tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76152239184513294722024-03-24T19:32:59.900-04:00Todd's BlogIt is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings. (Prov. 25:2)toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comBlogger1135125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-9466318185006282182023-12-25T11:48:00.002-05:002023-12-25T11:48:54.416-05:00Merry Christmas!<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwK6Q_nqhuL-lMaKNZ8Zlm4V2MAjwCdbaJpT_VEg_l3TJKu1AlHKQHW6lJaderdyWQ2LrLxwtM4qmL4EwmJPA9B-VVWWvkMZSW1m8KMpcdbpJIlt2hc8WwRiJcfBWpmDhGXfUaUsYbPoeNQGQj41GZ3ZCmJ5lwT0JNbgdJ6cHjoAfVRhI0DugrD5L5LsI/s1280/pine-cone-5898295_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwK6Q_nqhuL-lMaKNZ8Zlm4V2MAjwCdbaJpT_VEg_l3TJKu1AlHKQHW6lJaderdyWQ2LrLxwtM4qmL4EwmJPA9B-VVWWvkMZSW1m8KMpcdbpJIlt2hc8WwRiJcfBWpmDhGXfUaUsYbPoeNQGQj41GZ3ZCmJ5lwT0JNbgdJ6cHjoAfVRhI0DugrD5L5LsI/w400-h268/pine-cone-5898295_1280.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>On behalf of all of us at Core Academy, I'd like to wish you a very merry Christmas as we commemorate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. His first advent heralded the coming of the kingdom of God, which fully manifested after that baby's death and resurrection when God poured out his Spirit on the day of Pentecost. Now we his children partake in the kingdom as we long with hope for the second advent of Jesus and the bright dawn of our own resurrection. Today, as with all good things in this world, the celebration of Christmas ought to turn our minds to our Lord Creator and Savior. Giving of gifts, gathering of family, and the great feast remind us of that final gathering when we will cast our crowns at the feet of Jesus, gather with the family of God, and feast at the great marriage supper of the Lamb. Modern Christmas also offers us a contrast: Unlike our fantasies of Santa Claus, Rudolph, and Frosty, <i>our hope in Christ is real</i>. The symbols of God in Christmas signify what will truly come to pass. The blessed happiness of Christmas is a foretaste of our final destiny in Christ. Even the bitterness of loss cannot overcome that glorious hope of the coming of Christ. That baby that came first in the manger will come again to claim us as his own.</p><p><span class="text 1Thess-4-16" id="en-ESV-29603">For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.</span> <span class="text 1Thess-4-17" id="en-ESV-29604">Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.</span> <span class="text 1Thess-4-18" id="en-ESV-29605"><sup class="versenum"> </sup>Therefore encourage one another with these words. (I Thess 4:16-18, ESV)<br /></span></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-33251810602901405472023-12-04T07:00:00.001-05:002023-12-04T07:00:00.134-05:00Fire, engravings, burial all bogus???<p></p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-0cL2Xdslx9xd_TnsE4xTSuECM11wD6mmOyNr2_887Q2JEI8qreUMo0YO5kVNEwG3ZVN9xR6Q7Nfz6yE3gCHzQOQwC532MwoEZLVbAw_xY3x8V3WRUCMP_qdloaJtZS0oqqqovn6yEUt87wJyRqgdIZ0N8tlON_Tt0VW7BzF-9gnPB9ZrBNehH6pcDNc/s1480/20231129_110238.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="1480" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-0cL2Xdslx9xd_TnsE4xTSuECM11wD6mmOyNr2_887Q2JEI8qreUMo0YO5kVNEwG3ZVN9xR6Q7Nfz6yE3gCHzQOQwC532MwoEZLVbAw_xY3x8V3WRUCMP_qdloaJtZS0oqqqovn6yEUt87wJyRqgdIZ0N8tlON_Tt0VW7BzF-9gnPB9ZrBNehH6pcDNc/w400-h270/20231129_110238.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>Let's talk about <i>naledi</i>.</p><p>I'm sorry this blog has become a broken record over these questions, but I have been interested and excited about these hominin remains for years now. I don't want to just ignore the current state of things.<br /></p><p>Quick recap: The remarkable remains from the Dinaledi chamber were first published in 2015. Lee Berger's research team claimed they were members of genus <i>Homo</i> (our own genus) but that they were a species new to science. They called this newly discovered species <i>Homo naledi</i>, but the real excitement over these remains was their hypothesis that the bodies of these creatures had been intentionally placed there in the deep recesses of that cave. The evidence for that was basically lack of a credible alternative explanation. The chamber contained thousands of bones of the same species, all highly similar and placed over time. At the same time, other bones of African animals were generally lacking. The bones were also in partial articulation and astonishingly well preserved. They did not appear to be the result of predator accumulation or some catastrophic event. The chamber where they were found lacked any opening above, from which these creatures could have fallen and died. Put all that together, and it appears that the easiest explanation is intentional emplacement of the bodies. That doesn't mean burial of course, but it certainly is provocative.</p><p>Creationists have been famously divided. Some of us claim that <i>Homo naledi</i> is human and that the body disposal evidence would be understandable given that they're human. Others have denied that <i>Homo naledi</i> is human and have either downplayed the evidence of body disposal or tried to invoke other, less likely proposals for how this accumulation of bones occurred.</p><p>About a year ago, Lee Berger announced that his team had discovered copious evidence of fire throughout the cave, including the Dinaledi Chamber where the majority of the bones were found. <a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2022/12/homo-naledi-with-controlled-fire.html">I was excited by this.</a> It seemed to confirm my suspicion that whoever placed these bodies down there must have had light to penetrate that deeply into the dark zone of the cave. This was all announced in a lecture with the promise of a scientific paper following shortly thereafter.<br /></p><p>Six months later, still no fire paper. Not even a preprint. Then we got the announcement of <a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2023/06/graves-engravings-and-tools-oh-my.html">engravings and intentional burial</a> followed by <a href="https://amzn.to/3R4gmr7">a book</a> and <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81473682">a documentary</a>. And then I just got really suspicious of the whole thing. The movie basically told the story of the discovery of the fire evidence, the engravings, and the purported graves. The book was largely the novelization of the movie. It started to look like the announcements and these meager papers were attempts to get <i>something</i> on the scientific record before the movie and book appeared. </p><p>Did I mention that it's a year since the fire announcement and still no fire paper? Yeah.</p><p>When I first wrote about the purported burial and engraving evidence, I was cautious about both. I thought the burial evidence was pretty good at the time, even claiming that it's at least as good as the evidence for burial of Neandertals. I think that was a rash and regrettable assessment. The problem I have is one of posture. The text of the paper reconstructs the posture of the individuals in the purported graves, and it sounded plausible to me when I read it. But I just can't make sense of the diagrams. The published figures in the papers are figures 2 and 10. You'll note that the bones aren't labeled in any of them, even though they describe the layout of the skeleton in detail in the text. So if you want to verify the text description, it's very difficult with the poor diagram. In Figure 2, depicting Dinaledi Chamber Feature 1, I see a femur and what appears to be a tibia. And then a lot of little brown, indistinguishable blobs. The text says they recovered "eighty-three identifiable bone fragments and teeth," but all you can see in the diagram is a jumbled mess of fragments.</p><p>The Hill Antechamber feature is shown in figure 10. Here we have the same problem, the bones are just not labeled to any extent. The authors say they recovered ninety skeletal and 51 dental elements from this feature, which was excavated as a block of sediment that's evidently still sealed in the field jacket. From the diagram, you can make out a foot, the teeth, and maybe a hand, and the rest looks like a jumble of bones. Unlike Dinaledi Chamber Feature 1, this diagram includes a side view where you can clearly see that the bones are in two separate horizons. The authors tell us that the torso and upper limb elements are in the upper horizon and the lower limb elements are in the lower horizon, and they interpret this as a single body. But it looks more like two half bodies in two completely separate depositional horizons. Since this feature was excavated from the side of a slope, it seems plausible that there were originally two bodies, and the other halves of these bodies have eroded downslope. But I can't even tell that because the diagrams are so difficult to decipher.</p><p>The paper also indicates that scans of the "burial" features are available on Morphosource and other materials are available on FigShare. I can't find any of that, so I can't even look at the scans myself to see if I can make out the identity of the bones and the supposed posture of the "burials." So who knows what these are? I've tried looking at stills of these diagrams from the movie and from video lectures, and while they are slightly clearer, I'm still not sure about the posture of these alleged burials. So it's all very uncertain.</p><p>What about the compositional differences between the soil in the pits where the bodies are and the surrounding sediment? That could be nothing more than the presence of the bones. Soil with bones is compositionally different from soil without bones.</p><p>The evidence of burial is supposedly enhanced by the observation of a "tool-shaped rock," which the paper refers to as an "artifact." This tool-shaped rock is still encased in the field jacket that holds the Hill Antechamber Feature, so we can't actually verify that it is a tool and not just a rock. And that's my primary problem with interpreting this as a tool. We just don't know what it is, because it's still stuck in the field jacket.</p><p>Now with the engravings, I was convinced it was an engraving but that there was no evidence presented connecting it to <i>Homo naledi</i>. I read the whole paper expecting some report of the date in the title, but you know what? There wasn't any attempt to date the engravings. They just decided it was made by <i>Homo naledi</i>, and then they applied the dates of <i>Homo naledi</i> remains to the engravings. So the title is not a finding of the research in the paper. It's just speculation.</p><p>Still, I concluded <a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2023/06/graves-engravings-and-tools-oh-my.html">my previous commentary</a> optimistically by noting, "But to argue that someone else made the fires or carved those lines introduces <i>ad hoc</i>
hypotheses of cave intruders for which we have no other evidence (yet
reported). The simplest explanation is that the hominin buried under
the engravings next to the hearths is the one who made them both."</p><p>Now that brings us up to date prior to a few weeks ago, when the <i>Journal of Human Evolution</i> published a comprehensive response to these papers, which not only rejected pretty much every conclusion of Berger's team but also took the publication model to task for allowing such things to get into the public domain before peer review. More about that below.</p><p>The new paper is <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248423001434">No scientific evidence that <i>Homo naledi</i> buried their dead and produced rock art</a> by <span class="text surname">Martinón-Torres and colleagues. They dissect every claim from the very beginning of the body disposal idea back in 2015, and their title I think is also inappropriate. It's not that there's no evidence. It's that the evidence is currently inconclusive. And after what I've read in this paper, I think it's even more inconclusive than I'd come to believe.</span></p><p><span class="text surname">They point out a number of issues that I already pointed out here, and they add a few more that I wouldn't know (as an armchair observer). One thing they noted especially was uncertainty regarding the supposed "pit" in which these bodies were found. The sedimentation in these caves is very complex, and you can have whole blocks of sediment covered by other sediment, giving the appearance of a break in the sediment like you would see on the edge of a previously excavated and filled pit. So instead of seeing the differences in sediment as a hole that's been dug and filled in, the different might actually due to a block of sediment next to the bones. I'm not sure that explains everything about these features, but it's definitely something to keep in mind.</span></p><p><span class="text surname">They think the tool-shaped rock fell off the side of the cave and may not be an artifact at all. And that's at least as plausible as the artifact speculation as long as the rock remains unexcavated and unexamined.</span></p><p><span class="text surname">They hardly mention the fire evidence because of course there's no paper to talk about, but they do suggest it's very possible that <i>Homo sapiens</i> could be responsible for any fire evidence in the cave. Worse, they claim that fire would not be necessary for animals to navigate the cave. I find that impossible to accept. Maybe crickets, cave fish, salamanders, sure. OK, bats too. But I can't think of any other mammals that venture that far underground intentionally. Maybe I'll be corrected by some reader, but this notion of large animals going deep into the cave without light is not anything we need to worry about.<br /></span></p><p><span class="text surname">Most devastating in my mind is their treatment of the engravings. As it turns out, there are other exposures of Malmani dolomite from the region that show exactly the same sort of markings from plain erosion. Malmani dolomite is the rock that makes up the walls of the Dinaledi chamber and the other significant caves in the area. </span><span class="text surname">Martinón-Torres and colleagues show photographs of crosshatched erosional markings on Malmani dolomite from nearby Drimolen, and they look <i>exactly</i> like the marks called engravings by Berger's team. So are the markings in the Dinaledi Chamber engravings or erosion? Well, they sure do look like erosion.</span></p><p><span class="text surname">They also raised the issue of the partial baboon skeleton reported in the papers that described the Letimela skull. These baboon remains were found in the narrow, labyrinthine passages beyond the Chaos Chamber which is even deeper in the cave than the Dinaledi Chamber. I've been thinking about this one myself. </span><span class="text surname">Martinón-Torres and colleagues think it's evidence that these remote passages were explored by more than just hominins and therefore there's nothing particularly special about the accumulation of hominin bones. I'm not so sure. On the one hand the partial baboon skeleton is <i>very</i> interesting, but I think the overwhelming presence of hominin bones still counts as something unusual when compared to the caves roundabout. So I'm suspicious of the significance of the baboon skeleton. I'm just not sure what it means. Thousands of <i>naledi</i> bones and a lone partial baboon skeleton. What does that mean???</span></p><p><span class="text surname">Martinón-Torres and colleagues conclude that the most parsimonious explanation is that animals used this cave and that the accumulation of hominin bones is not that special. They cite some unpersuasive studies by <a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2018/05/did-homo-naledi-really-bury-their-own.html">Egeland et al.</a> and by <a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2021/11/news-from-dinaledi-chamber.html">Nel et al.</a> (both of which I commented on and found wanting) as alternative models of how the bones got there. I didn't find that compelling at all. I don't think the notion of body disposal is less parsimonious than some other explanation, because I think body disposal explains more of the data. It remains the inference to the best explanation, and it's therefore the most parsimonious explanation of the largest range of information we have. So I was bothered by the way </span><span class="text surname">Martinón-Torres and colleagues were very critical of Berger and company but were quite willing to overlook obvious shortcomings of other studies that were also critical of Berger and company (or to indulge in fantastic ideas like large mammals exploring deep into caves without sight). Everybody has a bias.</span></p><p><span class="text surname">None of that, however, changes my reaction to the last year's announcements about the fire, the engravings, the graves, and the "tool-shaped rock." The fire is unpublished and can't be assessed. The engravings could very easily be natural erosion. Despite my previous positive assessment, the graves are wildly inconclusive. And the rock is a rock until we can actually test it for intentional modification. </span><span class="text surname">Martinón-Torres and colleagues really nailed the criticism of those points and meshed well with my own growing reservations.</span></p><p><span class="text surname">I guess it's most frustrating to me because Berger has taken criticism for jumping to conclusions regarding body disposal and compromising his science for the sake publicity and sensationalism. In the past, I thought those were unfair criticisms, but this past year, I don't know what to say about all this. Berger knew the movie and book were coming out, and it looks like he tried to rush those papers into the literature before that happened. He didn't get the fire paper out, and the other papers were just unpersuasive, even to little old amateur me. It really does look like he's letting the publicity drive his scientific procedures and agenda, and the science seems to be suffering. Then there was <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02882-1">the whole shooting-fossils-into-space debacle</a>, which was entirely publicity driven. I'm disappointed.</span></p><p><span class="text surname">Then again, Berger's collaborator John Hawks puts <a href="https://johnhawks.net/weblog/ancient-fire-use-rising-star/">a different spin on the fire evidence</a>. He sees this as part of their intention to do open science. They found evidence of fire, so they shared it. That does make some sense to me. And I find it ironic that the critics were complaining that <i>Homo naledi</i> couldn't navigate without fire, and then when the fire evidence is found, critics complain that animals don't need fire to navigate that far into the cave. Can't win. The question remains: How can we link these fire evidences to <i>Homo naledi</i>?</span></p><p><span class="text surname">Shortcomings aside, does this make a compelling story aside from the latest deficiencies? Forget about the fire, engravings, and burials, and just think about the body disposal. That remains to me as persuasive as it was. I still find it very hard to imagine an alternative explanation that will satisfactorily explain the peculiar attributes of this cave of bones. The fire evidence would definitely add to this <i>if</i> they can definitively tie it to <i>Homo naledi</i>. The burial, tool, and engraving evidence looks like it has as long way to go before it's persuasive though. So we're kind of where we were a year ago, but with tantalizing new possibilities that still need to be explored. Body disposal remains the best explanation of the distribution of the <i>Homo naledi</i> fossils.</span></p><p><span class="text surname">The other important thing to remember is that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The evidence of fire and graves linked to <i>Homo naledi</i> may be absent at present, but there could very well be surprises still awaiting us. At the very least, they could open that jacket on the Hill Antechamber Feature and start excavating. Let's see that rock in there. The evidence of fire that has been shown can be examined further. So there's plenty of work ahead, and I'm sure Berger's team is already on it.