Bob Talks to Kids about Evolution

[voltaire]

Chimps are capable of
making and using tools.
They are capable of making
stone tools, although we
don't have any instances of
it in the wild. A much more
human-like ancestor with a
much larger brain/body ratio
would seem to be capable.------Barbarian. Do you really think chimps are capable of going to a rock quarry and busting rocks and making tools capable of killing antelope and horses? Perhaps an ape ancestor with larger brain size/ body size ratio....wait scratch that.... I believe there is a rodent that fits that description. Its not the ratio that matters in intelligence; it is the total amount of brain tissue. Both chimps and australopithecus garhi had cranial size of 450 cc. That size is nowhere near capable of producing the necessary intelligence to produce tools capable of killing antelope and horses. So who was it that killed the animals by the lake and took their tools with them?

 

[The Barbarian]

Do you really think chimps are capable of going to a rock quarry and busting rocks and making tools capable of killing antelope and horses?

A quarry? As opposed to picking up a rock and breaking it to make a tool? BTW, chimps are known to make clubs with which they attack other animals, like leopards.

Perhaps an ape ancestor with larger brain size/ body size ratio....wait scratch that.... I believe there is a rodent that fits that description.

Show us that one. That would be a brainy rodent, indeed. I think you made that up.

Its not the ratio that matters in intelligence; it is the total amount of brain tissue.

If so, then elephants and whales are smarter than we are. A walrus would be only slightly less intelligent than a man. Do you have any idea how foolish that is?

Both chimps and australopithecus garhi had cranial size of 450 cc.

That would be a rather brainy chimp. The record, I think is about 500cc, with an average of 400 cc. A. garhi is at the upper range of brain sizes for apes.

That size is nowhere near capable of producing the necessary intelligence to produce tools capable of killing antelope and horses.

Male chimpanzees are seen to kill young pigs, monkeys and antelopes for food. During their hunting and collecting foods, chimpanzees use simple tools like stone, stick, damp clothes etc that vary over the regions. It implies that usage of tools by chimpanzee is practically a learned behaviour that they learn over the generations within a particular community set-up.
http://www.blurtit.com/q578381.html

So who was it that killed the animals by the lake and took their tools with them?

If they were at least as smart as a chimp, A. garhi.

 

[voltaire]

Barbarian. So you are going to claim that a garhi with the intelligence of a chimp killed an antelope with a club then proceeded to butcher it with sharp tools that he had made elsewhere and then broke the bones and used other stone tools to remove the marrow? The biggest whopper i am supposed to swallow is that these garhi with 450 cc brainsize, actually made sharp stone tools and carried them great distances to hunt and then take them back home afterward they finished their meal.

 

[voltaire]

Barbarian. I did not make up the rodent brain size. Mice do have a large brain to body size ratio. Do you dispute that? I hate to have to make you look silly.

 

[Jukia]

Barbarian. So you are going to claim that a garhi with the intelligence of a chimp killed an antelope with a club then proceeded to butcher it with sharp tools that he had made elsewhere and then broke the bones and used other stone tools to remove the marrow? The biggest whopper i am supposed to swallow is that these garhi with 450 cc brainsize, actually made sharp stone tools and carried them great distances to hunt and then take them back home afterward they finished their meal.

I don't think that is what he suggested. I think you need to double check your reading comprehension.

 

[Jukia]

Barbarian. I did not make up the rodent brain size. Mice do have a large brain to body size ratio. Do you dispute that? I hate to have to make you look silly.

Is the issue the ratio or is it total amount of brain tissue as you suggested?

 

[voltaire]

Jukia. There is not a thing wrong with my reading comprehension. Barbarian knows full well the problem he faces with the evidence of animal butchering that has tell tale signs of a humans work. As a debate defense, he is purposefully vague and uses distortion to maximum advantage and does everything he can to avoid the problem the situation presents. I understood him perfectly well. He was being purposefully vague and used ridiculous ideas to make his point. I was merely breaking down the situation to its most basic level and moving his argument from one of ambiguity to one of specificity. His argument looks ridiculous when seen in that light as you obviously noted and instead of recognizing his ambiguity, you instead conclude i cannot comprehend what i read. This is typical of the atheists' attitude toward creationists.

 

[Jukia]

Jukia. There is not a thing wrong with my reading comprehension. Barbarian knows full well the problem he faces with the evidence of animal butchering that has tell tale signs of a humans work. As a debate defense, he is purposefully vague and uses distortion to maximum advantage and does everything he can to avoid the problem the situation presents. I understood him perfectly well. He was being purposefully vague and used ridiculous ideas to make his point. I was merely breaking down the situation to its most basic level and moving his argument from one of ambiguity to one of specificity. His argument looks ridiculous when seen in that light as you obviously noted and instead of recognizing his ambiguity, you instead conclude i cannot comprehend what i read. This is typical of the atheists' attitude toward creationists.

You still have not responded to my question about brain to body size ratio or amount of brain tissue.

Seems to me that if Barbarian has some problem with animal butchering that has signs of human work (although I'm not sure how you tell "human work") that the people who reported it have the same problem. Why don't you contact those people with your issues and report back rather than trying to sort something out 3rd or 4th hand.

