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China's Earliest Modern Human Found
Posted by
samzenpus
on Thu Apr 05, 2007 03:51 AM
from the what-is-old-is-new dept.
from the what-is-old-is-new dept.
The remains of one of the earliest modern humans to inhabit eastern Asia have been unearthed in China. The find could shed light on how our ancestors colonized the East. Researchers found 34 bone fragments belonging to a single individual at the Tianyuan Cave, near Beijing.
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More evidence... (Score:4, Funny)
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Actually it is that old. (Score:3, Funny)
It really is that old. On the 8th day, god created a 40,000 year old skeleton and then buried it somewhere he knew we would find it. he does this to test our faith. god can do anything. Even impossible things or things that make no logical sense.
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Imagine you're God. And of course, you want people to believe in you 'cause
Why would I create stuff to make people doubt my existance?
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One can only wonder what would have happened if he had set it 4511 instead...
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Richard Swinburne, the foremost living philosopher of religion, gives an interesting presentation of this problem for laymen in his book Is There a God? [amazon.com] (Oxford University Press, 1996). His conclusion is that God is bound by logic. For example, he cannot cause something to exist and not exist at the same time. This idea, that logic in a sense precedes God, is controversial, and debate on this is one of the most lively issues i
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No - the foremost living philosopher of religion is Richard Dawkins, and there is no logical reason for believing in a god or gods at all.
Logic not only precedes gods, it precludes them as well.
Philosphy of religion? Why bother? An anthropology of religion would be valid, but to try to apply logic and reason to myths is just not valid. As Wittgenstein put it -
Re:Actually it is that old. (Score:5, Interesting)
No, he is not a philosopher of religion. In the last twenty years, he has tried to present himself as one, but the academy, both theist or non-theist, is getting a little worried about him. Anthony Flew, instead of joining with Dawkins in any way, went the entirely opposite direction.
Theist philosophers of religion propose arguments, and their non-theist colleagues, though they critically examine them, nonetheless believe that the whole enterprise has value.
Theist philosophers don't necessarily work from any existing world religion, so "myths" don't often come into play here.
Please get some training in the field before you try to dispute its work. K thx bye.
Parent
Philosophers have value? (Score:3, Interesting)
First you have to convince someone that modern academic philosophers have value, for this statement to matter.
Religion is interesting in the abstract, but theists tend to believe because that is what their parents believed and they simply indoctrinated the children. If not fairly heavily indoctrinated, most people would not be that
Re:Philosophers have value? (Score:4, Interesting)
I hear this argument a lot, but I have never seen anyone back it up with evidence. I know it is anecdotal so close to meaningless, but my reason to doubt is the largest church in my hometown has a congregation of over 1,600 people, and a vast majority of them were not raised in Christian homes. Now the catholic church and school, in which children are heavily indoctrinated and I don't think a single member wasn't raised in a catholic home, has seen steady and fairly rapid decline.
Parent
Re:Statistics Canada. (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.statcan.ca/cgi-bin/downpub/listpub.cgi
Religion of parents (vs outcome Lo Med Hi religiosity )
Both parents same religion 32 34 33
Parents from different religions 50 28 22
Neither parent religious 85 6 10
I like to think I was just born very skeptical and would have been a non believer no matter what circumstance I was born into, but it may just be that neither of my parents was religious and I was left to form my own ideas without being indoctrinated. Naturally many people will buck the trend but I think the correlation is clear.
Religion is just the brains legacy OS many people got stuck with.
Parent
Re:Actually it is that old. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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He has hardly tried to present himself as a "philosopher of religion". He has quite clearly presented himself as an atheist and a scientist. He does, of course, philosophize against religion. Which academy are you talking about, by the way, and of what importance is this academy to Richard Dawkins?
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No, atheists are not excluded from being philosophers of religion. There have been many notable atheist philosophers of religion. For every Swinburne there's a Mackie, and for every Plantinga there's a Flew (well, before his conversion, anyway). Just look in your university library for an introductory reader in the phi
Re:Actually it is that old. (Score:4, Insightful)
Your point is just an inversion of the burden of proof fallacy. If I have a phd in the field of "teapots orbitting the sun", every one is more than welcome to question the value of my field. If your point was valid, any quack could create all sorts of completely pointless fields of study and no one would be able to say they were pointless.
The fact is if you are making a positive statement the burden of proof is on you. Almost by definition skepticism doesn't need proof, just reason.
Parent
Re:Actually it is that old. (Score:5, Insightful)
He proposes many scientific tests for analyzing the propagation, benefits, and costs of religious ideas. He thinks memetics and evolutionary psychology provide the best way of understanding the state of religions.
He is also an atheist, and believes religion is in its death-throes in modern society.