<br /></span></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-31347131832967824272023-11-27T12:51:00.001-05:002023-11-27T12:51:10.070-05:00Core Academy research in the 2023 ICC Proceedings<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://publications.cedarville.edu/icc_proceedings/vol_9_2023/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiKmNQB8lavMmt7bnxPEGwJvFD8xadJ_82N8Mcg0g2Eua1N2KkaJT1ayUszdCSjrrJcZXN2tPBTpxsnC8aPuYMGjE6tBqJCGCpLqdac4cMMQjRQSgIJ8TcMYRiei9IfyQaH5mQyTgXV_zvRQfVrph4Q0HxdgM4uqSPDXjKYwaICEV8YrC9Okfj4nuHZTk/w400-h225/ICCheader.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <p></p><p>I'm pretty excited to see the ICC Proceedings are now available as a full volume (not sure when individual papers will appear). I often get asked "What do you do?" and it's very hard to describe. I'm part promoter, part fundraiser, part administrator, part mentor, part scientist, part scholar, part writer, part teacher, part podcast mastermind. Here in the ICC Proceedings, you can get a glimpse of a couple of those parts: mentor, scientist, scholar, writer. You can catch up on previous ICC reporting on my blog (<a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2023/07/reflecting-on-9th-icc.html">here</a> and <a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2023/07/studying-skeletons.html">here</a>) and on <i>Let's Talk Creation</i> podcast (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHO6Vsl-XWE">here</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhM1gkip9cE">here</a>).<br /></p><p>Now you might think these papers will be written in egghead-ese and impossible to understand, and you'd be close to right. But I especially want to draw your attention to one of our biggest contributions, <a href="https://publications.cedarville.edu/icc_proceedings/vol_9_2023/68/">Human History from Adam to Abraham</a>, which was (hopefully) written with a more general reader in mind. It's not exactly great bedtime reading, but I sincerely hope that it will reward the diligent reader. It's kind of a big deal.<br /></p><p>Next, I've gotten several questions about the big collaborative work we did on <a href="https://publications.cedarville.edu/icc_proceedings/vol_9_2023/480/">Testing the Order of the Fossil Record</a>, and now you can read it for yourself if you're interested. It was a tricky paper to write, but it's an immense amount of data and worth your time I think. Long story short: Evolutionary stories about the fossil record match the fossil record only rarely. That's also a pretty big deal.</p><p>Then there's my postcranial paper, which I described previously and which took about three years to complete. That's probably the biggest deal, even though the paper is pretty technical and not for everyone. Main outcome: the postcranial characters look a lot like the craniodental characters I used previously. <a href="https://publications.cedarville.edu/icc_proceedings/vol_9_2023/253/">Hominin Baraminology Reconsidered with Postcranial Characters</a>.</p><p>And then the rest of my technical papers:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://publications.cedarville.edu/icc_proceedings/vol_9_2023/90/">Essentialism and the Human Kind</a></li><li><a href="https://publications.cedarville.edu/icc_proceedings/vol_9_2023/146/">A Preliminary Evaluation of Ape Baramins</a></li></ul><p>Now I call these "big deals," but please understand what I mean by that. These are all works in progress. Every one of them. I'm not declaring "God's honest truth" here. Like all scholarship, this is our best understanding <i>for now</i>. We continue to explore and study and learn, and as we do our understanding will mature and grow. In five years, these papers will be sadly outdated, but for the here and now, the present state of things, these papers present a pretty substantial step forward in our understanding. They (and all the papers at ICC) also expose that moldy old fallacy that creationists don't engage in real research or scholarship. And for those who wonder what I actually do, here you go: 48,603 words. For all these reasons, I think they're pretty big deals.<br /></p><p>And I'd be remiss if I didn't ask for your support this holiday season. Every year, Core Academy raises approximately 35-40% of its annual giving during the time from Thanksgiving to New Year's Eve. This year we're shooting for $30,000, which is a lot of money, but I'm thrilled to say we're already well on our way with $8300 already given. If you've been excited or encouraged by the work we do, from our retreats to seminars to summer camp to special events to creation research, please consider clicking that donate button and making a gift this holiday season. As a 501c3 organization, all your gifts are tax-deductible. Thanks for reading, and thanks very much for your support!<br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-76878865625675383942023-07-31T07:00:00.002-04:002023-07-31T07:00:00.139-04:00Studying Skeletons<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgADy0mav4szJsylEa4TebXLhsu-LY61TtKGohH2qxrPpLptvXDRuzBWKoDZk_5aIl88uUk8uBfZLsMt2pBp3SpGDeFb_clLjbJDSagvow8LePGJCRr6LXxwLe9cN3vQt4bIQkrTtyQLmsyhKSa8fUeYFJGFnF3L-_pCZ43TrIuilgN9S5uClfznSHRVOU/s2343/ToddFemora.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1589" data-original-width="2343" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgADy0mav4szJsylEa4TebXLhsu-LY61TtKGohH2qxrPpLptvXDRuzBWKoDZk_5aIl88uUk8uBfZLsMt2pBp3SpGDeFb_clLjbJDSagvow8LePGJCRr6LXxwLe9cN3vQt4bIQkrTtyQLmsyhKSa8fUeYFJGFnF3L-_pCZ43TrIuilgN9S5uClfznSHRVOU/w400-h271/ToddFemora.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>Now that ICC is over, let's talk about skeletons.</p><p>I hardly know where to begin. I've spent three years now immersed in skeletons, slowly amassing the information I needed to assess the skeletal similarities of fossil hominins. For most of my career, I was just too intimidated to try this. I'm not an expert in human anatomy. I don't understand anthropology jargon. A person with my lack of training is extremely likely to make foolish mistakes, and I didn't want to make a fool of myself.</p><p>Then things changed. After years of being frustrated by the "hobbit" <i>Homo floresiensis</i>, I decided to see for just this one fossil form if I could fill in more information in the matrix of skull characteristics I was using. I was surprised to find how accessible it was. Oh, I had to spend a <i>lot</i> of time studying anatomical diagrams and looking up unfamiliar terms, but sometimes the information I wanted was just stated in the scientific papers describing the fossils. For other characteristics, measurements were published, and I could easily see that this thing was wider than it was tall. For still other characteristics, I could see them in high resolution photographs of the original fossils. I added 55 pieces of information about <i>H. floresiensis</i> to my character matrix. I started to think, maybe this isn't so impossible after all. Maybe I can do this?</p><p>Then the skeletons started to present themselves to me. One random night of googling led me to 3D scans of the upper limb bones of Feldhofer 1, the original Neandertal specimen. A little more persistence led me to scans of the leg bones, backbone, and ribs. Suddenly, I had 3D prints of a lot of elements of a composite Neandertal skeleton. Things kind of exploded from there. Scans of <i>Au. africanus</i> bones from Sterkfontein popped up on Morphosource. I picked up a second generation cast of the Lucy skeleton and a second hand cast of Nariokotome. These bones I so needed to study were suddenly accessible to me.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgezfwNhb6wVdtU9Zv9Sov6kh4sgS0kxiDNZv7P9UpwEWXYR2Oh2-2AHDMTSDcc_DHxZ2hEhiSxyePsloNS6GB2GBbNGTcIbG3_dA4pwLjDc-U7NVXYTVTPez9Ei4GOmW_ec3V49W6n-NEg-NRE1arEq5M-7NOSfoRoK4wt3cELn2vwtI22I7WfdAi-nWk/s5472/nariokotome.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1446" data-original-width="5472" height="106" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgezfwNhb6wVdtU9Zv9Sov6kh4sgS0kxiDNZv7P9UpwEWXYR2Oh2-2AHDMTSDcc_DHxZ2hEhiSxyePsloNS6GB2GBbNGTcIbG3_dA4pwLjDc-U7NVXYTVTPez9Ei4GOmW_ec3V49W6n-NEg-NRE1arEq5M-7NOSfoRoK4wt3cELn2vwtI22I7WfdAi-nWk/w400-h106/nariokotome.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <p></p><p>Then God sent me a student. Peter was just in high school at the time, and I was really reticent to invest time in him. High school kids are just full of high school stuff and pulled in every direction imaginable, and I didn't think he'd have the dedication needed to work on a research project with me. But he persisted and insisted, so I decided to at least give him a chance. My fears were very wrong. He was about as obsessed with hominin fossils as I am. And he has a better mind for trivia than I do. By the end of the project, I could ask him a random question like "Is there a navicular from <i>Au. afarensis</i>?" and he would not only tell me yes or no but name the specimen number. He was a blessing to work with. I hope we keep working together.</p><p>So that's how it all started. I gained the confidence. I found the bones. And the Lord renewed my youthful enthusiasm by sending me an actual young person! So off we went.</p><p>Since no one had ever put together a set of skeletal characteristics of the type I imagined, we decided to start with published character lists from nine different papers published by actual anthropologists. We surveyed the different skeletons known and settled on which hominins we would include in our sample. We decided there was no good reason to exclude chimpanzee and gorilla as outgroup taxa, so we added them too. We went through the character descriptions and eliminated as much redundancy as we could fine. Then we evaluated a number of skeletal characteristics on our own and added some characters of our devising.</p><p>Then came the big week. I was telling a friend at Southern Adventist University about our work, and she told me that they had chimpanzee and gorilla cast skeletons in their collection. So she set me up for a solid week at spring break with unfettered access to that material. I flew Peter in for the week. He brought his 3D prints of <i>Au. sediba</i> and <i>H. naledi</i>. I brought all of our skeletons, and we went to work. We went through the chimp and gorilla skeletons and filled in as much information as we could find. Through that week we evaluated most of the characters individually. Some we removed because we found they were still redundant. Some we replaced with new characters that focused on the same kind of trait. By the end of the week, we added almost 900 new pieces of information to our character matrix.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe1N1wXB4DukvkJmPgfOa2sExAZayGWyapBnKA0ec7KP3Mt9ffXD9qQmtkSsdKhuZFAO3DRHy1uXu9SqRiEF5B3fx9_eShycjYcV033sERXhqeW2FrcvuuHgOwPXN3zh2mollie4Ss2Tc3H_fPF7__IJgfmt062IrQzGY74ZBrMSRa4OvnST7tpGfZNeA/s3422/morefemoracropped.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1722" data-original-width="3422" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe1N1wXB4DukvkJmPgfOa2sExAZayGWyapBnKA0ec7KP3Mt9ffXD9qQmtkSsdKhuZFAO3DRHy1uXu9SqRiEF5B3fx9_eShycjYcV033sERXhqeW2FrcvuuHgOwPXN3zh2mollie4Ss2Tc3H_fPF7__IJgfmt062IrQzGY74ZBrMSRa4OvnST7tpGfZNeA/w400-h201/morefemoracropped.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>Now I'm going to gush like an amateur: The ability to lay out a bone from multiple fossil forms and to see the differences and similarities is extraordinary. Yes, every student who's ever done this is thinking, "Duh." But really. It's amazing. To be able to hold the specimens, to examine the bumps and ridges and compare them to the written descriptions, the work just comes alive. It reminds me in a very small way of getting my Ph.D., where I learned the intricacies of biochemistry by engaging in biochemistry. I'm not saying that I have a Ph.D. in anthropology or that I've even done anything close to a Ph.D. in anthropology, because that's false and crazy and arrogant. But the vast difference between seeing these things and just reading about them is hard to describe.</p><p>After that week, we kept working on revising the character descriptions and adding in new information. We assessed which characters needed attention, and we tracked down missing information and specimens. We started to think about how we were going to analyze the information that we gathered. How could we compare the skeletal characteristics to those of the skull, without biasing the result in one direction or the other? All through the process we kept a regular schedule of weekly meetings to go over our progress and talk about the latest announcements and discoveries.</p><p>For our last big research push, we spent a couple days at the Smithsonian to see if there were any additional characteristics we could get from the scan of <i>Homo floresiensis</i> on display. The collections were still closed to researchers at the time because of COVID, so we didn't even try to schedule a visit there. From the public displays, we were able to fill in a few more pieces of information on <i>H. floresiensis</i> and also on Neandertals from their Shanidar 3 skeleton. During the evenings, we sat down with new casts and prints that we had acquired to fill in even more information. This trip was really eye-opening to me. I visited the Smithsonian the summer before we started this project, mostly to take pictures of specimens in their display. During this visit, with two years of intimate evaluation of hominin fossils, I found myself a much more skeptical consumer of their displays. I could tell that some of the bones on display were sculptures, because they didn't match the photographs of the specimens I had on my phone. Other skeletons had been reconstructed in ways that didn't make a lot of sense: the lumbar spine of Nariokotome is much too curved. I had become a much more careful consumer of their displays. That's good progress, I think.</p><p>I just got final proofs on the paper from the ICC editor, so you'll soon be able to read all about our work and results. I'll definitely post an update when those papers are available. Meanwhile, I hope you've found my personal reflections to be enlightening. To everyone who has ever given anything to Core Academy, thank you for supporting this work. We couldn't do it without you!</p><p>(In that third photograph, the femora shown are from left to right: Neandertal, modern <i>H. sapiens</i>, <i>H. erectus s.l.</i>, probably <i>H. sapiens</i> (KNM ER 999), "early" <i>Homo</i> (maybe <i>erectus</i>?), <i>H. floresiensis</i>, chimpanzee, <i>Au. africanus</i>, and <i>Au. afarensis</i>)<br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-21639098935091495512023-07-24T07:00:00.001-04:002023-07-24T07:00:00.145-04:00Reflecting on the 9th ICC<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd9PgBo7X4KGcx_iVIDgrYVscKuJPgvUehUXBJScyZPH5IkIk_HwT0sa1s8QlWKUmqkPb35ACZi2dTrj2BlHqNb678TILUebKDOjTLZFgpZXD20iP8yrR4nt1EoFCn8dfl_j0woyJuisriEjzNHtQxDTo9iuH8A60bPRRbBL-phOAA20Czf5DcnWhcWVs/s2268/ICCYER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2023" data-original-width="2268" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd9PgBo7X4KGcx_iVIDgrYVscKuJPgvUehUXBJScyZPH5IkIk_HwT0sa1s8QlWKUmqkPb35ACZi2dTrj2BlHqNb678TILUebKDOjTLZFgpZXD20iP8yrR4nt1EoFCn8dfl_j0woyJuisriEjzNHtQxDTo9iuH8A60bPRRbBL-phOAA20Czf5DcnWhcWVs/w400-h356/ICCYER.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>I am exhausted, but in a very good way. <br /></p><p>The Ninth International Conference on Creationism is now in the record books. We're still waiting for the papers to be released, but the presentations have been made and the conference itself is over. I thought the last one was pretty good, but I'm certain this one topped it. Attendance was massive, behavior was pretty much exemplary, and I had a lot of silly fun with the "Let's Talk Creation" photo booth. Most importantly, I got to sit in on what I would consider to be one of the most important presentations in a very long time.<br /></p><p>Where to begin? The crowds were impressive. I didn't know what to expect moving the conference from Pittsburgh to Cedarville University, and I'm glad to say the attendance was still strong. I presented and heard papers in rooms where people were lined up in the back and sitting on the floor. The theater that held the plenary sessions in the evening was also standing room only. This was fabulous, of course, but definitely highlights the need for larger rooms next time. Who could have anticipated?</p><p>I was beyond delighted to see so many young people at the conference. I heard a few snarky comments on the number of gray hairs in the audience, but I remember my first creation conference thirty years ago where I was the <i>only</i> young person in a sea of gray hairs. Now that I've become a gray hair myself, I'm just thrilled to see a veritable army of young people, some of whom were telling me how they will do the ICC "when we take over." HAHA! I love it!</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGP2M1yF7wK_2xzDMAdgxjhNfEKtgqn5sdgdScBL6psobPwSw947yhSxP6_tJxZh4CGQLcYMdkBRFZJ4o5MVTBDeYiXqKgc9oh9Zsqz6hyyq-L5MLaNCnc2uyTwXVfBTsRAnOaIiQIp6ZQPYHLNSC-l6WvccCBS54zlFTcLPD31WeW6UZaxObmfFW0IxI/s1536/PaulLTCheads.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1011" data-original-width="1536" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGP2M1yF7wK_2xzDMAdgxjhNfEKtgqn5sdgdScBL6psobPwSw947yhSxP6_tJxZh4CGQLcYMdkBRFZJ4o5MVTBDeYiXqKgc9oh9Zsqz6hyyq-L5MLaNCnc2uyTwXVfBTsRAnOaIiQIp6ZQPYHLNSC-l6WvccCBS54zlFTcLPD31WeW6UZaxObmfFW0IxI/w400-h264/PaulLTCheads.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>Lots of people stopped by the Core Academy booth where we had information about Core Academy, Biblical Creation Trust, and Let's Talk Creation. We decided to get a little silly with this and printed some giant foam heads of Paul and me, and that was honestly pretty popular. We had a lot of fun meeting folks and making photos. And yes, Paul and I recorded enough live material for a future episode (hopefully the very near future). Check out our channel on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/LetsTalkCreation">YouTube</a> or wherever you get your podcasts!<br /></p><p>I was truly honored to be in the audience to hear Kurt Wise present his work on "What Biostratigraphic<br />Continuity Suggests about Earth History," a paper with co-author Donna Richardson. I know something like this was a dream of Kurt's for a long time, at least as long as I've known him (approaching thirty years), and I was amazed at the results. I'd tell you all about it, but I'm going to wait and give some commentary after the paper is actually published. Then you can read it for yourself and won't have to just take my word for it. But I will say this: What they did was kind of obvious, and what they found was remarkable. It blew our traditional understandings of the geologic column right out of the water, and Kurt's reading of this data made a huge amount of sense. I'm still thinking about the diagrams and maps he showed. No, I'm not exaggerating, it was that important. I'm eager to try to replicate his work on some projects of my own.</p><p>My presentations went fairly well. I was excited and honored to present the work I did, although I must admit it was disappointing to realize that there were only twelve paper slots, meaning that my work (and that of my podcast partner Paul Garner) literally occupied half of those slots. There were three tracks of presentations, and that was my biggest bummer of the conference. With the move to Cedarville, I was really hoping to get rid of at least one of the tracks, if not reduce everything to a single track. I missed a lot of important talks that I wanted to hear because there were just too many tracks.</p><p>That said, my paper presentations went very smoothly. I admit that I was pretty worn out by the last one, which my wife described as "sucking the life out of the room," but otherwise, I was pleased with the presentations. I know a lot of you (a LOT of you) were in earnest prayer for me, and I'm extremely grateful for that. Everything in that regard went well enough, I suppose. My wife even described the conference as "healing." Thank you for praying. Your prayers were answered. To see a brief preview of my papers, check out <a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2023/06/coming-up-at-international-conference.html">this post</a>.</p><p>As usual, the conference really got my creative juices flowing, and I've got lots of ideas for the future. In the very near future, I think I'll be expanding my work on human origins in a gigantic way, following examples and ideas that I got from several of the papers presented. Some of you reading might even be getting some emails from me very soon. Watch out! I have a wonderful plan for your life! Haha!