Sequencing the Denisovan genome

No Ken, I wasn't there and neither were you. But I can sequence DNA that was there. I can draw valid inferences from this data. You really ought to try it some time Ken. By the way, you can do the same thing with fossils.

The news about this sequencing and some of the conclusions drawn from it has proven to be a lot of fun and extremely interesting even to a layman like me. Technology and techniques are advancing so quickly that important findings are cropping up at a remarkable pace. We didn't even suspect that there were Denisovans until about 2008, and we didn't have good gene-based estimates for Neanderthal introgression until a short while later, and now we're comparing all these genomes with the promise of even more interesting findings to come. That's not to mention the findings of the dwarf Homo population of Flores, or the new Australopithecus finds like A. sediba. This has certainly been an exciting decade for the study of human origins.

I can hear the echo of Ken Ham’s minions mindlessly shouting “Were you there???” No,

Mike Elzinga said:

I can hear the echo of Ken Ham’s minions mindlessly shouting “Were you there???” No,

But Richard and I were. Scruffy we were. Hee hee. ;-)

(Which reminds me of a remark by the late Robert B. Parker, creator of the Spenser, Jesse Stone, and Sunny Randall series of mysteries. Asked why he was taking boxing lessons in his 70s, Parker replied that he was in training for a geezer-weight title match.)

Richard B. Hoppe said: Ha! Speak for yourself, geezer! :)

Mike Elzinga said:

I can hear the echo of Ken Ham’s minions mindlessly shouting “Were you there???” No,

But Richard and I were. Scruffy we were. Hee hee. ;-)

I am amazed that Svante Paabo and his team were able to sequence the entire genome from that bone fragment. This is indeed - no pun intended - a stellar achievement. It's also important since it has demonstrated that our understanding of hominid phylogeny is far more complicated than we had suspected.

As more genetic information accumulates relating to our ancient antecedents, it seems that there is, in fact, something to the multiregional hypothesis, at least for genetic content for many modern humans. We still are, all of us, African in most part. Travelling to Asia, 80,000 ya, carried different opportunities than it does today!

What gets me is that these were people. We know a fair amount of culture going back about 10k years but we know nothing about these guys. In the intervening 30k years think how many Gods were created and disappeared. How many stories of Heros real and imaginary have been lost to us. Were there any empires that we know nothing about over this time.

MichaelJ said: What gets me is that these were people. We know a fair amount of culture going back about 10k years but we know nothing about these guys. In the intervening 30k years think how many Gods were created and disappeared. How many stories of Heros real and imaginary have been lost to us. Were there any empires that we know nothing about over this time.

John said: ...empires don't appear until thousands of years after we started farming in the Neolithic Period.

The best media report of this research I've seen is in BusinessWeek.

Now this is really interesting: the Denisovans have the same chromosome 2 fusion as H. saps. John Hawks discusses it briefly here. Assuming that Neandertals also have the fusion (which we do not yet know), that pushes the date of the fusion back before the differentiation of H. saps, Neandertals, and Denisovans.

Richard B. Hoppe said: Now this is really interesting: the Denisovans have the same chromosome 2 fusion as H. saps. John Hawks discusses it briefly here. Assuming that Neandertals also have the fusion (which we do not yet know), that pushes the date of the fusion back before the differentiation of H. saps, Neandertals, and Denisovans.

harold said: How strong is the justification for designating different species?

its not the next best thing to being there.
Yes its about looking back in time to things not now that way.
All this genetic stuff still requires a constant state of motion on genetic change.
Yet is the physics of DNA settled?
I say it isn't.
The bible says people lived , even after the flood , for hundreds of years.
So our genetics must of been more powerful. Likewise in all biology.
So YEC creationists already can't be persuaded that Dna is a trail for biological relationships.
Whether diversity of time.
All ideas on genetics is founded on a constant state.
There is no reason to rule out other options about flexibility of genetic change.
Evolutionists make a flaw of logic when saying genetic conclusions about biology can not be questioned on the great assumption of constant motion.
Its not been included in these models the option for undiscovered flexibility of genetic change without ideas from evolution.
It must include this option to be a tested hypothesis.
Another whoops for evolutionary biology.

Robert,

I won't even attempt to argue with your statements above. They speak for themselves.

But let me help you with a couple of things that maybe you could learn to correct, if you pay attention and are careful (I taught high school English).

Start your sentences with capital letters.

It's not 'must of', it's 'must HAVE'. 'Must of' doesn't even make sense.

When 'its' means 'it is', it always MUST have an apostrophe: it's. You did it wrong three times in that short paragraph.

