New Skeleton Finds May Revamp History of Human Evolution

brindafella links to a series of articles published yesterday in the journal Science "on Australopithecus sediba, explaining that skeletons found in the Malapa cave in the World Heritage listed 'Cradle of Civilisation' push back to 1.97 million years the oldest known tool-using, ape-like pre-humans." As is typical, the full Science articles are paywalled, but the abstracts are interesting. (If you're a university student — or, in some cases, an alumni club member — you may have full journal access and not even realize it.) NPR has a nice article on the find as well.

Re:Proof of Intelligent Design

[xevioso]

Nono, you have it wrong. Evolution is wrong because of all the gaps that keep increasing. See, say you have fossil A and E. The creationist says, "Aha, there's no fossil between A and E! There's a gap there!" Then the evolutionist finds fossil C, which fits nicely between A and E. Now the creationist says, "Aha, now there's a gap between A and C, and between C and E! You've just created MORE gaps!" This is creatinionism logic at its finest.

Not entirely the fault of the Journal Science

[damn_registrars]

As is typical, the full Science articles are paywalled

Indeed, the articles in question are behind the Science paywall. But it is like that because we've liked it that way for some time. This is changing as time goes on; now all NIH-funded (read: US government-funded) research must be published in a way that allows for free access. Science, Nature, and other high-impact journals have ways to comply with that when needed.

However, the journals do need to be able to make money to pay their staff and meet their business expenses. Maybe the model doesn't fit modern times, but it is what it is.

And we are talking about the journal Science, one of the most widely subscribed journals anywhere. You might not even need to go to your closest university to read it; there is a good chance your local public library has a subscription to it as well. You may even be able to get to it online if you're creative.

What's great about science

[dbet]

New evidence = new theories.

As opposed to politics and religion, new evidence = character assassinate those who presented the evidence.