<br /></p><p>One final note for now, as you can see in the image at the top of this post, I debuted my latest essay as a paper handout at the conference, along with logo buttons. It's called "Young Earth Revolution" (it's very important that you spell it <i>correctly</i>), and we've already had requests to have the essay released online. In that regard, I'll tell you this: Check back later this week for an opportunity to pick up the leftover buttons and essays that we'll distribute from Core Academy for a small donation. I'm not exactly sure when I'll have them ready, but it should be very soon. You can also expect that the essay will be posted some time in August, and I'll also tell you that the theme of "Young Earth Revolution" may make another appearance this fall, Lord willing. There might be an expanded commentary on the themes of that essay, if you get my drift. I hesitate to say more, because I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I'm excited by the prospects and my creative juices are flowing.</p><p>Thanks for reading, and thank you to John Whitmore, Aaron Hutchison, Steve Gollmer, and the entire Cedarville University team. I know how challenging it is to produce a conference just a fraction of this size, and the ICC must have been a HUGE amount of work. I'm so happy to see how much it paid off. The transition from Pittsburgh to Cedarville was about as smooth as we could expect! I'm looking forward to 2028!<br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-48693402414265077982023-06-26T12:41:00.001-04:002023-06-26T12:41:27.821-04:00Coming up at the International Conference on Creationism<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-mysaxwDJAHVVqiTsGq4nI-PYW_aekKPAcVAkL0h4bmc1Pt_ycikQFnKP6o3m8pHfw2GiTXDBBWimVMVhMs2tRz9Cc5Xg-erVZyYMbnsCYbMh18ctCJpdfGdelQX2FYx1I8nk2RjAIY0k858Ai8Z642csXUU1j-2Da9B-QIZsThvQb8v5J6YOexTFXRM/s3216/20230626_113032.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1808" data-original-width="3216" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-mysaxwDJAHVVqiTsGq4nI-PYW_aekKPAcVAkL0h4bmc1Pt_ycikQFnKP6o3m8pHfw2GiTXDBBWimVMVhMs2tRz9Cc5Xg-erVZyYMbnsCYbMh18ctCJpdfGdelQX2FYx1I8nk2RjAIY0k858Ai8Z642csXUU1j-2Da9B-QIZsThvQb8v5J6YOexTFXRM/w400-h225/20230626_113032.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <p></p><p>The <a href="https://www.internationalconferenceoncreationism.com/">International Conference on Creationism</a> is just around the corner, July 16-19 at Cedarville University. I've got five papers coming out at the ICC, and I thought I'd share a preview here.</p><p>First up, <b>"Testing the order of the fossil record: Preliminary observations on stratigraphic-clade congruence and its implications for models of evolution and creation,"</b> a collaborative effort to study the large-scale patterns of the fossil record. This was actually a massive project that ballooned into something much bigger than I anticipated. We used published phylogenies to measure how well these evolutionary hypotheses actually fit the order of appearance in the fossil record. The results were complicated but extremely interesting. We found lots of patterns that we didn't expect and really didn't have a good explanation for. It should make for an interesting talk.<br /></p><p>Next, <b>"A preliminary evaluation of ape baramins."</b> This one is long overdue. Defining the human kind solely by looking at humans is only half the equation. A clear understanding of ape kinds will help us very precisely articulate what is human and what is not. This is my first real foray into that arena of research, and it was messy. But it's a start, and I hope there will be more to come down the line. This paper had a student collaborator.<br /></p><p><b>"Essentialism and the human kind, or experiments in character weighting"</b> grew out of ideas I had on my way home from Origins 2022. The started out as a response to critics, but transformed into something more interesting. Then after the reviews came in, I had to revise yet again, because I kept thinking more carefully about what I was trying to do. What is it? Well, it's kind of a response to the idea that we can identify humans based on a small handful of characteristics. I actually tested that out, and it didn't fare well. The implications are much bigger though, and I'll probably still be thinking about this right up until I give my presentation. This is my only solo paper at the conference.<br /></p><p>Next is another gigantic collaboration, <b>"Human history from Adam to Abraham: Integrating paleoanthropology with a young-age creation perspective."</b> This one pushes the size limit for ICC papers, and I'm sort of disappointed it wasn't longer. We honestly had more to say. The paper itself tries to review creationist perspectives on hominin fossils and tries to derive a consensus or majority position. We then tried to work through implications of the human fossil record and how it might integrate with later archaeology. This one was lots of fun, and I'd love to follow up with a more complete work later on down the road.</p><p>Finally, the big one: <b>"Human baraminology in postcranial perspective."</b> A student and I worked on this for three years, and I'm glad to see it reach a point where we feel good about publishing our results. Almost all of my previous work on hominins used exclusively craniodental information, and my one attempt at using skeletal information had too few taxa to tell us much of anything. Still, I think it's obvious that the entire body can tell us much more than just the head, and I knew it was important to figure out a way to evaluate that entire body. This new project is original research on hominin postcranial remains. We examined casts and high resolution scans for information about the skeletons of humans and apes. This was a LOT of work, and I'm really quite pleased with the results.<br /></p><p><b>Also at the conference:</b> Core Academy will have a little table and be giving away some goodies (and a surprise or two). Look for us there, and show your support for creation mentoring and research!<br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-23078461494890459542023-06-06T08:04:00.000-04:002023-06-06T08:04:31.934-04:00Graves, engravings, and tools? Oh my!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUvSDP0n86NIKipl3IfohZ_P7u_gI7ghJ2yGLtbNQnFDkyM1Ya_Za7k1Isk4HSj_hThgbi8L8YhgRGq_L_ptADN-0pUKLF1VRea-cTae6wGyTsR8HcsugeUeRA1N2jIBKYaeNkDmb-9hO2SyTlE8Obgj63oZ4IWlfR47fOnrvk0HLhTnN_d7Yh6m09/s1000/SmallNeo.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUvSDP0n86NIKipl3IfohZ_P7u_gI7ghJ2yGLtbNQnFDkyM1Ya_Za7k1Isk4HSj_hThgbi8L8YhgRGq_L_ptADN-0pUKLF1VRea-cTae6wGyTsR8HcsugeUeRA1N2jIBKYaeNkDmb-9hO2SyTlE8Obgj63oZ4IWlfR47fOnrvk0HLhTnN_d7Yh6m09/s320/SmallNeo.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p>Before we get started, I thought it would be good to recap the last decade of work. If you'd like to skip straight to the current stuff, scroll down to the paragraph that begins "Yesterday, we got two more big announcements...." First, I'll set the stage.<br /></p><p>In 2013, explorers working on the suggestion of Lee Berger discovered a cache of hominin bones in an extremely remote chamber of the Rising Star Cave system in South Africa. In 2015, the new hominin was introduced to the world by a set of papers, scans, and a documentary film. The researchers suggested that this newly-described hominin was deliberately placing bodies of its contemporaries in the chamber, which at the time they termed "body disposal." This suggestion sparked some skeptical remarks from folks like Chris Stringer, who thought that something with a brain that small could not engage in such a complex behavior.</p><p>I got involved almost immediately by trying to discern whether <i>Homo naledi</i> should be included in the human created kind. My previous research seemed to demonstrate a consistent group of hominins that were closely similar to modern humans based on our skull and teeth characteristics. My results indicated that <i>H. naledi</i> indeed was part of that human group, which then to my mind made the "body disposal" interpretation very consistent.</p><p>Last winter, Berger announced evidence of fire throughout the Rising Star Cave system. I was <a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2022/12/homo-naledi-with-controlled-fire.html">pretty excited at the time</a>, since fire would be a necessity for navigating the dark recesses of the cave where the remains were found. I also expected some kind of scientific report detailing these discoveries, and now more than six months later, we're all still waiting for that report. This has dampened my enthusiasm. Berger continues to suggest that his lecture on the subject is the same as a preprint, which I find absurd. Preprints contain (or should contain) all the details of a scientific paper, including measurements, diagrams, photographs, and the like. His lecture is at best a press release, and I do not like publishing by press release. That said, based on his Twitter feed, Berger seems just as frustrated at the lack of progress on his fire paper as the rest of us. It's apparently an unusually slow review process.<br /></p><p>Yesterday, we got two more big announcements from Berger at the Richard Leakey Memorial Symposium at Stony Brook. This time, he presented clearer evidence of deliberate burial and newly discovered engravings in the chamber where the most bones have been found. The announcement was accompanied by three papers that are already in review at <i>eLife</i>. With their new publication model, that means they will be published in a possibly revised form.</p><p>The three papers are:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Berger et al. 2023. <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.01.543127v1">Evidence for
deliberate burial of the dead by <i>Homo naledi</i></a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>DOI: 10.1101/2023.06.01.543127.</span></li><li class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span>Berger et al. 2023. <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.01.543133v1">241,000 to
335,000 Years Old Rock Engravings Made by <i>Homo naledi</i> in the Rising Star Cave
system, South Africa</a>. DOI: <span class="highwire-cite-metadata-doi">10.1101/2023.06.01.543133.</span></li><li class="MsoNormal"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Fuentes et al. 2023. <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.01.543135v1">Burials and
engravings in a small-brained hominin, <i>Homo naledi</i>, from the late
Pleistocene: contexts and evolutionary implications</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>DOI: <span class="highwire-cite-metadata-doi">10.1101/2023.06.01.543135.</span></span></li></ul>
<p></p><p>Remember these preprints are open access, and as always, I encourage you to read them for yourself and don't take my word for it.</p><p>Having read them all, I noticed that they read more like field reports than research papers. These papers document what they've discovered, but there's a lot more experiments and work left to do. I think one paper succeeds in meeting what I think would be the minimal requirements to make their case. I'm not sure about the other one. The shorter commentary article by Fuentes et al. depends heavily on what you think of this latest batch of papers.<br /></p><p>Let's start with the burial evidence, which I think is convincing. They report at least three different "features" that contain mostly the bones of one individual in a limited area where the sediments have been disturbed and in which the bones are preserved in peculiar orientations that would require some kind of sediment support during decomposition. In one of the features, they describe an oval shaped mass of sediment with bones oriented vertically close to the edge of the feature. That would make sense if there was a depression in the sediment into which a body was deposited and then covered over. Otherwise, the bones would fall into more horizontal orientations during decomposition if the body was not support by surrounding sediments. Surrounding at least one of these features, they find mostly empty sediments, which places the bones in one limited region, where the sediments are disturbed. The bones themselves appear to be largely from one individual. So we have the remains of a single skeleton in a limited area, with no bones around it, with disturbed sediments, and with bones in orientations that could only be achieved by being covered over with sediments. This is essentially the sort of evidence we have for various Neandertal burials, such as La Chapelle-aux-Saints. It's not of the same overwhelming quality as <i>Homo sapiens</i> graves filled with grave goods and designated with a grave marker, but as far as ancient hominin burials go, this evidence from Rising Star is as good as or better than most claimed Neandertal burials and certainly better than anything we have from <i>Homo erectus</i> (which creationists like me also accept as human).</p><p>Another feature that the authors interpret as a burial contained a rock quite close to the hand of the skeleton. The rock looks suspiciously like something shaped like a tool. The paper refers to it as an artifact, but I'm not convinced that's appropriate. It certainly could be a tool, and frankly that seems very likely. But that entire feature, bones and all, was excavated as three blocks of sediment and visualized by synchrotron X-ray scanning. According to the paper, the block of sediment has not been further excavated, and the rock remains sealed inside the field jacket. The only images we have of it come from the scans. Granted, they are extremely high resolution scans, but they are not the rock itself. But it sure looks like a deliberately-shaped tool left in the hand of a skeleton.<br /></p><p>The engravings described in the second paper are another issue altogether. They were found in the antechamber on a pillar of rock leading into the Dinaledi Chamber where most of the original bones were excavated back in 2013-14. Based on the evidence presented, there's no question that these are deliberate engravings. They're crisscrossed lines that have been rubbed with some other type of sediment that gives them a distinctive color. They resemble markings from other hominins like the Neandertal markings of Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar.</p><p>The problem is definitively linking the engravings to <i>Homo naledi</i>. Despite the dates in the title of the paper, there was no dating of the engravings. (If I were a reviewer, I'd make them rename the paper without the dates, which are not a finding of their research.) There were no chemical analyses of the engravings. This is very much a field report. They took high resolution pictures under various lighting, made measurements of the engravings, and that was that. They're unquestionably engravings, but who made them?</p><p>The same sorts of problems arise when we consider cultural evidences from other contexts, though. In particular, our growing knowledge of Neandertal culture has grown from contextual clues rather than materials found in direct proximity to Neandertal remains. But when we do find Neandertal bones in proximity to Mousterian tools and the remains of hearths, we do not doubt that the Neandertals made the tools and started the fires.</p><p>So the Rising Star engravings are not conclusive by a long shot, but when considered as a full package, the evidence of <i>Homo naledi</i> culture makes a compelling case in my view. In Rising Star, we have evidence of graves, art, fire, and a possible stone tool all found in a cave that gives evidence of only one hominin exploring and occupying those deep underground spaces. The simplest explanation would link the cultural remains directly with the hominin bones present. <i>Homo naledi</i> made the fires, tools, art, and buried their dead in graves. That's the conclusion of the Fuentes et al. paper, but again, the engravings are not definitively linked to <i>Homo naledi</i>. And the fire? We still don't have any description of the fire evidence, even though it sounds tantalizing. But to argue that someone else made the fires or carved those lines introduces <i>ad hoc</i> hypotheses of cave intruders for which we have no other evidence (yet reported). The simplest explanation is that the hominin buried under the engravings next to the hearths is the one who made them both.<br /></p><p>As a creationist, I see this all fitting together in a very good case for <i>Homo naledi</i>'s humanity. These are the sorts of behaviors that I would expect from human beings, and they make sense. Indirect they may be, but these evidences are the same sort of evidences I use to argue for the humanity of Neandertals. I definitely want more. I want to see that rock in the skeleton's hand. I want to see chemical studies of the engravings. I want to know if there are more, and maybe even clearer, <i>Homo naledi</i> graves.</p><p>For now, I'll just have to be cautiously optimistic.<br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-15219893261246276202023-04-10T11:53:00.000-04:002023-04-10T11:53:38.308-04:00We're doing fine, thanks!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglhiCj9kpLVCytgsL3mYOAAr-FTmCfDxQMrRB0ii2jwRWXJzSOWdQgUFK5s7qBQ4gN7VvKT-GtWMR25uGLFpPnuzrwj11goYO_N4v2AK2FTQCuWAyn2F2O5hMi4h89-tXPAGy-pH6I7LASV4LhBgBNgKH3H9j8MFnI1QHTqYDfrmOIB6Eyiz7eznK-/s1280/WIN_20211028_083751.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglhiCj9kpLVCytgsL3mYOAAr-FTmCfDxQMrRB0ii2jwRWXJzSOWdQgUFK5s7qBQ4gN7VvKT-GtWMR25uGLFpPnuzrwj11goYO_N4v2AK2FTQCuWAyn2F2O5hMi4h89-tXPAGy-pH6I7LASV4LhBgBNgKH3H9j8MFnI1QHTqYDfrmOIB6Eyiz7eznK-/w400-h225/WIN_20211028_083751.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>It's been a while since I've posted anything here, and even longer since I've posted anything about <a href="https://coresci.org/connect">Core Academy of Science</a>, so it's time for an update!</p><p>First of all, even though I've said this in other venues, thank you, thank you, thank you for a great Holiday Fund Drive! We blew away previous totals from past years with a whopping $35,755! I cannot fully express my gratitude and shock and delight. THANK YOU!</p><p>Over on <i>Let's Talk Creation</i>, we have a <a href="https://letstalkcreation.org">new website</a>, thanks to the hard work of my wife. Paul and I have also released a lot of really interesting episodes this year, including my first ever public comments on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA2cAOY_cDc">Behemoth and Leviathan</a>, an introduction to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP2qtGIL0d4">natural evil</a>, and a presently-running series on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF3hggPt-DM">the Flood/Post-Flood boundary</a>. If you haven't been listening, we've got 56 episodes out now, so there's plenty of material to binge. If you have been listening, thank you! We really appreciate all the great comments we've been getting. It's nice to know our hard work is valued.<br /></p><p>We had another great Smoky Mountain Retreat at the beginning of March. I'm really grateful for the entire Core Academy team who helped us pull that off. Dr. Joe Francis from <a href="https://www.masters.edu/">the Master's University</a> walked us through questions of design and natural evil in the world of microbes. It's always such a great time to enjoy fellowship while we dig into the deep questions of creation. Next year's retreat is already on the calendar: March 1-3, 2024. We'll have more details on our special guest this fall.<br /></p><p>I had the privilege of speaking at Liberty University in February and New College, UNSW in Sydney, Australia in March. My next big event will be the <a href="https://www.creationconf.com/stl">Gateway Creation Conference</a> on April 21-22. I'll be giving two presentations on human origins, and I'll have a special surprise I've been working on. You can still get tickets at <a href="https://www.creationconf.com/stl">their website</a>. It should be a really fun conference.</p><p>We've also been busily planning for the rest of the year. For the first time, we're partnering with Rhea County Academy to offer <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/steam-summer-camps-registration-554633763517">two educational day camps</a>. The first is "Camp Creation: Hands-On Life Science" ($185), which is mostly a week of biology lab work and experiments that lets students go in-depth with biology. The second week will be "Camp Creation: Dinosaur Edition" ($100), where we'll be learning about dinosaurs and working on real dinosaur fossils! If you've ever wanted to know what it's like to BE a paleontologist, this is the week for you. Check out all the camp options, get more details, and sign up at <a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/steam-summer-camps-registration-554633763517">our website</a>.