Ape-Human Split Moved Back By Millions Of Years 390
E++99 writes in to let us know about a development in paleo-anthropology. It seems that up until now, scientific consensus has placed the divergence of man from the ape line five to six million years ago (based on "genetic distances"). But newly discovered fossils in Ethiopia place the divergence at least twice as far back, and perhaps as long ago as 20 million years. They also largely put to rest any doubts that man and modern apes both emerged from Africa. From the article: "The trail in the hunt for physical evidence of our human ancestors goes cold some six or seven million years ago... Beyond that... fossils of early humans from the Miocene period, 23 to five million years ago, disappear. Fossils of early apes especially during the critical period of 14 to eight million years ago were virtually non-existent — until now... [T]he new fossils, dubbed 'Chororapithecus abyssinicus' by the team of Japanese and Ethiopian paleo-anthropologists who found them, place the early ancestors of the modern day gorilla 10 to 10.5 million years in the past, suggesting that the human-ape split occurred before that."
simpsons quote (Score:5, Insightful)
don't laugh too much... there's people out their who really think this way.
Implications on inter-ape relationships (Score:5, Insightful)
I expect they will adjust the molecular clocks to reflect the new knowledge and make a new guess. But the lesson of this whole discovery is that the current models for molecular clocks seem to be a bit lacking.
Misleading to talk about a "human-ape split" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Creationists Declare Evolution Disproved (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:simpsons quote (Score:3, Insightful)
Summary of the Article (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only that, they MAY be earlier than the previously proposed date for the gorilla an human split."
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The fossil teeth demonstrate that the last common ancestor of the gorilla and human was "out of Africa" (although this has been disputed), it is not a point of real controversy.
This whole article reeks of conditionals, and restatements of non-controversial theories (e.g. " There is broad agreement that chimpanzees were the last of the great apes to split from the evolutionary line leading to man, after gorillas and, even earlier, orangutans"), and there is nothing but speculation and weasel wording in the entire article.
This is just grant-milking, and possibly -- though I hope not -- nationalism and nonsense of the worst kind. NOTHING reported in the linked article is substantive in any sense, and is not worthy of comment or rebuttal unless and until some real theorems are posited.
Non-news. Pass it by.
Re:simpsons quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Ask yourself why.
With our schools being under attack from the creationists who want to indoctrinate our children in their superstitious fairy tale, it's not surprising at all. We of no faith don't have to turn the other cheek, but are morally free to kick back. So we do.
Butt kicking for goodness!
Re:simpsons quote (Score:5, Insightful)
If not, why didn't he fix that in us? Did something go wrong?
If he does, why? They only serve negative purposes for humans.
No, evolution and a belief in men created in the image of god just doesn't mix. If anything, that's less believable than what the creationists hawk. At least they can say that god created everything to look like there had been an evolution, for purposes we don't understand. Ridiculous as it is, it's at least theologically possible, while the view that evolution has led to humans in the image of god just doesn't fly.
However, Occam's razor tells me that the simpler explanation is true: God was created in the image of humans.
Re:simpsons quote (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have a problem with religion. I don't even have a problem with teaching religion. Just do it down the hall in the Philosophy department with the rest of the Humanities subjects and leave it the hell out of the science labs.
And keep the more rabid Creationists OUT of the School Boards. That's MY tax money going to waste teaching religion as 'science'.
Re:simpsons quote (Score:5, Insightful)
That's fine and dandy. But why must kids be forced to learn religion tarted up and presented as 'science' when it ain't no such animal? The only 'design' in Intelligent Design is to get it past the people who'd reject overt religious programming in favor of science.
Personally, I'm agnostic. I don't have a clue if there is a god, where it hangs out at, or what it wants. I also believe everybody else is in the same boat. People who tell me god sits on their shoulders and feed them the answers make me nervous. People who tell me god told them they're special and should be running things make me want to grab a gun and prepare to defend myself from what appears to me to be an extremely dangerous person capable of anything under the cover of god telling them to do it. "Sorry, god told me to kill the president" doesn't cut it as a defense in a courtroom. Why should it cut it on the street?
Re:Consensus ? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:simpsons quote (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:simpsons quote (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't seem to understand how it works (Score:5, Insightful)
1. _Nothing_ is sacrosanct and beyond questioning in science. "Consensus" just means the stuff we already have plenty of data to confirm, but noone's stopping you from finding new data that shows the limits or shortcomings of it.
2. You are, however expected to present the data and logical train of thought from data to conclusion, if you want to question anything. And more specifically,
2.A. any hypothesis, if it's going to make it to "theory", is supposed to explain the data we already have.
2.B. if we're to replace an existing theory with a more complicated one, well, Occam's Razor still applies. We don't do complexity for complexity sake. You're supposed to show exactly what wasn't adequately explained by the old theory, but follows naturally and reproducibly from yours.
