Elder Nelson on Evolution "incomprehensible"?

[_bcspace]

bcspace, you said there is no doctrine on how the physical body was created.

There isn't.

That Ensign article purports to tell us how the physical body of man was created.

What does "out of the dust of the ground" mean? It is literal or figurative? And if literal, it still provides no details.

[_Buffalo]

I agree completely and incorporated it into my hypothesis long ago by hypothesizing that pre Adamite homo sapiens did not have the same kind of spirits as Adam and Eve, and hence their low state of and slow progress towards advancement; a quarter of a million years at least before civilizations appeared. After all, this was still the undefined creative period in which evolution was advancing towards an overall state of the world when all would be ready for Adam and Eve and the garden state.

No conflict whatsoever.

So are the people living today who remain in primitive, tribal conditions present during the time of "pre-Adamites" also possessed of inferior souls?

[_bcspace]

So are the people living today who remain in primitive, tribal conditions present during the time of "pre-Adamites" also possessed of inferior souls?

No. But are you saying they are not capable of developing or understanding civilization?

[_Buffalo]

So are the people living today who remain in primitive, tribal conditions present during the time of "pre-Adamites" also possessed of inferior souls?

No. But are you saying they are not capable of developing or understanding civilization?

You gave the lack of development of "pre-Adamites" as evidence of their inferior souls. I'm just trying to determine if your idea has any internal consistency. Apparently it doesn't.

[_bcspace]

No. But are you saying they are not capable of developing or understanding civilization?

You gave the lack of development of "pre-Adamites" as evidence of their inferior souls. I'm just trying to determine if your idea has any internal consistency. Apparently it doesn't.

Apparently it does. What is your explanation for why big brained homo sapiens hung around for more than a quarter of a million years without developing civilization and then all of a sudden there was an apparent uplift?

[_Buffalo]

Apparently it does. What is your explanation for why big brained homo sapiens hung around for more than a quarter of a million years without developing civilization and then all of a sudden there was an apparent uplift?

Where's the uplift on that amazonian tribe? They're still living in huts and carrying spears. So they must be, per your theory, possessed of inferior spirits. Right?

There's a real answer to your question about why civilizations developed when they did, and you should be smart enough know what it is without resorting to magical thinking.

[_Sethbag]

BCSpace actually spoke the truth here. Every animal ever born was the same species as its parents. Only after sufficient genetic divergence in the lineage, as compared from one point in a given lineage to some other point later on down the lineage, do we impose the arbitrary definition of a species.

Thank you but I don't think the definition of species is arbitrary at all. One of the boundaries between species is breeding and a species is a group of organisms that are capable of breeding with each other. The primer I gave did illustrate this.

But breeding ability isn't a binary proposition. It's more like a probability continuum. Even among human beings, some pairings are going to be more fertile than others.

If you take a given species and split it into two separate populations, as these populations diverge genetically, it will probably not be the case that animals from these two species were 100% capable of breeding, and then in the next generation that dropped to 0%. The ability to breed will probably diminish over time as more and more changes accumulate that reduce the compatibility between species. Even after the two species are distinct enough that taxonomers might call them different species, that doesn't necessarily mean the probability of a successful breeding between animals from those species has hit 0.0%.

Anyhow, look at the liger, the mule, and so forth. Sure, these particular pairings happen not to result in young that are fertile, but they do demonstrate that breeding between species is not a simple ON|OFF, binary thing.

[_Runtu]

I find it hard to believe that you actually believe any of this. It doesn't harmonize at all.

I've come to accept that he's just playing word games and trying to be clever. Like you, I doubt he believes any of this.

[_Bret Ripley]

Macro allows for one species to eventually become another.

So each after his own kind, until they eventually become another kind.

Yup. To hold that the "kinds" at either end of the continuum are the same simply because the changes between each generation are incremental is to commit the Fallacy of the Beard. At least, that's what we used to call it back in the 'hood.

[_brade]

I find it hard to believe that you actually believe any of this. It doesn't harmonize at all.

I've come to accept that he's just playing word games and trying to be clever. Like you, I doubt he believes any of this.

I'm sincerely tempted by the thought that bcspace is a clever anti-mormon.