Avoiding some of those childish errors (and there are many more) won't help your argument, but it will make readers less likely to dismiss your entry, after the first sentence, as the writing of a 5th grader.

Still spelling DNA with only one capital eh Robert? Well then, I guess everyone can see what an expert you are when you claim that the physics of Dna is not settled!! Perhaps you can enlighten us about exactly what is is you feel is still in question. Is it the mechanism of mutations? Is it the mutation rate? Is it the randomness of mutations?

Exactly how do you explain this evidence Robert? How can it possibly be reconciled with a young earth and immutable species? You make a flaw of logic when you say that others have ruled out undiscovered things. Exactly what undiscovered things should be considered? Why should they be considered if they haven't been discovered yet? Could it be that you will just reject any conclusion that doesn't agree with your preconceptions?

"So our genetics must have been more powerful."

More powerful than what? A lawnmower? A speeding locomotive? A Saturn V rocket?

Enquiring minds want to know, Robert. Not your mind, of course.

Robert Byers said: The bible says people lived , even after the flood , for hundreds of years.

Dave Luckett said: More powerful than what? A speeding locomotive?

stevaroni said: People died young back in the day. At 33 Jesus was verging on being an old man in his population when the Romans nailed him to a tree. Life expectancy in the Bronze age and early iron age? 26 years. Though, in fairness, that is skewed a bit by an enormous infant mortality. If you were lucky enough to live through puberty you had decent odds of seeing your early 30's.

Scott F said: From a strictly Darwinian perspective, I've always wondered what modern medicine will do to the human race in an evolutionary sense. In the day, the people who "were lucky enough to live through puberty" were the ones who had lived long enough to breed. By that winnowing process, they were the hardy ones, the tough ones, the ones that the TOE would predict would pass on their genes to their offspring. Today? Not so much. I would have died from stomach ulcers before my 15th birthday. Without orthodontia, my teeth, and those of my son would have seriously compromised our ability to eat. Our son wouldn't even have been born without IVF. Yet here we are today, healthy contributing members of society. But our genes? Not so much, or at least not as much as 2,000 years ago. It's looking like collective intelligence and technology is going to practically nullify the effects of "natural selection" on the human phenotype. Oh, to come back in several thousand years, to live to see what the seeds we sew today have wrought! :-)

Infant and childhood mortality were the real skews on the population statistics. A settled farming population with access to a good diet may live out what we would regard as a "normal" lifespan, with some respectable proportion of those who reach adulthood reaching sixty or seventy. Old people are repositories of knowledge in preliterate societies, and valuable for that reason, and so are usually supported past their ability to contribute with labour. At the same time, settlement removes the necessity for keeping up with the group as it forages. Hence the Biblical description of human life expectancy: "three score years and ten".

The difficulty arises with intensive cultivation of grain. Given suitable land, cereal crops return the greatest number of calories per area, albeit at the cost of constant grinding labour. Land is converted to cereal farming by ploughing, drainage, ditching, irrigation and terracing. Woodland, wetland and hill pasture, sources of other foods, are reduced. Malnutrition appears as grain replaces them. At the same time, repetition and overuse injuries appear and become severe. So do dental caries.

All this tends to shorten life, except among the elite. But an elite is also a characteristic of settled agrarian populations.

The problem I suppose is one of biblical inerrency. If the bible says early humans had life spans of 900 plus years then they did, even if there is no fossil evidence for this scanario.

No matter how silly the claim, if the bible says it then Robert believes it.

It's as simple as that.

Nearly everyone qualifies their belief in the primacy of the Bible. Very few people go along with Biblical heliocentrism, for example, even though for something like 2000 years it was the universal belief that the Sun orbited a fixed Earth, and agreed that the Bible said so. Most people today believe that the Earth is a planet of the Sun on the basis of modern science. (Even though few of them are able to give good reasons for that belief.) This is only one of the more striking examples of how people will qualify their trust in the Bible. (I dare say that the evidence for evolution is more accessible than the evidence for geocentrism.)

I'd agree with TomS. Even the godbots we get here don't actually believe in Biblical inerrancy, not really. They say they do, of course, but any time the Bible doesn't actually say what they want it to, they indulge in a little quiet metaphorisation, and hey presto!

And yes, to observe the retrograde motion of Venus and Mercury takes some doing, and a tremendous piece of insight to see how it is better explained by the Earth in motion rather than that it's them doing loop-the-loops.

From a strictly Darwinian perspective, I’ve always wondered what modern medicine will do to the human race in an evolutionary sense. In the day, the people who “were lucky enough to live through puberty” were the ones who had lived long enough to breed. By that winnowing process, they were the hardy ones, the tough ones, the ones that the TOE would predict would pass on their genes to their offspring. Today? Not so much. I would have died from stomach ulcers before my 15th birthday. Without orthodontia, my teeth, and those of my son would have seriously compromised our ability to eat. Our son wouldn’t even have been born without IVF.

