Ophiolite

Based on this post you are asserting that there is no meaningful dispute among anthropologists as to what does and does not constitute an archaic feature, or which hominids do or do not posses them. Is that correct? (For that is what you have just said.) Edit: By the way, as an aside, I see someone keeps giving you negative rep. That seems inappropriate, but perhaps represents the frustration some members are feeling in respect of your apparent inability to see certain points.

It is an interesting claim. Would you like to give three examples of errors that riddle authoritative positions held by science? Since there are "many errors" you should have no difficulty proposing three. Remember, these need to be ones that deeply embed matters on which science holds an authoritative position, else they could not be described as riddling. I look forward to your reply.

I see. So when you attack perfectly valid, relevant and pertinent posts of a member, we are pricks. When we point out the forum rules, we are pricks. When we take note of your immature comments, we are pricks. When a couple of people offend you, everyone on the forum, bar yourself, is a prick. And now I await your reply. Go on, you know you want to.

I recall a study a couple of decades ago in which the analyst attributed the success of WW1 flying ace Baron von Richtofen to chance. (I believe he had somewhere around 70 'kills'.) I imagine my success as a salesman had much the same explanation.

Radioactive decay. Forum rules do not allow you to dictate who can or cannot participate in a thread you start. Nice, mature, consistent approach! Did it occur to you that this is what Strange finds unpalatable in your posts? Not that I speak for Strange.

I would love to be able to help you, but unfortunately it has been determined that I won't.

And you have yet to demonstrate that all involved scientists consider these features to be archaic. Perhaps they do, but it is incumbent on you to demonstrate this. Providing a single example creates the suspicion of cherry picking. As to the rest, I will seek to reply later. My executive summary is this: your exposition style stinks. The support information for your opinion - the opinion with which you opened the thread almost 100 posts ago - should be presented at the beginning, not dragged out from you through a series of tortuous exchanges.

I find this interesting, but insufficient for a major change in my position on the matter. I have long maintained that panspermia must be considered as a serious possibility. Why? The gap in complexity between the simplest known extant organism and the first metazoans is large and took a couple of billion years to bridge. The gap between non-life and the simplest viable living cell is arguably even larger, yet was accomplished in a couple of hundred million years or less. So, that may just have been chance: bad luck on bridging prokaryote to metazoan, good luck on bridging non-life to first life. While chance plays a large part in biology, I prefer something a little more systematic and satisfactory. Pan spermia offers such an alternative. This does not make it correct, or even likely, but it makes it a viable contender.

In England we had a similar problem with Charles I. Perhaps you can find a more humane solution.

deema, there is an important point I think the previous posters are well aware of, but which they have not directly commented on. Your post contains one supremely important element, with two aspects: you have chosen to ask an important question and you have attempted to give a meaningful answer. That is precisely what any scientist does. So, well done. The other members have focused on the fact that you have some hard, time consuming provisional steps to take before you stand any chance of finding a meaningful answer. Since hundreds, probably thousands of individuals with doctorates and years and decades of research have failed thus far to find and answer you will appreciate that you have a lot of work to do before you can seriously contemplate an attempt at an answer. Mordred has given some good starting points. Good luck and welcome to the forum.

You have used a circular argument. you have defined specific features as being archaic, then noted that particular samples have those features and must therefore be archaic. You have largely ignored, or failed to understand, my central point: which features we choose to call archaic or modern is a subjective value judgement and therefore incidental to the important discussion of the evolution of hominims towards modern homo sapiens. (It's relevance, as has been repeatedly noted, is as a convenience to facilitate that discussion, not an integral part of it.) Yet you have not, as far as I can see, defined what you mean by modern cognitive ability, nor applied any quantitative assessment of it. Nor have you acknowledged the evidence that contradicts your assertion. That is known as cherry picking, or alternatively sloppy research. And thereby have ignored the body of research that claims differently. In several of your posts you appear to think I am arguing for a view the opposite of yours. I am not. I am arguing for a clear, coherent, logical, scientific, comprehensive, evidence based argument. That is what, so far, you have failed to provide.

