This is the first time Ive come across this theory, does it have any relevance? Anyone else ever heard of about it? After readin this book, A historical lie : Stone Age by harun yahya, Its pretty damn irrefutable with all the archeological evidences in the book. In short it says (and seems to prove to a certain extent) humans were not ape-like but were civilized. What do you people think? Is it really a myth propagated to achieve evolutionists agenda and the materialist philosophy (as the book states)? p.s. I hope I didnt post in the wrong section, im new here! It was pretty random question.
Depends on which hominid species you are referring to. Our present understanding is that Homo Sapiens, though physically like us for the past 200-300 thousand years went through a sea-change in intelligence about a hundred thousand years ago with the advent of art and probably language.
I have stumbled across Harun Yahya's work before, though not this particular book. It is difficult to describe it without being rude, but I shall try. It lacks any of the objectivity that is required in science and he employs tricks of language and of selectivity that suggest he does not quite understand the evidence he is presenting. The alternative explanation is that he is lying, but I am too polite a lady to suggest that is probable.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I went to his site to take a look at the specific book you mention. The first thing thatstruck me was that I had never seen so many pop-ups since accidentally stumbling on a porn site. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Here are some points based just on his remarks in the Foreword of the book. For example he says....."you may have been handed the mistaken impression that these people were half-ape and half-human, unable to stand fully upright, lacking the ability to speak words and producing only strange grunting noises. That is because this entire falsehood has been imposed on people like yourself for the last 150 years." If people have been handed this impression they have not received it from any reputable anthropologist. Homo sapiens evolved around 180,000 years ago. The peoples of the early stone age, the lower palaeolithic, lived as much as half a million years ago. They were not modern humans, but they were most certainly not half-ape, half-human. They walked upright. They produced hand axes of good quality. We do not know when language emerged. It was certainly much later than this. The key word is emerged. Chimpanzees communicate with each other with a repertoire of sounds. We did not go suddenly from three dozen varied screeches and grunts to a Shakespeare sonnet. It developed slowly, though there was likely a time when some favourable brain mutations accelerated the process. These well established facts bear little relation to the simplistic and false interpretation Harun has given. He sets up a claim that is false, then knocks it down. Not a very nice tactic. He als writes, "Or have you ever heard that the people described as "primitive cavemen" possessed an artistic ability and understanding just as refined as those of modern artists?" Well if you have heard of the marvellous cave paintings of 32,000 years ago in Lascaux, it is because of the work of scientists. It is a marvel that our distant ancestors produced such beautiful work, but I suspect art historians would find their techniques less advanced than modern artists. This is not to denigrate them - Rembrandt and Picasso could not have produced their works if our ancestors had not started on that creative path. If you would like to pick out one of the things you found particularily convincing I would be happy to study it and comment on whether or not there is any substance to the particular claims. I think I know what the outcome will be - but I promise to keep an open mind.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Those caves were initially stumbled upon by a pet dog. Lol. Not at all: they are graciously and reverently put in context: the pioneering of brand-new, never-before techniques. And the manifestation of an enigmatic presence: the human spirit. And perhaps the whole of modern society might never would have otherwise... sparked.
I wondered which pedantic peasant would bring that up. Now I know.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! So you agree. The techniques are less advanced. In the same way that Newton's mathematics is less advanced than the math available to us today, or his physics less advanced than that of Einstein. This does not make Newton less of a genius than Einstein, it simply means that he was less informed. ....... but he was less informed. Which is exactly the point I was making. I'm pleased we agree.
Oh for fuck's sake. "Harun Yahya" (H.YaHya) is the secrety-secret pen name of Adnan Oktar, an extremist literalist muslim in Turkey. This same little freak has been campaigning against evolution for some time; I recall that he did a little jail time too for something or other. I trashed some of his stooges once and called him out personally a couple times for a debate on evolution but he's too scared to do it. There is nothing whatsoever mythological about the Stone Age, or evolution. There is a great deal mythological about a literalist reading of islam, and about Oktar's comprehension of evolution. I challenge him again here and now - or you - to hold up any of his claptrap arguments and "evidences" for analysis. And I'm not even an archaeologist. Sleepless, don't post this islamic supremacist crap here again. Anyone who accidentally uses the word "evidences" has just given away his beliefs, and his posting locale. Sayonara, Ankara.
