Okay, evolutionists, a little pop quiz for you. I mean, all of you are soooo certain humans evolved from some other species, right? Answering tge following questions should be easy for you.

1. What species immediately preceded human beings?

2. Let's for now call it species "A". Approximately, what year was the first human being born of a species "A" mother?

3. Did the mother reject this very different baby?

4. Whatever happened to species "A"? Why aren't they still around?

5. What species immediately preceded species "A"? For now let's call it species "B".

6. In approximately what year was a species "B" baby born of a species "A" mother?

7. Did the mother reject this very different baby?

8. When did species Z, Y, X, etc. evolve into the next species? Remember, evolutionists, you just knooooow it happened, so tell us when. "Millions of years ago" is not an answer---tell us within 100 years or so, since you are so sure.

9. How many species ago do we get to the good old still-existing ape?

10. And the real clincher: if all these intermediate species were more fit than, and more intelligent than, the presently-existing ape, WHERE ARE THEY? Why did the go extinct, if they were so smart, and not the ape?

The Urantia Book
Paper 65
The Overcontrol of Evolution

Excerpt: 65:0.1 (730.1) BASIC evolutionary material life — premind life — is the formulation of the Master Physical Controllers and the life-impartation ministry of the Seven Master Spirits in conjunction with the active ministration of the ordained Life Carriers. As a result of the co-ordinate function of this threefold creativity there develops organismal physical capacity for mind — material mechanisms for intelligent reaction to external environmental stimuli and, later on, to internal stimuli, influences taking origin in the organismal mind itself.

65:0.2 (730.2) There are, then, three distinct levels of life production and evolution:

65:0.3 (730.3) 1. The physical-energy domain — mind-capacity production.

65:0.4 (730.4) 2. The mind ministry of the adjutant spirits — impinging upon spirit capacity.

65:0.5 (730.5) 3. The spirit endowment of mortal mind — culminating in Thought Adjuster bestowal.

65:0.6 (730.6) The mechanical-nonteachable levels of organismal environmental response are the domains of the physical controllers. The adjutant mind-spirits activate and regulate the adaptative or nonmechanical-teachable types of mind — those response mechanisms of organisms capable of learning from experience. And as the spirit adjutants thus manipulate mind potentials, so do the Life Carriers exercise considerable discretionary control over the environmental aspects of evolutionary processes right up to the time of the appearance of human will — the ability to know God and the power of choosing to worship him.

65:0.7 (730.7) It is the integrated functioning of the Life Carriers, the physical controllers, and the spirit adjutants that conditions the course of organic evolution on the inhabited worlds. And this is why evolution — on Urantia or elsewhere — is always purposeful and never accidental.

http://www.urantia.org/urantia-book-standardized/paper-65-overcontrol-evolution

It's all in the definition, really. If one defines evolution as merely genetic change over time, that species do make changes---within that specific species---who could argue with that? Of course that is true! But to conclude from that that human beings must have evolved from a lower species is a completely fifferent notion.

Why don't you read my posts and enlighten yourself?

Just what is that suppose to mean in relation to my post?

Okay, evolutionists, a little pop quiz for you. I mean, all of you are soooo certain humans evolved from some other species, right? Answering tge following questions should be easy for you.

1. What species immediately preceded human beings?

2. Let's for now call it species "A". Approximately, what year was the first human being born of a species "A" mother?

3. Did the mother reject this very different baby?

4. Whatever happened to species "A"? Why aren't they still around?

5. What species immediately preceded species "A"? For now let's call it species "B".

6. In approximately what year was a species "B" baby born of a species "A" mother?

7. Did the mother reject this very different baby?

8. When did species Z, Y, X, etc. evolve into the next species? Remember, evolutionists, you just knooooow it happened, so tell us when. "Millions of years ago" is not an answer---tell us within 100 years or so, since you are so sure.

9. How many species ago do we get to the good old still-existing ape?

10. And the real clincher: if all these intermediate species were more fit than, and more intelligent than, the presently-existing ape, WHERE ARE THEY? Why did the go extinct, if they were so smart, and not the ape?

It's all in the definition, really. If one defines evolution as merely genetic change over time, that species do make changes---within that specific species---who could argue with that? Of course that is true! But to conclude from that that human beings must have evolved from a lower species is a completely fifferent notion.

In other words, differentiating between "adaptation" being defined as "evolution", or "evolution" being understood as Darwin's theory of "The Origin of the Species".

And the part about a mother rejecting the child illustrates what I consider one of the weaknesses in the theory of species x evolving into species y.

The concept is that a series of mutations occur, and that the mutation becomes dominant due to some advantage (survival of the fittest).
But...Aside from the fact that mutation is generally deleterious to survival of the individual (there are instances in microbiology where this is not the case, but is there any clearly documented case of beneficial mutation in any complex life form- aside from the presumption of species A, represented by fossil records, becoming species B of another record?)... the "herd instinct" (a readily observable phenomena) would result in any obvious mutation being "culled".
The counter argument is that each particular mutation is insignificant enough to avoid this.
How then, does an insignificant difference confer any advantage, so that it would become sufficiently widely spread as to become the dominant gene?

