Farina vs Casey Luskin

@Laird and @Ninshub can decide if this thread should be merged into the larger thread about Discovery Institute.

I just don't want to lose focus on the actual arguments, and I think going video by video allows discussion to center on particular facts.

I'd like this thread to focus solely on Farina's arguments against Luskin in this video ->




The first part of the video is about how Luskin doesn't have the right degree to talk about biology, seeing as his PhD is in geology. Farina himself, AFAICTell, would also then lack the required degrees it seems?

The next major part is Luskin's claims in this video:




Luskin claims that there isn't really good fossil evidence of how modern humans evolved from ape ancestors, and this is corroborated in the video by Johnathan Wells.

Luskin's main points seem to be the lack of clear fossil evidence, as well as noting that other branches of hominids such as Homo Erectus and Neanderthals were far smarter than usually accepted in the past. Wells also claims that the ape to human transition is embellished by science art, with the example from Natural Geographic where illustrations showing a chain of evolution from missing links between apes and humans is speculative drawings based on a single set of bones.

Also Luskin has issue with Lucy, noting one part of that bone set was from a baboon. Also noted that Lucy had no feet fossils, so unclear if she really stood upright. There seems to be a potential argument that Lucy was a knuckle walking ape.

The video also questions the legitimacy of the Ardi & Ida fossils that have been touted as missing links.

Now on to Farina's challenges to these claims:

Farina starts with an overarching point, that the ape to human transition is well documented in the fossil record. He also notes that apes is a colloquial term that more specifically refers to Hominidae. He claims Luskin and those like him are, if I grasp his accusation, cheating by saying all the transitional fossils are really just apes...

So we have Luskin saying Materialists force certain ape fossils to serve as transitional species, whereas Farina is saying Luskin and his fellows are in denial about how these are valid transitional fossils.

Farina also thinks Luskin mentioning Neanderthals is deceptive, because no one is claiming that we evolved from Neanderthals. I'm not sure this was Luskin's point, though I was also not clear on why Luskin mentioned Neanderthals...maybe to show apes could be far more advanced while still not being humans like ourselves? So a potential dishonesty on Luskin's part, will have to look into this further.

Then we get to a clear accusation, that Luskin suggests anthropologist Owen Lovejoy presented Lucy's bones in a way that deceptively makes them seem like she walked upright when alive.

Farina points out that the clips Science Uprising used don't tell the full story, and the whole documentary they draw from  - shown on America's PBS channel. The documentary notes Lucy had locking knee joints, something an ape would not have. The documentary also claims that the oddity of Lucy's hips are due to fusing of different bones after her death.

Farina also shows a clip from Lovejoy disparaging how his words were taken out of context by the Science Uprising Video made by DI.

Farina notes that while Lucy had no feet, there are footprints attributed to her taxon, Australopithecus. There are also feet from another member of Australopithecus (the skeleton "Little Foot").

Farina then notes that Luskin makes it seem that Lucy was some isolated skeleton the entire theory of ape-to-human evolution was based on but there are many different sets of fossils of Australopithecus. Farina say that taking these fossils as a collective set shows many indications that these are indicative of a transitional species between apes and humans.

The next part is about the significance of Lucy having "knuckle walker" traits. Farina points out the article that Luskin quotes from actually affirms that Lucy was a biped, and the discussion is about whether the ape-like traits were functional.

Farina also notes the article is merely a preview/overview of an actual study that discusses how humans evolved from a knuckle walking ancestor.

Farina also gets a quote from Richmond, one of the scientists who wrote the actual study, and he agrees Luskin mischaracterized what their work [said]. He also says Lucy did not have the hands of an active knuckle-walker.

Farina then goes into a general criticism about DI, claiming there are no biases in science because science is not dogma. He also claims "materialist agenda" is just a synonym for "doing science".

Then he gets back to the Science Uprising video and its claims about a deep divide between humanity and other animals. He notes varied animals do exhibit morality, love, revenge, engaging politics, etc.

Then there is a final bit about how the DI's purpose is political control through Christianity. He notes that Inference is a journal that has no peer review, started by Berlinksi.

