Scientists Discover Common Ancestor of Monkeys, Apes, and Humans 391
reporter writes "According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, scientists have discovered the common ancestor of monkeys, apes, and Slashdotters. The 47 million year old fossils were discovered in Germany. The ancestor physically resembles today's lemur. Quoting: 'The skeleton will be unveiled at New York City's American Museum of Natural History next Tuesday by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and an international team involved in the discovery. According to Prof. Gingerich, the fossilized remains are of a young female adapid. The skeleton was unearthed by collectors about two years ago and has been kept tightly under wraps since then, in an unusual feat of scientific secrecy. Prof. Gingerich said he had twice examined the adapid skeleton, which was "a complete, spectacular fossil." The completeness of the preserved skeleton is crucial, because most previously found fossils of ancient primates were small finds, such as teeth and jawbones.'"
Oh this is gonna be fun :) (Score:5, Funny)
Trying to learn what we don't know is how we grow.
I found the missing link a little while ago though- I had a conversation over coffee a couple of weeks ago with someone who turned out to be a creationist. We ended up having the dreaded creationism-vs-darwinism "discussion". The gentleman in question was extremely stubborn, and his coffin-nail-arguement against darwinism, believe it or not, was that there was "no proof of evolution". I spewed trying to contain my laughter. Needless to say, the conversation ended at that point quite abruptly.
A fascinating discovery though.
Re:Oh this is gonna be fun :) (Score:5, Funny)
Give him time. I once believed in creationism, but slowly, over time, I changed. Now I believe in evolution.
creationism/evolution (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:creationism/evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously, thousands of years ago, we were different
Thousands of years ago, we were not different. Tens of thousands of years ago, we may have been slightly different.
I believe we were created by god, to evolve.
There is an unbroken chain of a billion years of evolution connecting us to simple bacteria. If God created any species from scratch, it must have been simple bacteria, but the rest evolved from that.
What's interesting, is when I say that, depending on which side of the creationism/evolution debate you are on, sparks controversy from both sides ;)
Well, from the scientific side, you spark controversy because you're wrong. From the creationism side, you spark controversy because you use the "evolution" word.
Re:Actually.... (Score:5, Informative)
There's plenty of evidence that simple bacteria could have evolved naturally out of the chemical soup present on earth at that time.
That evidence is suggestive; there are reasonable alternative explanations.
The evidence that humans evolved from bacteria, however, is incontrovertible; there simply is no reasonable alternative explanation.
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Actually, if the religious are correct, then God wrote the rules to say that chemicals would most likely someday combine to form the original organic compounds that would evolve to be life as we know it
That position is called "deism" and is very different from "theism", and it's very different from saying "God created man".
Scientists that say "There's no God, because Science doesn't allow there to be a God,"
Since there is no accepted definition of "God", scientists generally don't make such statements. Wha
Re:creationism/evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
creationism is very much a minority opinion amongst christians (in fact I've only ever met one who thought like that, and I've met a lot of christians over the years). The belief in a literal 7 days is something that historically would have been laughed at long before darwin. A few noisy fundies in the US don't get to choose what christianity is, no matter what you might want to think.
Re:creationism/evolution (Score:5, Informative)
creationism is very much a minority opinion amongst christians (in fact I've only ever met one who thought like that, and I've met a lot of christians over the years). The belief in a literal 7 days is something that historically would have been laughed at long before darwin. A few noisy fundies in the US don't get to choose what christianity is, no matter what you might want to think.
I'm sorry but what possible evidence other than the one anecdotal occurrence can you offer? I have statistics that show that creationism combined with 'god guiding evolution' is a shared belief by an overwhelming majority of Americans. Even if you remove 'god guiding evolution' from the equation the numbers believing in strict creationism are close to half of Americans believing in it.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-06-07-evolution-debate_N.htm [usatoday.com]
Two-thirds in the poll said creationism, the idea that God created humans in their present form within the past 10,000 years, is definitely or probably true.
http://people-press.org/commentary/?analysisid=118 [people-press.org]
Surveys are also fairly consistent in their estimates of how many Americans believe in evolution or creationism. Approximately 40%-50% of the public accepts a biblical creationist account of the origins of life, while comparable numbers accept the idea that humans evolved over time. (But keep in mind that many people who believe in evolution in the U.S. think that god was making humans evolve).
http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/Evolution-Creationism-Intelligent-Design.aspxGallupPollincreationismandevolutiontrendsfrom1982to2008. [gallup.com]
Breakdown of creationism and evolution views between Bush and Kerry voters in 2008.
