contra: Walking with Cavemen

[contra]

This is a four part series, today I am posting Episode1, in the next few days i will add the other episodes along with the summary.
Episode 1: 2/10/2009
Episode 2: 3/10/2009
Episode 3: 4/10/2009
Episode 4: 5/10/2009
I think this is the best approach, if i post all the episodes at one time then people might get bored. This way you will get time to study and think about each episode.
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Introduction:
1. Walking with Cavemen is a four part television documentary series about Human Evolution produced by the BBC in the United Kingdom.

2. This documentary features a voice-over narrator, who describes the recreation of the prehistoric past.

3. Each species segment takes the form of a short drama featuring a group of the particular hominid in question going about their daily lives(the search for food, protecting territory, and caring for the sick and injured).
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Episode 1: First Ancestors

Summary:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_lif ... men1.shtml

1. It's 3.5 million years ago and in East Africa a remarkable species of ape roams the land. Australopithecus afarensis has taken the first tentative steps towards humanity by standing and walking on two legs.

2. Just a few million years previously, Africa was covered, almost edge-to-edge, with dense rain forest. Our ancestors almost certainly used all four limbs to move and live and hunt in their tree-top homes. But massive geological turmoil changed their destiny.

3. The rift valley was forming, and the rain forests dying as Africa dried out - turning the landscape into a mosaic of scattered trees and grass. In this new environment afarensis found it more efficient to move about on two legs rather than four.

4. This film follows a close-knit troop of afarensis, and in particular, Lucy and her young infant. Led by a strong alpha male, there is harmony in their lives. They sleep high in the trees and spend most of the day foraging for food. But then tragedy strikes. While drinking from a nearby river, a lone crocodile sneaks in unnoticed and catches the alpha male unawares.

5. Now leaderless, a dispute for dominance between the two secondary males unsettles the troupe. Added to that, a rival troupe invades Lucy's territory. While not uncommon in their chimp-like lifestyles, the resultant turf war is both violent and extreme and has devastating consequences.

6. As the troop's life moves on, 'First Ancestors' shows how although bi-pedalism offers only slight advantages to the afarensis, it opens the door to an astonishing set of new skills and abilities that will change the shape of human life on Earth forever.

Episode 1, Part 1 of 3:
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jJgZO-I1kU[/video]

Episode 1, Part 2 of 3:
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGblVuw-t_k&feature=related[/video]

Episode 1, Part 3 of 3:
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rduSjtBFg9g&feature=related[/video]

 

[aping3]

Conta you are looking great in this evolution documentary.

 

[niazi]

@contra, Why are you after innocent apes,no no no no we cant compare you with apes because every creation of Allah compeletly obeys its creator except human, because Allah has granted us free will,to test us .I bet you will never leave this forum because you are working on devils agenda .In Quran for people like you Allah says.
Al-lazi u wass wasu fee suduureen nass,minnal jinnatti wan nass(last ayahs of sura nass.114.4-5).

 

[contra]

Episode 2: Blood Brothers

Summary -

1. The Africa of two million years ago is a crossroads in human evolution. Half a dozen or more different species of ape-men exist alongside one another. Each of them has exploited the environment in a different way and has developed their own strategy for survival.

2. 'Blood Brothers' follows the lives of two species, Paranthropus boisei and Homo habilis who embody two alternative ways of ape-man life. Although heavyset, with distinctive gorilla-like faces, the boisei are gentle characters. They live within a strict social structure and are led by a dominant male whose strength and power holds the group together.

They are adapted brilliantly to the tough conditions in this dry arid land. Their huge teeth, four times the size of our own, and strong jaws mean they can eat the toughest vegetation. For them dried tubers and reed roots are rich pickings.