Scott F said:

stevaroni said: People died young back in the day. At 33 Jesus was verging on being an old man in his population when the Romans nailed him to a tree. Life expectancy in the Bronze age and early iron age? 26 years. Though, in fairness, that is skewed a bit by an enormous infant mortality. If you were lucky enough to live through puberty you had decent odds of seeing your early 30's.

From a strictly Darwinian perspective, I've always wondered what modern medicine will do to the human race in an evolutionary sense. In the day, the people who "were lucky enough to live through puberty" were the ones who had lived long enough to breed. By that winnowing process, they were the hardy ones, the tough ones, the ones that the TOE would predict would pass on their genes to their offspring. Today? Not so much. I would have died from stomach ulcers before my 15th birthday. Without orthodontia, my teeth, and those of my son would have seriously compromised our ability to eat. Our son wouldn't even have been born without IVF. Yet here we are today, healthy contributing members of society. But our genes? Not so much, or at least not as much as 2,000 years ago. It's looking like collective intelligence and technology is going to practically nullify the effects of "natural selection" on the human phenotype. Oh, to come back in several thousand years, to live to see what the seeds we sew today have wrought! :-)

harold said: A myopic hunter gatherer might be in trouble, but they don't get myopia, because they aren't exposed to the environmental risk factor. It's much the same with many, many dental problems, not just caries.

stevaroni said:

Robert Byers said: The bible says people lived , even after the flood , for hundreds of years.

Well, Robert, that should be easy enough to establish. Presumably, humans in the age of Methuselah grew to adulthood at the same rate (the Bible is full of old Jewish rituals and rules and the appropriate ages where these things apply, so we can make surmise that growth thru puberty into adulthood was about the same as it is today) Since cranial sutures ossify at a known rate, we can identify the skulls (and dentition) of, say, a 10 year old as opposed to a 15 year old as opposed to a 20 year old. And we know, roughly, what these people ate, and there are probably even modern populations with similar diets (though probably less gritty, because of better ways to grind grain) . A little dento-archeology should quickly be able to compare and contrast teeth of known ages and establish a pretty good ruler for average wear rates. it should be trivial to find and identify old jaws with 200 years of wear. Especially in an arid region like the Middle East, where bodies last a looooong time. It's also noteworthy that this region has been a hunting ground for Biblically-motivated archeology for centuries. So... um.... where are all the really old skulls? [crickets] Indeed, Bob, people have actually done this sort of research, and guess what? People died young back in the day. At 33 Jesus was verging on being an old man in his population when the Romans nailed him to a tree. Life expectancy in the Bronze age and early iron age? 26 years. Though, in fairness, that is skewed a bit by an enormous infant mortality. If you were lucky enough to live through puberty you had decent odds of seeing your early 30's.

Ian Derthal said: The problem I suppose is one of biblical inerrency. If the bible says early humans had life spans of 900 plus years then they did, even if there is no fossil evidence for this scanario. No matter how silly the claim, if the bible says it then Robert believes it. It's as simple as that.

tomh said:

harold said: How strong is the justification for designating different species?

Svante Paabo clearly considers all three variations the same species. [About Denisovians] "I would not call it a different species, but clearly different groups with a different history. I would not call the Neanderthals a different species from humans either, actually."

Robert Byers said:

Ian Derthal said: The problem I suppose is one of biblical inerrency. If the bible says early humans had life spans of 900 plus years then they did, even if there is no fossil evidence for this scanario. No matter how silly the claim, if the bible says it then Robert believes it. It's as simple as that.

The bible presents itself as the word of a God. its common, historic, and persuasive to believe such. Our civilization if founded on the bible being true. If someone says its wrong then demonstrate the evidence.

Still can't get the must have and it's right, can you? See, it's evidence like that that confirms us in our judgment that you have some major learning problems, which we first assumed from your adherence to YEC.

And then "sentences" like "Our civilization if founded on the bible being true," make it painful to even attempt to sort out what you mean.

Robert, you're not doing your cause any good by posting here. Indeed, you're harming it.

Robert Byers said: The bible presents itself as the word of a God. its common, historic, and persuasive to believe such. Our civilization if founded on the bible being true. If someone says its wrong then demonstrate the evidence.

Robert Byers said:

Ian Derthal said: The problem I suppose is one of biblical inerrency. If the bible says early humans had life spans of 900 plus years then they did, even if there is no fossil evidence for this scanario. No matter how silly the claim, if the bible says it then Robert believes it. It's as simple as that.