Firefox screwed up my post.... (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/22/opinion/polls/main657083.shtml [cbsnews.com]
http://www.gallup.com/poll/21814/Evolution-Creationism-Intelligent-Design.aspx [gallup.com]
Here are the URLs to Gallup and CBS.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder what the percentage of people with doctorates in non-religious disciplines believe in the whole Semitic sky God makes the world in six days myth? Of course people with poorer backgrounds and lack of access to education will tend to embrace all the stuff that the Mullah/Priest/Minister indoctrinate them with.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Like this story [youtube.com] about an embalmed man being raised from the dead?
Either these guys are a bunch of liars or a dead man was raised back to life. The freedom to believe is yours.
Re:creationism/evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
Americans form only a fraction of Christianity. The biggest christian denomination, the catholics, consider evolution compatible with their faith.
Evolution != origin of life (Score:3, Informative)
Approximately 40%-50% of the public accepts a biblical creationist account of the origins of life, while comparable numbers accept the idea that humans evolved over time.
I just want to point out that evolution doesn't address the origin of life, but only how life changes over time.
However, the two are related, in that they're both necessary to know about if want to understand how life got to be what it is now, and how it's likely to develop in the future.
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Well, that is only to be expected from a nation founded by fundamentalists.
Puritans: people so uptight that the British kicked them out.
I wonder, though, how long will America be able to retain its supremacy with what seems to me a rapidly increasing ratio of fundies vs. evolutionists? And what happens if fundies get their hands on nucular weaponry?
But don't mind me; I'm paranoid.
Re:creationism/evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
"Evolution, that is, the idea that human beings developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life"
That's a strange definition. Evolution implies that human beings developed over millions of years, but that implication is but a small part of Evolution. And some evolutionary biologists, including SJ Gould would quibble about "less advanced".
It's a bit like describing quantum mechanics as the idea that a cat can simultaneously be dead and not dead.
Re:creationism/evolution (Score:5, Informative)
You must not be an American. Or know very many protestants.
Almost everyone I know is protestant. The vast vast vast majority of them accept Genesis as the literal description of creation.
And I would say that's not an abnormal figure:
An ABC News poll released Sunday found that 61 percent of Americans believe the account of creation in the Bible's book of Genesis is "literally true" rather than a story meant as a "lesson."
[...]
The poll, with a margin of error of 3 percentage points, was conducted Feb. 6 to 10 among 1,011 adults
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/feb/16/20040216-113955-2061r/ [washingtontimes.com]
This was just the first poll that came up on google. It falls in line with all the other polls I've seen on the subject.
Re:creationism/evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
You must not be an American. Or know very many protestants.
Almost everyone I know is protestant. The vast vast vast majority of them accept Genesis as the literal description of creation.
You must only know evangelical protestants. Episcopalians have no trouble with evolution. The Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology. I don't think Methodists have much of a problem with evolution either.
I am an atheist with degrees in the biological sciences. I have no problem with Christians who believe that god guided evolution. The fundamental source of variation at work in evolutionary processes is mutation. This is mediated by radiation and other quantum mechanical processes. So evolution is funamentally stochastic. It can have many possible outcomes dependant on what mutations are presented when and where. A sane and scientific Christian believes that God guided it by presenting the mutations required to bring about the world He has chosen. While I interpret it on the basis of the Many Worlds Interpretation of QM.
The two of us live in the same scientific world and we are likely to agree on the same evidence and its interpretation in evolutionary theory. No my problem is with the YEC's and ID people.
The YEC's are obvious raving loony fundies, the American Taleban. While IDers try to subvert the theory of evolution by by presenting non science (nonsense) as science.