3. The habilis have taken a different approach to survival. They don't have the specialisms of the boisei but instead have developed into the archetypal jack-of-all-trades, inquisitive scavengers prepared to try almost anything to survive. Tough, active, gregarious and noisy, they are always on the move and always alert to the possibility of a meal. But in the near drought of the dry season the habilis are struggling. It seems as if their way of life cannot help them when conditions are tough.

4. However habilis have a secret weapon. They have come to use brainpower rather than brawn. They've learnt to work together to scare other predators away from food. They scavenge for meat and, perhaps most importantly, make basic stone tools - equipping themselves through their own efforts with the kind of specialist eating equipment creatures like the boisei have by nature.

5. But which strategy for survival will win out? Which of these ways of living is still present in us? As is often the case in our story, nature has a say: Massive geological turmoil means the habilis and boisei environments continue to change. The boisei's specialisms have locked them into one way of living, and when their niche no longer exists, neither can they. But the habilis can adapt to a changing world - their generalist trait lives on in us.
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Episode 2: Part 1 of 3
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN-ijM3bYVk[/video]

Episode 2: Part 2 of 3
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLhaAQ4eRj4[/video]

Episode 2: Part 3 of 3
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-4FHl1-Jcs[/video]

 

[foqia khan]

The Scientific World is turning to God:"As people have certainly been influenced by me, I want to try and correct the enormous damage I may have done. (Anthony Flew)

The newspapers these days are echoing with these regret-filled words by Antony Flew, in his time a well-known atheist philosopher. The 81-year-old British professor of philosophy Flew chose to become an atheist at the age of 15, and first made a name for himself in the academic field with a paper published in 1950. In the 54 years that followed, he defended atheism as a teacher at the universities of Oxford, Aberdeen, Keele and Reading, at many American and Canadian universities he visited, in debates, books, lecture halls and articles. In recent days, however, Flew has announced that he has abandoned this error and accepts that the universe was created.

The decisive factor in this radical change of view is the clear and definitive evidence revealed by science on the subject of creation. Flew realized, in the face of the information-based complexity of life, that the true origin of life is intelligent design and that the atheism he had espoused for 66 years was a discredited philosophy.

Flew announced the scientific reasons underlying this change in belief in these terms:

Biologists investigation of DNA has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce [life], that intelligence must have been involved.[1]

It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism.[2]

I have been persuaded that it is simply out of the question that the first living matter evolved out of dead matter and then developed into an extraordinarily complicated creature.[3]

The DNA research which Flew cites as a fundamental reason for his change of opinion has indeed revealed striking facts about creation. The helix shape of the DNA molecule, its possession of the genetic code, the nucleotide strings that refute blind chance, the storage of encyclopedic quantities of information and many other striking findings have revealed that the structure and functions of this molecule were arranged for life with a special design. Comments by scientists concerned with DNA research bear witness to this fact.

Francis Crick, for instance, one of the scientists who revealed the helix shape of DNA admitted in the face of the findings regarding DNA that the origin of life indicated a miracle:

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.[4]

Based on his calculations, Led Adleman of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles has stated that one gram of DNA can store as much information as a trillion compact discs.[5] Gene Myers, a scientist employed on the Human Genome Project, has said the following in the face of the miraculous arrangements he witnessed:

What really astounds me is the architecture of life The system is extremely complex. Its like it was designed Theres a huge intelligence there.[6]

The most striking fact about DNA is that the existence of the coded genetic information can definitely not be explained in terms of matter and energy or natural laws. Dr. Werner Gitt, a professor at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology, has said this on the subject:

A code system is always the result of a mental process It should be emphasized that matter as such is unable to generate any code. All experiences indicate that a thinking being voluntarily exercising his own free will, cognition, and creativity, is required There is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this.[7]