The bible presents itself as the word of a God. its common, historic, and persuasive to believe such. Our civilization if founded on the bible being true. If someone says its wrong then demonstrate the evidence.

Robert Byers said:

stevaroni said:

Robert Byers said: The bible says people lived , even after the flood , for hundreds of years.

Well, Robert, that should be easy enough to establish. Presumably, humans in the age of Methuselah grew to adulthood at the same rate (the Bible is full of old Jewish rituals and rules and the appropriate ages where these things apply, so we can make surmise that growth thru puberty into adulthood was about the same as it is today) Since cranial sutures ossify at a known rate, we can identify the skulls (and dentition) of, say, a 10 year old as opposed to a 15 year old as opposed to a 20 year old. And we know, roughly, what these people ate, and there are probably even modern populations with similar diets (though probably less gritty, because of better ways to grind grain) . A little dento-archeology should quickly be able to compare and contrast teeth of known ages and establish a pretty good ruler for average wear rates. it should be trivial to find and identify old jaws with 200 years of wear. Especially in an arid region like the Middle East, where bodies last a looooong time. It's also noteworthy that this region has been a hunting ground for Biblically-motivated archeology for centuries. So... um.... where are all the really old skulls? [crickets] Indeed, Bob, people have actually done this sort of research, and guess what? People died young back in the day. At 33 Jesus was verging on being an old man in his population when the Romans nailed him to a tree. Life expectancy in the Bronze age and early iron age? 26 years. Though, in fairness, that is skewed a bit by an enormous infant mortality. If you were lucky enough to live through puberty you had decent odds of seeing your early 30's.

You make a interesting point here that YEC would jump on. If people lived that long, they did into the hundreds, then their biology allowing this would also stop decay. It would not be the usual rates of decay that they today judge skeletons by. Therefore , possibly found, a old skeleton would be hundreds of years old but only have the decay of decades old. They can only tell age in a skeleton by modern decay rates. Better rates inb the past would hide the error. This is my point about DNA . it is entirely based on assumptions of cionstant change being only what is thought to happen today. A error of investigation even if they were right. Lack of imagination for bigger options of flexibility. By the way its a myth people didn't live long back in the day. the bible says man is given 70 years/80 with health. Even if you don't believe its the word of god it must of been a common observation for any audience. Confusicious (sp) said 70 too and Herodotus said likewise. if it was lower it must of been a degraded society. Anyways nobody was keeping score for modern accurate analysis.

sorry, I meant stevaroni. My bad.

"How come no one can detect one at all"

You have to be very thick skinned not to detect God.

Marilyn said: "How come no one can detect one at all" You have to be very thick skinned not to detect God.

Robert Byers said: You make a interesting point here that YEC would jump on.

If people lived that long, they did into the hundreds, then their biology allowing this would also stop decay.

j. biggs said: sorry, I meant stevaroni. My bad.

Just Bob said:

Marilyn said: "How come no one can detect one at all" You have to be very thick skinned not to detect God.

Umm, OK, how do you do it?

"Umm, OK, how do you do it?"

It's not limited. It's inbuilt. And believe, "when two or three are gathered in my name I will be there", is one way.

Marilyn said: "How come no one can detect one at all" You have to be very thick skinned not to detect God.

Robert Byers said: The bible presents itself as the word of a God. its common, historic, and persuasive to believe such. Our civilization if founded on the bible being true.

Marilyn said: It's not limited. It's inbuilt. And believe, "when two or three are gathered in my name I will be there", is one way.

stevaroni said: Actually, "civilization", as we know it is probably more dependent on the Egyptians, Babylonians, Romans and Greeks than anything the Christians did.

Marilyn said: "How come no one can detect one at all" You have to be very thick skinned not to detect God.

Marilyn said: "Umm, OK, how do you do it?" It's not limited. It's inbuilt. And believe, "when two or three are gathered in my name I will be there", is one way.

"How come no god detectors?"

Yes it seems He got passed you without been noticed.

Marilyn said: Yes it seems He got passed you without been noticed.

So if Carbon-14 dating is all just, you know, miscalibrated, why don't Creationists perform their own calibration of C-14 and give us their TRUE ages for all of those C-14 dates?

The Denisova Cave, the Egyptian timbers inside tombs, all that good stuff - why don't they just tell us HOW OLD IT REALLY IS?

I thought they said they were 'scientists'? Can't they do some real, you know, 'science' and recalibrate all those C-14 dates.