</p><p>Also coming this summer is the <a href="https://www.internationalconferenceoncreationism.com/">International Conference on Creationism</a> at Cedarville University. Lord willing (and reviewers willing too), I'll be there presenting new research projects I've been working on for the past three years. One big one is a summary of my work on the skeletons of hominins. My previous work identifying the human baramin focused exclusively cranial features, and this is the first time I'll be using skeletal features as well. And I must say that the results have been fascinating. Some of you might even feel vindicated. I'm excited to see this project finished, and I've been taking a little breather before I dive into the next stage of that work. (I understand there are new discoveries on the horizon that hopefully will provide us with new information and maybe even fill in some gaps in our knowledge).<br /></p><p>I spilled a few beans back in December about a special recording of <i>Let's Talk Creation</i>, and I can tell you now that Paul and I will be doing a live recording in conjunction with the ICC this summer. We're still working out the details, and this first show will be a ticketed event with a very limited number of tickets. I hope to have more information on that in the very near future. To be clear, we will not stream this live, but we will have a live audience during the actual recording.</p><p>Other research projects have been going very well, and that's a major accomplishment even if I can't tell you about it all right now. But I wanted to share how grateful I am for God's generous provision of funding and personnel to get the work done.</p><p>All in all, we've had a pretty good year so far, and I'm looking forward to the future. If you'd like to support Core Academy, I'd greatly appreciate it. Check out <a href="https://coresci.org/donate">coresci.org/donate</a> for more information. Thanks for reading!<br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-32392493719333524372023-02-10T11:08:00.001-05:002023-02-10T11:08:28.284-05:00Did apes make stone tools?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaHcEHTXaEKjZq7jWE16OhY-LB86Grm287_DJaU04ZRfrJGxSZzqx7pzEY9IP-vt86m999Pey6lIDcEAoIoyd1jZAM-wZ0J1hU_4wON0wtrvRN0NfZCJ94Lve0FnT89Qo6SDyaHaum05Umco_RAxWiMjnCpxDi9cTxcXqvLdoLXwyIq7Du9IEUNEaZ/s4032/20230210_090528.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2268" data-original-width="4032" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaHcEHTXaEKjZq7jWE16OhY-LB86Grm287_DJaU04ZRfrJGxSZzqx7pzEY9IP-vt86m999Pey6lIDcEAoIoyd1jZAM-wZ0J1hU_4wON0wtrvRN0NfZCJ94Lve0FnT89Qo6SDyaHaum05Umco_RAxWiMjnCpxDi9cTxcXqvLdoLXwyIq7Du9IEUNEaZ/w400-h225/20230210_090528.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <p></p><p>You've probably seen the headlines declaring that <i>Paranthropus</i> made and used stone tools, and if not, your news aggregator probably isn't tuned into "human evolution" stories like mine. The stories are referring to <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo7452">a newly published study of a very interesting site on the shore of Lake Victoria on the western edge of Kenya</a>. <i>Paranthropus</i> is the new genus name for what used to be called the "robust australopithecines." These creatures are characterized by their huge jaws, wide faces, and on some specimens, a sagittal crest like a gorilla. <a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2011/06/nutcracker-man-was-grazer.html">Studies of their teeth</a> suggest that a large fraction of their diet was grass. My own research has consistently shown that <i>Paranthropus</i> may be a separate created kind from both humans and other apes like <i>Australopithecus afarensis</i>, "Lucy." So my take is that they're not human.<br /></p><p>For one of my recent research projects, I spent some time looking at stone tools in east Africa, and I came away from that with a healthy degree of skepticism. On the one hand, modern technology has allowed us to study stone tools in detail, and I've become more comfortable with the earliest stone tools known as true tools. These Oldowan tools are about as simple as you can imagine. They're mostly rock cores and stone flakes, and it's easy to imagine that these could be produced by any old monkey banging rocks together. But with recent studies looking at microscopic edgeware on the flakes and identifying the residual materials on the tools, I've become more comfortable calling these rocks "tools." The flakes were definitely used as cutters for a variety of material, and the cores were percussive smashers for smashing things.</p><p>The big question is, who made them? In our modern world, chimpanzees are actually pretty clever at using materials from their environment as tools, and this behavior varies regionally. Is it possible then that an ape like <i>Paranthropus</i> might figure out how to bang rocks together and make sharp little flakes for cutting? I don't know. Even though I accept them as tools, I still see Oldowan tools as extremely simple, the kind that I could imagine an ape figuring out. Maybe. I'm very unsure about this.</p><p>The problem as I see it is that there are lots of potential tool-making candidates living in east Africa. You've got at least two species of <i>Paranthropus</i> (<i>aethiopicus</i> and <i>boisei</i>), at least two species of australopith (<i>Au. anamensis</i> and <i>Au. afarensis</i>), multiple species of <i>Homo</i> (<i>rudolfensis</i>, <i>habilis</i>, <i>erectus</i>), <i>Ardipithecus</i>, and <i>Kenyanthropus</i>. And when you think about this from a young-age creationist perspective, you realize that these species may well be entirely contemporaneous, since the "millions of years" they're dated by conventional dating may amount to just a few years on the creationist timeline. So when we find isolated collections of stone tools, who do they belong to? I don't know. Frankly, I think this applies to the conventional timeline as well. The hominin fossil record is sparse enough that I'm pretty skeptical of anyone telling me that there are no whatever before some date. All that means is that we haven't found those fossils yet, but Africa is a big, unexplored place. Only God knows what surprises are still in store.<br /></p><p>This new site offers some really interesting new evidence that I think doesn't make interpreting the stone tool record much easier. The new site called Nyayanga is a little gully that cuts through several layers of material, some of which contain fossils and stone tools. The researchers looked at two horizons in the lowest NY-1 layer, which they date to 2.5 - 3 million years ago by correlation of several methods (radiometric, paleomagnetic, biostratigraphic). The two horizons with tools and other remains were labeled excavations 3 and 5. Altogether, they recovered 330 tools, 195 on the surface and 135 from the excavations. The tools are classical Oldowan tools, similar to those recovered from Olduvai Gorge. In excavation 3, they found one partial hippo skeleton closely associated with 42 stone tools. One rib fragment showed a pretty clear cut mark, and three of the associated flakes are worn down like they've been used a hard surface like bone. In excavation 5, they found another partial hippo skeleton associated with 14 stone tools. Here, a tibia fragment has several very clear cut marks. The researchers also claim that the spatial arrangement of the bones and tools implies that someone (the tool maker?) had disturbed the skeleton. They also found other bones at the site that had damage from either cutting or smashing with stone tools. Finally, they found two large hominin teeth, one a surface find and the other from excavation 3 closely associated with the cut hippo skeleton and stone tools. The teeth are probably molars and larger than any <i>Paranthropus</i> molars in their comparative sample. Like <i>Paranthropus</i> teeth, these teeth appear to have been used to eat lots of grass. They suggest that the close association of the tooth, stone tools, and cut-marked hippo bone in excavation 3 might support the inference that <i>Paranthropus</i> was a toolmaker and hippo butcher, but they also admit that it could have been another hominin altogether.<br /></p><p>What should we make of this site? Could it be that <i>Paranthropus</i> smashed rocks together and used a couple of flakes to cut on a hippo carcass they found? I suppose that's possible. Apes are pretty clever after all. Could it be that a true human being made these instead? It's possible. All we have are a handful of cut marks on a couple bones, very simple stone tools, and a few teeth. With such sparse evidence, it's really, really, really hard to be sure.</p><p>As always, please check out the original research report. Don't take my word for it.</p><p>Plummer et al. 2023. <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo7452">Expanded geographic distribution and dietary strategies of the earliest Oldowan hominins and <i>Paranthropus</i></a>. <i>Science</i> 379:561-566.<br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-27730692558247162082023-02-06T15:48:00.000-05:002023-02-06T15:48:12.364-05:00Neandertals: Mighty Hunters before the Lord!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfCn6N_PAxS6fgOjjIzoajFm1-q3l9uGhmPOWFkQU0-eTqJJI_MdaGdwiZk1JSIUYjS9RZcYfbgeqQXqVX9qlC7oz95AF-pLBpakzD8ZRrerUAl9xwQg0iHqXyi1gq2KjT9okOq0vTVTVsHo0iL1j4qLu10GaxHJCEnTRYdiOouoBnWnnDpvrjej7Z/s4000/paleoloxodon.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2250" data-original-width="4000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfCn6N_PAxS6fgOjjIzoajFm1-q3l9uGhmPOWFkQU0-eTqJJI_MdaGdwiZk1JSIUYjS9RZcYfbgeqQXqVX9qlC7oz95AF-pLBpakzD8ZRrerUAl9xwQg0iHqXyi1gq2KjT9okOq0vTVTVsHo0iL1j4qLu10GaxHJCEnTRYdiOouoBnWnnDpvrjej7Z/w400-h225/paleoloxodon.png" width="400" /></a></div> <p></p><p>New research last week documents a startling record of Neandertal hunting. Now we've known for some time that Neandertals were good hunters and that they could take down big game. This new work based on an ancient lake deposit from Germany where the remains of a couple dozen straight-tusked elephants (<i>Paleoloxodon</i>) were found. They were originally excavated in the 1980s and 1990s during rescue excavations ahead of mining operations. There were plenty of stone tools found with them, and they've long been known to be an odd deposit. The remains were largely from adult bull elephants, which in African elephants are known to be kind of loners. There was a dearth of young or female animals. The way they were deposited was also peculiar, with a few sites concentrating just tusks. Not surprisingly, the concentration of stone tools matched that of the elephant bones.<br /></p><p>The new research by <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add8186">Gaudzinski-Windheuser and colleagues</a> examined the bones for cut marks, and they found a remarkable record of the butchering of these animals. For example, cut marks on the neck vertebrae and skull indicated that the head was removed from the body, likely for accessing the brain. Likewise, cut marks on the jaw revealed that the face was also stripped of meat. Muscles running along the spine were also removed. They even found cut marks on the inside of the ribs, indicating that the animals' organs were removed in the butchery process. The ends of the long limb bones also bore lots of parallel cut marks, indicating that they were removing the limbs as well. In contrast, the gnawing marks of predators on the bones were comparatively fewer, and often in surprising places, such as the exposed ends of long bones, indicating that the scavengers came in after the animal had already been butchered.</p><p>Now we've known for a long time that Native Americans hunted mammoths and would often stash their carcasses in ponds, presumably as a preservative to keep the meat cool. In 2015, such a mammoth (the Bristle mammoth) was discovered about a half hour drive from my childhood home, so the idea that people could hunt <i>really</i> big game like this was not surprising to me. But Neandertals are different. They're quite distinct from <i>Homo sapiens</i>, and theistic evolutionists and old earth creationists tend to view them as not human or not fully human. Young age creationists tend to see the evidence differently and include them as human for a variety of reasons. They made sophisticated tools and controlled fire. They cared for their wounded and buried their dead. They were able to get into to remarkably difficult locations, such as deep in the dark zone of caves. We even have various evidences of Neandertal decor and art, including using eagle talons and shalls for decoration and exploiting ochre for coloring. For a young age creationist like me, that sure sounds like the work of people not animals. They're different people for sure, but people nonetheless.</p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI9cPRrGfKNjY8Yk2B5_gXI8xM2q2qNxTJy4Xhy1VkojihDwN2OgBLGX69oPHeL4huXBNJYXCuzvSveSIiRHJPXtrvqPojvM4s_UGcmtZ00anVXibIaaGDL5nC8lEaMfM-WAA52rpCAMTbRfC29BYUoAEvlbtufPmSpDcqEZ8SDOZWroSPGAXLrmbt/s1194/bristle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1194" data-original-width="1071" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI9cPRrGfKNjY8Yk2B5_gXI8xM2q2qNxTJy4Xhy1VkojihDwN2OgBLGX69oPHeL4huXBNJYXCuzvSveSIiRHJPXtrvqPojvM4s_UGcmtZ00anVXibIaaGDL5nC8lEaMfM-WAA52rpCAMTbRfC29BYUoAEvlbtufPmSpDcqEZ8SDOZWroSPGAXLrmbt/s320/bristle.jpg" width="287" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me and the Bristle Mammoth at the<br />University of Michigan in 2016.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></p><p>Now back to our butchered elephants (which are bigger than mammoths). First, imagine the number of people it would take to bring down an elephant. Imagine the coordination requited to do so. Maybe that's not impressive enough for you. Now think about the butchering of the animal, which in this case is extremely thorough. These Neandertals took almost every part of the animal, which would require hours of work. The researchers estimated it would take 25 Neandertals working 3-5 days to thoroughly butcher an elephant the way these elephants had been butchered. The result is literally tons of meat, enough to feed 350 Neandertals for a week. Or the Neandertals had methods of preserving the meat, possibly by smoking. Either way, that's some incredibly sophisticated behavior.</p><p>For me, this evidence just re-affirms that these people were people. No mere animal takes down an elephant and butchers it completely and is able to gather 350 close friends for a feast or starts a fire to smoke their newly-acquired tons of meat. And then they did this dozens of times over, all on the shore of that one little lake. Now I don't think Nimrod was a Neandertal (no reason to think so), but I think the appellation "mighty hunter before the Lord" applies to anyone who can take down an elephant multiple times.</p><p>But don't take my word for it. Check out the original research report for yourself.</p><p>Gaudzinski-Windheuser, S., L. Kindler, K. MacDonald, and W. Roebroeks. 2023. <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add8186">Hunting and processing of straight-tusked elephants 125.000 years ago: Implications for Neanderthal behavior</a>. <i>Science Advances</i> 9:eadd8186.<br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-12776190299974105432022-12-01T20:16:00.000-05:002022-12-01T20:16:08.837-05:00Homo naledi with controlled FIRE!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3l-NHT-gAkFtv3ExknMx4YnQweqG16HyPUIqM6WNhv7lYizjCbv3FaaDZ4VxiKhb0N1DWImOlw2CoMIm3QrjGSWrV55apG2qrAo1ws31iOVFaL45rVKNgSrpE9-4-kUs7O8jJSZCIGa0kWyz3frCyhpvEy3ND0WOUUUNo_Bih037cg1PeT4aOmpap/s640/flame-gf5c39173e_640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="640" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3l-NHT-gAkFtv3ExknMx4YnQweqG16HyPUIqM6WNhv7lYizjCbv3FaaDZ4VxiKhb0N1DWImOlw2CoMIm3QrjGSWrV55apG2qrAo1ws31iOVFaL45rVKNgSrpE9-4-kUs7O8jJSZCIGa0kWyz3frCyhpvEy3ND0WOUUUNo_Bih037cg1PeT4aOmpap/w400-h266/flame-gf5c39173e_640.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>At his Carnegie Science lecture tonight, Lee Berger just announced abundant evidence of fire use in the Rising Star Cave, where the famous <i>Homo naledi</i> remains were found. That's beyond HUGE.</p><p>To recap: A massive fossil trove from a cave called Rising Star has been excavated by Lee Berger's team over the last decade. The creatures are called <i>Homo naledi</i>, and the peculiar attributes of their deposition suggests they were intentionally placed their by the fellow <i>Homo naledi</i>. I've written about this a lot (<a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/search?q=naledi">just search for naledi</a>), and I've taken flak from fellow creationists who have criticized my position on <i>Homo naledi</i>. My own research has shown that <i>Homo naledi</i> is human, and the evidence for intentional body disposal (human burial?) is pretty overwhelming. No one has yet proposed anything close to a model that explains the peculiar features of the Rising Star Cave and that is NOT intentional body disposal.</p><p>As I mentioned, tonight Berger announced evidence of fire found throughout the Rising Star cave. Among his announcements:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>There is soot all over the roof of the Dinaledi chamber.</li><li>There's an ancient, small hearth newly excavated at the base of the Dragon's Back (which is the entrance to the Dinaledi Chamber), and in that hearth there are burned antelope bones.</li><li>There are additional hearths throughout the cave at "every" juncture of passages. (Not sure how much is included in "every.")<br /></li><li>There is a large burn site in the Lesedi chamber with burned animal bones.</li><li>There is a stack of stones in the Lesedi chamber with ash around and under it.</li><li>One location has charcoal, the remains of burned wood.<br /></li></ul><p>I have no idea when these discoveries will be published, so I can't add any more details or professional assessment. But the photos Berger showed were pretty jaw-dropping. Well, they made my jaw drop anyway.<br /></p><p>So what does this mean for us creationists? For me, it's exactly what I expected, and we creationists have been muttering about it to each other since <i>Homo naledi</i> was announced. We all knew that the bone beds were deep in the cave, far deeper than any creature could possibly go without light. We all thought, if these were humans, they must have had fire. It's the only way they could have gotten down there. But in my wildest dreams, I never expected the fire evidence would be SOOO complex. Fire in the Dinaledi chamber is just light? Fire in the Dragon's Back cooking meat maybe? We creationists predicted this sort of complex behavior because we were convinced that <i>Homo naledi</i> is fully human, descended from Adam and Eve, made in the image of God. And there it is. Fire in the Rising Star completely confirms our expectation that <i>Homo naledi</i> is human.</p><p>Now there have been other creationists that have rejected the humanity of <i>Homo naledi</i>, some rather forcefully. I have no doubt in my mind that they'll come up with some kind of creative just-so story to explain away all of this evidence. Maybe these were weird underground wildfires? Maybe ancient <i>Homo sapiens</i> dragged these <i>Homo naledi</i> into the cave and made the fires? Maybe this, maybe that. But here's the thing. I don't have to explain away this data. It's precisely what I predicted (see <a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2021/11/news-from-dinaledi-chamber.html">this post from a year ago</a>), and that, my friends, is a hallmark of good science. If your model is propped up by special pleading, <i>ad hoc</i> speculations, and cherry-picked literature citations, it's not as good as the hypothesis that makes a successful prediction. That's just <i>How to Do Good Science 101</i>.