ZNP's Man

awareness · 01-14-2017, 06:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah

If this question is not answered in Post 123 then I don't understand the question.

Homo sapiens were first seen in the fossil record about 200,000 years ago.

I do not see a genetic difference between man and homo sapiens.

What is different is that about 9,000 years ago

Man became quite different from our Primate ancestors.

Homo Sapiens were closely related to Primates and behaved very similarly to a troop of chimpanzees up until about 9,000 years ago. They lived as hunter gatherers, just like chimpanzees, they were not eusocial, they had a simple spoken language but no written language, they did not farm, did not raise animals, did not let non relatives do the brood care, did not have division of labor.

Then, about 9,000 years ago all of these changes can be seen.

Therefore I distinguish between Man, which has written language, religion (which I equate with being eusocial), farming, husbandry, formal education, literature, etc.

With Homo Sapiens which did not.

When -- approximately 6-9,000 years ago.

To whom -- A man named "red clay" was the first man to receive this burden to tend the garden and use animals as a help.

Well thank you for that. I sure hope you elaborate more on it. Please explain your theory on what brought about such a change. Why did primates come down from the trees and start walking, talking, writing, farming, and civilization building? I'm itching to learn.

awareness · 01-15-2017, 08:27 AM

Since brother ZNP decides to be vague, I'm using this thread to try to put together just what he's saying and claiming. So I copied his post below. Maybe we'll get to the bottom of his point sooner or later.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah

Man's Brain is very Expensive

Most vertebrate animals devote between 2% and 8% of basal metabolism to the brain. In primates it is higher. In humans it rises to 20-25%.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207181/

This is a big deal for evolution as "survival of the fittest" often means survival of the most efficient use of energy.

Encephalization is the primary trait of intelligence
http://people.exeter.ac.uk/jfh206/AB...5BrainSize.pdf

Encephalization quotient (EQ)
http://images.slideplayer.com/26/857...es/slide_6.jpg

Human Brain is 3 times larger than a one would expect from a primate brain
http://people.exeter.ac.uk/jfh206/AB...5BrainSize.pdf

General consensus among Scientist is that the Human brain is remarkable, not extraordinary:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207181/

By this they mean it is far and away the most expensive brain. This was published in 2013. This raises an issue among those looking at this from an evolutionary point of view. This issue is laid out in the following article.

Issue for Evolution

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1834002/

They make some educated guesses as to why this would occur, but don’t go further than that. This was in 2006.

Homo Sapiens evolved 200,000 years ago.

http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_4.htm

Written language emerged 9,000 years ago

However,

Written language emerged when hunter gatherers developed a more permanent agrarian society about 9,000 years ago with Sumerian language, our first written language. (http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetect...-written-word/)

You cannot explain the development of written language as a result of biology. We had the anatomy for the last 200,000 years. At best we know it correlated with the beginning of the Agricultural revolution. However, correlation is not causation. Something happened 9,000 years ago that resulted in two things: written language and the agricultural revolution.

No theories, only hypothesis

One study suggests that teaching others how to make tools could have been the catalyst to developing a more complex spoken language. Likewise, it could be that teaching others how to farm, raise animals and sell the goods could have been the catalyst for a written language.

There is a myth that man took up farming because it was a more efficient way of getting food. Not true.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/...e-to-own-stuff

The one advantage that farmers had over the nomads was in raising kids. It is easier to raise and care for kids when you aren’t traveling. Using this same reasoning it is also easier on the elderly.

The best theory on why man didn’t abandon farming at the first famine is concern for raising the young and the elderly.

Correlation between Agricultural Revolution, Written Language, and being Eusocial

So then, we have all the elements of a “eusocial” organism that showed up 9,000 years ago.

How do you explain an organism “evolving” into a eusocial organism. There is no precedent for that. That is a very fair question that has been asked for a very long time, only they asked where did religion come from rather than use Dr. Wilson's term of "eusocial".

awareness · 01-15-2017, 01:30 PM

Here's another one that explains ZNP's man ... I think he's talking about Nietzsche's Ubermensch:

Quote:

Originally Posted by zeek

ZNP -- A cursory read of the articles you posted in #141 reveals that the papers don't support your supernatural theory in the slightest. The following comments follow the order in which you listed the articles.

If I understand you correctly, based on Genesis 2:7, you propose that God miraculously transformed human brain approximately 9 thousand years ago by breathing the breath of life into a primate ancestor. You then are claiming that encephalization is related to that supposed event in order to explain "man's" ability to read and write, farm and engage in religion.