 

[voltaire]

Is the issue the ratio or is it
total amount of brain
tissue as you suggested?----jukia. I had initially agreed that brain to body mass ratio was what determined intelligence until i remembered a rodent animal that had a similar ratio to humans. Barbarian thought i made that up. I went back and looked and the trew shrew actually has a greater brain/body mass ration than humans. I then went on to say that because of that, total brain tissue mass was the indicator of intelligence. Barbarian gave examples of elephants and sperm whales Having greater brain mass than humans. There are 3 factors that limit brain sizes effect on intelligence. How much tissue is dedicated to processing sensory information. How much tissue is dedicated to voluntary motor functions. How much tissue is dedicated to executing instinctual processes. Body mass is not linearly related to any of these.

 

[Jukia]

Is the issue the ratio or is it
total amount of brain
tissue as you suggested?----jukia. I had initially agreed that brain to body mass ratio was what determined intelligence until i remembered a rodent animal that had a similar ratio to humans. Barbarian thought i made that up. I went back and looked and the trew shrew actually has a greater brain/body mass ration than humans. I then went on to say that because of that, total brain tissue mass was the indicator of intelligence. Barbarian gave examples of elephants and sperm whales Having greater brain mass than humans. There are 3 factors that limit brain sizes effect on intelligence. How much tissue is dedicated to processing sensory information. How much tissue is dedicated to voluntary motor functions. How much tissue is dedicated to executing instinctual processes. Body mass is not linearly related to any of these.

So intelligence is not related to either brain/body mass ratio or total brain tissue amount?

 

[voltaire]

Since most of those 3 areas of function are not processed in the frontal lobe, I would say that the greater the mass of the frontal lobe in an animal, the greater the intelligence. The ratio of the frontal cortex to the rest of the cerebral cortex is irrelevant. The other great apes have the same frontal cortex ratio as we do but we are obviously more intelligent. The frontal cortex must also be devoloped to give intelligence too. If a child is not given a proper learning environment, it will not fully develop this cortex. The other great apes frontal cortexes are too small to give intelligence coming anywhere near to that of humans no matter how developed they are.

 

[The Barbarian]

Barbarian. So you are going to claim that a garhi with the intelligence of a chimp

We don't know what sort of intelligence that species had. As you learned, intelligence does not necessarily correlate with brain size.

killed an antelope with a club then proceeded to butcher it with sharp tools that he had made elsewhere and then broke the bones and used other stone tools to remove the marrow? The biggest whopper i am supposed to swallow is that these garhi with 450 cc brainsize, actually made sharp stone tools and carried them great distances to hunt and then take them back home afterward they finished their meal.

Chimps, with smaller brain sizes have been noted to make sharp tools and carry them great distances and then take them back to their normal place.

So that doesn't seem like such a stretch.

 

[The Barbarian]

Barbarian. I did not make up the rodent brain size. Mice do have a large brain to body size ratio. Do you dispute that? I hate to have to make you look silly.

Feel free to post the encephlization index for your favored rodent, and for hominids.

You're not referring to absolute brain size/body size, are you? You seem to realize that won't work because brain cells don't get smaller in smaller animals, and there are basic functions that mean smaller animals will have relatively larger brains.

Learn the details here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient

 

[The Barbarian]

Barbarian. I did not make up the rodent brain size. Mice do have a large brain to body size ratio. Do you dispute that? I hate to have to make you look silly.

Feel free to post the encephlization index for your favored rodent, and for hominids.

You're not referring to absolute brain size/body size, are you? Your earlier comments seemed to realize that won't work because brain cells don't get smaller in smaller animals, and there are basic functions that mean smaller animals will have relatively larger brains.

Learn the details here:

Mice have a direct brain/body size ratio similar to humans (1/40), while elephants have comparatively small brain/body size (1/560), despite elephants being obviously intelligent animals.[7][8]

There are possibly several reasons for this trend, but one of them is that neural cells have a relative constant size. As an animal's brain gets larger, addition of more nerve cells will cause the brain to increase in size to a lesser degree than the rest of the body. This phenomenon has been called the cephalization factor; E = CS2, where E and S are body and brain weights and C is the cephalization factor.[9] Thus just focusing on the relationship between the body and the brain is not enough; one also has to consider the total size of the animal. To compensate for this factor, a formula has been devised by plotting the brain/body weight of various mammals against each other and a curve fitted so as to give best fit to the data.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient

 

[patrick jane]

Nice thread Davis

 

[6days]

Evolutionists feel threatened by kids who don't believe in evolution...


"It is in the mind and hearts of our children that the battle will be won".
Christians... this should be our rallying call to make sure we teach our children... grandchildren... the children in our communities. The Bible provides many references telling us the importance of teaching. (See Prov. 22:6). Unfortunately, there are many secularists who wish to indoctrinate our children.
(The above quote is from a blog of someone who is opposed to one of the creation museums http://pnrj.xanga.com/709441435/what-i-learned-from-the-creation-museum/ ).
Many of these people are extremely opposed to parents exposing their children to creationist teaching, because they want your children indoctrinated in evolutionism.
Christian parents..... keep in mind the words of this topic. The humanists.. secularists...atheists are fighting for the minds of our children.

 

[chatmaggot]

No it's not - kids may be taught that Lamarckism existed, only to show how it was an old idea that didn't stand up. Pastor Bob seems to be the only one telling kids that science says that Lamarckism is a currently accepted explanation.

Did you ever read the Discover article on how the puffer fish got its puff?

Read this and tell me if it doesn't sound like Lamarckism.

In summary...a puffer fish got its puff by its ancestors coughing, coughing, and coughing. Sounds a lot like a giraffe getting a long neck by stretching, stretching, and stretching.