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Probably because catholicism was largely institutionalized by a pagan emporer and they are rightfully skeptical of an organizational with such well proven human origins.
While I'm not christian I would say that they're at least being consistent in rejecting verifiably faliable sources. They just hide behind the ones with less documentation (but probably were created under extremely similar means).
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Taking their name and their religion and then doing as you please.
Who gets to decide what Christianity is supposed to be? You? I don't think so.
The oldest Christian church (the Catholics) have no beef with evolution.
Turn in your atheist card at the door. I don't want people like you to be in any way associated with people like me. I don't think I'm alone in that either.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:creationism/evolution (Score:5, Informative)
Look again, please. The Catholic Church's _historical_ beliefs on creationism, evolution, etc. have reflected all sorts of problems with it. The evolution of simpler to more sophisticated creatures, without divine personal guidance, flies in the face of the 'manifest destiny' and the 'right of kings' which are critical to European and Christian politics of the last few thousand years.
Uh, this is kind of confused. Manifest Destiny [wikipedia.org] was pretty much an American thing. Perhaps you're thinking of Lebensraum [wikipedia.org], which was a 20th century German doctrine. Yeah, there have been plenty of expansionists in European history, but most of them just wanted to take over their neighbors and didn't have any fancy ideological reason for it. Evolution didn't affect that one way or another.
Not sure how the divine right of kings fits in here, either. The Church wasn't exactly happy about the divine right of kings, since an absolute monarch took away from the Church's power. The Church wanted to be able to depose (or at least undermine) monarchs it didn't like. If the right of kings was divine, they couldn't do that. Again, it's pretty independent of evolution, and by the time Darwin came along the era of the divine right of kings was pretty much over.
Anyway, the Catholic Church has learned from all that bad press they got with that Gallileo fellow and remained neutral at worst over the years. There have been individual Catholics and some Catholic organizations which have opposed evolution, but they're in the minority and don't reflect official policy. Yes, the official policy is to squeeze God in there (e.g., "special creation" of the soul), but only as an extra. They don't make any scientific claims at all.
Re:creationism/evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
Taking their name and their religion and then doing as you please.
Who gets to decide what Christianity is supposed to be? You?
....
Turn in your atheist card at the door. I don't want people like you to be in any way associated with people like me. I don't think I'm alone in that either.
So you can ask someone to turn in their Atheist card for trying to judge what Christianity is, but you can judge what Atheism is? You sound like one of them.
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Re:creationism/evolution (Score:4, Informative)
The oldest Christian church (the Catholics) have no beef with evolution.
Yes, they do. The Catholic Church cherry-picks a few bits of Evolution to call "ok", to try and distance themselves from the crazier Creationists out there, but they still think humans are a "special creation" and, therefore, not the product of Evolution.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The oldest Christian church (the Catholics) have no beef with evolution.
Yes, they do. The Catholic Church cherry-picks a few bits of Evolution to call "ok", to try and distance themselves from the crazier Creationists out there, but they still think humans are a "special creation" and, therefore, not the product of Evolution.
Straw man alert.
You assume being a "product of evolution" precludes being a "special creation".
To wit: [catholic.com]
Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that manâ(TM)s body developed from previous biological forms, under Godâ(TM)s guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul.
And before you get your panties in a simplistic wad over this:
While the Church permits belief in either special creation or developmental creation on certain questions, it in no circumstances permits belief in atheistic evolution.
Well, let's put it this way: If you believe in an omniscient, omnipotent, all-pervading God, there is literally nothing in the entire universe that's "atheistic".
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:creationism/evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
(Boy, is this going to cost me karma...)
You're an idiot. FYI, I have mod points today, and still I decided to post into this thread just to be able tell you that you're an idiot.
And now, since I'm out of modding this thread anyway, let's get it straight, piece by piece.
Who gets to decide what Christianity is supposed to be? You?
Several instances, but, ultimately, it's the Pope. However, it's not like the Pope simply pulls phrases out of his ass and then they're declared truth. It's only when a certain issue now and then needs clarification that cannot be archieved otherwise that the Pope dictates how to be thought of that issue. It's then that the Pope speaks ex cathedra, and it's only then that he is regarded as an infallible instance and whatever he says is regarded as true.