Creationist scientists and philosophers played a major role in Flews acceptance of intelligent design, backed up by all these findings. In recent times Flew participated in debates with scientists and philosophers who were proponents of creation, and exchanged ideas with them. The final turning point in that process was a discussion organized by the Institute for Metascientific Research in Texas in May, 2003. Professor Flew participated in the discussion together with the author, Roy Abraham Varghese, a physicist, and the molecular biologist, Gerald Schroeder. Flew was impressed by the weight of the scientific evidence in favor of creation and by the convincing nature of his opponents arguments and abandoned atheism as an idea in the period following that discussion. In a letter he wrote for the August-September, 2003, edition of the British magazine Philosophy Now, he recommended Schroeders book The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth and Vargheses book The Wonderful World.[8] During an interview with the professor of philosophy and theology Gary R. Habermas, who also played a major role in his change of mind,[9] and also on the video Has Science Discovered God? he openly stated that he believed in intelligent design.

The Intelligence Pervading the Universe and the Collapse of Atheism
In the face of all the scientific developments outlined above, the acceptance of intelligent design by Anthony Flew, famous for defending atheism for many years, reflects a final scene in the process of collapse which atheism is being subjected to Modern science has revealed the existence of an intelligence pervading the universe, thus leaving atheism out of the equation.

In his book The Hidden Face of God, Gerald Schroeder, one of the creationist scientists who influenced Flew, writes:

A single consciousness, a universal wisdom, pervades the universe. The discoveries of science, those that search the quantum nature of subatomic matter, have moved us to the brink of a startling realization: all existence is the expression of this wisdom. In the laboratories we experience it as information that first physically articulated as energy and then condensed into the form of matter. Every particle, every being, from atom to human, appears to represent a level of information, of wisdom.[10]

Scientific research into both the functioning of the cell and the subatomic particles of matter has revealed this fact in an indisputable manner: Life and the universe were brought into being from nothing by the will of an entity possessed of a superior knowledge and wisdom. There is no doubt that the possessor of that knowledge and wisdom that designed the universe at all levels is Almighty God. God reveals these truths in many verses of the Quran.



http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/265/
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[sangeen]

we seriously rejected the theory of Apes before... Most of the religion believe on Eve and Adams to be the first humen and after them all the population emerged..... Contra you seem to believe this shit thus your avotar picture suggest the same....

 

[Nepali Pandit]

pretty convincing....

 

[taul]

many crack pot brain dead idiots will never believe in it...

--That makes you one of em 8-) 8-) ..being a Cameleon might not work :ugeek: :P :P

 

[taul]

@ foqia

---Very Nice and facts based article :)

 

[contra]

Episode 3: Savage Family

Summary:
1. The Africa of two million years ago is a crossroads in human evolution. Half a dozen or more different species of ape-men exist alongside one another. Each of them has exploited the environment in a different way and has developed their own survival strategy .
One and a half million years ago, a new breed of ape-man walks the land. In southern Africa, Homo ergaster has taken the next step to becoming human. They have long, modern looking noses, which cool air as they breathe.

2. Savage Family follows the lives of a close-knit group of ergaster on a hunt and discovers how they use are their big brains. They are the first ape-men to have our complex understanding of the natural world, and can recognise and follow the footprints left behind by many different animals. They are expert toolmakers and use a highly refined stone hand axe. But the most important things they use are their big brains for understanding others in their group.

3. Ergaster live in large social groups and spend their time getting along with each other. Their society is held together not by a dominant male, but by the bonds of family and friends. For the first time, hunters will bring back meat to people left behind from a hunt, using it to forge alliances and reinforce relationships. Their extraordinary social world has led to a new phenomenon in our human story - couples living together monogamously, at least for a time.

4. Their new found social bonds and understanding of the world has equipped them with skills that enable them to move away from their ancestral home in Africa. Over thousands of years they spread throughout the Middle East and Asia, reaching as far as China and are now known in their new Asian home as - Homo erectus.

5. But for all their sophistication, these ancestors are still very different from us. Jump forward one million years and they are still around, and so too are their stone axes. Nothing about their exceptional tool has changed. In a million years they have made no technological advancements. Compare this with Homo sapiens who have gone from the Steam Age to the Space Age in under 100 years.