The authors you have cited, H. J. Jerison and H. B. Barlow, disagree with you as is clear in the following quote:

Herculano-Houzel's proposition is the exact opposite of yours. You are asserting the human brain is literally extraordinary, she's saying that it's a scaled-up primate brain.

Isler K and van Schaik provide no support for anything other than natural selection to explain differences in brain sizes among the various species. No mention or support for divine intervention or miracles there.

You should have correlated tract you cited on homo sapiens evolving 200 thousand years ago with your encephalization papers and realized that the large brain necessary for modern human cognition didn't miraculously appear on the scene 9 thousand years ago. See the Jerison and H. B. Barlow quote above.

Chatterjee has farming start 12 thousand years ago, three thousand years before your putative supernatural creation of "man".

So, thanks for the interesting articles, but they don't remotely support your leap to the fantastical.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ZNP

The point I am making is very simply that something revolutionary happened about 6-9,000 years ago. There is nothing remarkable about that, I think every anthropologist and archaeologist would agree to some extent or another.

I am saying that the two remarkable events were

1. The agricultural revolution

and

2. The development of written language.

Again, full consensus with every historian, anthropologist and archaeologist.

I am saying that this correlates quite nicely with the account in Genesis 1.

First -- According to Bible scholars the time frame for the Adam and Eve account closely correlates with this time frame.

Second -- The general location of Adam and Eve closely correlates with these two events.

Third -- the account of God's word to Adam -- to tend the garden, closely correlates with the beginning of the agricultural revolution. That is the paradigm shift in a nutshell, man for the first time began to "tend the garden" which involved "keeping it" from disease, germs, and pests.

Fourth -- the account of God bringing animals to Adam as a help also closely corresponds with the beginning of domesticated animals.

Fifth -- the account of Adam naming every animal closely corresponds with the development of a written language.

Therefore, I conclude that when God says that "Man became a living soul" this is the event He is referring to.

I do not use the term "supernatural event" that is you. What I do use is the term in Genesis that "God breathed into man". Based on a general understanding of the use of this term in the Bible I conclude it refers to the word spoken by God to Adam to "tend and keep the garden".

What those articles show is that there is no evidence of an evolutionary change to man 9,000 years ago to explain this change.

1. They point out that man has a "remarkable" brain in that it is the most expensive based on caloric requirement to body mass index. However, it is equivalent to a "scaled up" primate brain as you say. So then, why have no primates, other than man, taken this path in the last 200,000 years?

There is only one theory, cooking food allows us to get more calories from it, hence we can support a bigger brain. That is a hypothesis. The problem with this is that we would have had to discover fire and cooking first, before we had the big, expensive brain. So then, why haven't chimps or other primates also discovered fire and begun cooking food? This is a reasonable question that any unbiased scientist should consider.

2. They have absolutely no explanation for the dramatic change in man 6-9,000 years ago. There is no "evolutionary" explanation. Yet this is the paradigm shift that has led us on a distinctly different path from the primates. Yes, genetically we are very similar to primates. But not behaviorally.

Now a real scientist would not blow this off which you are doing.

3. They have no explanation for why man has religion and no other creature does. The best they can do is say it is unimportant. But that is why I bring up the issue of "eusocial". There is no denying that the 19 species classified by Dr. E.O. Wilson create a fundamental problem for evolution. These creatures will die to protect a different creatures DNA. The best way to view them is not as individuals but as a super organism where the hive acts as a single organism.

My argument is that man is closely related to primates, yet we do not act like primates in very specific ways. Rather than itemizing them I borrow the term "eusocial" and equate that with "religion". But either way it is undeniable that caring for orphans and widows that are not related to you is contrary to the theory of evolution. Why do we do this? Why do we have religion?

No one has an answer. But I argue that this is the reason that man has made such a dramatic change over the last 9,000 years. Religion is what teaches us how to live as a "super organism". Primates cannot live in troops larger than a certain size because of the issues that arise from them not being eusocial. They cannot trust others to be around their young.

Finally, I relate our development of religion with our development of a written language, both which started as a result of God's word to Adam to "tend and keep the garden" and to use animals as a help.

If you think there is going to be a scientific study out there that says that, then you are kidding yourself. I don't claim there is. What I am doing is making a connection between two very different words -- the world of Bible commentary with the world of science.

What those scientific papers do is show that they don't have a genetic, biologic or anatomical explanation for the paradigm shift 6-9,000 years ago.