</p><p>I also think this makes things increasingly awkward for theistic evolutionists who want to draw some kind of line in the fossil record and say that everything "after" is human and everything "before" is not. <i>Homo naledi</i> is clearly not <i>Homo sapiens</i>, yet it exhibits astonishing behavioral complexity of the sort we've only ever associated with human beings. The fossil record is much easier to cope with theologically if we just recognize that "human" is more than just us.</p><p>Yes, I'm excited, but I also have to remind myself that there are no papers yet, just some assertions and photos. I'm no fan of science by press release, so there's a part of me that's kind of annoyed that I don't get to see the full technical descriptions of all these excavations. Actually, I'm really kind of annoyed at this. Big claims require big evidence, so we'll have to wait and see. But for now, I'll marvel at Berger's assertions. What if they're true? (And what if they're not? What if the evidence for fire isn't as good as he indicated? Well, we're back where we are now, and I still say the evidence overwhelmingly supports recognizing <i>Homo naledi</i> as human. Hint: There'll be even more evidence next summer. wink wink)<br /></p><p>I'm feeling mighty gratified. What a time to be alive!<br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-70352536156318524592022-11-24T09:07:00.003-05:002022-11-24T09:09:33.492-05:00Neandertal cooking - or thin gruel?<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRYh68SUQwG81vSVD7RvNdUSvwkdkLw8_bvV4XwnuwPG9hwD26rkthuvMn4XLaOJAfhkKMNz5y_-PpNoyi0FIOnc_p4KhOLIRBOKgu2U5ucjCaNKnrZ8sp1l8RwU0wVhFWy74nGb25FYZDEcwn0RZjRno7t_qtNWUOnwpQC-2vAKk6Pg9I7uGLlK8D/s640/640px-Ab_food_16.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRYh68SUQwG81vSVD7RvNdUSvwkdkLw8_bvV4XwnuwPG9hwD26rkthuvMn4XLaOJAfhkKMNz5y_-PpNoyi0FIOnc_p4KhOLIRBOKgu2U5ucjCaNKnrZ8sp1l8RwU0wVhFWy74nGb25FYZDEcwn0RZjRno7t_qtNWUOnwpQC-2vAKk6Pg9I7uGLlK8D/w400-h300/640px-Ab_food_16.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seeds of the Indian Pea, <i>Lathyrus sativa</i>.<br />Photo by <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ab_food_16.jpg">Andrew Butko, Wikimedia</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table> <p></p><p>There's a new report this week on Neandertal cooking. Now, we've known for a long time that Neandertals hunted and used fires, but this is the first that I know of that supports the idea that they selected, processed, and mixed vegetative ingredients to make maybe a bread or cake or something like that. I'm kind of disappointed it isn't more evidence, because I'm not really sure how excited we should be.<br /></p><p><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/cooking-in-caves-palaeolithic-carbonised-plant-food-remains-from-franchthi-and-shanidar/0CB510C9E528CD7AD923469D78E14E42">The report</a> comes from a team of researchers based at English institutions, primarily the University of Liverpool. They were working with charred bits of stuff found at previous cave excavations. Their work was mostly electron microscopy to identify the components of the charred bits. There was only one bit from a Neandertal site, namely Shanidar in northern Iraq. This piece contained ground up remnants of <i>pulses</i>, legumes of the genera <i>Lathyrus</i> (Indian peas, shown above) and <i>Pisum</i> (the genus of our domesticated pea). The piece also contained bits of grass of unknown provenance.</p><p>How do we know this is a Neandertal artifact? This to me is pretty clear, maybe even clearer than a lot of putative Neandertal remains that depend on relative dating (like the Schoningen spears). Here in Shanidar, this charred lump was found along side actual physical remains of Neandertals. That's exactly what you'd like to see if you want to associate an artifact with a species: Find them in direct proximity in the same layer as bones. So that's done. Whatever this is, it's definitely Neandertal.</p><p>How do we know that this is food? In other words, could there be some other source of mixed plant material that could have been burned and left behind these residual bits? Burned bits of plant residue could have been fuel for a fire, or they could have been feces. The researchers argue that it's not feces because ancient feces have different contents and forms under the microscope. So they rule that out. There are also some implicit arguments at play here, namely that the plant material has been selected carefully and processed deliberately. It's been crushed and ground, not to a fine flour where the constituents are unidentifiable, but it's not just chestnuts roasting on an open fire. The authors note that the seed coverings contain bitter and toxic chemicals that the processing would reduce, so that's another observation in favor of this being the remnants of food. Finally, the charring from being near a fire also implicates this as some kind of food residue. The burning is probably the least compelling of all, but combined with the other evidence, you realize you have a single lump of vegetable material that contains specific edible plants that have been ground and mixed together and then heated. Well, that sure sounds like cooking to me.</p><p>Still, it's just one small piece. I wish there were more pieces. I wish there were grind stones with vegetable residue on them. I wish there was more unequivocal evidence. I can think of at least one possible (although not very convincing) explanation for this piece that doesn't involve cooking: bovid stomach contents. If Neandertals had hunted a bovid, maybe some of its cud fell near the fire and burned? Like I said, I'm not sure that explains it, but it's an interesting possibility. I wish there was more evidence.<br /></p><p>Then again, put this together with all the other evidences of Neandertal sophistication, and it makes a compelling story of intelligent people working with their environment to provide their food needs. It will be interesting to see how this research is received by others.</p><p>Kabukcu et al. 2022. Cooking in caves: <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/cooking-in-caves-palaeolithic-carbonised-plant-food-remains-from-franchthi-and-shanidar/0CB510C9E528CD7AD923469D78E14E42">Palaeolithic carbonised plant food remains from Franchthi and Shanidar</a>. <i>Antiquity</i> DOI: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2022.143.<br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-78335787577242080992022-11-15T11:21:00.001-05:002022-11-15T11:21:27.005-05:00Ancient hominins cooked fish<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Pb2MO-Yk9JjauJBN3nwKObj5U0vgAj3FYhGANZYxn_tL2KBTORC_BebZW8jIkkhKiIloa7retb5rpDhAAtKKppfOCKU-PiHV1hIkxgpic2E3Py_RGs2tJ7GxyAIyDaMxtRR7CDIhQulkJG1phnpqj3bL3jqfXa76VmmA5WYWLX6hIggqYyX-PPZm/s640/salmon-g33bec00d4_640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="427" data-original-width="640" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Pb2MO-Yk9JjauJBN3nwKObj5U0vgAj3FYhGANZYxn_tL2KBTORC_BebZW8jIkkhKiIloa7retb5rpDhAAtKKppfOCKU-PiHV1hIkxgpic2E3Py_RGs2tJ7GxyAIyDaMxtRR7CDIhQulkJG1phnpqj3bL3jqfXa76VmmA5WYWLX6hIggqYyX-PPZm/w400-h268/salmon-g33bec00d4_640.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <p></p><p>I can't tell you how long I've been hoping that we'd find something like this. A research team from Israel this week published their findings on the cooking of fish at a site they estimate is 780,000 years old. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-022-01910-z">Zohar and colleagues</a> show three important "ingredients" for their argument: (1) The accumulation of fish remains differs when it's a natural fish kill vs. a cultural accumulation, (2) the culturally accumulated fish remains are found in proximity to ancient hearths, and (3) the chemical structure of the remains supports moderate heating rather than burning.</p><p>The site called Gesher Benot Ya'aqov ("Daughters of Jacob Bridge," GBY) sits near the Jordan River some eight miles north of the present Sea of Galilee (yes, there's still a bridge there). It's a well known site for many reasons, especially for the appearance of Acheulean tools, stone tools associated with <i>Homo erectus</i>. There are also evidences of <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1095443">controlled burning in hearths</a> and for the use of plant material for food (<a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.032570499">nutcracking</a>). Physical remains of (a likely) <i>Homo erectus</i> are found south of the modern Sea of Galilee at a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-05712-y">site called 'Ubeidiya</a>.</p><p>Zohar's new paper summarized evidence of two different accumulations of fish bones at GBY. Location A had 9,200 fish remains from a number of different fish species and containing an array of bones. Location B contained mostly pharyngeal teeth (of the 30,000 fish remains discovered) from two carp species that are still known as tasty fish in the region. They note that after cooking, fish bones are modified in a way that causes them to deteriorate, so the presence of only teeth in Location B supported the idea that they were cooked. Also, the accumulation of mostly the two carps also supported the idea that something happened here to select certain fish over others.</p><p>Next, they showed that there was a significant association between known hearths and the accumulation of fish teeth in Location B. This further suggests that not only were people selecting these fish of all the ones in the nearby lake but they were bringing them to their fires.</p><p>Finally, they relied on a remarkable property of fish enameloid to nail down the idea that they were cooked instead of just happening to be near a fire where they were burned. Fish enameloid is made of tiny crystals that enlarge when you heat them, and they keep enlarging as the temperature goes up. In fresh or unheated fish, the crystals are about 14-18 nm (nanometers - there are a billion of them in one meter or 25,400,000 in an inch). When heated to 200-400 C, the crystals grew to 16.5-19.2 nm, and when cooked to 500-600 C, the crystals grew to 18-22 nm. Above 600 C (when fish are burned), the crystals got really big, 32-68 nm. At location A, the enameloid were typical of uncooked fish, but at Location B, there was a small increase in the crystal size: 14.2 - 20.7 nm. Of the 25 teeth they tested at Location B, ten of them had crystal sizes greater than 18 nm, which is only associated with moderate heating (as in cooking). And those ten teeth with crystals >18 nm were significantly closer to the hearths than the teeth with crystals <18 nm. In other words, the teeth that looked like they were cooked were nearer to the hearths than the teeth that didn't look like they were cooked. Since the teeth had a moderate increase in crystal size, they could tell that they hadn't just been thrown in the fire and burned. Somebody had to carefully control the amount of heat those fish teeth were exposed to.<br /></p><p>Put that all together, and you have a pretty good argument for cooked fish at GBY, where stone artifacts of <i>Homo erectus</i> are found. Why do I care? As a creationist, I'm (obviously) interested in hominin fossils, especially in distinguishing what is and isn't human. I'd prefer to do that as holistically as possible, with different sorts of cultural evidences that affirm that they bear the image of God like we do. With Neandertals, we have lots of evidence of sophisticated tools, pigments, body ornamentation, coordinated hunting, controlled use of fire and cooking, and burying their dead. That adds up to a really good support for the humanity of Neandertals. But with other hominins, the evidence is more sparse. Thus, I've turned to studying skeletons and cluster analysis in the absence of more conclusive evidences.</p><p>Good evidence of cooked fish at GBY expands our evidence for the humanity of <i>Homo erectus</i>. Previously, we had evidence of tools and tool use, but direct evidence of cooking was not there. This changes things. While I can imagine monkeys smashing rocks to crack open nuts, the degree of sophistication required for cooking is not something I would associate with animals. That's a human behavior.</p><p>Thinking through the various options available for Christians, I think this new evidence continues to tip the scales in favor of the young-age creationist interpretation of a broader humanity that includes Neandertals and <i>Homo erectus</i> descended from Adam and Eve. Those who want to restrict "humans" to include only those made in God's image are being forced into an absurd position of asserting that humans were created not from the dust nor from ape-like ancestors but from ancestors that were virtually indistinguishable from them except that they didn't have the image of God. I find that position preposterous. The better option is clearly to just admit that "human" doesn't apply only to <i>Homo sapiens</i>.</p><p>Zohar et al. 2022. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-022-01910-z">Evidence for the cooking of fish 780,000 years ago at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel</a>. <i>Nature Ecology & Evolution</i> DOI 10.1038/s41559-022-01910-z.</p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-22287714503717322852022-10-31T16:31:00.003-04:002022-10-31T16:31:59.263-04:00Mammal Skulls and Evidence of Creation?<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhojz3h7SC3wNC4Ii2Et31LuEQxqfxi9I57DVgxwL1s3KzJ1f0zU072Q_H-lU7eFTWOdBgAoR5aQrPMy6tEyPgHx623qbSCrF0JSnK1RWRH4qtZBGZoFoT5RMsr6qcjT9r4-T-vTMVcyhBku3NSemCjrKf7LMb9kCtG6uNdntqdPJ5ScwuC-hUGeVBj/s640/skeleton-67740_640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="640" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhojz3h7SC3wNC4Ii2Et31LuEQxqfxi9I57DVgxwL1s3KzJ1f0zU072Q_H-lU7eFTWOdBgAoR5aQrPMy6tEyPgHx623qbSCrF0JSnK1RWRH4qtZBGZoFoT5RMsr6qcjT9r4-T-vTMVcyhBku3NSemCjrKf7LMb9kCtG6uNdntqdPJ5ScwuC-hUGeVBj/w400-h266/skeleton-67740_640.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> <p></p><p>There's a fascinating new research paper from last week's <i>Science</i> looking at large-scale trends in mammal skull shapes, and I'm still still thinking about it. These comments are very preliminary.</p><p>Authors Goswami and colleagues examined a sample of 322 mammal skulls covering the majority of mammalian diversity. They analyzed changes in shape using 3D models of the skulls and landmarks to track how skulls differ from group to group and how they believe mammals have evolved over the last 100 or so million years on the conventional timeline. They reach a few very interesting conclusions based on their results. First, the highest rates of skull change in mammal "evolution" occur primarily at the base of the mammal tree, near the beginning of the Cenozoic. Second, the highest rates of skull change among the mammals occur in groups like the whales, elephants, and sea cows. Third, the lowest rates of skull change occur in the rodents and bats.</p><p>That sounds really interesting from a creationist perspective. I'd like to say that the high "rates of change" at the base of the mammalian fossil record actually represents discontinuity <i>between</i> different created kinds, and the later slow rates of change represent diversification <i>within</i> created kinds. I don't think that's quite right though. To begin with, to represent as much mammalian diversity as possible, the sample of 322 skulls includes roughly one skull per family, meaning that each data point in this sample could represent a single created kind. At the very least, we're not looking at a lot of diversity within created kinds. We also have to be cautious about the "rate," since that might not be directly equivalent to a large magnitude of difference. We could be looking at a moderate magnitude of difference over a short time.<br /></p><p>Still, these results are very curious. From a creationist perspective, I would expect there to be a lot of disparity at the first appearance of mammals, and that's not exactly what we get. The disparity appears fairly quickly though, so that by the time you get to Eocene rocks, you have highly diverse skull forms. Again, since we're looking at multiple created kinds, this may be records of the first fossilizations of different created kinds.</p><p>Also curious is the "rapid" skull changes found in some of the slowest reproducers on the planet. I (perhaps naively) would expect diversification to be linked to intrinsic rate of increase, the speed at which organisms produce offspring and reach reproductive maturity. Here, that relationship seems to be inverted. Rapid reproducers like rodents or bats have very moderate skull changes, while slow reproducers (i.e., the largest mammals) are marked by rapid skull changes. Perhaps what we're seeing is rodents and bats exploring the full range of their skull forms (hence any individual difference is small), while the larger mammals only sample a larger morphospace making their individual differences of larger magnitude? But even in that case, how do large mammals with slow reproduction speciate at a rate that allows them to sample a morphology quite different from the parent form?<br /></p><p>On the other hand, the PCA of the skull shape shows a nice yawning gap between whales and terrestrial mammals, so that's very nice. Fully expected.</p><p>I wonder what we could do with this at the level of a created kind? What would we find?<br /></p><p>Goswami et al. 2022. <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm7525">Attenuated evolution of mammals through the Cenozoic</a>. <i>Science</i> 378:377-383.<br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-39683365367326138862022-10-05T10:40:00.001-04:002022-10-05T10:40:34.616-04:00Have scientists FINALLY unlocked the origin of life???<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyvqNuHKmOh3kqQ_Qpk4Gd9lyXdkbCwMDPBas5s2lBWsfc8qRMzXvx-GyN1Ye9hUGg542r-3AH14-uyqy7e3wRlkzSkp5pHPTc1C8F_M-MZIPN7x_TDPBjf1wfJRGb-HI5xr8egtGNIMOX8Z16MPgVwqLTpvM2RfKXBHByUmithf8XNhqtZUefu30s/s640/wave-ga878e103d_640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyvqNuHKmOh3kqQ_Qpk4Gd9lyXdkbCwMDPBas5s2lBWsfc8qRMzXvx-GyN1Ye9hUGg542r-3AH14-uyqy7e3wRlkzSkp5pHPTc1C8F_M-MZIPN7x_TDPBjf1wfJRGb-HI5xr8egtGNIMOX8Z16MPgVwqLTpvM2RfKXBHByUmithf8XNhqtZUefu30s/w400-h225/wave-ga878e103d_640.jpg" width="400" /></a> <br /></div><p></p><p>Short answer: no.</p><p>Long answer: It's still no, but let me explain.<br /></p><p>As a biochemist by training, I've been interested in research on the origin of life for a long time. I'm not talking about God speaking creatures into existence, either. This research begins with the assumption that life emerged naturally from nonliving chemicals. You might remember from high school biology hearing about Stanley Miller's experiment, where he zapped some ammonia, methane, and water vapor to make simple amino acids. That experiment essentially jump-started the field of origin of life research, where scientists try all sorts of weird conditions to see if they can make biochemicals using random processes. </p><p>This research has not been successful. Oh, it's definitely made progress of sorts. Different sorts of chemicals have been formed, and we've found interesting organic compounds in space. But no one has successfully generated a living system from any of these experiments. Knowing what I do about biochemistry, I'm deeply skeptical that they ever will. At a chemical level, life isn't just a simple bag of ingredients. It's not even a bag of ingredients put together with the right recipe. Life is at minimum a system of ongoing, interconnecting reactions that are simultaneously isolated from the surrounding environment and constantly interacting with that same environment. Life is way more than that, but that description captures some of the essential features of what physical life on this planet is.</p><p>It's the biochemical interconnections that makes life resist any simple route to random formation. For example, the central metabolic processes of life all depend on each other to function. To pick a random starting point (the interconnections assure there is no starting point), your cells all make proteins to carry out chemical functions. Digesting food, converting energy, and interacting with other cells or the environment are just some of the functions that proteins do. Proteins are made by the cell using a ribosome, which is a giant molecular complex consisting of RNA and other proteins. Where does the RNA come from? It's made from DNA using, you guessed it, proteins. Where does the DNA come from? It's made from pre-existing DNA by proteins. Where does the energy come from to power this system? In our cells, it's mostly the digestion of sugar (especially glucose) that we eat. How do we break down glucose and capture its energy? Cells use proteins that are made using the energy from the breakdown of glucose. There is no absolute beginning in this metabolic network, a place where we can say, Life starts here. It's all got to be there at once.