I came to that conclusion about three years ago. Just look to the beginning of recorded history and where we are today then imagine being in a world which is completely foreign. AND add to that no language, no books, no paper, no pencils. How long would it take to get from this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Silizium_pulver.jpg http://www.dgs.de/317.0.html Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! to this: http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_th...ockphoto_1194372_microchip_on_a_fingertip.jpg Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! If we were to assume there was no capability\knowledge to communicate how long would that take. But really just surviving and the methodology of survival would take an enormous amount of time.:scratchin: The whole concept of radical physical and intellectual changes to aid in the development of humans seems quite far fetched. Perhaps even wishful thinking. I am not sure how this can be disputed. I should add i am not sure about the term 'stone age' or it's interpretation's- the term can be acceptable. In retrospect, it seems almost logical humans entered this world naked with ingenuity and desire as their sole motiving force or ability- and odf course their brain power. Overcoming obstacles, the only concept encoded into their being to go forth and see what can be accomplished. Fighting to survive would just make them stronger, what do i know? i know nothing. Nothing more than i need to get on the other side of that mountain. Why? Becuase i just do.
We got from point A to point B by trial and error, the transmission of knowledge and the use of our brains. These steps are well documented in the literature.
1. Anyone whos heard of him knows his real name, so that hardly makes it secret, I dont see why you would raise such a point, pretty irrelevant to what I asked. 2. So he was jailed, again..irrelevant to what I asked. 3. Campaigning against evolution doesnt make one a freak, but makes the other side sound pretty immature for the name-calling. 4. You trashed his stooges..Congrats, does it look like anyone cares? 5. Please do NOT assume, I did not post to start a debate over his credentials, evidences or whatever, especially not with someone as biased as you seem to be. This happened to be the first time I stumbled across something like that, thus I asked for others` opinions. 6. I dont see why the hell you dragged Islam into this anyway, again irrelevant and biased.
I'm not going to enter the debate proper but I would like to point out something to you that is VERY important: knowing your source(s). I also know absolutely nothing about this particular writer but it would be very foolish of someone to base their opinion of a subject on the word of someone who is recognized as a crackpot or even someone who's credentials have been called into question by other professionals in the same field. Again, passing no judgment in this particular case since I don't have any direct knowledge of the people involved, it's just that it's always smart to try and find out everything you can about someone before just accepting anything they say or defending their position based on what they've written. Many people have personal agendas that don't correspond with the actual truth.
Agreed. I dont believe everything I read, simultaneously, I dont want to be close minded either, thus my entire point of posting (to find out if this claim has ever been made before or is it the first of its kind and whether it has any relevance). Thanks.
You are welcome and I do applaud your efforts to try and find the truth. That is always a noble and worthy exercise. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Because it's a dodge. He should either sell his books under his own name, or just shut up. He also uses petty, shitty little strongarm tactics against anyone who disagrees with him. To wit: http://evolutionspace.wordpress.com/category/harun-yahya/ Possibly! - but it speaks volumes as to his proclivities and character. A humanitarian, seemingly. When evolution is demonstrably true, it does make the campaigner a freak. In which case it isn't name-calling, but rather, description. But go ahead. Post his thoughts on the Stone Age or evolution. We'll address their "irrefutability" one argument at a time. Apparently you do. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! And others' opinions you have! Mine is thus: he's a deceptive supremacist. I've illustrated why that is. If you're already an Oktarist or whatever they're calling his band of loonies, then it's too late; and in fact, anyone starting off their posts here with an advertisement of Adnan Oktar's "infallibility" is probably already in that camp. But if I've defamed you, then I apologize and I urge you to speak on: produce his arguments and support them, and we shall see. Same as I'd do for Falwell or Robertson's religion. There's a long line of nimrods behind anti-evolutionism. Oktar merely has to take a number.
He also had a site with some kind of deceptive childrens' title also, where he urged muslim kids not to defile themselves by playing with unbelievers. That was a while back, of course; I wonder if he's gotten around to changing it? Anyway: not a saint, but a supremacist. Not an unbiased source.