Parent
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That does not support your argument "those
Anyway, I like many people I feel the existence of God is as likely as the FSM (flying spaghetti monster) but neither beli
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Why does existence need a cause? Why can't it simply be eternal?
Ah, so reality is finite and bounded, but a personality is unlimited? Doesn't that strike you as backwards?
True enough. Now tell us how you got from that fact of human
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Anyway, there is only one thing we can be certain: Chuck Norris can create a rock so heavy that even he can't lift it. And then he lifts it anyways, just to show you who Chuck Norris is.
I can clap with one hand (Score:2)
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Re:More evidence... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Who are you talking about? (Score:2, Insightful)
What do you mean "our", pilgrim? My ancestors didn't colonize the East.
Re:Who are you talking about? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_a
Parent
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see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_Recent_Common_A
Other things interest me besides... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Other things interest me besides... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
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It's an interesting project. [nationalgeographic.com] More information on ibm.com as well.
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You are certainly not an evolutionary biologist and if your girlfriend is you certainly haven't been listening to here unless she is a student of that neanderthal Wolpert.. You don't live in Ann Arbour by any chance?
Most paleoa
Re:Other things interest me besides... (Score:5, Funny)
(Cue one of the most kick-ass scifi theme songs ever composed...)
Parent
Re:Other things interest me besides... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Other things interest me besides... (Score:4, Interesting)
I read somewhere that even now human African populations have much more diversity than humans outside Africa. Perhaps the different racial characteristics represent groups who left Africa at various times because they were less suited to the environment there.
Parent
Re:Other things interest me besides... (Score:5, Interesting)
In reality the expansion of the Niger-Congo people from a fairly small area in western Africa is a very recent phenomenon, and a large part of Africa was, and in the north still is, inhabited by people with lighter skins and a variety of physical features. The African sun does not select specifically for being of the Niger-Congo type: the expansion has to do with agricultural and military advantages these people had over their competitors. Compare tropical regions in Asia and South America before the Spanish arrived: no blacks there. There is however a limit on how light-skinned a baby can be in the African sun and still survive, so some mutations will only happen once a group has left Africa.
Parent
Re:Other things interest me besides... (Score:5, Informative)
Evidence suggests that early hominids migrated out of Africa in waves. Homo erectus, for example, is believed to have evolved in Africa and spread over much of Asia one or two million years ago. The general pattern of hominid evolution is one of evolution of new species in Africa followed by general dispersion over those parts of the globe accessible by foot. This pattern appears to have been repeated several times: H. erectus, H. heidelbergensis/neanderthalensis[1] and H. sapiens.
The reality of hominid evolution is that we don't know a lot. The number of fossils is small and the weight of inference they bear is heavy. As Mark Twain said, in science one gets such a huge return in speculation from such a trifling investment of fact. However, the DNA evidence points quite strongly to the evolution of modern humans in Africa about two hundred thousand years ago, and the migration across the rest of the Old World about 70,000 years ago, with the settling of Australia by perfectly ordinary H. sapiens who are just like all the rest of us about 40,000 years ago. North America was colonized somewhat later, but probably not that much.
Humans are much bigger on exogamy than any other primate: we have a strong tendency to breed outside our kin group. We'll have sex with just about anything, and actually show a marked preference for those who are not perceived to be close kin. This is why the differences between races are so tiny, and restricted entirely to rapidly evolved and quite trivial enzymic variations that have high survival value in different climates. We are all multi-racial under the skin, and all have ancestors of different races far more recently in our family tree than most people appreciate (Icelanders may be exempt from this rule.)
So on the face of it, if there were multiple waves of near-modern humans migrating across the Old World, it is very likely that the members of the most recent group would have interbred with previous groups.
[1] For the racists in the audience, it might be worth contemplating that Neanderthals are the only hominid species that appears to have evolved in Europe (from H. heidelbergensis that left Africa earlier) and of all the hominids they are amongst the least successful.
Parent
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Quickly now, don't run! (Score:2, Funny)
Modern? (Score:5, Funny)
If he's living in a cave, he can't be very "modern"...
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Re:Could be fake (Score:4, Informative)
Don't be an idiot - that would mean being found for sale on a dirty blanket laid out on a sidewalk outside the Lohou train station in Shenzhen. The Tianyuan Cave is a carefully protected area [people.com.cn], listed on UNESCO's World Heritage List, and monitored specifically to prohibit such funny business.
Parent
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Your tinfoil-hat-fu is weak. Who monitors it, and what would they stand to gain by this find occurring there?
What if nothing was found at UNESCO sites? UNESCO would lose relevancy, of course. It's rather obvious that UNESCO, the Chinese government, and academics have conspired to pull one over on us, and that these bone fragments are actually the remnants of