The reasoning behind this is less to create truth, but instead to allow a large community to start from the same premisses and end fundamental quarrels without a sense.
However, this doesn't happen fairly often. Since 1870, the Pope has spoken ex cathedra twice so far, last time having been 1950; before 1870, there are somewhere between 10-20 documented ex cathedra decrees.
For all other cases, what Christianity is, is less of a "decission" as in "law", it's rather an "interpretation" of certain events. Church people sit together and decide what position to take towards a certain event.
The oldest Christian church (the Catholics) have no beef with evolution.
There's more truth to that sentence than you probably wanted it to.
You see, the Church absolutely has no interrest whatsoever in getting involved in evolution. But that's not because they disapprove evolution. It's because the Church has no interrest in getting involved in science questions at all. (That might have been different in the Middle Ages, when people used the bible as a poor replacement for physics, however that's not today.) But then again, like in any other matter, there are those who understand and those who don't understand Christianity. Whoever tells you that the Church disapproves evolution either didn't understand Christianity, or is simply ripping you off for one reason or the other.
The Church stays away from evolution is not because they disapprove with it, it's because evolution is not their job. Period. Church may have an oppinion about how to use science to the best of mankind, blabla yadda yadda. But the Church won't tell you how to do science, just as little as they're going to accept advice from you on how to do religion.
Your statement would mean, in car analogy, that a car mechanics guy staying away from a baby that needs a diper change disapproves with the idea of having babies.
Turn in your atheist card at the door. I don't want people like you to be in any way associated with people like me. I don't think I'm alone in that either.
I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual -- I have a lot of atheist friends, none of which I think would like to be associated with you right now...
Re:creationism/evolution (Score:5, Funny)
(Boy, is this going to cost me karma...)
Hey, would you mind if I borrowed that next time I want to get modded up? Thanks!
Re:creationism/evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless they really meant "God created complex mechanisms which eventually gave rise to life and then millions of years later resulted purely by chance something that resembled God." I don't buy it.
If you don't consider the literal interpretation what do you consider? What is your 'source' on God? If the bible means nothing then where do you get your religious beliefs from? The church? That sounds risky. If it is a personal attachment to something spiritual then why the need to go to some building on Sunday? Surely you didn't just 'feel' that God wanted you to go to church on Sundays. What is the basis for your religion if not the bible? And if it is the bible then how can you not believe 80% of it?
Re:creationism/evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
First of, I am atheist.
> Unless they really meant "God created complex mechanisms which eventually gave rise to life and then millions of years later resulted purely by chance something that resembled God."
Why is religion and evolution irreconcilable? If I accept an omnipotent and omnipresent god, what is so strange at accepting, that said god created a universe, with exactly those laws, which science deciphers, which obviously lead to our existence? Is it disprovable? No. Does it contradict with scientific knowledge? No. Is it compatible with further scientific findings? Yes. So, why bother, when you have people, which claim, the earth is 4000 years old.
> If the bible means nothing then where do you get your religious beliefs from? The church? That sounds risky.
Who says the Bible means nothing?
My knowledge of theology is certainly incomplete, but AFAIK:
The Bible is open to interpretation for several reasons. But how do you interpret it?
As there is only one truth, there can be only one meaning. But who determines what is true? There is one group, which says, the successors of the apostles determine the one truth. This is the Catholic Church. One group claims the successor of Peter, sitting in Rome, presides over the others and is ultimately right. That is the Roman Catholic Church.
Protestants claim "Sola Scriptura", the scripture is the authoritative word of god. Which in turn can mean, there is no authoritative interpretation, but each persons. That doesn't mean you can cherry pick, but that you have to do your best to understand the teachings revealed in the Bible, especially through the life of Jesus, and lead your life accordingly. How do you treat other people. Not necessarily that you literally believe every single word of a scripture.
At least, that is the position most protestant in Europe seem to have.