6. Their brains simply do not work in the flexible way ours do. For them to become like us requires a major change in thinking. It could be we know what triggered this dramatic change. Towards the end of ergaster's time there is evidence that they learnt to control and work with fire as a weapon, for warmth and as a tool.

7. For the first time in our history the night no longer brought danger, but warmth, security and time for the mind to wander and perhaps time for the mind to change. Fire certainly revolutionised the way our ancestors lived - perhaps it did the same for their thoughts.
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Episode 3: Part 1 of 3
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhAoFeRODQc[/video]

Episode 3: Part 2 of 3
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIEnPI0oyr4[/video]

Episode 3: Part 3 of 3
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_pCzP5AB_Y[/video]

 

[contra]

foqia and others,
1. A childs education starts with him going to nursery school(age 4-5yrs.), where he learns alphabets, basic maths etc.

2. When this child is about 16yrs. old, say in Junior College, he is taught Calculus etc.

3. A small child will not understand Calculus. We have to start with simple things first and then as time goes by, move on to complex things.

4. Life started with single cell organisms. Then it evolved into complex multi cell organisms, where certain group of cells were performing certain specific tasks.
This has happened over millions of years.

5. If a person does not consider the time, then he will definitely look at the present living organisms and say that they have been designed or that some higher power made them.
It is important that you look at the whole timeline, not just the present.

In one of my previous threads, i have posted videos of Dr. Richard Dawkins, where he explains how the eye evolved. It became more advanced and complex over a period of time:
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=9746

 

[taul]

@ contra


---Human beings are considered superiors to other animals coz of their inherent ability to use and utilize their brains so they get to differentiate and identify between Right and Wrong,good and bad.This ability completely differs from the instincts the animals are given and the sense which they use to go about their daily activities,this sense of animals is not remotely close to humans as they may resort to even dine on their excrement :roll: ..you may see orangutans doing it amongst wide variety of other animals who would feast on their own fecal matter. :|


--Life has been originated from many forms i.e Water,as this source is always eagerly awaited and is the main center stage while researching signs of life in other Planets,once confirmed Scientists without any doubt consider there to believe existence of any form of life :) as clearly mentioned in The Holy Quran:

21:30 Do not the Unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together (as one unit of creation), before we clove them asunder? We made from WATER every living thing. Will they not then believe?

In another Verse:

24:45 And Allah has created every animal from WATER: of them there are some that creep on their bellies; some that walk on two legs; and some that walk on four. Allah creates what He wills for verily Allah has power over all things.


---Human beings and all other entities in this world have been created in their Original form and none evolved into any other form :) ..Diversity amongst animals and different species boggles the mind of laymen as to how many species Allah (SWT) has created and to this day a lot even remain to be discovered.

--Eye with its so delicate and intricate Mechanics have been an Amazing creation of Allah ( SWT),the study of which led to the modern day cameras and they work on the same principle as an eye :)

 

[biomat]

Assalam-o-alaikum
Taul bhai contra may be right, but can he explain why, when a chick is born in an incubator (artificial hatching) with out his mother or father around to teach him/her. How he/she manages to replicate all the behaviours of a grownup hen/cock without any instructor... U can get many examples from our surrounding.. As in my child hood we use to have chicks & see them grow up & do all the behaviours of adult hen/cock... Same with goat even if u bring one day old baby goat & take care of him/her, he/she will behave same as of adult will do.. I hope contra got my point..
Actually Humans are made different, humans have command to make their choice, make changes to basic rules & mend for themselves, learn from their experience & environment & adjust to it.... So for a human to develop into fruitful creature for him/her self & for others surrounding him/her, he/she needs instructor or guide to achieve that goal.. Which u can find more in Quran...
About evolution theory, as it is theory itself, no one can deny that evolution may be exististing among animals or plants according to their environment & survival techniques.. But it is for sure 200%, as stated in Quran that First Human & last Human will be same. But it is stated in various ahadith & in christians & jews books that human may have more average life than current man, 100 years, 300 years etc, also their height may be larger than us, some small details may be different, but overall they will be same if compared..
But claiming that it evolved from monkey is totaly wrong & will insha ALLAH be proven soon..