</p><p>Yes, I am aware that there are lots of accretionary models for the origin of modern life and metabolism, and what I've described above is purportedly the latest iteration of billions of years of development. These models include the RNA world and other such ideas that try to simplify metabolism, to identify the minimal reactions that are necessary to sustain what we call life so that the rest of the world of living things can evolve. The problem with that is that every living thing we have today operates on the full DNA-RNA-protein-fueled-by-sugar metabolism. There are no RNA-based organisms, and we don't have any historical evidence (i.e., fossils) that such a system ever existed. These hypotheses are just hypotheses.<br /></p><p>Despite all this lack of progress (i.e. failure), I'm always amused at the breathless headlines that accompany the latest discoveries in the quest to unlock the origin of life. This week is no different. SciTechDaily describes the latest research as <a href="https://scitechdaily.com/the-fountain-of-life-scientists-uncover-the-chemistry-behind-the-origin-of-life/">The Fountain of Life: Scientists Uncover the "Chemistry Behind the Origin of Life."</a> Popular Science tells us, <a href="https://www.popsci.com/science/water-peptide-life-earth/">Here’s how life on Earth might have formed out of thin air and water</a>! Vice trots out the hilarious old chestnut, <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7z4g8/scientists-breakthrough-origin-life-could-change-everything">Scientists Made a Breakthrough on Life’s Origin and It Could Change Everything</a>. Sorry, Vice. Very little has changed in light of this work.</p><p>What is this shocking new work? A <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2212642119">new paper from Holden and colleagues</a> describes the production of something called polypeptides using tiny water droplets. The problem they're trying to address is the longstanding question of "polymerization," which is the set of reactions that build up complex biological molecules from their simplest precursors. Miller showed that he could generate amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, randomly in his experiment, but that was barely the first step. Typical proteins contain hundreds of amino acids all stuck together in a row. Amino acids form these "polypeptides" by a chemical reaction that releases water. That makes an interesting conundrum: How do you make polypeptides in water, when the vast excess of water would tend to break down the polypeptides? Cells overcome this using a special array of protein and RNA molecules (the ribosome and associated enzymatic pathways), but how could it happen without a cell making it happen? That's what Holden and colleagues want to address.</p><p>They built on lots of previous research that showed that really interesting chemistry can happen spontaneously on the surface of tiny water droplets. In their experiments they used two amino acids, glycine and alanine, to show that they could spontaneously stick them together in the right way in tiny water droplets. They produced polypeptides of as much as six amino acids in a row using this method, and they suggested that this could overcome the polymerization problem, especially since water droplets are common when waves hit the shore.</p><p>Does this unlock the origin of life? No. Does this explain how life began out of water and thin air? No. Does this <i>change everything???</i> No. This is more like trying to explain the Empire State Building by showing how steel can be made from iron. It's barely a blip. An important blip for sure, but a blip.<br /></p><p>This is usually how it goes, too. Headlines would have you believe living cells originated spontaneously in some scientist's test tube, but the reality is just a simple, minor bit of interesting chemistry that probably doesn't make the unguided origin of life any more plausible than it was.</p><p>God made living things, and he made them resistant to any other explanation. That's just how biochemistry works. Don't let the headlines fool you.</p><p>Holden et al. 2022. <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2212642119">Aqueous microdroplets enable abiotic synthesis and chain extension of unique peptide isomers from free amino acids</a>. <i>PNAS</i> 119 (42) e2212642119.<br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-13385337159688474782022-09-19T12:03:00.002-04:002022-09-19T14:33:37.552-04:00Is baraminology bogus?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJrL5I_2_qjMmiVtZRfd1qwYx1gGkLFdgp9RDR_N9ssRFDECOnngMmrCUOqAS2Ch5tN1PQZSJs8LMqaQjznaKaYsuqbBqHj-24LKOFDyobmj_2Do9lx0n-e0276SldFPAPjEng_kWiMSFZahCVgeRx7q-oQVi-d_8q6Zh9Iu7xneoihy-z7ejgtIca/s1800/bogus.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="942" data-original-width="1800" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJrL5I_2_qjMmiVtZRfd1qwYx1gGkLFdgp9RDR_N9ssRFDECOnngMmrCUOqAS2Ch5tN1PQZSJs8LMqaQjznaKaYsuqbBqHj-24LKOFDyobmj_2Do9lx0n-e0276SldFPAPjEng_kWiMSFZahCVgeRx7q-oQVi-d_8q6Zh9Iu7xneoihy-z7ejgtIca/s320/bogus.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p>If you follow creationist websites and publications, you may have noticed a numbers of papers and articles that are sharply critical of statistical baraminology over the past few years. For those who don't follow these things, <i>statistical baraminology</i> is shorthand for a set of analytical tools that I've used for more than 20 years to explore the creationist concept of the "created kind." I've focused on these methods because they help me to explore fossil creatures, which cannot be addressed by the traditional hybridization method for identifying created kinds. I've tried to examine interesting case studies, like fossil horses, four-legged "whales," and feathered dinosaurs. For the past thirteen years, I've been nearly exclusively focused on hominins (so-called fossil "ape men"), but I've also published a significant survey of mammal baraminology. Last year, I <a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2021/07/finding-created-kinds.html">addressed a very significant challenge to the methods</a>, and I was extremely grateful for the opportunity to do so.</p><p>I confess that this research has been fascinating and surprising in great ways. I'm continually surprised by how robustly <a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2021/11/hominins-was-i-wrong.html">hominins sort into groups</a>, by how much distance correlation can be <a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2021/07/finding-created-kinds.html">corroborated by other clustering methods</a>, and by how often I seem to find created kinds in roughly the place I think they ought to be. I continue to find that intermediate forms like feathered dinosaurs or four-legged "whales" appear to be members of their own unique created kinds rather than true evolutionary transitions. At the same time, I'm also cautious and skeptical. I continue to get results that are hard to interpret. There are plenty of puzzling results in my mammal papers, Galapagos monograph, and <i>Animal and Plant Baramins</i>. I'm still not sure what to make of <i>Homo floresiensis</i>, which for some reason doesn't cluster with any other taxa. But there are lots of reasons that these weird results might happen, and those reasons are sometimes testable. So we should keep exploring!<br /></p><p></p><p>That's my history with statistical baraminology in a nutshell. As for the published criticisms, I have not formally responded to most of them. Other than some comments on hominin baraminology five years ago, and papers last year, I've said pretty much nothing to the stream of criticism. My silence was and is motivated by not wishing to get into a protracted fight. In my younger days, I would have gladly joined the fray, but I don't want to fight any more. "Love your neighbor" is more than a platitude. Jesus really meant that. I've also remained silent because I have other things to do. I'm running a ministry, working on my own research, and so forth. I hesitate to allocate the time I would need to respond in detail to everything that's been written. Finally, I've been reluctant to address most of these criticisms because they lack substance. They are largely just misunderstandings or misapplications of statistical baraminology, and correcting them publicly is as awkward as reading them. But I have been encouraged by some folks to say <i>something</i>, so this is the best I can do for now.</p><p>First, I will remind my readers that I'm a young-age creationist. I believe the universe is only thousands of years old and that God created all of what we see in just a week's time. I also believe that science is a great tool for understanding God's creation, and I believe that studying God's Word the Bible is just as important as the science. I also recognize that the Bible does not address every question that I have. I fervently believe that humans are a special creation made in God's image and not evolved from apes, but the Bible does not tell me what to think about Neandertals. There, I have to use science to evaluate the evidence and make an informed decision. There are lots and lots of questions that science brings up that the Bible does not answer directly, but the framework the Bible describes allows us to place nearly everything into a creation model context. So the Bible may not spell out what to think about four-legged whales, Neandertals, or feathered dinosaurs, but it provides a lot of guidance about the creation of animals that lets me figure out where they might go in a creation model.</p><p>With that said, should we "trust" the information reported by evolutionary scientists? That's a complicated question. Insofar as the entire scientific enterprise depends on accurate reporting of results, then yes, we have no choice but to trust their data reporting. Since the public nature of scientific publication guarantees that your mistakes will be part of the record, there's a strong motive to make sure your work is accurate, and that's a good reason to accept published data as it is. Furthermore, given that 90% of creationist research depends on reinterpreting published data, nearly all of creationist research would grind to a halt if we stopped trusting basic data reporting. So when it comes to information about fossils (like measurements, anatomical descriptions, and so forth), I would trust an evolutionary scientist who has examined the fossils personally before I trusted an amateur creationist who has not. There's nothing about being an "evolutionist" that makes a person inherently untrustworthy when it comes to reporting basic data (I would not say the same for reporting interpretations of data, which must be treated with a great deal of skepticism).<br /></p><p>That said, no scientist <i>really</i> "trusts" much of anything. Scientists always try to replicate earlier results, and in that regard I'm no different. My big surveys (mentioned above) have looked at a lot of published character matrices only because I wanted to generate a lot of case studies that others could follow up on. I wanted to get a sense of what we could see as a first approximation. With hominins, however, I've been far more critical to the point where I went through all 391 published characters to find more information on <i>Homo floresiensis</i>. Now, I'm generating even more original data from casts, scans, and photographs. Do I "trust" scientists to report accurately? Yes but no.</p><p>What I don't want to do is get to the point where I reject methods or data only because it does not conform to my preconceived notions about creation. Science is emphatically <i>not</i> a tool to confirm our biases and preconceived beliefs. That's quite literally the opposite of science. Or maybe I should say that that's more of a postmodern, deconstructionist stereotype where science is culturally constructed and not producing actual knowledge. I'm a realist, and I don't believe that science is just a word game. Unless I have a good reason to reject my methods or results, I'm not likely to do it. Especially when I keep getting the same result. But I still retain that scientific skepticism that drives me to keep exploring. It shouldn't need saying that baraminology is not infallible.<br /></p><p>Another important point to remember is that the purported existence of feathered dinosaurs or four-legged whales or bipedal apes is not really a question that's suitable for baraminology. The categories "dinosaur," "whale," or "ape" almost certainly contain more than one created kind, and those sorts of categories aren't exactly what statistical baraminology is after. I dabbled a little with these kinds of categories when examining birds and dinosaurs, but we did not try to identify any created kinds in that study. We simply noted places where discontinuity between groups of created kinds was evident. Only in evolutionary biology does it make sense to be dogmatic about whether a thing is a "bird" or a "dinosaur" because those groups really exist as branches of the evolutionary tree. We creationists don't accept a single evolutionary tree, so "bird" and "dinosaur" take on different meanings as groups of baramins. And as far as I can see from my experience, there are a lot of weird cases where I'm not sure what to call a fossil. That does not undermine creation because I can still identify created kinds that those creatures might belong to. But whether or not feathers are limited to an artificial category called "bird" is not a hill worth dying on. It's certainly inappropriate to use it as a litmus test of orthodoxy or a basis for harassing people.</p><p>Furthermore, whether australopiths walked upright or some dinosaurs had feathers is a question of the fossil evidence rather than statistical baraminology. Even when we can all agree that certain fossils are called australopiths or dinosaurs, the attributes of the fossils themselves determine their attributes. Statistical baraminology has nothing to do with it. If I find a dozen traits in australopiths that match what I expect from a biped, then it's sensible to conclude that they walked upright. We can debate what those attributes might be and how to interpret them, but statistical baraminology is only suitable for telling whether this or that group of fossils belongs to a created kind or not. It can't tell you if dinosaurs had feathers or australopiths walked around on two legs.</p><p>To the question of the methods themselves, particularly distance correlation, it is quite easy to use it in an arbitrary fashion that yields absurd results. This was a subject I discussed in detail with colleagues twenty years ago. The question is deceptively simple: What is the created kind, and where should we look for them? After a detailed study of the Hebrew term <i>min</i> ("kind"), we became skeptical that <i>min</i> was ever intended to be a technical category, a biological "created kind." But looking at the Genesis description of creation, I could see a few important features. First, Genesis 1 mentions no species by name (except maybe human beings), so when we look at evidence of species change, the Bible didn't seem to prohibit that <i>per se</i>. At the same time, Genesis 1 does mention large groups of creatures such as wild animals, beasts of the field, flying things, creeping things, and swimming things. The picture at the conclusion of creation week is one of a fully functional creation with an intact ecosystem of multiple sorts of animals. That would preclude evolution of all things from a common ancestor, but I think we can probably get even more specific. For example, we might think that "creeping thing" could include rats and mice, which are rodents. But other rodents are much larger, like beavers or capybaras, and maybe they wouldn't be creeping things? So maybe the mammalian order Rodentia is really composed of multiple baramins? Now that's a bit fuzzy and speculative, but you can do similar reasoning with other groups. "Beasts of the field" would probably include cows and sheep, which are members of Artiodactyla. They would presumably be separate from other artiodactyls like the deer, which are wild animals. Putting all that together, I thought maybe something between species and order should be where we look for the created kind. Since I know that members of different genera can cross and produce offspring (and are therefore members of the same created kind), I further narrowed my search to families. And that's consistent with historical claims of creationist scholars in previous generations. Not all of them of course, but there were those who believed the created kinds were approximated in today's world by families. That gave me a context of where to look for created kinds. Are they always families? No, but it's a place to start looking, and it seems to come up a lot in baraminology research: Canidae, Equidae, Felidae are all mammal families that we suspect are created kinds.<br /></p><p>Back to distance correlation, I've long acknowledged that any set of characters and any set of taxa might produce a clear set of clusters that may not have anything to do with created kinds. If I'm comparing a human, aardvark, and rat to a heron, robin, and cardinal, then I'm likely to find two clusters with humans in the same cluster as the other mammals. But that is not a created kind. It's just a cluster. Likewise, I could very easily find a set of characteristics that would distinguish European people from Asian people, but again, that would obviously be silly. Why? Because we have independent reasons for where we think created kinds will be, and we don't just find clusters and call them "baramins." That's wrong.</p><p>In the same way, merely finding significant, positive distance correlation does not automatically mean that the two taxa being compared belong to the same created kind. And if you have significant, negative distance correlation, that does not automatically mean that the two taxa are in separate created kinds. That's an oddly common misconception that is emphatically wrong (and always has been). Distance correlation only tells you one thing, whether or not the distances from two different taxa to the same third taxa are similar or different. That in turn might tell you something about whether they are close together or far apart in character "space." And if you see certain patterns of positive and negative correlations, you could conclude that a particular group of taxa forms a cluster that is separate from other taxa. And then, if and only if that group conforms to what we independently think might be a created kind should we ever conclude that a cluster probably represents a created kind. Otherwise it's just a cluster. (We might also conclude there is a discontinuity between groups of created kinds if we're looking at clusters that include members of multiple created kinds.)<br /></p><p>That said, is it appropriate to apply statistical baraminology and specifically distance correlation clustering to a group of taxa that do not conform to what we think is a created kind? Certainly, but what we might find is kind of a mystery right now. I've had people repeatedly tell me that we can find "discontinuity" or "created kinds" at every taxonomic level, which at this point is pure speculation. We don't have enough data yet to make that conclusion. My experience has shown repeatedly that distance correlation within a created kind tends to produce poor clustering. Same deal with distance correlation with many created kinds. There are counter examples of course, but the question here is the trend: What do we see when we look at a lot of these kinds of character sets? Right now, we don't know yet.</p><p>Speaking of counter examples, one counter example rarely falsifies much of anything in science. It's possible that a particularly well established counter example will overturn a model, but in the nebulous area of cluster analysis, where specialists can't define what "cluster" even means, counter examples merely require a more careful examination to see why they're counter examples.