The other meaning it can have, is the literal one, which several US protestants seem to follow.
Re:creationism/evolution (Score:4, Insightful)
God created man in his image. Unless they really meant "God created complex mechanisms which eventually gave rise to life and then millions of years later resulted purely by chance something that resembled God." I don't buy it.
There's this really cool literary tool that you should check out. It's called metaphor.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
God created man in his image.
Unless they really meant "God created complex mechanisms which eventually gave rise to life and then millions of years later resulted purely by chance something that resembled God." I don't buy it.
Why would it be important to specify the process at that point? What happens is that some wannabe prophet walks up to the top of a mountain and calls out for god to speak to him. For whatever reason, god decides this is The Guy and now is the right time to reveal some part of the Grand Scheme and that an important part of this is to get the people to understand that god caused them to be. So god simply states "I created you in my image". It is short, simple and to the point. It gets the message across. What
Re:Oh this is gonna be fun :) (Score:5, Insightful)
FYP:
It is important not to associate belief with knowledge.
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It is important not to associate belief with knowledge.
It's important not to make trivial semantic arguments out to be important, because they're not.
Re:Oh this is gonna be fun :) (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I agree: the author of the comment, most probably, is not Wittgenstein.
Re:Oh this is gonna be fun :) (Score:5, Insightful)
It's time we stopped referring to them as creationist and start calling them what they really are: evolution deniers.
Congratulations on your enlightenment by the way. It takes an open mind to weigh the evidence and change your point of view. You are to be commended.
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apparently, the ability to get a joke is not a trait that is naturally selected for.
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Why logical people buy into the Evolution vs Science mess that was created buy the conservative christians always amazes me. By definition every Catholic is both a creationist and believes in evolution. Mods come sling your arrows, for I have heresied in your hallowed halls.
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Give him time. I once believed in creationism, but slowly, over time, I changed. Now I believe in evolution.
Strangely enough, I used to believe in Evolution, but now believe in Creationism and actually came to that turnaround by studying evolution. It is true though that Christians let themselves down terribly by using arguments that sound good to them, but are not worked through thoroughly. Please understand that I am not trolling, but just stating what I believe.
Incredibly it was Christian monks who kept knowledge - the sciences - alive through the Dark Ages. Universities also were originally Christian institut
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't believe in evolution. There is nothing to believe. I use it as a very valuable vehicle to make sense of the biological world. But if it turns out that there was something fundamental going on we didn't spot yet, I am ready to abandon the concepts.
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Scientists looked at the available evidence and came up with the a theory.
Scientists find additional evidence to support the theory.
Or to paraphrase Science, it works, bitches!! [xkcd.com]
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The Africans turned a bounty of natural resources into abject poverty.
<sarcasm>Right, everyone knows that it all started when the Zulus sent an urgent plea to the DeBeers family, begging them to please come take all the diamonds and give them a few cents an hour and twice-daily cavity searches in return.</sarcasm>
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True, some did. That doesn't mean that the Africans somehow caused or brought on themselves their own wide-scale exploitation at the hands of the European colonial powers, any more than there being a few pickpockets at T-Centralen means that everyone in Stockholm deserves to be thrown in prison.
Re:Evolution is real -- even for modern man. (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't even know where to begin with you. First off, you don't seem to know how evolution works. Second of all, social evolution plays the greatest roles in the natural selection of humans. If your standpoint were true, then the Indians and Chinese (the greatest of the populations) would be the "fittest" species. The Africans have been subject to tyranny of countless nations, and now they face the oppression of their own dictators. And I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but one's scientific success is heavily dependent on luck and ambition, not just intelligence. Otherwise, women would seem extremely inferior to men in science, which is not true because I know countless women who perform better than men academically. It pisses me off when uneducated people start talking out of their ass. I'm not even claiming that you're 100% wrong, just that you have overlooked so many other variables (mainly nurture over nature).
Re:Evolution is real -- even for modern man. (Score:4, Funny)
You should ask one of them to explain "anecdotal evidence" to you. Then maybe some statistics, including significance levels and sampling theory.