 

[contra]

Episode 4: The Survivors

Summary:

1. Nearly half a million years ago, the most advanced human yet roams Europe. Strong and powerful, Homo heidelbergensis are fierce hunters, use sophisticated tools and live in close-knit family groups.
They look and behave in a very human way - yet something is missing.

2. In 'The Survivors', the final programme in the series, we follow three brothers on a hunt. When one brother is injured his distraught family spend most of the night trying to keep him alive.
Yet in the morning, the hunter is dead and his family have gone, leaving him where he died. There is no ceremony and no looking back. Heidelbergensis can only see the world as it is. They cannot, for example, think of a life after death, for they lack the one thing that makes us human - a modern imagination.

3. Heidelbergensis are the departure point for the last leg of the journey towards modern humans. Over 200,000 years they become split into two populations by extremes of weather and environment and evolve separately into two very different species.

4. In the North are the Neanderthals, whose physical power and resilience is the key to surviving in ice age Northern Europe. In one of the most inhospitable environments ever, a small group of Neanderthal are finding things tough.
The leader's partner is expecting her first child, and the men must travel far to find food. If they're unsuccessful, the group will have to move on - a perilous journey for the near full-term mum. In their world, being strong and tough is the key to survival. If the going gets tough, they just fight back harder.

5. In the South the other descendants of heidelbergensis, are finding the going even harder. About 140,000 years ago, Africa is in the grip of a devastating drought, and something remarkable has happened to the descendants of heidelbergensis who live there. The combination of environment and chance has bred in them a unique ability that will change the course of human history.
They have developed a mind capable of imagination. For the first time on E arth there is a creature capable of understanding and anticipating possibilities, with the gift of abstract thought. It very possibly saves them from the brink of extinction.

6. Although the Neanderthals were unbeatable for a quarter of a million years, it will be this small band of southern survivors, perhaps numbering just a few tens of thousands, who will come to dominate the world and be known as Homo sapiens.
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Episode 4: Part 1 of 3
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRSaVgXpTVY[/video]

Episode 4: Part 2 of 3
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXVQ9Ezci0o[/video]

Episode 4: Part 3 of 3
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McDa96xSo20[/video]

 

[taul]

@ contra



---General Pattern in Human Development:

--Development occurs along multiple lines:Physical,Cognitive,Intellectual and Social. :)

--We tend to chart development for each of these lines in terms of Milestones,i.e,Skills achieved by a certain age.Milestones are simply normative markers at median ages.Some children develop slower and some faster.The ages for the milestones are therefore only approximate and should not be taken as dogma.

--Although children generally progress along the lines of development together,they often may not.Thus,a child may match the milestones for Cognitive development but show slower Growth in the Social area. :)


--From Infancy to Adolescence child follows and Develops along these four basic development lines,some may classify as "Stages of Development in humans" and certain characteristics are to be noticed along the way with each passing year. :)


--A gene is a hereditary factor,transmitted from Parents to offspring that determines traits ( Height, weight, physical appearance and so on)..Physically,a gene consists of DNA bases that encode a specific Protein. :)

--Genetic term is vast and broad while "Heritability" is Specific. Heritability of a trait ( the Proportion of variation in a trait that can be attributed to genetic factors).. :)


--Imprinting:An interesting facet of attachment behavior in animals. :)

--Some animals (Geese,ducks,quail) will follow the first object they see after birth.

--May even run to it,rather than to the mother,when frightened.

--Does NOT apply to Humans. :)

 

[hkniazi]

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu45NZPMnNk[/video]