Ophiolite

It is a subjective, qualitative observation. As such it is of very limited, possibly no, value. What we require is objective, quantitative observations. You have produced some of these, with great reluctance, and as soon as possible you revert to "common sense" and opinion and "it's obvious" and "it's easy to see". And - amazingly - you expect to be taken seriously.

Seriously? Common sense has no place in science. The methodologies of science were developed in order to overcome the egregious errors that arise when the foolish apply common sense. However, I am not surprised that someone who repeatedly states "It is obvious..." would also think common sense would form a justifiable part of an argument.

I don't like it either, but unfortunately for you and I it provides by far the best explanation of a very wide array of observations. No other hypothesis comes close to success on this front. Given that you are new to cosmology it might make sense to spend some time (say ten years) learning some of the fundamentals before you attempt to overturn more than half a century of research.

Delta1212: excellent post. I differ from your position slightly in that I think Evan's entire argument is a classification preference. Evan appears to be basing his case on the departure of certain measurements of certain features by a certain amount from their current values as evidence that an hominid was or was not an AMH. But, as you point out, at no time has he provided a justification for why he has selected those particular features, or why he has chosen particular values for them. They are arbitrary. That is perfectly acceptable in a classification system. It is not acceptable in an absolutist argument of the type Evan is making. meLothe destroyer of worlds: is there any cited material that would justify your seemingly quaint approach to estimating the IQ of hominid fossils? The excellent job you have done of deconstructing many of Evan's arguments are not sufficient to convince me that your calculations are more than pseudoscience.

I agree. Would you tell my wife that please.

Tom, you have now been asked by several members to take us step by step through your method. You have avoided doing so, apparently in the belief that the steps of your method are self evident. They are not. I ask you please to produce a post that does exactly that. If you choose not to do so, but instead post more of the same I shall request that this thread be locked permanently. Please avoid this by posting what you have been repeatedly asked for. Thank you.

I was trying to be gentle, which is why I referred to "intellect" in my original post. Consider Strange the possibility, nay the fact, that some people are just dumb. (And all of us can have our moments! {That was aimed at me, not you, on account of a recent personal faux pas.})

Valid point. How about all the other ones Strange made?

It was something I asked for as early as post #13. Such material as we have dragged out of him has been disjointed and of questionable relevance. It leaves me feeling much the same as I did when I posted #13. "If you are unable to do this [provide quantitative data] then you are not engaged in science, but in amateurish pre-Enlightenment classification." You could have said something along these lines. "There is dispute as to which hominids were the earliest modern humans. These are the conventional views [details with full citations would be provided]. I view this slightly differently and this is why. [Details, citations and structured argument provided.]" Had you done so members might have questioned your conclusions. They would not have questioned you. Instead you chose the arrogant, some might say ignorant, approach and the result is this morass of a thread.

Identifying the knowledge, intellect, experience and attitude of an audience is not a simple skill, nor one that everyone will come to master. Yet effective and efficient communication requires that skill be present. Those who seem oblivious to their own ambiguous communication style have not yet raised it to even a basic level. Strange, I doubt the explanation for the behaviour you describe is any more complex than that.

Pavel, shame on you! You are using sound references, flawless logic, quantitative data and appropriate uncertainty to present your counter argument. It's almost as if you knew what you were doing. How can you expect Evan to compete?

Excellent point. I think this may be why, even today, I am reluctant to eat my greens. Or is that because I am Scottish?

I missed the point where I made such a claim. I specifically addressed your incomplete statement which did not refer to witnesses, a fact I was unaware of.

My opinions of Trump are clear and negative, but this is incorrect. They have alleged that they were sexually assaulted. Quite a different matter from confirming.

Well Strange has just repeated what I said, it's just that he did it much better. Tom, as Strange says, get your act together. It is not impossible that you are really onto something, but your posts so far suggest that you are merely on something.

Tom, it is possible that I have the attention span of a goldfish, the reading comprehension of a lizard, the intellect of a rhododendron and the knowledge base of an igneous intrusion. This would explain why your decoding makes no sense to me. The alternative explanation is that you have yet to lay out in a clear, unambiguous, comprehensive, structured exposition. Naturally, I am biased as to which of these explanations is the correct one. How about you?

I apologise in advance. Normally I find your posts to be thoughtful and accurate, but in this instance you are talking unqualified, anthropomorphic crap. If you wish to say that bats and chimps are not as capable as people in those things that people are good at, well that's accurate, but wholly uninteresting and unremarkable. But, as I have pointed out for both in this thread, they exceed our capabilities in many areas. We may well be the first species in the history of the planet that has the capacity to largely obliterate the biosphere, but that's not a capability I want to boast about.

Blustering buffoon, I fear.

Ingenious!

But you base this argument on characteristics that distinguish us from other animals. However, as I demonstrated in post #6, this is also true of bats. And ostriches, and tree shrews, and blue whales, and foxes, and kangaroos, and......... You are emphasising the qualities that seem important to you, because these are your qualities. The human with the best eyesight in the world does not compare favourably with that of an eagle. A cheetah can make Usain Bolt look like he is a geriatric walker. Even among our primate cousins a third rate gibbon can our perform the gymnastic feats of a human, while a chimpanzee has far greater muscle strength. The list in which we fall short of other animals is huge. It doesn't justify an elevated category.

And this happens routinely. It's called anthropology.

This is a science forum. Science relies upon logic to structure its process. Central to this process is evidence. In the absence of evidence ideas are as useful as flatulence in a leper colony. What evidence do you have that on the other side of a black hole matter is spit out in a sort of reverse accretion disk?

I think that this idea is so commonplace that there is some aspect of our culture, or the genetic character that hardwires aspects of our brain, that brings this to the fore in people, time and time again. From a scientific standpoint there is zero reason to consider it a possibility and a host of reasons to reject it outright. It is a positive thing that you are interested in such matters and that you are looking for, to you, novel answers to questions. Your questions would be better formulated and your answers closer to reality, if you now invested your energy in learning some proper science rather than the diluted brand to be found on documentaries and popular science books. Good luck with that. Why not start your new path on this forum by asking how you might go about acquiring real science understanding?

I don't like (yes this purely subjective) to see people fail in their goals. iNow has made several important points in relation to how you might deal with your problems, but leaving the forum is not one of them. While you have pissed off and frustrated many members here, I think most if not all of those now have a better appreciation of where you are coming from. If you remain on the forum there are definite benefits: You have somewhere to partially vent your frustrations Someone may come up with an insightful suggestion that offers you a real solution to at least some of your problems There are a bunch of people who could help you answer questions related to your studies That's why I would like you to stay.

Is it possible we should not classify bats as animals; because they have a natural ability to perceive the world in a wholly different way through echo location? I don't know how the ancestors of bats thought, but even if they were able to hear they would have been unable to locate a moth's position and trajectory with precision. I think this amazing ability is the main way bats advance. They combine their astounding flying and gymnastic ability with this unique way of perceiving the world. So is it possible to put bats in a different category because they are mentally too different? Maybe this just comes from the fact that I hate when people call bats animals. it makes it seem like they have not evolved, but I always amazed at how evolved they actually are and how much better they have become from the first tentative attempts at echo location to where they are now.