paleoanthropologists attempting to fill in an enormous puzzle with only a few fragments of bone and teeth that according to Mr. Gee, could be “fitted into a small box!” Stephen Jay Could6 agrees with the difficulty, “Most hominid fossils, even though they serve as a basis for endless speculation and elaborate storytelling, are fragments of jaws and scrapes of skulls.” He is not alone, Richard Lewontin7 Harvard zoologist says, “when we consider the remote past, before the origin of the actual species Homo sapiens, we are faced with a fragmentary and disconnected fossil record.” These fragments of jaws and scraps of skulls, albeit they are limited have revealed some clues about the uniqueness of our species, as our scholars have examined them. Homo sapiens8 as in intelligent, laptop-carrying man have shown up rather abruptly, where it is believed they showed up around 200,000 years ago in Africa, although there have been small fragments of hominid bones discovered there seems to be a “huge” jump from such creatures to our own species. Naturalist Ian Tattersall 9 (American Museum of Natural History, curator) remarks in his book The Fossil Trail, “Something extraordinary, if totally fortuitous, happened with the birth of our species.” Where he is referring to the sudden appearance of humans in the fossil record. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardipithecus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_habilis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Erectus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_jay_gould http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lewontin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Tattersall

In other words, the jump from hominids to humans is unexplainable where Professor John Maynard Smith10, Emeritus of Biology at the University of Sussex writes, “Something very puzzling happened…the fossil evidence is patchy, but it seems that hominids suddenly developed brains that, in terms of size, were much like ours.” No links between the hominids that came before humans like us never has been discovered. Most hominids had small, ape-like brains and no capacity for language, then ‘bingo’ man appears with several unique features, including an enlarged brain capacity, which unfortunately today has shown a downward spiral in usage…but, let’s get back to the reason why there on no clear-cut links between hominids without language capacity and Homo sapiens? The ability to speak distinguishes man from al apes and hominids, although lately intelligence and speaking appear not to be running hand-in-hand, besides this observation it is noted that humans have both the hardware and the software for language, whereas hominids did not, their physical and mental makeup didn’t even come close. Some humans have the ability to conceptualize, imagination, fear and ego that allows them to develop art, literature, mathematics, and science – but the one thing that raises them above the animals in the garden, is speech, this is the one superior unique ability of man, and unfortunately sometimes is his biggest detriment. This advantage that raises Homo sapiens over the animals presents a huge problem for those who argue against a designer, as they cannot explain the evolutionary advantage that brought on the ability to speak. One evolutionist Steve Olson says, “Of course language could not have come from nowhere. To speak, early humans needed particular vocal and neural mechanisms. But here a notorious problem arises. Any adaptations produced by evolution are useful in the present, not in some vaguely defined future.” In simple words, for human speech to work, the brain structure, the tongue, the larynx, the vocal cords, and many other parts need to be “fully” developed. I understand the “brain” portion, and yet I often wonder if politicians of any breed have had their fully developed. In the end science cannot explain why we are the only creatures with the ability to speak, heaven help us if cats could speak our self-worth would plunge overnight. Our latest flap over a “missing link” was “Ida” a fossil three feet tall and equipped with human-like eyes and thumbs, who was broadly proclaimed as the ‘first link to all humans’, the 47 million year old fossil named after Dr Jorn Hurum of Oslo University, daughter, was said to have marked the point where the evolutionary tree split into two groups, humans, apes and monkeys and the other side have lemurs and bush babies. A team of US Scientists writing in the journal Nature, begged to differ. Erik Seiffert a fossil hunter of Stony Brook University in New York said, “Our analysis and results have convinced us that ‘Ida” was not an ancestor of monkeys, apes or humans, and if

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Smith

anything has more relevance for our understanding of lemur and loris origins. Effectively removing ‘Ida” from our ancestry.” Richard Lewontin pouring buckets of water on claims that a “missing link” between humans and apes has been discovered acknowledged, “Despite the excited and optimistic claims that have been made by some paleontologists, no fossil hominid species can be established as our direct ancestor.” Over the years some scientists have classified the “sudden” appearance of man in our history a “miracle”. During an interview with the French science monthly La Recherche some years ago, Marcel Schutzenberger11 was asked, “The appearance of human beings – is that a miracle?” His reply, “Naturally And here it does seem that there are voices among contemporary biologists—I mean voices other than mine— who might cast doubt on the Darwinian paradigm that has dominated discussion for the past twenty years.” He concluded his interview by stating that there is no materialistic explanation for the sudden development of man, “The reality is that we are confronted with total conceptual bankruptcy.” The list goes on and on made up with distinguished scholars, high-ranking scientists from many scientific fields that basically repeat the same words, “We have no idea where humans came from, and if they are a product of intelligent design the designer was very skilled.” How good was that designer, well the brain for instance has over 12 billion neuron cells all linked with over 100 trillion connections, you ask what is a trillion now that our national debt is 1/100th of that number – picture a solid forest of trees covering half of the United States, if each tree had one hundred thousand (100,000) leaves, the connection (at 100 trillion) would equal the total number of leaves in that forest. The brain’s connection far exceed the complexity of all the communication networks on Earth, and you have a memory that makes a hard drive or memory chip as so much fluff, inside your every shifting memory cells or the three pound of gray matter sitting on your shoulders, a memory capacity exists to store 20,000,000 books, 19,000,000 if you’re having an off day. Stephen Hawking compares the complexity of the human brain with most presentday computers and reveals the overwhelming superiority of our brains, “In comparison with most computers, which their multiple processing units, the brain has millions of processing units…all working at the same time.” In communications if engineers could apply the most sophisticated engineering techniques known to humanity, the assembly of a network remotely resembling the human brain would require an eternity of time – and where would they start. Even the matrix we label the Internet cannot hold a candle to the communication function going on in that 3 lb object sitting on your shoulders – inside that lump is the cerebral cortex, where all of the processing power creates your functions and it is here where the human enigma is most apparent.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel-Paul_Sch%C3%BCtzenberger