And while they're at it, why not give us their 'properly' calibrations for Potassium-Argon dating, Lead-lead dating, Uranium-uranium dating, all those radioactive datings, and DENDROCHRONOLOGY, and VARVES, while they're at it?

What is wrong with these 'scientists', like Michael Oard (meteorology)? They could win a Nobel Prize when they show all those dating methods are wrong.

But only if they give their 'right' dates.

prongs said: So if Carbon-14 dating is all just, you know, miscalibrated, why don't Creationists perform their own calibration of C-14 and give us their TRUE ages for all of those C-14 dates?

Marilyn said: "How come no god detectors?" Yes it seems He got passed you without been noticed.

Pssst, Marilyn, it's "past", not "passed". "Passed" is what you did with that gas last night.

Marilyn said: "How come no god detectors?" Yes it seems He got passed you without been noticed.

And Marilyn, while you're busy ignoring my literal explication of your bible verse, here's something else that I suspect you'll choose not to answer.

What EXACTLY does "gathered in Jesus' name" mean?

If any group declares that it is meeting "in Jesus' name", is it really, or are some groups claiming it but not really doing it? How about the White CHRISTIAN Knights of the Ku Klux Klan? They gather in Jesus' name? Does Jesus attend their rallies? How about the white supremacist Christian Identity churches? The Westboro Baptists when they gather in Jesus' name to tell grieving relatives that their dead children in the US military are going to hell because America doesn't persecute gays nearly enough to satisfy Jesus?

I'm sure that you're sure that Jesus is present for your Sunday services and bible study. But do you think He attends Catholic mass? Russian Orthodox services? Mormon ceremonies? Secret Masonic meetings? A liberal Methodist church that welcomes gays?

And what does Jesus' presence contribute to the affair? Does His presence guarantee that the group always makes correct decisions? Does their behavior noticeably change when He shows up? Can members tell when and if He leaves? Does He manipulate the minds of those present to get them to do what He wants? Does He always get a majority for His way? Why isn't it always unanimous?

two or more what? does frank and the beans count? if so i got that mug on autopilot we like xylem and phloem and shit namsayin

phhht said:

Marilyn said: "How come no god detectors?" Yes it seems He got passed you without been noticed.

So Marilyn, we can detect planets around other suns. We can detect the wreck of the Titanic. We can detect radioactivity. We can even detect smoke in the bedroom. How come no god detectors?

https://me.yahoo.com/a/KirCgV93wJhLm65myiH0mSwTlWCQuwnMxlI4xKqx#26847 said: two or more what? does frank and the beans count? if so i got that mug on autopilot we like xylem and phloem and shit namsayin

phhht said:

Marilyn said: "How come no god detectors?" Yes it seems He got passed you without been noticed.

So Marilyn, we can detect planets around other suns. We can detect the wreck of the Titanic. We can detect radioactivity. We can even detect smoke in the bedroom. How come no god detectors?

Some time back I gave some specifications for a deity detector.

Took me a while to find them again.

Marilyn said:

phhht said:

Marilyn said: "How come no god detectors?" Yes it seems He got passed you without been noticed.

So Marilyn, we can detect planets around other suns. We can detect the wreck of the Titanic. We can detect radioactivity. We can even detect smoke in the bedroom. How come no god detectors?

So phhht, you just don't have it and you don't believe those who have.

"While some of the coverage has focused on what can be inferred about the individual from whom the DNA was recovered (female, dark skin, brown eyes and hair) what is much more interesting are the relationships of the Denisovans to various modern human populations and to Neanderthals"

Would you detect how they believed and lived their life or how they viewed things from their DNA. Would that be done by any writings they did or how they lived their lives and art they did, things that came from inside the individual. Also emotions like anger or love.

Marilyn said: "While some of the coverage has focused on what can be inferred about the individual from whom the DNA was recovered (female, dark skin, brown eyes and hair) what is much more interesting are the relationships of the Denisovans to various modern human populations and to Neanderthals" Would you detect how they believed and lived their life or how they viewed things from their DNA. Would that be done by any writings they did or how they lived their lives and art they did, things that came from inside the individual. Also emotions like anger or love.

Robert Byers said: The bible presents itself as the word of a God. its common, historic, and persuasive to believe such. Our civilization if founded on the bible being true. If someone says its wrong then demonstrate the evidence.

Marilyn,
RBH's quote should probably be read as 'the genetic relationships between Denisovans, Neanderthals, and modern humans are much more interesting than traits like eye color.'

IOW, "relationship" is being used here in the sense of how they interbred, not in the sense of what sort of social values they shared or social interactions they had.

phhht said:

Marilyn said: "How come no god detectors?" Yes it seems He got passed you without been noticed.

There was nothing to notice.

