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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 03/21/2010 : 03:06:42
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After the article in the Mystery from Flores thread came out, we all should have seen this coming:
Did “hobbits” inhabit Indonesia’s Flores Island more than a million years ago?
It has been some time since we last reported on the “hobbits” of Indonesia—the casual term for “ancient” humans who left behind bones and tools on the Indonesian island of Flores. Scientists continue to debate whether the hobbits were, basically, otherwise “ordinary” humans affected by congenital disease or whether they were far more different—the latter view having given rise to the Homo floresiensis classification.
Now, a team reporting in the journal Nature contributes a new evolutionary perspective on when the hobbits might have inhabited Flores and, consequently, what they may have been. The team, led by the University of Wollongong’s Adam Brumm, began by investigating the question of how long the hobbits or their ancestors inhabited Flores.
The scientists studied dozens of stone blades that were buried on the island. The blades were all buried below a layer of volcanic ash that, by old-earth dating methods, was dated to slightly more than one million years before present. Ergo, the researchers claim the hobbits or their ancestors may have lived on Flores over one million years ago.
That, on its own, may seem a less-than-revolutionary evolutionary view. However, it is at odds with current evolutionary estimates of when Homo erectus—the hominid suspected to have given rise to H. floresiensis (if it is a separate species)—migrated out of Africa. Brumm’s team has thus put forward a “contentious theory”: not only that the hobbits evolved from something more primitive than Homo erectus, but that a hominid more primitive than Homo erectus traveled as far from Africa as Indonesia.
Even scientists who accept that the hobbits were different from modern humans don’t accept the team’s conclusions, however. “There are many ways in which artifacts can move through sediments,” said University of Illinois–Chicago anthropologist James Phillips. He also pointed out that the team’s dating implied the hobbits never changed their tool-making style over a million-year period, something Phillips finds unlikely.
Beginning with God’s Word, not only do we realize that one million years is an impossible time frame for the hobbits to have lived on Flores; we also recognize that the only humans to have lived are descendants from Adam and Eve, who were created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27); however different the “hobbits” may have been, they were created in God’s image and were fully human. Further, at this point we still agree with the many scientists who reject H. floresiensis as a classification, finding it more likely the hobbit bones were from perhaps-diseased and diminutive but otherwise ordinary humans.
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They never miss a trick, do they? And speaking of tricks; how long has it been since I called the Creation (ahem) museum a carny freak show? Well, the city of Cincinnati agrees, and so, to top off this week's bucket of slippery apologetics, they give themselves a pat on the ass back and confirm that statement.
5. Cincinnati.com: “[Northern Kentucky] Business Bookings up in 2009”
Our Creation Museum continues to draw visitors to the greater Cincinnati area—and looks forward to another exciting spring/summer season with many more new visitors, God willing.
The museum was recently given the “Star of Tourism” award, an honor bestowed by the Northern Kentucky Convention and Visitors Bureau. While 2009 saw a decline in tourism dollars brought to the region, bureau officials named the Creation Museum as one attraction that helped tourism in the region “survive” economically.
Regarding the museum, bureau president Tom Caradonio said, “I’ve been doing this for almost forty years. I’ve never seen an attraction have a turnstile blow off the door as fast as y’all’s did.” Caradonio also noted that because over half of Creation Museum visitors are from more than 250 miles away, it has helped local hotels survive.
The Creation Museum was obviously not founded as a mere tourist attraction, of course, though we thank God for the nearly one million visitors who have visited since the May 2007 opening. In fact, we hope to see the one millionth visitor to the museum some time in the next few weeks—it could even be you!
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Yeah, right!
In between, there is some extra-solar planet stuff, some comment on Mike Zimmerman & social Darwinism, and life-enabling molecules in the Orion Nebula. Y'know, I find it amusing that they are in such a sweat over the prospect of life beyond Earth. If I were a believer, I'd love to hear of extra-terrestrial life. It would help prove that my God wasn't a one-hit wonder after all.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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AiG's Nooz to Note