Finally he tells us how bad Christianity is [or at least was], how there's a plan to turn America and the World into a Theocracy.

Will look for Luskin's replies/rebuttals, or any from the DI, about the debate in these two specific videos.

Examining “Professor Dave’s” Absurd Attack on Casey Luskin

Günter Bechly

In a recent video attacking intelligent design, a popular atheist YouTuber, “Professor” Dave Farina, singles out geologist Casey Luskin for special wrath. The attack on Luskin is definitely the most ludicrous part of the non-professor’s video, with Farina claiming at one point that Luskin perpetrated “a criminal offense” in an episode of Science Uprising on human evolution. Shall we call the cops on Dr. Luskin? Well, let’s see.

Bechly starts by noting other articles he's written challenging Farina's accusations/attacks, which you can see in the article. We'll probably get to them in other planned threads about Farina's video series attacking the DI.

The next part of the article is noting that if Luskin is academically unqualified to discuss evolution, then going by Farina's academic credentials he is also unqualified.

Then we get to the "On the Merits" part that focuses on rebutting what Farina said in the video. A chunk of this is about defending Luskin in particular, which I guess comes down to whether you think the Science Uprising video is lying by omission. I leave that to the reader, and will focus more on the factual questions about what the fossil record shows.

Regarding Lovejoy's reconstruction of Lucy, Bechly notes the documentary itself says that the reconstruction of Lucy required, " quite a bit of evolutionary interpretation and imagination". So he believes the charge that Lucy being assumed to be a bipedal missing link is not by itself directly coming from evidence.

He then notes that Lovejoy's use of plaster does lead to its own issues, claiming that, "attempted reconstruction is even worse when done on a plaster cast, because the cast has a homogenous matrix and no longer shows the clear distinctions between fossil substance and surrounding sediment. "

He says this can introduce more errors. He also claims that Lucy's reconstruction was not properly documented, and that experts disagreed on exactly how to reconstruct her body. He then lists several papers discussing different reconstructions:

Even though they were aware of the distortion in the fossil and of Lovejoy’s reconstruction, which they note, Stern & Susman (1983: Fig. 6) concluded in their study of Lucy’s pelvis that “the marked resemblance of AL 288-1 to the chimpanzee is equally obvious. Even allowing for postmortem distortion in the middle of the iliac crest of AL 288-1ao, it is impossible to obtain an orientation comparable to humans.” Berge et al. (1984)presented their own reconstruction of Lucy’s pelvis using the method of mirror molding. They found characteristic human features as well as “significant dissimilarities,” suggesting a “fetal skull size similar to the one of the neonate chimpanzee.” Rak (1991) concluded that “Lucy’s pelvis, therefore, does not represent simply an intermediate stage between a chimpanzee-like hominoid and Homo sapiens, nor is it essentially a modern human pelvis. Although clearly bipedal and highly terrestrial, Lucy evidently achieved this mode of locomotion through a solution all her own.” Häusler & Schmid (1995) compared three reconstructions of Lucy’s pelvis by Lovejoy (1979), Schmid (1983), and the first author, which “revealed marked differences between Sts14 and AL 288-1 which are unlikely to be explained by different methods of reconstruction.” Kimbel & Delezene (2009) acknowledged that “primitive aspects of the A.L. 288-1 pelvis have been used to argue for the lack of fully obligate bipedalism in A. afarensis … Others have argued that the pelvis of A.L. 288-1 is fully adapted to bipedalism.” Kuliukas (2018) found that “The general shape of the pelvis of Australopithecus afarensis is confirmed to be fundamentally different from both Homo and extant great apes, and not intermediate between them.” 

Bechly does agree with Farina that the Science Uprising video should have noted Lovejoy did not sand down the actual bones, but rather a reconstruction from plaster. He does not think this invalidates Luskin's argument.

Bechly then discusses Farina's point about the Science Uprising video leaving out mention of Lucy's knee joint. He notes that there is disagreement whether a locking knee joint is definitive evidence of being bipedal.