</p><p>Let's talk about a few hypothetical examples. Let's say I selected a good set of characteristics from a sample of taxa that included a dozen different primate species from a dozen different families. What will distance correlation show? It might show a mess, with no clear clustering or it might show clustering. What it probably won't show is a created kind. Why? It's a clustering method that compares distances within a group to distances between groups. If I have only one taxon in each group that I think is a created kind, then there's no within-group distances to compare. In that case, distance correlation can only show us clustering of multiple created kinds.</p><p>Or perhaps I want to look at characteristics of different groups of the same species. Maybe I want to look at twenty different breeds of cattle. In that case, whatever clustering I find is not a created kind, because I have good independent evidence that tells me that all cattle belong to a single created kind. Likewise, it is erroneous to focus on individual distance correlations. Distance correlation is all about finding clusters, but there are a number of different reasons that correlations might occur. Often, when doing distance correlation on a single cluster, I find a random hodgepodge of positive and negative correlations or I find poorly resolved clusters that share a lot of examples of significant, positive correlation. Should these results influence the way I interpret clusters that I think really are created kinds? They might, especially if we find lots of examples of putative "created kinds" within groups of taxa that we believe represent single created kinds.<br /></p><p>So that's all I have time for right now. In closing, none of what I've written here is new. It's all explained in previous publications dating back twenty years. I'm not saying anything here that's all that different from what I've put in <i>Understanding the Pattern of Life</i> and papers published since then. I'm merely trying to explain how I have <i>always</i> understood the work I'm doing.</p><p>One more question: Is baraminology bogus? The jury's still out, but it's not nearly as flawed as my critics believe.<br /></p><p>Now I need to get back to the work that I'm actually paid to do. Thanks for reading. May the Lord bless you and keep you and give you peace.<br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-79760777995746473642022-08-11T15:35:00.001-04:002022-08-11T15:35:14.356-04:00A pre-Clovis butchered mammoth?<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTlhaCucr5Uvc6s-FZKYQy_1vDBLUtnU7xNEOMjKnAgCmEAa2tB6LQ7ZtIqZuzd62WZvdC5ME7J1CAUyxqdAbXJQC7HW7O-jP_plSM7Fs3KnbrpBSG8zLEF-gpPWtDn1Z-87JcWZxsMOaazTBHQLWTA6EGTPkqYU1Ob7jQHRg-LfIWw-qemwg2UQgd/s640/mammoth-3599754_640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="426" data-original-width="640" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTlhaCucr5Uvc6s-FZKYQy_1vDBLUtnU7xNEOMjKnAgCmEAa2tB6LQ7ZtIqZuzd62WZvdC5ME7J1CAUyxqdAbXJQC7HW7O-jP_plSM7Fs3KnbrpBSG8zLEF-gpPWtDn1Z-87JcWZxsMOaazTBHQLWTA6EGTPkqYU1Ob7jQHRg-LfIWw-qemwg2UQgd/s320/mammoth-3599754_640.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>I was going to put this article on <a href="https://humangenesis.org/">Human Genesis</a>, but the more I thought about it, the more questions I had. So my thoughts are here for a more technical discussion instead.</p><p>In <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2022.903795/full">a new paper</a> in the journal <i>Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution</i>, a team of researchers led by Tim Rowe of the University of Texas presents a very detailed analysis of mammoth remains found on property owned by Rowe himself (<a href="https://phys.org/news/2022-08-mexico-mammoths-evidence-early-humans.html">see commentary here</a>). Rowe is a vertebrate paleontologist, so this is a little out of his normal wheelhouse. The <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2022.903795/full">paper is open access</a>, so you can read it all and check my claims yourself, which I encourage you to do.</p><p>The bones are the primary story here. Rowe and colleagues describe in detail attributes of the bones that are consistent with other accepted mammoth butchery sites. The bones are smashed in patterns that are really only consistent with intentional smashing with pretty heavy implements (probably rocks). The bones are essentially pulverized, which is consistent with human activity intended to extract materials from the bones (e.g., grease, marrow, brains). There are "butterfly fragments" present that occur when long bones are struck hard enough to knock pieces off of them. These are only found where people have been banging at bones. Other bone fragments present show the marks of being used as tools themselves, including "retouching." One rib shows some jagged, parallel cut marks. Microanalysis of the sediment in which the bones were buried reveals tiny bits of material formed by fire, as well as burned fish remains. The fish remains are really weird, because the site is on a hillside, and fish are unlikely to be there naturally. They must have been brought to the site. The researchers also found a handful of small stone tool flakes that they believe are associated with the mammoth skeleton.</p><p>So all of that makes it seem pretty likely that the mammoth remains were butchered by people, and there was a fire there, possibly where they cooked some fish. The real eye-opener was the carbon dating of about 37,000 years before present on one of the bone fragments. That's considerably earlier than the conventionally-accepted date of the settling of the Americas. The consensus view among anthropologists is that the Clovis culture, represented by a very distinctive type of stone point found all over North America, are the first settlers of the Americas. That's about 12,000 years ago on the conventional timescale. </p><p>A mammoth butchery site considerably earlier than that is surprising, although not unprecedented. On Human Genesis, I've noted a few of these, including a Mexican cave thought to contain stone tools from before 26,000 years ago on the conventional timescale (<a href="https://humangenesis.org/2020/08/10/earliest-americans-in-a-mexican-cave/">see here</a>). What's new about this paper is that Rowe and colleagues present an interesting hypothesis that tries to split the difference. They agree that the Clovis culture coincides with the genetic evidence indicating the ancestors of native Americans came over at the same time. But they cite new genetic evidence indicating genetic ancestry that is today found only in southeast Asia and some South American tribes. They argue that these genes represent an earlier population that started in east Asia and moved to the Americas. These earlier people are responsible for things like this mammoth butchery. Then later, the people who made Clovis tools moved in and essentially replaced the earlier population, leaving only small traces of them in the genes of some tribes. So their model emphasizes two settlements of the Americas, with one considerably older than the lineages that gave rise to today's native American tribes.</p><p>Now for my questions. I don't think there are problems <i>per se</i>, but I feel like the paper is not complete. That incompleteness might account for the fact that this isn't published in a more appropriate venue like <i>Quaternary Science</i> and is published in <i>Frontiers</i> as a "Hypothesis and Theory Article." I don't know though. I'm just noticing this is a weird place to put an archaeology paper, but the technical chemistry and CT work might have made it a weird fit for a traditional anthro journal. I don't know.<br /></p><p>Question #1: They report the presence of sandstone cobbles and a large 50-lb boulder that they speculate would have been used as a hammerstone or anvil. Given the smashed bones, I would think that rocks used to smash the bones would leave some kind of marks on the stones. Maybe I'm wrong about that. It's not my expertise, but with so many cobbles reported, I would have thought they would have examined them to discover if there were marks on the stones or other evidence that they were used as tools.</p><p>Question #2: They report the presence of burn remnants around the mammoth, but I think they could have made a better case for localized burning if they'd excavated material from outside the mammoth remains to show that burn remnants <i>do not</i> occur there. Otherwise, I'm not sure they can argue that this wasn't a wild fire. Then again the fish remains are pretty weird.</p><p>Question #3: Why date only one bone? Granted, it was one of those butterfly fragments that are very likely produced by human activity, but I've seen other archaeology and anthropology papers present dates on lots of specimens. I understand that these bones are really likely to be from the same animal, but still... dating a second bone would have really clinched it, I think.<br /></p><p>Question #4: Where are the stone tools? If people did butcher this mammoth with stone tools, where did they go? Why are there only tiny remnants of stone tool flakes? In other butchery sites, we find stone tools littering the site, so why are they not here? Or are they (see Question #1)?</p><p>Question #5: Why aren't there more cut marks on the bones? Dismembering an animal with stone tools leaves behind telltale fine cut marks, but here they report two highly-dismembered animals (a female mammoth and calf), yet they indicate only two very large and jagged cut marks on one rib.</p><p>Given all of this, the site is very intriguing and is consistent with other sites of suspected pre-Clovis human activity, but these questions bug me. I'd like to think this was a pre-Clovis site, and the evidence they've described seems compelling. But I still have questions.</p><p>Rowe et al. 2022. <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2022.903795/full">Human Occupation of the North American Colorado Plateau ∼37,000 Years Ago</a>. <i>Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution</i> 10.3389/fevo.2022.903795.<br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-19249440926991423792022-08-07T20:39:00.001-04:002022-08-07T20:39:08.037-04:00Beware temptation<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3j1ga8ZtLCK3VT_sxi5ZqoKELI_cCU-xpRG4oe2_a4VRZgn8zcjEAwYxHQi3cAoY6nG9W6hB21oDv00sDptpen1sVZLQ4NLfGbK40-tLtGti8IadLZoZ3FqEWZ6erZYg09ZlstG6Lwu4RKqCiGVGsTBfBO-zLh-t2G1gLqJkmjtSeYnY_2GRYyuXY/s640/light-3176887_640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3j1ga8ZtLCK3VT_sxi5ZqoKELI_cCU-xpRG4oe2_a4VRZgn8zcjEAwYxHQi3cAoY6nG9W6hB21oDv00sDptpen1sVZLQ4NLfGbK40-tLtGti8IadLZoZ3FqEWZ6erZYg09ZlstG6Lwu4RKqCiGVGsTBfBO-zLh-t2G1gLqJkmjtSeYnY_2GRYyuXY/w400-h225/light-3176887_640.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />I've been thinking a lot about Galatians today.<p></p><p></p><blockquote>Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.<br /><br />If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. (Gal. 5:19-26, ESV)</blockquote>The works of the flesh have the usual suspects but also enmity, strife, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, and envy. It's easy for us to look at all those gross sins and think, <i>I don't do that, I'm OK</i>. Yet how often do we get into fights or arguments over things that simply don't matter? How often do we think of arguing and grudges with the same disgust we reserve for sorcery or idolatry?<p></p><p>The fruit of the Spirit is the opposite mostly of divisiveness: love, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. The fruit of the Spirit is a divine, miraculous, God-given unity of believers. As Jesus said, that's how the world will know we are Christians, our love for each other.</p><p>A couple corollaries come to mind: When trying to discern dangers to the body of Christ, those who insist on dividing the body of Christ based on irrelevant opinions should set off just as many alarm bells as those who ask us to overlook or even affirm gross sin. Perhaps just as important, when we find ourselves unfairly attacked by divisive Christians, we must not yield to the temptation to react in kind. If there comes a time we must break fellowship (God forbid), it should not be because of our anger or strife or envy but theirs. And that requires so much divine wisdom, I don't know how any of us can achieve it. May God have mercy on us! God help us all!<br /></p><p>Let us be as careful of the sin of strife as we are of the more public and "obvious" sins.<br /></p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-10608710246266415222022-07-28T06:00:00.001-04:002022-07-28T06:00:00.166-04:00Origins 2022: Fun Times!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkTR5_H-YVfGY8e_F8asukuP-e6G7MhKVItHYEG_7H-nJtu-3yhmL2TAhhib5KVg0tsquJku7C0IJmOrjr-dlzzMUheIcmFRlqEQSH0hET94kZzzXgfkVZk0W7kF8f4A18l_IZ-nfsnTwqLogehnVm2TT0atxeSEXESwQhdZUZm_59kWIg-joIAYi7/s4032/20220725_164706.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2268" data-original-width="4032" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkTR5_H-YVfGY8e_F8asukuP-e6G7MhKVItHYEG_7H-nJtu-3yhmL2TAhhib5KVg0tsquJku7C0IJmOrjr-dlzzMUheIcmFRlqEQSH0hET94kZzzXgfkVZk0W7kF8f4A18l_IZ-nfsnTwqLogehnVm2TT0atxeSEXESwQhdZUZm_59kWIg-joIAYi7/w400-h225/20220725_164706.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /> Well, despite a lot of weird setbacks this year, we've finished another mostly smooth and successful Origins conference. This is our second year with the Creation Theology Society, and it's been a blessing to have those guys with us giving us good biblical guidance. That's their interdisciplinary panel discussion in the photo above. I've been very encouraged by all of their work.<br /><p></p><p>There was a lot of emphasis on baraminology and especially baraminology methods this year, and that was also exciting. Regular readers might remember that there's been criticism of baraminology over the past few years (some of it good and some of it not so good), and despite my work showing that the methods aren't as bad as everyone says, it's definitely nice to see a real effort to diversify.<br /></p><p>As always, the conference has also been a fertile time for good ideas. I talked to folks about the historical Abraham and what that means for our understanding of creation, the language of DNA (which is something I've been interested in for a looooooooong time), developing molecular methods for baraminology, and public presentation of my human origins research. Expect to see the fruit of some of these projects in the future. I'm pretty excited.</p><p>My favorite talk was Steve Austin's presentation of his work looking for evidence of the ancient Hopi Lake, upstream of the Grand Canyon. He just finished up some field work with drones and showed some impressive evidence of ancient shorelines. Even I could see the evidence he was talking about. The lake's all dried up now, but the shoreline remains. Very cool stuff.</p><p>Next year is ICC, and the Origins conference will go on a bit of hiatus. We won't have the normal abstract presentations, but we will be there in some way. Thanks to everyone who came to the conference, and I'm looking forward to 2023!</p><p>Now I'm off to a certain natural history museum to do some research for my hominin project. Maybe I'll post a little update. Stay tuned!<br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-49434529350126333102022-07-27T06:00:00.004-04:002022-07-27T06:00:00.157-04:00Origins 2022: My contributions<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFqJjCohUiSn6xLHfxlO3xb3-6GqQomDcq3yxINZ99AS1mXHtfJiM6TWyiLO5b2qSyiyXSowVQPCBGUhNY7KZHUyM0fSlIGeD5_cZMYBqL6Dp_47D87CKXP052zPkw4nNu8OU2D-0cs22WhVLQgqAd8ox9BVrYASc9Ij5zU2b1FqPkR2R-jZIR4Zvs/s3216/Origins2022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1808" data-original-width="3216" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFqJjCohUiSn6xLHfxlO3xb3-6GqQomDcq3yxINZ99AS1mXHtfJiM6TWyiLO5b2qSyiyXSowVQPCBGUhNY7KZHUyM0fSlIGeD5_cZMYBqL6Dp_47D87CKXP052zPkw4nNu8OU2D-0cs22WhVLQgqAd8ox9BVrYASc9Ij5zU2b1FqPkR2R-jZIR4Zvs/w400-h225/Origins2022.jpg" width="400" /></a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Today was the last day of Origins 2022 (sad), and I presented some of the work we've been doing at Core Academy. First, we talked a bit about our work with human fossils and origins. For this presentation, we indulged a bit in speculating about the ancestral form of humanity. It's a really difficult problem. I would guess that most modern creationists consider our appearance as <i>Homo sapiens</i> to be the original form of humanity. In other words, Noah and family looked like us (Noah is as far back as we can extrapolate with the presently known fossils and DNA). I've long thought that was just prejudice. We naturally assume that people are like us, so of course Noah looked like us. The problem is that the fossil record preserves humans that don't look much like us at all. So how should we understand their appearance? I wish I could tell you that we had a good answer, but figuring out the ancestral human form is just a really difficult problem. What we ended up showing is that the average human form (averaging the different named human taxa) isn't very like <i>Homo sapiens</i>. We're kind of an outlier, and there isn't much reason to assume that our ancestors looked exactly like us.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Next, I tried to develop a way of placing the Neandertals into a post-Flood context. I reasoned that cave formation might give us a kind of anchor in creationist chronology. I noticed in one publication that a cave containing Neandertal remains was cut into Mesozoic limestone, and I knew that all the creationist geologists I know would call that a Flood-formed rock. So I figured the cave could not have existed before the Flood. That led to survey 104 Neandertal sites, where I found that 89 of them were caves or rockshelters. Of those, not a single cave was cut into Precambrian rock. They were all caves cut into Flood rock or maybe post-Flood rock. And that means that the contents of those caves could not have been deposited before the Flood. Neandertals are post-Flood.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Finally I presented a paper from one of our students on testing patterns in the fossil record. That was part of a much larger project that we're collaborating with Paul Garner on. We're basically looking for correlations between evolutionary models of origins and the order of the fossil record. We hope to have something ready to publish in the very near future.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I'll post another summary of other talks in the very near future. Meanwhile you can check out the abstracts right here: <a href="https://coresci.org/jcts/index.php/jctsb/issue/view/31">Creation Biology Society</a> and <a href="https://coresci.org/jcts/index.php/jctsc/issue/view/32">Creation Geology Society</a>.<br /></div><p></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-47145363594361822582022-07-18T12:58:00.002-04:002022-07-18T12:58:43.985-04:00Give me a break - Ken Ham's hyperevolution<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrzbbM1weJ5W5wb7_wIQhKToJRfR90K9PWG83Y27nixPM1Pwk-azObKxeqOPS6_CAGn6N27a2b7ZasRMkBfhrB9llfItluhbYLiVAeW6nSrKnCBDN1jSe-pCr0RsA0f7avhB5YnSKdFkvCSL4kKKyNoBUHPAepEOrik0kucpDx44XNBf4LrZ4DJvT-/s1920/noahs-ark-2440498_1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1043" data-original-width="1920" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrzbbM1weJ5W5wb7_wIQhKToJRfR90K9PWG83Y27nixPM1Pwk-azObKxeqOPS6_CAGn6N27a2b7ZasRMkBfhrB9llfItluhbYLiVAeW6nSrKnCBDN1jSe-pCr0RsA0f7avhB5YnSKdFkvCSL4kKKyNoBUHPAepEOrik0kucpDx44XNBf4LrZ4DJvT-/w400-h217/noahs-ark-2440498_1920.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>Give me a break.</p><p>In the past couple months I've heard on more than one occasion the insinuation that somehow creationists are really evolutionists so the creation/evolution debate has radically changed. Why? Because Ken Ham now endorses "hyperevolution" in the Ark Encounter, and that's new! Creationists have given up on creationism and now just accept an absurd form of evolution. WOW! "He's more of an evolutionist than I am!"<br /></p><p>Give me a break.</p><p>I hope I can maintain a charitable attitude here, but this emerging attitude is so ludicrous I'm going to have a really hard time doing that.</p><p>First of all, this isn't Ken Ham's original idea, any more than it's my original idea. I've complained about this before (<a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2020/08/created-kinds-are-not-new.html">see here</a>), but the true history of creationist thought is not really catching on. There just seems to be a gut-level appeal to saying that Ken Ham is more evolutionist than the evolutionists!