Marilyn said: So phhht, you just don't have it and you don't believe those who have.

Author Profile Page Marilyn replied to a comment from phhht | September 4, 2012 2:57 PM | Reply “How come no one can detect one at all” Marilyn: You have to be very thick skinned not to detect God.

John said:

tomh said:

harold said: How strong is the justification for designating different species?

Svante Paabo clearly considers all three variations the same species. [About Denisovians] "I would not call it a different species, but clearly different groups with a different history. I would not call the Neanderthals a different species from humans either, actually."

He may be in the minority, tomh. I think most hominid paleobiologists and physical anthropologists would regard Neanderthals as a separate species, which split off from the populations that became Homo sapiens approximately 800,000 years ago.

Richard B. Hoppe said:

Marilyn said: "How come no one can detect one at all" You have to be very thick skinned not to detect God.

How about an intersubjectively replicable method, one that works regardless of prior beliefs. Got one, Marilyn? Temperature is reliably measurable: anyone can use the appropriate physical methods and measure it reliably. Electrons are reliably detectable: anyone can use the appropriate methods and detect them reliably. God, on the other hand, can't be 'detected' without committing to prior assumptions that cannot themselves be tested. That's the difference between warranted knowledge claims and religious beliefs: The former don't depend on special states of mind to operate. For a nice example of a failure to be replicable and the influence of prior beliefs, see the story of N-Rays.

Marilyn, Moses made an attempt and got only the cryptic reply of I AM THAT I AM.

You tell us what that means, your detector shows it?

Marilyn said:

phhht said:

Marilyn said: "How come no god detectors?" Yes it seems He got passed you without been noticed.

So Marilyn, we can detect planets around other suns. We can detect the wreck of the Titanic. We can detect radioactivity. We can even detect smoke in the bedroom. How come no god detectors?

So phhht, you just don't have it and you don't believe those who have.

Marilyn said: you just don't have it and you don't believe those who have.

Marilyn said:

phhht said:

Marilyn said: "How come no god detectors?" Yes it seems He got passed you without been noticed.

So Marilyn, we can detect planets around other suns. We can detect the wreck of the Titanic. We can detect radioactivity. We can even detect smoke in the bedroom. How come no god detectors?

So phhht, you just don't have it and you don't believe those who have.

I've thought about it and have to say I cannot answer your questions.

Marilyn,

How do you know you're not fooling yourself?

Now that we know Denisovan had 46 chromosomes, it is implied (though not yet expressed) that they had the distinct human genes PGML/FOXD/CBWD from human chromosome 2.
Therefore the only way those guys received these genes is from the first mating in our ancestry of 46 with 46. Therefore we know that the hominids were hybrids of humans and apes, with Denisovan and Neanderthal the last in that sequence. They were exterminated in the Great Fossilization following Genesis 6:12.

SLC said: Based on the recent findings of Neanderthal DNA fragments in the human genome, it would appear that they interbred, at least to some extent. It is my information that two populations that are able to interbreed and produce viable and fertile offspring are considered to belong to the same species. Thus, Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens neanderthalis.

John said:

tomh said:

harold said: How strong is the justification for designating different species?

Svante Paabo clearly considers all three variations the same species. [About Denisovians] "I would not call it a different species, but clearly different groups with a different history. I would not call the Neanderthals a different species from humans either, actually."

He may be in the minority, tomh. I think most hominid paleobiologists and physical anthropologists would regard Neanderthals as a separate species, which split off from the populations that became Homo sapiens approximately 800,000 years ago.

j. biggs said:

Robert Byers said:

stevaroni said:

Robert Byers said: The bible says people lived , even after the flood , for hundreds of years.

Well, Robert, that should be easy enough to establish. Presumably, humans in the age of Methuselah grew to adulthood at the same rate (the Bible is full of old Jewish rituals and rules and the appropriate ages where these things apply, so we can make surmise that growth thru puberty into adulthood was about the same as it is today) Since cranial sutures ossify at a known rate, we can identify the skulls (and dentition) of, say, a 10 year old as opposed to a 15 year old as opposed to a 20 year old. And we know, roughly, what these people ate, and there are probably even modern populations with similar diets (though probably less gritty, because of better ways to grind grain) . A little dento-archeology should quickly be able to compare and contrast teeth of known ages and establish a pretty good ruler for average wear rates. it should be trivial to find and identify old jaws with 200 years of wear. Especially in an arid region like the Middle East, where bodies last a looooong time. It's also noteworthy that this region has been a hunting ground for Biblically-motivated archeology for centuries. So... um.... where are all the really old skulls? [crickets] Indeed, Bob, people have actually done this sort of research, and guess what? People died young back in the day. At 33 Jesus was verging on being an old man in his population when the Romans nailed him to a tree. Life expectancy in the Bronze age and early iron age? 26 years. Though, in fairness, that is skewed a bit by an enormous infant mortality. If you were lucky enough to live through puberty you had decent odds of seeing your early 30's.