Re:Evolution is real -- even for modern man. (Score:5, Interesting)
The Africans have been subject to tyranny of countless nations, and now they face the oppression of their own dictators. And I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but one's scientific success is heavily dependent on luck and ambition, not just intelligence.
There's even more to it, Africa's major axis is north-south instead of east-west, which means the continent has a lot of variance in climate with a lot of natural barriers (think about the Sahara) for species, knowledge and trade to cross. This as opposed to North America or Eurasia, both of which have east-west axes with a steady climate that's good for agriculture and diffusion of technology and trade.
Also, Africa has virtually no domesticable large mammals and large parts of Africa have been (or still are) not fit for agriculture at all. Finally, when Europeans started colonizing African countries they had a head-start in technology, and resistance to many diseases they were exposed to living next to their domesticated animals (pigs, horses, sheep), resistance the Africans never had a chance to develop. The same holds for South America, people still like to think the Inca's and the Aztecs where conquered by military force, while in fact their population was decimated by germs like the flu, bubonic pest etc.
Mandatory reading for the guy you responded to and for anyone interested to know why North America and Europe became the most developed societies, and not Africa, South-America or Polynesia (all of which at one point in history had a lead):
http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393061310/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242498876&sr=8-1 [amazon.com]
For those who don't like reading, the spoiler: it has nothing to do with intelligence/inventiveness, genetic superiority, laziness or any other form of inherited or acquired traits.
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Japan wasn't really "devastated by two nuclear bombs".
It's a pretty big place. Neither a majority of their population nor their land was even affected by the nuclear bombs.
More Japanese died prior to the bombs in regular combat than the nuclear blasts. The Japanese may have overcome adversity but the Nuclear blasts weren't much worse than the firebombing of Tokyo or the sustained loss of life during combat.
Just as the US wasn't devastated by the World Trade Center collapsing.
Slashdotters? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Slashdotters? (Score:5, Funny)
Not true. We're social, but only with our own kind. For instance, I saw the new Star Trek movie last night. When the house lights went up afterwards, I looked around and noticed the kids had already left and those who remained were my fellow nerds. It was so obvious that we all kind of laughed about it on the way out of the theater.
Re:Slashdotters? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, no doubt, although most of the nerds were there with women, too. Nerdettes, perhaps. But since they were mostly older folk, like me, they were probably married, also like me, and, hence, don't actually have sex any more.
Disappointing (Score:3, Funny)
I wanted to see pictures of this fossil. Preferably high-resolution images that I can gaze and and imagine what it looked like with flesh and fur, climbing, running and using simple tools. But no... no such thing. Just a picture of a lemur.
claws (Score:2, Funny)
Since the fossilized creature found in Germany didn't have features like a tooth comb or grooming claw, it could be argued that it gave rise to monkeys, apes and humans, which don't have these features either.
humans don't have a grooming claw? I've got 2 of them!
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Stop picking your nose!
Ancestor of apes, monkeys, and slashdotters? (Score:2)
Don't you talk about Cowboy Neal that way!
Lemurs, eh? (Score:2)
I, for one, welcome our new large-eyed, nocturnal, gregarious and arboreal overlords!
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"World's Most Overhyped Science Headline?" ... (Score:5, Informative)
"How is the news being anticipated in the scientific community? 'I honestly think this is an incredible job of marketing,' says paleontologist K. Christopher Beard of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who has not seen the report but has read the news. He points out that other fossils of similar age from China, Myanmar, and India have also been proposed as some of the earliest anthropoids. 'At this stage, color me skeptical.'"
Well.
CC.
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"How is the news being anticipated in the scientific community? 'I honestly think this is an incredible job of marketing,' says paleontologist K. Christopher Beard of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who has not seen the report but has read the news. He points out that other fossils of similar age from China, Myanmar, and India have also been proposed as some of the earliest anthropoids. 'At this stage, color me skeptical.'"
So he admits to not RTFA but won't believe it? Yup, clearly a slashdotter.
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A guy from a competing institution who hasn't even seen the report, is skeptical?
No shit - how is that a point?