</p><p>Except that this is a ludicrous example of false equivalency. Why? Let's think through the ways the word <i>evolution</i> can be used.</p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Evolution can refer to true microevolutionary fluctuations within a population, such as the changes in beak shape observed by Peter and Rosemary Grant in the Galapagos.</li><li>Evolution can refer to the emergence of new species or the idea that very similar species are related to a common ancestor. This can be illustrated by the putative relationships of the species of Galapagos mockingbirds, which are all very similar to one another yet still placed in different species. The reason we find them together in Galapagos is because there was once only one Galapagos mockingbird species that spread through the different islands.</li><li>Evolution can refer in a more general sense to the development of life on this planet as purportedly depicted in the fossil record.</li><li>Evolution can refer to a very specific claim that all life on this planet is related to a common ancestral population, i.e. universal common ancestry.</li><li>Evolution can refer to particular examples of evolution, like horse evolution, whale evolution, the transition from dinosaurs to birds, or the transition of ape-like animals to human beings.</li></ol><p>There's an attitude today that these different senses of evolution all follow logically and inevitably from the very first sense. In other words, if you accept microevolutionary fluctuations, then you must as a rational being accept everything else. It's just a row of dominoes.</p><p>But that's clearly incorrect. Frankly, it can't be more obviously wrong. Fluctuations within a population, even when they clearly demonstrate natural selection, cannot <i>alone</i> explain to us the origin of species. There must be other evidence added to the mix, the sort of evidence marshaled to support evolution sense #2, speciation and species relationships. Only when we see both sorts of evidences (for 1 and 2) would we be justified in thinking that sense 1 has anything to do with sense 2. Likewise, even if speciation were true, that doesn't necessarily lead us to senses 3-5. For example, the fossil or genome record could be otherwise, which would then falsify 3 or 4, while leaving 1 and 2 intact. And if the fossil record were otherwise, we wouldn't even talk about the bird-dino transition or the evolution of hominins. These could be mysterious and unattested.</p><p>But you say, the evidence is not otherwise, and all the evidence supports evolution, therefore the senses of evolution fall together like a row of dominoes. But that's not true either. It's at least possible that microevolutionary fluctuations due to natural selection have little to do with the emergence of new species. Maybe speciation has more to do with particular types of variations that emerge, along the lines of Goldschmidt's macromutation model, and natural selection plays only a trivial role. That's really one of the main questions in the creation/evolution debate: To what extent does the undeniable evidence of microevolutionary change or the compelling evidence of speciation relate to other sorts of evidence, like the fossil record or comparative genomics?</p><p>And there is other evidence, particularly biblical or theological considerations, that we bring to bear on evolution in the sense of 3-5. Issues such as a biblically-derived sense of the antiquity of the earth and the relationship of animal death to creation definitely have relevance to these questions in the creationist mindset.</p><p>But despite all that, let's just look at the reality of what Ken Ham believes about the senses of evolution:</p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Evolution as microevolutionary fluctuations in populations. I might be wrong, but I can't think of any examples from the last twenty years in which he's rejected this sense of evolution. We could dig up plenty of examples where he objects to calling this <i>evolution</i> or where he goes on to say that this doesn't support "molecules to man" evolution. But the reality of fluctuating finch beaks doesn't seem to bother him.</li><li>Evolution as speciation or species relationship. This is a bit more murky. I have always perceived him as being very careful in his language: Species come from created kinds. I confess I don't fully grasp his point here, but I think he means that the created organisms were a different sort of category than modern species. Species don't just change into other species. Whatever he means, he's always insistent that these "changes" only take place within the confines of those original created kinds. There is no change from one kind of another.</li><li>Evolution as a gradual development of life on this planet. Obviously he rejects this. Life was created suddenly. It did not gradually develop.</li><li>Evolution as universal common ancestry. Again, he totally rejects this claim.</li><li>Evolution as specific instances. It sort of depends on the example, but mostly these are rejected. Dino to bird, land animal to whale, ape to human are all rejected.</li></ol><p>So for these five senses of evolution, Ken Ham sort of is OK with ONE as long as you don't call it evolution, and unclear on sense 2, and rejects 3-5. So "Ken Ham's Hyperevolution" is nothing shocking at all and really isn't newsworthy. Except for that one little bit: he doesn't like calling it "evolution."</p><p>Just like Ken Ham, I am quite resistant to calling changes within created kinds "evolution" for the simple reason that the popular imagination identifies evolution with sense 3: the gradual development of life on this planet. As a scientist and scholar, I can understand using "evolution" to describe senses 1-2, but as an educator, I understand that doing so leads to confusion. I want to make sure that I'm fully understood by my audience, I need to find a way to communicate that to the audience. I do not advocate universal common ancestry or interpreting the fossil record as a gradual development of living things, and that's a critical distinction.</p><p>Now you might say, Hey, speciation <i>is</i> evolution; you know it; and you're just dishonest because you won't admit it. And I think that's totally wrong. What I advocate differs in very important ways from the senses of evolution, and hence I think it's worthy of either a new name or at least not confusing people with the same name. I do not accept universal common ancestry. I do not believe the fossil record preserves a record of the gradual development of life on this planet. I do not accept the dino-bird or ape-human transitions. I do not believe that recognizing speciation or microevolution necessarily requires me to accept these other senses of evolution. On top of all this, add the stipulation that the earth is only thousands of years old, and I really stand out quite starkly from anything sensibly called "evolution." Therefore I think it's not only valid but imperative that we distinguish my position from "evolution," because they're not remotely the same.</p><p>To me then if anyone is being disingenuous, it's those who want to call Ken Ham an evolutionist, when it's so obviously false. If we care about honesty and fair treatment of people (loving your neighbor and loving your enemy), we should be very interested in speaking carefully and truthfully about that person. Ken Ham is not a hyperevolutionist. Neither am I. We are creationists.<br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-17624566124315065262022-05-09T10:58:00.000-04:002022-05-09T10:58:01.979-04:00The Tower of Babel part 1<p>I don't usually do a lot of cross-promotion (maybe I should?) , but today's podcast episode is a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy!<br /></p><p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RpvDVocjTPU" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-6556592522085037522022-04-11T12:47:00.002-04:002022-04-11T13:14:14.500-04:00Teaching, hearing, learning<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7nLXpbEwj_l67UDCHbcjkCT8dIBWXpF0y0dHKhyUHoh_725O8U_-g9S7tCvWwuH8KFxnDwO2B4XpPOsiEprFtWdy0sNMWdxxjdZ68hFNiEGVvQw3431evDPPiA2Px4Y8RdXDsm1kNLCeB91KAR6brP-MawAKBL2_pS5kyVdMP9sAcEl3TtI-7IEx-/s972/dumpster_small.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="648" data-original-width="972" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7nLXpbEwj_l67UDCHbcjkCT8dIBWXpF0y0dHKhyUHoh_725O8U_-g9S7tCvWwuH8KFxnDwO2B4XpPOsiEprFtWdy0sNMWdxxjdZ68hFNiEGVvQw3431evDPPiA2Px4Y8RdXDsm1kNLCeB91KAR6brP-MawAKBL2_pS5kyVdMP9sAcEl3TtI-7IEx-/w400-h266/dumpster_small.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>It's weird to think that I'm old enough now that students can come back to me as adults to tell me what they thought of my teaching. Sometimes that's a nice experience, because students really took my guidance and teaching to heart and became better people and better scholars for it. Other encounters make me wonder if I taught anyone anything. And then there are those instances where people think I've taught them things that I never did or would even consider. I have been thoroughly misunderstood on more occasions than I care to remember, even on issues where I made my position perfectly, crystal clear. Some folks, even after reading a large amount of my work, still have no idea what I actually believe and think I should be tossed out with the rest of the garbage.</p><p>I've been thinking about this as I've seen a lot of people lately in the creation/evolution debate wildly misunderstand and misrepresent each other. I recently read a book on theistic evolution that presented three examples of young earth creationist beliefs that were supposed to illustrate how silly we are. Two of those beliefs are things creationists don't actually believe, and the other objection was that we propose our own unique scientific models! It's so very strange to read books critical of a position that I'm supposed to hold but that I do not even recognize, sometimes by very well-known authors. It happens far too often.<br /></p><p>Then on social media, things are even worse. I've seen people claim that I believe things that I do not. I've seen people claim that mainstream creationist positions are things that no creationist would ever believe. In a Facebook group I once saw a commenter angrily affirming the "beliefs" of a prominent creationist organization even as a well-known employee of that same organization tried to explain that that wasn't at all what they believed. Did he listen? Nah, anonymous person "knew better" than the guy who actually works there. Breathtaking.<br /></p><p>What to do? I don't know what to do about other people, but maybe I can do some things myself.<br /></p><p>1. Listen. Really listen. Listen carefully and generously. Don't listen to formulate my own critique. Listen to understand as best as I can possibly understand. Forget about the strawmen that live in my brain and inspire my own beliefs. Listen well.</p><p>2. Forgive. Seeing myself so frequently misunderstood, I've really come to see how much teaching and communication is a two-way street. I can communicate excellently, but if the learner brings baggage and preconceptions and confusion, all that excellent communication can spin off some crazy errors. That's not even mentioning the personal hurts and scars we all do our best to ignore or hide. I think a lot of people in the creation/evolution world have some traumatic experiences in their background, and that too often distorts our judgment. So be generous and gracious with those who misunderstand. I don't know what kind of baggage they're dragging along to my lectures, and it's hard to know how my words will be received as a result.<br /></p><p>3. Shut up. That may be a little crass, but let's be brutally honest. With something so deeply personal and profoundly important as our understanding of God's creation, it's very easy to jump to conclusions, take offense, and lash out. I am very good at it. Over the decades of my life, I have honed my sarcasm and snark to an exquisite artform. And it's a hindrance more than a help. I've found that when I'm being pushed to respond to something, often the best thing to do is to pause and think carefully in silence. Sometimes I need to not react and just process. Sometimes I need to privately fume and get it out of my system before I can think clearly about a subject. This is a hard one, especially when people are actively lashing out at me, and I want to hit back. Sometimes I think about the baggage people are carrying, and that helps me think about mercy instead of revenge.</p><p>I'm writing all this down not because I want you to think that I'm better than you but because I've been kind of angry and sad lately at arrogant and crude mistreatments of myself and my colleagues. I need to remind myself of these things and pull up that root of bitterness.</p><p>So let's all pray for each other.<br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-62166851903064371852022-03-16T10:44:00.000-04:002022-03-16T10:44:15.835-04:00Them dry bones<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjQGocGhc8LzJkOTecEd7q2HSTGulhTDw0g9SJJhTJ9vC83c-I_hHkIMYFXxjzO8VZUgOI5fxB6p-IOMv1Nba7oexywGe-15wfJGfjmwcOEnZe_KkXSjifFexXKYS5yIEekPe0m1LHNzymAr_q1gW08_VlrfOVt5MvFcZTr39l3RITn15xHFQAsi1qc=s1800" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="942" data-original-width="1800" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjQGocGhc8LzJkOTecEd7q2HSTGulhTDw0g9SJJhTJ9vC83c-I_hHkIMYFXxjzO8VZUgOI5fxB6p-IOMv1Nba7oexywGe-15wfJGfjmwcOEnZe_KkXSjifFexXKYS5yIEekPe0m1LHNzymAr_q1gW08_VlrfOVt5MvFcZTr39l3RITn15xHFQAsi1qc=w400-h209" width="400" /></a></div> <p></p><p>Last week, I had the privilege of spending the entire week with my student Peter as we worked together on his Sanders Scholarship research. We have been studying the "postcranial" skeleton (everything from the neck down) of hominins, as we continue to learn how to recognize what is human in the fossil record. This work flows from my ongoing baraminology research project studying the skulls of fossil hominins. In that research, I've found repeatedly a relatively clear distinction between human and nonhuman, most of which has been described here on my blog:</p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2010/05/homo-sediba.html"><i>Homo sediba</i>?</a></li><li><a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2016/05/lets-talk-about-homo-naledi.html">Let's talk about <i>Homo naledi</i></a></li><li><a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2016/12/recent-creationist-comments-on-homo.html">Recent creationist comments on <i>Homo naledi</i></a></li><li><a href="http://toddcwood.blogspot.com/2021/11/hominins-was-i-wrong.html">Hominins: Was I wrong????</a><br /></li></ul><p>The lingering issue that has always bothered me is the importance of the skeleton. It was the skeletal similarities, for example between <i>Homo sapiens</i> and the Nariokotome <i>Homo erectus</i> skeleton, that led me to strongly suspect that humans were recognizable from their skeletons. Likewise, the differences between even a <i>Homo erectus</i> skeleton and an australopith skeleton are pretty big. This has also played out in lots of different creationist writings on hominin fossils, where the skeletal differences were highlighted as really important for distinguishing human from ape.</p><p>Because of all that, I've been pretty interested in expanding my sample of characteristics to the rest of the body and not just the skull. With a lot of newly discovered skeletal material, I think we're at a point where we can start that process, and I've been working on it for about 18 months now. Last week's work was a huge leap forward.</p><p>Part of our process is to compare all the fossils to things where we already know the answer: living humans, chimps, and gorillas. Replica human skeletons are not difficult to come by, and Bryan College has a real one that I can examine as well. But chimps and gorillas are harder to come by. Thanks to some friendly (and providential) conversations unrelated to this project, I learned about gorilla and chimp skeletons that were available for study. We were given access to these skeletons last week, and we put in 9-hr days studying these remains to fill in missing information in our set of characteristics. We went from ~40% coverage for chimp and gorilla to 97% coverage. That was a gigantic boost to our work.</p><p>We couldn't have done any of this without support from the Sanders Scholarship Fund for my student Peter. This is the first time we've done an in-house project, and I was very excited to see firsthand what a difference these funds can make. To everyone who has ever contributed to the Sanders Scholarship Fund, THANK YOU! Your generosity makes a big difference in the lives of students and mentors and to the further growth of creationism. If you'd like to make a contribution to the fund, click that donate button at the bottom of this post. And thank you too!<br /></p><p>If you'd like more detail on what we did, including a sneak peek at some very early results, check out my <a href="https://www.patreon.com/researchreports">Research Reports</a> on Patreon. I have a summary of each day's work there, and you can read 48 other posts on studies related to human origins, archaeology, inspiration, inerrancy, and other topics. I update there multiple times a week, and you can leave comments and questions if you want to interact with my work. All that for just $4 a month! All the money raised goes to Core Academy to continue funding this work and other student mentoring projects. <a href="https://www.patreon.com/researchreports">Check it out right here.</a><br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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<a href="http://coresci.org/index.php/2018/08/06/the-quest-now-available/"><img border="0" data-original-height="628" data-original-width="1200" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6nNiArjvrI9MRw8U7hyb7QQsTPRCSFfMv-HyZ9aIkMXIgTaB9b407l3F1qJC3bcqxRu48M_YA6vAxpX_Lo7sryQqbpHaIu42gCrsIk7daIi5h4x851pnyyg8zEmAuvWzfmxLd4TcQn8/s320/QuestMeme.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>toddcwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07913361618341959465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7615223918451329472.post-22345011213163720532022-03-06T20:11:00.000-05:002022-03-06T20:11:00.889-05:00Smoky Mountain Creation Retreat 2022<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhaWtnBA9M-GBU4I8X3pB8P09sSB0xR-Tj52x1vgoLwWtEniGPmVqNSyx4Q2aSYWnPJ2QuRHctwuH_sm6dhSsmIOvSaUyfVkKM0S3GT-KjI3KokMiPWLbw2ZosDMQ_BiguUCHO5W6vcBViI8pseN5Ug2-djQO9iPnJBjFDSeb1rzFqtGalzi33p6Ia2=s3024" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1808" data-original-width="3024" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhaWtnBA9M-GBU4I8X3pB8P09sSB0xR-Tj52x1vgoLwWtEniGPmVqNSyx4Q2aSYWnPJ2QuRHctwuH_sm6dhSsmIOvSaUyfVkKM0S3GT-KjI3KokMiPWLbw2ZosDMQ_BiguUCHO5W6vcBViI8pseN5Ug2-djQO9iPnJBjFDSeb1rzFqtGalzi33p6Ia2=w400-h239" width="400" /></a></div> <p></p><p>I'm just back from another exhausting and exhilarating weekend with friends new and old at the 2022 Smoky Mountain Creation Retreat. Core Academy has been hosting this event for seven years now, and this was our first post-COVID event. I think everyone was more than ready to get back to work and life and fellowship.</p><p>Our guest this year was Bob Hill, associate professor of physics at Bob Jones University and the president of the Creation Research Society. He gave us a gentle and very basic introduction to the mind-bending world of planetary astronomy (with a little dark matter and dark energy thrown in for good measure). I hardly even glance at this subject on most days, so it was a great learning opportunity. On our final night together, we shared some concerns and had a spontaneous prayer meeting. It was so very beautiful to be together again. I am grateful.<br /></p><p>Next year, I'm hearing rumors of a geology weekend... I guess we'll all have to wait and see what we come up with.</p><p>I really hope to see more folks there next year. We're looking at getting a bigger house for more people. We'll definitely announce the dates as soon as we know.<br /></p><p>Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com. If you enjoyed this article, please consider a contribution to Core Academy of Science.
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