China's Earliest Modern Human Found

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.

Who are you talking about?

[Anonymous Coward]

The find could shed light on how our ancestors colonized the East.

What do you mean "our", pilgrim? My ancestors didn't colonize the East.

Re:Who are you talking about?

[Frozen Void]

Your ancestors are ancestors for everyone if you look deep enough.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_Recent_Common_An cestor#MRCA_of_all_living_humans [wikipedia.org]

Re:Actually it is that old.

[aproposofwhat]

Richard Swinburne, the foremost living philosopher of religion

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 -

Of that on which we cannot speak, we must remain silent.

Re:More evidence...

[Anonymous Coward]

Click-throughs not working out for you, hmm?

What makes you so sure you were the only submitter? And if it wasn't the article you submitted, what the hell are you complaining about?

Re:Actually it is that old.

[mapkinase]

Dawkins is an arrogant media-hungry loser of science. I have seen similar figures in my field: computational biology. It has nothing to do with religion or anything else. Some people just want to flamebait on- and off-line.

Re:Actually it is that old.

[Lord Ender]

Richard Swinburne, the foremost living philosopher of religion

No - the foremost living philosopher of religion is Richard Dawkins

Actually, Daniel Dennett is probably the best mind in the field today.
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.

Re:Other things interest me besides...

[grahamlee]

If she's called Eve then I'll pick up Richard Dawkins' coat along with mine on the way out ;-). Mind you, you can kindof work out that it wouldn't require too much history for you and I, or you and CmdrTaco, or you and anyone else in the world to find a common ancestor. If you go back 33 generations then without any inbreeding you would have 8 billion ancestors, which is more than even the current population. That's only 8-900 years, OK the population isn't as uniform as the above calculation assumes but if you even had to go back 15k years for yourself and an arbitrary other human to find a common ancestor, I'd be surprised.

Re:Actually it is that old.

[v01d]

But still, my point above stands, it's not for anyone on Slashdot (unless they hold a Ph.D and a university position in the subject) to say anything negative about a field.

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.