I for one (Score:2)
Professor Gingerich? (Score:2)
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Is that really this guy's name? Wow! The Christian Right is going to love this!!!! I smell a flame war brewing! ;-)
The scientists turned him into a newt!
This is old news (Score:4, Funny)
We've actually known about Rosie O'Donnell for some time now.
The article has suggestive and leading lanuage... (Score:2, Informative)
Anthropologists have long believed that humans evolved from ancient ape-like ancestors.
No they don't 'believe' they use reason based on radiocarbon dating of fossils and other hard scientific and rigorously tested and reviewed evidence to reach the most accurate and logical conclusion based on findings and observation.
Nonetheless, the latest fossil find is likely to ignite further the debate between evolutionists who draw conclusions based on a limited fossil record, and creationists who don't believe that humans, monkeys and apes evolved from a common ancestor.
Evolution isn't just based on limited fossil records it is based on observation of life at the smallest biological levels up to the largest such as animal life. We've seen disease (such the flu) evolve right before our eyes. Evolution in our ancestry as humans isn't up for debat
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Anthropologists have long believed that humans evolved from ancient ape-like ancestors.
No they don't 'believe' they use reason based on radiocarbon dating of fossils and other hard scientific and rigorously tested and reviewed evidence to reach the most accurate and logical conclusion based on findings and observation.
Wow, you clearly do not know the definition of the word "belief." Here you go (From Merriam-Webster): 1: a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing 2: something believed ; especially : a tenet or body of tenets held by a group
3: conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence
Notice that your little screed about evidence is completely irrelevant.
Re:The article has suggestive and leading lanuage. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a "Creation Research Institute" talking point.
In actual fact, carbon dating is able to give the ages of formerly living materials up to about 60,000 years old. Any older, and the C-14 that the method relies on will have completely decayed. No material has ever been carbon dated as "millions of years old". I know of several hoaxes involving artifacts supposedly excavated from coal-mines and the like, for example the London Hammer. This is almost certainly what you refer to. The keepers of these ersatz fossils have never permitted them to be dated or thoroughly examined by actual scientists. Draw your own conclusions about somebody refusing to allow their claims to be tested.
Scientific Secrecy = Contradiciton of terms (Score:4, Informative)
Always maintain a strong healthy skepticism of any "Scientific Secrecy" unless it has a monetary basis, (patent medicines for example) or a strategic value (military).
There is no reason this type of information should be secret. In fact, just the opposite. Publish early, publish often would be the best prescription in such cases.
Axiom of the monkey stories (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no need to argue with them, that is what they want, they want the air of publicity. As for the rest of us Darwinist Protestants, I, like many, celebrate this find and look forward to the addition to the sum total of human knowledge it will provide
Devolution (Score:3, Insightful)
All religions do eugenics on their adherents to breed them into loyal servants of the administration. Creationism is just a way of obfuscating their misuse of the law of nature that is evolution. Unfortunately, only nature can do genetics, which breeds entities suitable for their environment. Eugenics results in devolution, in the case of religion, breeding subhumans. Hey, if this continues, someday humans might be discovered to be the ancient lifeform from which monkeys, apes and lemurs evolved.
and slashdotters to? (Score:5, Funny)
Then the only appropriate classificaiton name would be "Cowardus Anonymous Vulgaris".
7 days would be easy . . . (Score:3, Interesting)
Slashdotters Evolved From Penguins (Score:3, Funny)
"According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, scientists have discovered the common ancestor of monkeys, apes, and Slashdotters."
Defaming monkeys and apes are we?
Re:In Germany???? (Score:5, Funny)
"Is this a revolutionary finding? Shouldn't the common ancestors be in Africa?"
If this is really a common ancestor of Slashdotters, the maternal basement/cave will be nearby and yield further clues.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You're confusing the birth of modern humans (homo sapiens) with what is being described here as a common ancestor of monkeys apes and humans.
In comparison, it would be like when did the birds break off of the dinosaurs, and when did the blue jay first come around.
Re:In Germany???? (Score:5, Funny)
No he's not confusing anything. These lemur-like creatures were the nerds of their day. Of course they lived in maternal basement caves. Look at their eyes, man. Probably hopped up on Mountain Cacao Pods all the time. They invented the net, and spent all their time trying to find interesting things to put in their nets.