To say the book is irrefutable is to say his evidence is irrefutable. Have you examined his evidence and correlated it with the wealth of peer-reviewed and exhaustively organized evidence for the accepted theories of human progress? Crackpots accomplish their goals by picking and choosing evidence which taken separately appears to support their theories, by quoting research papers from third-rate universities, by cloaking fallacious arguments in scientific-sounding language, and by presenting evidence that is downright fraudulent. Even modern humans are apelike because we are, in fact, a species of ape. The "Great Apes" include orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos, the two species of gorilla, and humans. The various species of gibbons make up the "lesser apes." Apes are simply primates without tails and various other differences from the monkeys. The differences between humans and the other apes are notable but not sufficient to put us in a different taxonomic group: the realigned pelvis that makes possible permanent bipedalism and face-to-face copulation, the opposable thumb that gives us more dexterity, the buoyancy that allows us to swim (and the vestigial webs between our fingers that make many of us wonder if we spent some time as an aquatic animal), the paucity of body hair, and of course the enormous brain case that makes birthing a problem but makes room for the huge forebrain which gives us the unique ability to override our instincts with reasoned and learned behavior. Just watch a troupe of professional gymnasts at work; watch human children try to solve a physical problem with their hands and eyes; watch a tribe of gorillas go through their daily lives; watch Washoe the chimpanzee "speak" in American Sign Language. We are incontrovertibly apes. What extraordinary archeological evidence does he present to substantiate the extraordinary assertion that these people were civilized? We have an enormous archeological record on the development of civilization, which began with the building of Jericho, the world's first city, in approximately 9000BCE, and was repeated independently in five other places at five later times (Egypt, India, China, Olmec and Inca). Before that the archeological sites show only Neolithic farming and fishing villages, and before that only the remains of campsites of Mesolithic and Paleolithic nomadic hunter-gatherers. The word "civilized" has a precise meaning: "the building of cities." It is not a touchy-feely word implying a recognizable level of morality, art, love, peace and harmony. The "Stone Age" is called that because the only materials technology that had been developed was the working of stone. Flint-knapping provided firestarters, sharp cutting blades and arrowheads, and stone hammers were used for driving pegs into the ground and other similar uses. This allowed the working of wood, clay and reed fibers. The first cities were built out of wood and stone using stone tools, so technically the Stone Age did not end until around 3500BC when tin and copper ore were discovered, mined and refined, making possible the technology of bronze-based metallurgy. Nonetheless we distinguish between the Neolithic Era, the "Late Stone Age" in which the technologies of farming and animal husbandry--agriculture--were developed and made possible the collection of multiple clans of people in permanent settlements; and the building of true cities, which we simply call the Dawn of Civilization. Civilization leaves behind huge piles of evidence because it is characterized by an explosion in the rate of creation of artifacts. The cities themselves, even the early ones made largely of wood, leave behind enormous archeological footprints. Trash dumps alone are an archeologist's dream. We haven't stumbled onto all of them but we find a good representative sample, and there are none older than Jericho. Even if we missed a few they won't push the Dawn of Civilization back by more than a millennium or two. The early humans did not live in cities, they lived in small bands of hunter-gatherers. Their state of the art in technology was stone tools. For this reason, we call that era the Stone Age and there is no reason to call it anything else. This would get more action and more scholarly replies in the History subforum. And it probably would not be derailed into yet another pointless debate about evolution. Send a PM to the Moderator of this subforum if you'd like to have it moved.
Thankyou, Fraggle. I just don't have the time for these people. But it goes almost without saying that it wasn't "pretty random question". I also fail to see what is to be gained by this position. What is Oktar - taking a break, presumably, from underaged women - seeking to conclude here? That humans never had societal development, but emerged from Edin, that "high-walled garden" of the antediluvian past, as such, in toto, an early bronze society? Would this really move society that much closer to the literal reading of the Qu'ran - and presumably the Bible and Torah? - that he and his cult so earnestly desire? It's astounding that mountains of evidence make so little impression on the paranoid and societal insecurity of Oktar's few, proud madmen. ...I'm working the bait as much as possible here, but I think the fish has slipped the line. Ah well. For the best.
im just wondering if theses apes were supposed to be closely related to have the same genes as a rat and the same pigmentation as a pig or is it just humans that have that
What a dummy i am. I didnt even take the title into consideration and responded to the post's main point. 'Stone Age' dentist: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolpda/ifs_news/hi/newsid_4882000/4882968.stm
There is one other - Caral (in Peru). Norte Chico culture. edit: Found a wiki on it, but it has little information. I saw a documentary on it, I think it was Discovery or PBS. Or maybe BCC... don't remember. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Stone Age People They will have had very primitive technology, but socially they were probably as complex as ourselves. People in the UK and Ireland in the 20th century have lived lives not very much different from Neolithic farmers. My uncle was a prolific reader, but other than that, his life as a subsistence farmer in Ireland was not massively different from theirs. As far as technology went, they only turned on the radio for the news. batteries were too precious. Before the 1940's they would not even have had a radio.