You make a interesting point here that YEC would jump on. If people lived that long, they did into the hundreds, then their biology allowing this would also stop decay. It would not be the usual rates of decay that they today judge skeletons by. Therefore , possibly found, a old skeleton would be hundreds of years old but only have the decay of decades old. They can only tell age in a skeleton by modern decay rates. Better rates inb the past would hide the error. This is my point about DNA . it is entirely based on assumptions of cionstant change being only what is thought to happen today. A error of investigation even if they were right. Lack of imagination for bigger options of flexibility. By the way its a myth people didn't live long back in the day. the bible says man is given 70 years/80 with health. Even if you don't believe its the word of god it must of been a common observation for any audience. Confusicious (sp) said 70 too and Herodotus said likewise. if it was lower it must of been a degraded society. Anyways nobody was keeping score for modern accurate analysis.

If "decay rates" were different for humans living 4,000-6,000 years ago then there would also have to be marked anatomical and genetic differences in specimens collected from that time period. Anthropologists and Biologists haven't found evidence of any genetic or morphological differnces that account for your proposed "slower rate of decay" either. Also Stevarino pointed out that a dento-archeological analysis should be able to determine ages based on average dental wear. I agree that this would probably be one good method of determining how long people lived on average during the time period in question even if your conjecture were correct. Enamel is formed by the enamel organ of the dental follicle prior to eruption. During tooth eruption the dental follicle and enamel organ completely degenerate. Hence enamel doesn't regenerate once a tooth has erupted. Therefore even if other parts of the body had a slower rate of decay in the past say by ancestral DNA having far more telomeres than it presently has, teeth would still exibit a consistent pattern of wear since enamel doesn't regenerate. But hey, according to you God can use magic to do whatever he wants so that your interpretation of the Bible is correct.

stevaroni said:

Robert Byers said: You make a interesting point here that YEC would jump on.

Oh, goody. I quiver in anticipation.

If people lived that long, they did into the hundreds, then their biology allowing this would also stop decay.

Not decay, Bob. Wear. Read for comprehension. What I said was 1) identify 10, 15 and 20 y/o secondary teeth from this population (because individuals of this age can be identified by cranial suture characteristics. Been done, BTW ). 2) calculate the wear rate on their teeth (been done, BTW). 3) extrapolate that into 30 decades. 4) demonstrate teeth showing 300 years of wear. This methodology requires no magic, nor any (baffling) explanation of why there should or should not be some heretofore unexplained "intelligent cavity" phenomenon. It takes no reliance on dental decay at all, though, frankly, the methodology would work just as well. Although I imagine that in a hunter-gatherer world devoid of processed sugars there were fewer cases of youthful cavities, I suspect that the total lack of effective dental care eventually caught up with people. Heck, my cat hasn't brushed his teeth in 10 years and he has gum problems, and the only bad thing he eats is a few licks of ice cream he occasionally mooches.

Robert Byers said: First there probably is no skeletons etc remains from the first two centuries after the flood and when biological power was greater indicated by the long lives.

If they can be identified by cranial points on age then the teeth aren’t needed. Once a person reaches maturity, 20 say, they would because of greater biology ability look the same for hundreds of years as the bible says. Teeth wear just another aspect of this.

Marilyn said: I've thought about it and have to say I cannot answer your questions.

Robert Byers said: If they can be identified by cranial points on age then the teeth aren't needed. Once a person reaches maturity, 20 say, they would because of greater biology ability look the same for hundreds of years as the bible says. Teeth wear just another aspect of this.

eric said: I want to make sure I understand what you are claiming. You are saying: no human teeth from Noah's era should show more wear than a 20-year-old's. Because the folk who lived to 60, 100, 200, 300 would all have teeth that had the same wear and tear as a modern 20-year-olds. Is that correct?

eric said:

Robert Byers said: If they can be identified by cranial points on age then the teeth aren't needed. Once a person reaches maturity, 20 say, they would because of greater biology ability look the same for hundreds of years as the bible says. Teeth wear just another aspect of this.

I want to make sure I understand what you are claiming. You are saying: no human teeth from Noah's era should show more wear than a 20-year-old's. Because the folk who lived to 60, 100, 200, 300 would all have teeth that had the same wear and tear as a modern 20-year-olds. Is that correct? So, if someone found really old human teeth that had the wear and tear of 60 years of use, then that would prove you wrong, correct?

stevaroni said:

Robert Byers said: First there probably is no skeletons etc remains from the first two centuries after the flood and when biological power was greater indicated by the long lives.