To pick an example out of the hat, take general relativity:
1. Yes, even something as accepted as newtonian gravity could be questioned, but
2. It had to show the data and maths that people can examine and decide for themselves. Among other things, as I was saying: (A) It still had to match the measured data. E.g., applying general relativity to an apple, still had to match the measured time to fall. And (B) it had to be useful on at least one case where newtonian gravity doesn't produce the measured results. E.g., light deflection near a massive star.
Anyway, I'm surprised at the number of people who don't understand one of the two. We have no shortage of nutcases who either:
1. treat science as some fucked-up religion. (I'd give more examples, but you only have to look at the wave of retards postings stuff along the lines of "nooo, don't try to think about it! You're not worthy enough to question these guys!" each time a science or tech story comes up and someone dares ask "well, then how did they solve well known problem X?")
2. think that "questioning" or "investigation" means making up bullshit, supported by nothing more than handwaving, generous application of logical fallacies, plus a lot of wishful thinking.
In a nutshell, noone's stopping you from questioning any theory you wish. Take your pick, really. You may not necessarily get a grant, but noone's stopping you. Who knows? You might even be right. But show us the hard, reproducible data you base that on. If you don't, well, then you qualify as a crackpot. We're still not stopping you, but we might do mean things like point and laugh.
Re:That is strange (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, not many people question that humans are scientifically animals, but it is still convenient to reserve the word "animal" for speaking of those of the non-human variety...at least by default. Otherwise you'd have to have the "Non-human Animal Planet" tv channel and "People for the Ethical Treatment of Non-Human Animals", "Non-human Animal Control" department, etc.
It just depends on the word and the context. Words like "mammal" and "primate" are more commonly used in a somewhat scientific context, so most people understand them to include humans by default.
Re:simpsons quote (Score:5, Insightful)
At that point I realized that calling oneself agnostic because there is a very tiny possibility that a god exists is just playing with the definition of the word agnostic. For all practical purposes I am an atheist.
Othwerwise, I agree with what you said.
Re:The real religious explanation (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:simpsons quote (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you've come very close to the real reason a number of Christians have a problem with evolution. The bible tells us that man was created in God's image, but evolution tells us that we are just the latest in a long line of incremental improvements. Taking these two together means that humanity is being created into God's image, and our descendants will be the beings that God originally intended, and we are no more special than any other ape.
Having your religion tell you that you aren't special is hard for a lot of people to take; especially people attracted to a religion like Christianity that tells you that you are so special Jesus chose to die for you. For some people, it's easier to just disbelieve the evidence that attacks their ego the most strongly.
Re:How very fitting (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:simpsons quote (Score:5, Insightful)
- We can't eat and breathe the same time.
- We have to keep our blood constantly warm while other animals don't have to.
- Our eyesight sucks compared to a lot of animals. If "God" can design such good eyesight for some animals, why not design this for himself and us?
- Our hearing sucks compared to a lot of animals.
- Did the designer fail Gravity 101? Why are the woman's intestines continually slamming against the uterus and in some cases causing pain and bleeding? As if it was "designed" for walking on 4 legs
- Why is it that a hyena can pretty much eat shit and not get sick of it, yet us, designed in the image of "God" would die from that or get very sick?
- Cancer? Is that some kind of stack overflow in the DNA programming by "God"?
- There are a few gases like CO that we can't smell and that would kill us. Why didn't "God" design us in a way so we can smell them? A practical joke mayhaps?
- What kind of engineer puts the pleasure center of the body inches away from sewers?
If "God" really created us in his image, he is either:
(1) Grossly incompetent.
(2) He is weak himself.
Re:Creationists Declare Evolution Disproved (Score:3, Insightful)
Is that so heretical?
Re:simpsons quote (Score:2, Insightful)
Being an atheist is denying the existence of the unknown, but how can you deny what you don't know its there? I prefer the scientific approach, if I can prove or disprove it, fine, if I can't, no need to dwell on it.
If even science knows that they don't have it all figured out, why do atheists think they do?
Re:Creationists Declare Evolution Disproved (Score:3, Insightful)
Heck, look at the variety of dog races we have! Allmost all of them were created by man using selective breed... In only a few thousand years we come from a wild wolf to a punny chiuaua!
How "inteligent design" folks can deny this evidence?
Re:HaHa,,, STILL trying to PROVE evolution... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Creationists Declare Evolution Disproved (Score:3, Insightful)
However, it is my opinion that the reason literalists are so rigid is because of the non-believers. There are people out there who would discredit the entire Bible as non-literal if even a single phrase could be considered as an allegory. I have watched Christian versus Atheist debates and time-and-again the tactic is to find one bad apple and declare the whole tree to be bad.
Re:Creationists Declare Evolution Disproved (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the kind of argument that works well against the man-on-the-street, who hasn't heard of things like ring species [wikipedia.org], so there's a heads up for you
One of my pet peeves is people who 'don't believe in evolution'. Evolution is a fact, you can replicate it in the lab or just look at the family pets or the produce section at the supermarket to see the results of evolution. The only sensible argument is whether or not evolution by means of natural selection is solely responsible for the rich variety of life which exists on earth.