 Lewin & Foley (2003) wrote in their core textbook Principles of Human Evolution:

Completing the case for a bent-hip, bent-knee walking posture is the suggestion by the SUNY researchers that the A. afarensis knee joint cannot lock in a fully flexed position, as it does in modern humans. The Kent State researchers dispute three points of this description of the anatomy, ultimately rejecting the functional interpretation.

Bechly then discusses Farina's point that while Lucy is missing feet there's Little Foot plus fossilized foot prints to show Lucy being a missing link between humans and apes is a warranted conclusion. Bechly says that the Laetoli footprints were 1,000 mi and 460,000 years away from Lucy. He also notes there's evdence that "there were two different hominin species with different bipedal gait leaving their footprints at Laetoli (McNutt et al. 2021).

He also says Little Foot's bones are from a different species, which I actually think Farina agrees with in his video. Little Foot is of the species Australopithecus prometheus, Lucy is of the species Australopithecus afarensis. Bechly claims Little Foot only has part of its foot intact anyway.

Regarding Farina's claim that there is a large sample of Australopithecus afarensis Bechly offers a counter-claim that most of that sample are tiny fossils and teeth. According to Bechly there are only three rather complete - but still not wholly complete - skeletons, none of which has a complete set of foot bones. The one skeleton with the best foot fossil has also been argued to be a tree climber:

... This fossil foot was first described as “clear evidence for bipedal locomotion” (Alemseged et al. 2006), but a recent re-examination revealed that the fossil documents the ape-like foot of a tree-climber (DeSilva et al. 2018). This was considered “unexpected” because the only other fossil of the foot skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis is an isolated metatarsal bone of an adult (AL 333-160), which has been interpreted as evidence of an arched foot adapted for bipedal gait (Ward et al. 2011). Instead of considering a potential misattribution or misinterpretation, the scientists speculated that the juvenile specimens were more arboreal climbers, while the adults were more terrestrial walkers...

Bechly also notes that given some evidence bipedal apes existed, the idea that evidence of Lucy and other Australopithecus being bipedal doesn't then mean they are missing links between humans and apes. He goes into some detail about this evidence.

=-=-=

If anyone has some links about these facts in dispute, please post them. However please DO NOT post any general commentary about DI, about ID, about Farina, etc. There's already a thread for that, and why I made this one as a separate thread to focus only on the debate about the specific video that is Part I of Farina's expose (or slander, depending on how the facts ultimately align) series.

Thanks!

Regarding the discovery that one of the bones identified as part of Lucy actually came from a baboon:

Lucy's back: Reassessment of fossils associated with the A.L. 288-1 vertebral column

Marc R. Meyer, Scott A. Williams, Michael P. Smith, Gary J. Sawyer

The Australopithecus afarensis partial skeleton A.L. 288-1, popularly known as “Lucy” is associated with nine vertebrae. The vertebrae were given provisional level assignments to locations within the vertebral column by their discoverers and later workers. The continuity of the thoracic series differs in these assessments, which has implications for functional interpretations and comparative studies with other fossil hominins. Johanson and colleagues described one vertebral element (A.L. 288-1am) as uniquely worn amongst the A.L. 288-1 fossil assemblage, a condition unobservable on casts of the fossils. Here, we reassess the species attribution and serial position of this vertebral fragment and other vertebrae in the A.L. 288-1 series. When compared to the other vertebrae, A.L. 288-1am falls well below the expected size within a given spinal column. Furthermore, we demonstrate this vertebra exhibits non-metric characters absent in hominoids but common in large-bodied papionins. Quantitative analyses situate this vertebra within the genus Theropithecus, which today is solely represented by the gelada baboon but was the most abundant cercopithecoid in the KH-1s deposit at Hadar where Lucy was discovered. Our additional analyses confirm that the remainder of the A.L. 288-1 vertebral material belongs to A. afarensis, and we provide new level assignments for some of the other vertebrae, resulting in a continuous articular series of thoracic vertebrae, from T6 to T11. This work does not refute previous work on Lucy or its importance for human evolution, but rather highlights the importance of studying original fossils, as well as the efficacy of the scientific method.