Actually, bodies from this period are plentiful throughout the middle east, a naturally dry area where many cultures had rituals involving carefully interring their bodies. Particularly in Egypt. This being the tail end of the Old Kingdom preserving the dead was all the rage. Although only the very well-connected could afford to get the full mummy-in-a-golden-mask treatent, it was common for individuals of moderate means to be treated with a decent amount of care and laid to rest in desert cemeteries that dessicated their corpses and left giant fields of very good skeletons.

If they can be identified by cranial points on age then the teeth aren’t needed. Once a person reaches maturity, 20 say, they would because of greater biology ability look the same for hundreds of years as the bible says. Teeth wear just another aspect of this.

Still not reading for comprehension, Bob. Permanent teeth start erupting in humans at about 7 years of age. For the first 20 years of life or so you can readily and unambiguously date a skull by cranial sutures. If you've got the skull of a 10 year old, he's been chewing on his first molars for maybe three years. You can thusly identify molars that people have been chewing with for 3 years, 7years, 10 years, 13 years, etc. Given a large sample size, you can determine, within reason a rate of dental wear for that population with that diet. People have done this. They have written very nice papers on it. There's even a name for the subspecialty of people who study this sort of thing "osteologists". If you then look at very old skulls, assuming that all these Methuselahs continued to eat throughout their adult life (a fairly safe assumption) you should be able to find molars that show 300 years of wear. Especially since many of these individuals would have been amassing status, wealth and family position for hundreds of years, and high-status individuals tend, as a class, to be treated relatively well in death, buried carefully rather than, say, being fed to the dogs. The many, many, many generations of religiously motivated "Biblical Archeologists" who have been digging up the holy land for the last 200 years to prove a literal Bible should have a stack of bodies by now. ICR should have a real paper on this - and I mean a real paper, not one of those silly bullet point things they have on their website. This should be trivial, Bob. 300 year-old jaws should be everywhere in the holy land. But... um... they're not. Now I wonder why that might be, Bob?

eric said:

Robert Byers said: If they can be identified by cranial points on age then the teeth aren't needed. Once a person reaches maturity, 20 say, they would because of greater biology ability look the same for hundreds of years as the bible says. Teeth wear just another aspect of this.

The wear would be less because the people are biologically stronger. How this works out in teeth is speculation but is fine for me to see the teeth didn't get worn out like the rates today. I want to make sure I understand what you are claiming. You are saying: no human teeth from Noah's era should show more wear than a 20-year-old's. Because the folk who lived to 60, 100, 200, 300 would all have teeth that had the same wear and tear as a modern 20-year-olds. Is that correct? So, if someone found really old human teeth that had the wear and tear of 60 years of use, then that would prove you wrong, correct?

Byers thinks that teeth can be biologically stronger, whatever Byers means by "stronger". Not that 'stronger' has any specific meaning at all in this context.

No, Bob. Wrong again. The teeth of ancient skulls have been minutely examined, and as has been explained patiently to you, those teeth are like ours, not "stronger". Their tooth enamel was the same as ours, and its thickness the same as ours would be, if we ate the same foods as they did. The wear patterns show that people five, six, seven thousand years ago lived shorter, not longer lives than we do.

Them's the facts, Bob. Suck it up.

Furthermore, Robert Byers still has not explained why no one has ever found any skull belonging to one of these legendary Biblical poly-centurions in the first place.

apokryltaros said: Furthermore, Robert Byers still has not explained why no one has ever found any skull belonging to one of these legendary Biblical poly-centurions in the first place.

Hell he can't even click on the links that are provided for him. His nonsense is completely refuted by even the most trivial facts. He seems to think that if he refuses to look at it, it doesn't exist. Kind of like a three year old playing hide and seek by covering his eyes.

The ice man lived 5300 years ago and died at the age of 40. His teeth were in really bad shape. He was no pre flood super human, that's for sure. Bobby can't explain it. So what? He can't explain any of the evidence from genetics either.

Mike Elzinga said: Some time back I gave some specifications for a deity detector. Took me a while to find them again.

Marilyn said:

Mike Elzinga said: Some time back I gave some specifications for a deity detector. Took me a while to find them again.

I think this is a good description and the more I think about this the more I realize that a living thing capable of reasoning could be this detector.

This assumes there aren’t an infinite number of contradictory gods. If that’s the case, then hey, maybe each detection is signal and what looks like imprecision is just individual accurate detection of different entities.