It is here where our brains work and “matter is transformed into consciousness.” The human brain distinguishes human beings from all other animals, “though the difference between the human genome and that of a chimp is estimated at less than 1%, our cerebral cortex has ten times more neurons.” The unique character of our brain seems to lie in the existence of many different types of neurons, and in spite of our DNA similarities, between humans and chimpanzees, there are some 40 million differences in neurons. When Gary Kasparov was defeated by the IBM supercomputer ‘Deep Blue’, the computer didn’t realize it had won, whereas Gary had realized he lost. Awareness of thoughts it something that is beyond our ability to create, even in the most sophisticated software programs – ahhhh, here is where that old saw consciousness comes in, a mystery that has twisted the minds of philosophers and scientist for centuries. This awareness, we have determined over the years takes place in our pre-frontal cortex, where our reason to ponder, imagine, fantasize, and seek answers to why we exist. A human’s prefrontal cortex makes up a far larger proportion of the cerebral cortex than in any animal, and in all accounts is the most complex arrangement of matter in the Universe. It is noted that our prefrontal cortex takes a break when we sleep, shutting down the kaleidoscope of fireworks networking in all directions, seemingly chaotic, it is actually electrical impulses that make up billions of organized patterns that result in our thoughts and imaginations – which intersect with our self-awareness and how we interact within our bodies environment. When our body is as rest, asleep, the brain is still in action, where the brain is pulsing, throbbing and flashing with the complex business of human life – dreaming, remembering, and figuring things out, in addition to this your physical senses like hearing are feeding it electrical impulses preparing for flight or fight if something extraordinary happens when your laying there dreaming of fast-food. Materialists and Carl Sagan, when he was bouncing and smiling at us from network TV, have tried to reduce humans to nothing more than a series of drives and instincts, but when you think about it human consciousness chooses between the instincts, and it is as different and separate from them as the pianist is from the keys he chooses to pound on – in other words, our conscious sits over and above our instincts, drives, and desires, and it chooses which it will act upon. This concept works counter to Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” in that man can choose to disregard his own desire to survive for a higher purpose; an example being a person running back into a burning building to save a helpless child…materialists cannot explain this action or reaction of the human consciousness. Another example is the objectivity of the self, whereas you distinguish yourself from your experiences – where when stimulated, you distinctly feel the pain or pleasure that is happening to you and that you are distinct from the experience – it is this objective awareness of our own thoughts that is unique to human beings. Ask yourself, what process in “natural selection” could have led to human consciousness? Some energetic evolutionists have risen to the challenge but failed to reach a satisfactory answer, which translates into, no one really knows. Along that

same path, scientists do not have an answer or explanation for human imagination or creativity…zip! We can stimulate alternative future events that appear to take place within our subjective consciousness, Richard Dawkins12 admits nothing in Darwinian evolution can account for this, “Why this should happened is to me, the most profound mystery facing modern biology.” Stephen J Gould says about the inability of natural selection to explain our brain, “I don’t know why the brain got large in the first place. It certainly wasn’t so that we could paint pictures or write symbols.” Not a question on the person’s mind who believes in intelligent design, but certainly on others, is why did we get these incredibly complex brains with both the hardware and the software for language? And besides, according to evolutionists our brains have remained unchanged. Ernst Mayr13 writes, “What is perhaps most astonishing is the fact that the human brain seems not to have changed one single bit since the first appearance of Homo sapiens…and where did consciousness and acts of heroism come from? There seems to be no evolutionary explanation for any of these unique human qualities.” In his book, What Evolution Is, he argues that our species is the only one of over a billion species that resulted in exceptional intelligence. So, the next time you’re standing there with this far away look in your eyes, seemingly doing nothing and someone comes along and tells you to get off the stick and do something, don’t feel guilty, your just doing what you were meant to do, dream and imagine. A unique characteristic designed into you by an intelligence far greater than any on this planet defined by evolutionists as your basic “mystery”, while they pound rock looking for the “missing link”. Man is truly unique in his quest in one particular aspect, his endeavor to reach the stars, where actions of his have enabled him to take his first minor step on our neighbor the moon, and the countless hours he has spent peering at the Universe through powerful telescopes. As we sit here wondering why we are here on this tiny speck we call home, Earth. Man in his constant search, seems to point to something or someone beyond ourselves. We’re funny that way!

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Mayr