I get the last part sort of has to be mentioned given this error will be used as a challenge to the standard evolution story, but it is a bit concerning decades went by before the error was noticed...

From Wikipedia on whether Lucy is a genuine missing link:

...In 1979, Johanson and White proposed that A. afarensis was the last common ancestor between Homo and Paranthropus, supplanting A. africanus in this role.[22] Considerable debate of the validity of this species followed, with proposals for synonymising them with A. africanus or recognising multiple species from the Laetoli and Hadar remains. In 1980, South African palaeoanthropologist Phillip V. Tobias proposed reclassifying the Laetoli specimens as A. africanus afarensis and the Hadar specimens as A. afr. aethiopicus.[23] The skull KNM-ER 1470 (now H. rudolfensis) was at first dated to 2.9 million years ago, which cast doubt on the ancestral position of both A. afarensis or A. africanus, but it has been re-dated to about 2 million years ago.[8] Several Australopithecus species have since been postulated to represent the ancestor to Homo, but the 2013 discovery of the earliest Homo specimen, LD 350-1, 2.8 million years old (older than almost all other Australopithecus species) from the Afar Region could potentially affirm A. afarensis' ancestral position.[24] However, A. afarensis is also argued to have been too derived (too specialised), due to resemblance in jaw anatomy to the robust australopithecines, to have been a human ancestor.[25]...

...Like other australopiths, the A. afarensis skeleton exhibits a mosaic anatomy with some aspects similar to modern humans and others to non-human great apes. The pelvis and leg bones clearly indicate weight-bearing ability, equating to habitual bipedalism, but the upper limbs are reminiscent of orangutans, which would indicate arboreal locomotion. However, this is much debated, as tree-climbing adaptations could simply be basal traits inherited from the great ape last common ancestor in the absence of major selective pressures at this stage to adopt a more humanlike arm anatomy.[46]

The shoulder joint is somewhat in a shrugging position, closer to the head, like in non-human apes.[47] Juvenile modern humans have a somewhat similar configuration, but this changes to the normal human condition with age; such a change does not appear to have occurred in A. afarensis development. It was once argued that this was simply a byproduct of being a small-bodied species, but the discovery of the similarly sized H. floresiensis with a more or less human shoulder configuration and larger A. afarensis specimens retaining the shrugging shoulders show this to not have been the case. The scapular spine (reflecting the strength of the back muscles) is closer to the range of gorillas.[47]...

Regarding the importance of bipedalism as a definitive marker for a transitional species between humans and apes:

For a long time, A. afarensis was the oldest known African great ape until the 1994 description of the 4.4-million-year-old Ardipithecus ramidus,[14] and a few earlier or contemporary taxa have been described since, including the 4-million-year-old A. anamensis in 1995,[15] the 3.5-million-year-old Kenyanthropus platyops in 2001,[16] the 6-million-year-old Orrorin tugenensis in 2001,[17] and the 7- to 6-million-year-old Sahelanthropus tchadensis in 2002.[18] Bipedalism was once thought to have evolved in australopithecines, but it is now thought to have begun evolving much earlier in habitually arboreal primates. The earliest claimed date for the beginnings of an upright spine and a primarily vertical body plan is 21.6 million years ago in the Early Miocene with Morotopithecus bishopi.[19]

The next part is about the significance of Lucy having "knuckle walker" traits. Farina points out the article that Luskin quotes from actually affirms that Lucy was a biped, and the discussion is about whether the ape-like traits were functional.

Farina also notes the article is merely a preview/overview of an actual study that discusses how humans evolved from a knuckle walking ancestor.

Farina also gets a quote from Richmond, one of the scientists who wrote the actual study, and he agrees Luskin mischaracterized what their work [said]. He also says Lucy did not have the hands of an active knuckle-walker.

Here's the relevant article from Nature:

From forelimbs to two legs

Mark Collard and Leslie C. Aiello

And here's the part Luskin quoted:

Richmond and Strait reanalysed several well-known early hominid fossils, including the famous skeleton known as Lucy. Comparing the wrists of these fossils with the wrists of modern humans and several other primate species, Richmond and Strait found that two of our earliest fossil relatives, Australopithecus afarensis and Australopithecus anamensis, exhibit characteristics of the wrist that are seen today only in the African apes. These features are thought to be associated with knuckle-walking, an unusual mode of quadrupedal locomotion in which the fingers are bent and weight is supported on the backs of the second of
the three rows of finger bones.

