Dad links son's suicide to 'The God Delusion'

[lukec]

I've gotta say, Daystar, that your comments show you do not understand the basic concepts of evolution, and I agree with ace that you need to do something to get a better grasp of the idea.

Two questions. Which skulls are apes and which ones are men, and how do their shape, location and age give us evidence of evolution?

There is no distinction between ape and man- we are a species of ape. Those skulls are ape (and unless I'm very much mistaken, all hominid), and throughout time, their GRADUAL change in shape over time (given by relative ages) show a progression among hominid apes from smaller brain-case to larger, as well as less developped jaws.

How do we know that the changes of the skull shape is to accommodate the growth of a human brain and not just the shape of a human scull? Point out to me where the jaw muscles are reduced. How accurate is the millions of years estimation. What is it based upon?

The dating here is probably not based on carbon dating, but rather on the ages of rocks found accompanying the fossils. How do we know that the change accomodated the growth of a human brain? Well, Daystar, this may surprise you, but humans are not everywhere in the fossil record. Before Homo sapiens there were various other hominids which had smaller brain-cases (mostly- neandertal had more for example) but these othe Homo species are now extinct. We are an extant species, only one more link in the chain. Jaw muscle reduction is evidenced by the sites of muscle attachment to the bone, which in more recent species are smaller since the muscle is smaller.

Apes, chimps, etc. use tools. How do teeth know how they are used and how they should evolve?

Teeth do not "know" anything. The reason our back molars (for example, our appendix or baby toe could equally well be used) are becoming more and more vestigial is that there is no longer a selection pressure for organisms with big, powerful jaws, able to crush tough foods. So they are "unneeded" but left over from our ancestors, who evidentally would survive better with the ability to eat more food.

I don't see anything remarkable about the various sizes of skulls of what appear to be non human primate skulls? Where am I wrong, other than the obvious fact that I don't see what isn't there?

---

You are wrong in thinking they are non-human. The genus homo has been around for a lot longer than sapiens has, and those are similar to our ancestral species.

You show Human, Chimpanzee, Orangutan and Macaque skulls with various sizes and that is supposed to demonstrate evolution? If you really, really believe - it will be true? Maybe that is my problem.

I think he showed you those to give evidence only of the similarity between species descended from a common ancestor.