Tom, two observations, both relating to what I believe will be an ongoing challenge for you: communication. 1. Reading Comprehension? I made an observation. You then replied to it with content wholly unrelated to my post. That suggests you did not understand what I wrote. (Of course the lack of reading comprehension may be on my part, but that would be atypical.) 2. Clarity of Exposition. (i.e. writing clearly) Your juxtaposition of a diagram of the seasons with your interpretation of seasons in the manuscript fails completely to explain what steps you have taken and how the resultant numbers relate to seasons. Such a woeful inability to communicate the details of your thesis means only the gullible will buy your story. I am not looking for a further attempt at explanation. I offer the observations in the hope that they may encourage you to improve in those two areas: for yourself, not for me.

Absolutely not. Too many variables responsible for humans would have been different. This is not to say that evolution would not have produced a bipedal mammal with high intelligence, binocular vision, opposable thumbs and a predilection for reality TV shows.

I asked a similar question on this or another forum and the simplified answer appeared to be "shit happens". The real answer is more complex.

Teenage angst is always a problem, especially when it extends into your forties. Fix it now.

I think he is arguing for it being an elegant exercise in cryptography. So it should be in Maths.

My current career is in Knowledge Management. I feel professionally obliged to say "Yes".

You have serious reading comprehension difficulties. The evolutionary pathway from early hominid to current humans is interesting. How we choose to subdivide the pathway, for convenience of discussion, is not interesting1. This you choose not to see, or are unable to see. 1. It is of course interesting as an exercise in taxonomy, but that is the same way the grammatical structures used by Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities are interesting. I prefer to focus on the story.

However, that is not what I said. I said that some dinosaurs survived, not that some dinosaurs survived and became birds. Birds are dinosaurs.

I am not in the business of protecting intelligent people. It's the dumbshits I'm trying to look after.

Sadly Airbrush, your observations are 100% accurate. Some comparisons have been made between Trump and Hitler. I speak no German, but when I watch film of Hitler delivering one of his thunderous addresses to tens of thousands I have an almost uncontrollable urge to invade Russia. When I watch Trump I just want to vomit.

Pavel was making the point that classification systems vary in character. He addresses two end points: one in which where a component falls within the classification provides no scientific insight and one where the classification affords significant scientific insight. Planetary classification is taken as a good example of the first, the Periodic Table as a good example of the second. This is clearly and elegantly presented by Pavel. He goes on to note that the classification you are so concerned about falls much closer to the first example, wherein the classification affords no fresh insight, but is there as a convenience when discussing the subject. He provides definitive reasons for reaching that conclusion. This is all clearly and elegantly presented by Pavel. You may wish to reflect on why you were unable to see this. The fault is certainly not with Pavel's exposition. And this lies at the route of your misunderstanding. Imagine we have ten specimens of hominid. We are interested in the relationships between these hominids. We determine this through very precise and detailed anatomical comparisons. If we are fortunate enough to be able to recover DNA from any of the specimens we can deepen our understanding of the relationships. I trust and expect you would agree with all this. (If not, I shall have to borrow Pavel's brick wall.) Now, let's say the specimens until now have been named 1,2,3 etc. Researcher A declares that specimens 1-4 are modern humans and 5 -10 are archaic humans. Researcher B declares that 1-2 are modern humans and 3-10 are archaic humans. Have these declarations in any way affected our understanding of the relationships between these ten specimens? They should not, since the relationships are based upon the observed precise and detailed anatomical comparisons. And those have not been altered by how we choose to group the specimens. That, as concisely and clearly as I can put it, is why you are mistaken.

I am pleased things have worked out for you. However, I return to the point raised early in this thread by another member. Sudden sensitivity to smells can be a symptom of a serious neurological condition. Not all readers of this thread will have your ability to distinguish between medical advice and anecdote. There is a risk that some will decide their problem, based on your experience, is simply mild anemia and avoid seeking the medical help they urgently require. I regret coming across as a curmudgeonly, pedantic nay-sayer, but that's only because I am.

I don't think they have any resemblance whatsoever. I also realise now that there is little point in making pertinent, humourous remarks that go over people's heads.

I have always thought that you should think so.