Clarence has presented counter argument to what has been coined the "watchmaker argument", but I find it unconvincing.
Eyes, lungs, feathers, etc.- Just how would any intermediate step towards these organs confer any benefit, or have any reason for proliferation?

The way I see it, those who ardently espouse evolution of the species use the same sort of circular logic, of explaining things (from the perspective of an excepted postulate) as theologians are (most often justly) accused of. I.E.- Well, we can't explain it, really, but it must be something like this, because that's what happened.

Here's a "twist"-- How about, instead of "punctuated equilibrium" to explain what seem to be "sudden" changes, posit an outside agency.
One theory presented for the origin of life on Earth is microbes from meteorites.
Science is the study of natural laws, etc. and so is constrained (as per a source Clarence presented) from even considering "supernatural", but...the agency does not have to fall into that category. (Think Eric Von Daniken's concept).
Why is it so "far out" to hypothesize the possibility of "terraforming"?
Would that not explain all the observed data, including the records of various cultures that seem to be referring to life forms far superior to humans (as far as our known history anyway)?

The Urantia Book
Paper 65
The Overcontrol of Evolution

Excerpt: 65:0.1 (730.1) BASIC evolutionary material life — premind life — is the formulation of the Master Physical Controllers and the life-impartation ministry of the Seven Master Spirits in conjunction with the active ministration of the ordained Life Carriers. As a result of the co-ordinate function of this threefold creativity there develops organismal physical capacity for mind — material mechanisms for intelligent reaction to external environmental stimuli and, later on, to internal stimuli, influences taking origin in the organismal mind itself.

65:0.2 (730.2) There are, then, three distinct levels of life production and evolution:

65:0.3 (730.3) 1. The physical-energy domain — mind-capacity production.

65:0.4 (730.4) 2. The mind ministry of the adjutant spirits — impinging upon spirit capacity.

65:0.5 (730.5) 3. The spirit endowment of mortal mind — culminating in Thought Adjuster bestowal.

65:0.6 (730.6) The mechanical-nonteachable levels of organismal environmental response are the domains of the physical controllers. The adjutant mind-spirits activate and regulate the adaptative or nonmechanical-teachable types of mind — those response mechanisms of organisms capable of learning from experience. And as the spirit adjutants thus manipulate mind potentials, so do the Life Carriers exercise considerable discretionary control over the environmental aspects of evolutionary processes right up to the time of the appearance of human will — the ability to know God and the power of choosing to worship him.

65:0.7 (730.7) It is the integrated functioning of the Life Carriers, the physical controllers, and the spirit adjutants that conditions the course of organic evolution on the inhabited worlds. And this is why evolution — on Urantia or elsewhere — is always purposeful and never accidental.

http://www.urantia.org/urantia-book-standardized/paper-65-overcontrol-evolution

Science is the study of natural laws, etc. and so is constrained (as per a source Clarence presented) from even considering "supernatural",...

If so, Bard, et al, whose problem is that? If they are "constrained from even considering 'supernatural,'" they are self constrained. It's nobody's problem but their own. It's like they say, "We're going to tie one hand behind our back and then we'll be constrained." Nobody is doing that to them. They've deliberately closed off an avenue of possibilities. Apparently we'll all just have to wait for the day when they are humbled enough to finally announce, "Ok, we're at the end of the road with this (some particular problem) and we can't solve it, so maybe we'll consider a Creator. We hate the idea but that's the only way out." Sooner or later science will have to factor in the supernatural, imo.

With all the qualifiers, ("according to current knowledge based on fossil evidence"), this is not an answer to Lud's question. It would be better if you simply said, "I don't know."

.
My post was sufficiently detailed to convey the reality that fossils don't come ready-labelled and scientists have to estimate their evolutionary relationships based on their age, location and anatomical features. Not knowing everything about human evolution doesn't mean we don't know anything with certainty.

For instance, we know that humans didn't suddenly evolve one million years ago from the descendants of a kind of lemur, as the UB claims.

The strepsirhines were the first of the suborders to evolve. Subsequently, they are often called the "lower primates." They are also referred to as prosimians click this icon to hear the preceding term pronounced which literally means "pre-monkey" in Latin. When they were first given this name in the 19th century, it was only an inspired guess that early prosimians evolved before the monkeys. It was not until the mid 20th century that it was confirmed by the fossil record.

62:1.1 (703.2) The early lemurs concerned in the ancestry of the human species were not directly related to the pre-existent tribes of gibbons and apes then living in Eurasia and northern Africa, whose progeny have survived to the present time. Neither were they the offspring of the modern type of lemur, though springing from an ancestor common to both but long since extinct.

None of the various hypothesi (is that the plural of hypothesis?) of the origin of homo sapien has been proved, not evolutionism, not creationism, none of them. Why don't we all just the humility to say that none of us know for sure?