Not sure how important this is given Bechly notes discoveries of bipedal apes.

IMO Luskin could have done a better job showing us the various debates about whether Lucy was bipedal. And the article does discuss how the study authors suggest the "knuckle walker" traits of Lucy are just remnants from a prior common ancestor...But the article does also note that not everyone accepts this, and of course it's even debated whether Lucy was an ancestor to humans.

So I think Luskin - if we're being charitable - did jump the gun in reading this article and including it in the Science Uprising interview, but I also think the article does raise some concerns about Lucy's status. But I do think this is a point against Luskin, that he didn't really present the article's takeaway thoroughly.

But I also think Farina downplayed a lot of the legitimate debate in the scientific community regarding Lucy's status.

Will have to go through the other videos in time, but for now I don't know if I'd say either is dishonest so much as deeply biased. Still...I wouldn't take either as the definitive expert on what is going on in the field of evolutionary biology....

[Laird]

Great job, Sci.

Here are a few other resources in relation to Dave's video on Casey Luskin that you might not have been aware of in seeming to have otherwise come to a close re this video:

The article Examining “Professor Dave’s” Absurd Attack on Casey Luskin which you've covered above was the third in a three-part series by Günter Bechly responding to Dave's video. The first two parts are:

Yawn: Atheist YouTuber “Professor Dave” Rants about Intelligent Design (May 25, 2022), and
Fact-Checking “Professor Dave”: Is the Term “Darwinism” Really Used Only by “Creationists”? (May 27, 2022).

Dave in turn responded to the entire three-part series in his later video:

Exposing Discovery Institute Part 4: Günter Bechly

There's of course no obligation on you to assess these extra resources; I'm just making you aware of them in case you weren't already.

Great job, Sci.

Here are a few other resources in relation to Dave's video on Casey Luskin that you might not have been aware of in seeming to have otherwise come to a close re this video:

The article Examining “Professor Dave’s” Absurd Attack on Casey Luskin which you've covered above was the third in a three-part series by Günter Bechly responding to Dave's video. The first two parts are:

Yawn: Atheist YouTuber “Professor Dave” Rants about Intelligent Design (May 25, 2022), and
Fact-Checking “Professor Dave”: Is the Term “Darwinism” Really Used Only by “Creationists”? (May 27, 2022).

Dave in turn responded to the entire three-part series in his later video:

Exposing Discovery Institute Part 4: Günter Bechly

There's of course no obligation on you to assess these extra resources; I'm just making you aware of them in case you weren't already.

Yeah I plan on getting to those as well, just in separate threads. 

Before moving on I thought it might be worth personally answering about my view regarding whether humans are special among animals, and whether this requires some Divine intervention.

I’d say there is something special about humans, but not to the degree DI wants it to be…however I do also think Farina and those like him unfairly diminish the gap between humans and other animals we share this world with.

We see various emotions in the animal kingdom, with some even having tribal politics or displaying nobility and love. We also know that there’s research of cognition in plants, and even suggested reasoning in insects such as a bee’s ability to grasp certain basic aspects of mathematics - for example comprehension of the number Zero.

OTOH, we don’t see other animals proving the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus or writing complex literature or music. There may be some animal art, but there doesn’t seem to any proof-back maths in the rest of the animal kingdom. So I do think our capacity for conceptual thinking exceeds other animals, at least from what we can observe.

Of course that doesn’t mean animals are soulless, or we can just treat them like machinery that feels nothing inside. If I were to give a spiritual answer I would say that to me there’s just one kind of soul but it travels along a Road rather than a Ladder of Being, where I use “road” because I don’t know if we can justify a hierarchy that sets us above animals. So the potential remains in the soul but is only sometimes actualized, as even in humans not everyone gets deep into math proofs but almost all humans think and reason in some way and we do see reasoning in animals as well.