Sadly, this race of proto-nerds did not survive, as the males of the species were singularly unattractive to the females and they were unable to procreate.
Re:In Germany???? (Score:4, Funny)
Okay, maybe they died out because they had no sense of humor.
Re:In Germany???? (Score:5, Informative)
Are you suggesting that fossils migrate . . . ? (Score:3, Funny)
If the fossils are 47 million years old, they had about 45 million years in which to migrate.
. . . of course, they might have been carried by a unladen European Swallow from Africa to Germany . . .
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adapid [wikipedia.org]:
Fossils of adapids are known from North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Adapids are one of two groups of Eocene primates with a geographic distribution spanning holarctic continents, the other being the omomyids (Omomyidae)
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Well, actually they were a good bit further apart, and separated by a lot more water; But these early primates lived all over the place.
Re:In Germany???? (Score:5, Informative)
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From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adapid [wikipedia.org]:
Fossils of adapids are known from North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Adapids are one of two groups of Eocene primates with a geographic distribution spanning holarctic continents, the other being the omomyids (Omomyidae)
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The people who aren't convinced won't be convinced by DNA evidence. Quoting from http://www.christiananswers.net/q-crs/baraminology.html [christiananswers.net]: "In a baraminic study of human with non-human primates, the morphological (form) features such as teeth and bones as well as ecological characters including feeding and habitats were more valuable than chromosomal or molecular (hemoglobin and RNA) information." In other words, as far as the creationists are concerned humans aren't related to other primates and if the mol
Pseudosciences (Score:2, Insightful)
The difference between science and pseudoscience is not that one is right and the other is wrong, it's that one is at least in theory demonstrably right or wrong and the other, well, the other will forever be unprovable.
Barring a direct revelation from God, such as might happen at "the end times" discussed in Revelation, Creationism is not provable. While the detailed account in Genesis is disprovable assuming God didn't muck up the data, the idea that "God created the Universe in 7 days, then mucked up th
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first off six days not seven
now that that is fixed would you call a little matter of a world wide flood the worlds first coverup??
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There was no world wide flood. A large portion of the Eastern Mediterranean seaboard did flood at one point in time, but that is far from world wide.
Re:I can has DNA sample? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll believe it when it's been peer reviewed and the hypothesis has been examined by lots of people and agreed on.
Fakery happens. Sheer bad judgement happens. The fact that this has been kept secret is a huge red flag... science doesn't keep things secret.
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Or a combination of the two.
If you discover a skeleton then you get a monopoly on its data until you reveal it. By keeping it secret you can be certain to glean as many discoveries as possible from it before opening it up to further investigation and interpretation.
If you find it and open it to public scrutiny immediately then you're competing on equal footing with everyone else to draw conclusions and write papers. If you hold it secret for 2 years then you can be sure any significant conclusions and pap
getting better all the time (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, I know DNA from something this old is practically impossible.
Actually that request is nowhere near as tall an order today as it was just a few years ago. You likely know that we have already partially reconstructed the Woolly Mammoth genome [washingtonpost.com] and are working with DNA from the (extinct) Tasmanian Tiger [bbc.co.uk] as well.
Our techniques have even allowed us to extract proteins from Tyrannosaurus Rex [sciencemag.org] as well as a Hadrosaur [sciencemag.org] for proteomics approaches to analyzing extinct species.
... once again, TFA is not the REAL FA. (Score:2)
If the fossil is so complete, why does the article lack a picture of the fossil itself? Without pictures of the fossil, how can you believe what they say about whatever they find or postulate?
My guess is that Wall Street Journal didn't want to pay the prices the publisher (of the scientific journal article) is asking for permission to reprint the pictures, or something like that.
So without the pictures, you should only believe that the staff writer for the wall street journal interviewed the scientists who are saying these things. If you are skeptical about the actual finding, then read the "...paper that will detail next week the latest fossil discovery in Public Library of Science, a peer-rev
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I always thought it was in January of 1970...
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