Theists: What is your stance on evolution?

[The Grand Nudger]

At work.

This is completely stupid.  If the skull shape changed, the developing embryo would place the spinal cord in the freak'n hole.  It isn't like a set of blueprints, where if one part changes, the rest just don't fit.

Also note that Snowtrack's examples are all concurrent animals?

They should have been looking for examples of comparative anatomy  through the fossil records at least.

 Cheers.

Adding more examples of extant mammals would actually have been instructive - as relative forward placement in developed bipedal mammals is broadly similar even across clades.  That's why anthropologists think it indicates an upright walking habit in fossil remains.

Anywho, I suppose it gives snowtracks a suggestion as to where he might want to look to answers his questions about this. Somewhere around 4.4 and 2mya - give or take. Anyone researching this looks back even farther - as there's just no point where we expect to see major differences in fm placement in any of the nearest relatives of anatomically modern humans. We've only been here a half a mil, or less.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Notice the position of the Foramen Magnum (FM). There is no fossil evidence that it moved from the rear to the center; it’s either center or rear. The spiral cord fits through it and fuses into the brain stem. So the spinal cord, brain stem, and the foramen would have to move as a unit.

Would be analogous to disconnecting the car steering wheel shaft from the linkage under the hood and drilling a hole in the center of the bulkhead, then placing the shaft through it, connecting it to the linkage in the original unmoved position. The point is the modification has to be intricately coordinated, can’t be any chafing of the cord against the FM, nor any misalignment to the brain stem which is located just on the inside the skull base.

So where are the fossils? Where are the common ancestor fossils that were the progenitor to the Homo Sapien, and to the Homo Sapien, Sapien? After that’s shown, then show how the FM got to the center location from that of the common ancestor. All we get is rhetoric and hypotheticals; we want skulls.

(Bold mine)

Here ya go:

Foramen Magnum. In the pongids, the foramen magnum is located near the back of the skull so the head can be inclined and pointed forward during quadrapedal locomotion (knuckle-walking). In anatomically modern man, the foramen magnum is under the skull since the skull weight is born by the shoulders while walking upright. The fossil hominids show intermediate placement of the foramen magnum between that seen in pongids and anatomically modern man.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2409105/

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2409105/

Interesting article. This is from the third paragraph:

The cranial base is relatively well represented in the hominin fossil record. 

So, when snowy asks, ‘Where are the fossils?’, the answer would seem to be, ‘Why haven’t you looked?’

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

Looking wouldn't help snow.., tho, since he's looking for something that doesn't (and isn't even expected to) exist. Furthermore, if being able to observe the process of humans and other mammal's development today shows -exactly- how the fm manages to end up in the relative position that it does isn't enough to answer -whatever- question he has about it..why would looking at the already developed skulls of early modern adults do that? Sure, they may have died 300k or so ago.... but they were already us, already grown, already with the forward fm of contemporary humans.

Ultimately, that's the reason that no amount of looking at bones satisfies the show me the bones folks. The only kinds of bones they would accept per their own criteria are the kinds of bones no one will find - because they do not now nor have they ever existed.

[Angrboda]

For some reason, I'm reminded of the medical charts of male and female anatomy we were subjected to in health class. Only with less decorum.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Ah yes, the fossils of the gap argument. It's one of their favorites as they can simply move the goalpost forever because it's unlikely will have a fossil of everything and anything we don't find is taken as proof evolution is false. Frankly, creationists should simply be grateful we have any fossils at all considering how rare the process is.

[Angrboda]

Evolutionist: "Eureka! We've discovered a transitional fossil!"
Creationist: "Eureka! We've discovered two more gaps!"

[The Architect Of Fate]

Evolutionist: "Eureka!  We've discovered a transitional fossil!"
Creationist: "Eureka! We've discovered two more gaps!"

Indeed one is searching for answers and advanced knowledge and the other wants to maintain ignorance and stifle knowledge