Fossil Primate Ardipithecus Ramidus Described (Finally) 369
Omomyid writes "I wasn't actually aware that Dr. Tim White of UC Berkeley had been 'sitting' on A. ramidus but apparently he has (I remember the original flurry of interest back in the '90s when it was announced), but now Dr. White and others have assembled a nearly complete skeleton of the 4.4mya specimen and the descriptions being carried by the NY Times and the AP are intriguing. Ramidus is clearly differentiated from the other Great Apes and also more primitive than A. afarensis (Lucy), providing a nice linkage backwards to the last shared ancestor between humans and chimpanzees. According to the NY Times, a whole passel of papers will be published in tomorrow's Science magazine describing A. ramidus."
Update — 10/01 at 22:05 GMT by SS: Reader John Hawks provided a link to his detailed blog post about Ardipithecus, which contains a ton of additional details not covered in the above articles.
further proof evolution is false (Score:5, Funny)
Now, as you can clearly see, there are TWO gaps in the fossil record, where before there was only one!
Nice try, science! /s
Re:further proof evolution is false (Score:4, Funny)
Now, as you can clearly see, there are TWO gaps in the fossil record, where before there was only one!
Don't fret. Your parents were found yesterday.
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Perhaps because they don't want to duplicate The Guardian's CIF; where the debate more resembles an American townhall meeting with birther's present than debate.
Though trolling CiF can be fun...
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gah... birthers, not birther's
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Birthers, deathers, and other wingnuts (Score:5, Informative)
Birthers are a group of clueless, angry white people who firmly believe President Obama was born outside the US. Deathers are a group, nearly identical in membership, that believes President Obama wants to enact 'death panels' that will deny needed health care to seniors. Most birthers are deathers, and vice versa. They also tend to believe that they either need to secede from the union, or stage a military coup, as the country has now become a communist dictatorship. Hope that helps.
Re:Birthers, deathers, and other wingnuts (Score:4, Funny)
They are also
the step-siblings of the Flat-Earthers http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm [alaska.net]
Re:Birthers, deathers, and other wingnuts (Score:4, Insightful)
No they're not, Captain Clueless. The two (or three, as it were) have nothing to do with each other. Only the jackass who modded you "insightful" is more clueless.
All three are absolutely ridiculous assertions that have been debunked six ways from Sunday. Believing that death panels will kill your granny, or that the President of the United States was born in Kenya, are as ludicrous as believing the Earth is flat, or that we never landed on the moon.
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All praise be, now brethren lets us break the garlic bread of brotherhood and bow our heads in supplication, Amen.
Flat earthers are no joke (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.google.com/search?q=flat+earth [google.com]
For your entertainment:
http://www.somethingawful.com/d/weekend-web/flat-earth-society.php [somethingawful.com]
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Mod Parent Up (Score:5, Insightful)
The unifying characteristic of birthers and deathers is hopeless credulity.
Whatever the man on the Fox channel says becomes their reality. And he's convinced them someone else is forming a cult of personality. The parade of irony continues.
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Not all birthers or deathers are white people.
Please provide some sort of evidence to back up your wild assertion, a photo of a minority at a teabag party or town-hall rally clearly holding a birther/deather poster would do the trick.
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a photo of a minority at a teabag party
Uh... you might want to be more specific. Cus I'm pretty sure I saw a website devoted entirely to that subject.
Re:Birthers, deathers, and other wingnuts (Score:4, Insightful)
There are, however, plenty of Americans of every race that have been awakened to the goings-on in the US government and joining in opposing them [...] But, go ahead and dismiss all this as racist tea-bagging. Now that it's not W running the show, I guess is okay that the wars (and funding for them) are continuing, that the illegal wiretapping is being even more vociferously defended, that federal agents can write their own warrants and continue to do so, and the widening income gap will continue to widen as the rich are bailed out and the middle class is left to pick up the tab.
All of a sudden, they're awakened to those issues! Funny how all those same goings ons were fine by them when there wasn't a black man in the white house.
It is a dam shame that the new boss is the same as the old boss, but it's a really HUGE coincidence that the same policies suddenly frighten some that didn't mind them before, and that the new boss is different in one very visible way. Huge coincidence.
Re:Birthers, deathers, and other wingnuts (Score:5, Informative)
>as the country has now become a communist dictatorship
You pretty well nailed it with your definition. However, you left out the part where we are not only a communist dictatorship, but Obama is also the reincarnation of Hitler.
Re:Birthers, deathers, and other wingnuts (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Communist?! (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought he was socialist!
Or maybe that was yesterday...
He socialist communist nazi antichrist fascist muslim black-supremacist [insert bad thing here], and NO ONE who opposes him is racist. Not. One.
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Yeah, but this is touching.... (Score:5, Funny)
You might recall that John Hinckley was a seriously deranged young man who shot President Reagan in the early 1980's.
Hinckley was absolutely obsessed with movie star Jodie Foster, extremely jealous, and in his twisted mind, loved Jodie Foster to the point that to make himself well known to her, he attempted to assassinate President Reagan.
There is speculation Hinckley may soon be released as having been rehabilitated. Consequently, you may appreciate the following letter from Nancy Reagan to the staff at the mental facility treating Hinckley reports to have intercepted:
To: John Hinckley
From: Mrs. Nancy Reagan
My family and I wanted to drop you a short note to tell you how pleased we are with the great strides you are making in your recovery. In our fine country's spirit of understanding and forgiveness, we want you to know there is a nonpartisan consensus of compassion and forgiveness throughout.
The Reagan family and I want you to know that no grudge is borne against you for shooting President Reagan. We, above all, are aware of how the mental stress and pain could have driven you to such an act of desperation. We are confident that you will soon make a complete recovery and return to your family to join the world again as a healthy and productive young man.
Best wishes,
Nancy Reagan & Family
P.S. While you have been incarcerated, Barack Obama has been banging Jodie Foster like a screen door in a tornado. You might want to look into that.
Updated - link to the story. (Score:3, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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And of course, science articles, especially those relating to evolution, have never been the subject of any of that sort of nonsense.
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I don't know if you noticed, but brain matter doesn't fossilize particularly well.
There's a correlation-is-not-causation problem with the Japanese/African IQ observation, the conclusion you're drawing is moderately racist.
Finally, the field that looks at brain structures and tells us why or how we evolved them is about 90% speculation.
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There's a correlation-is-not-causation problem with the Japanese/African IQ observation, the conclusion you're drawing is moderately racist.
It's more than moderately racist. And beliefs of that sort become self-fulfilling prophecies when widely held. [huppi.com] IQ studies that rigorously controlled for the effect of poverty, culture and societal prejudice are few and far between, and I've not heard of any that showed any significant disadvantage for a particular ethnic group.
IIRC, the cumulative effect of switching every "bad" intelligence linked gene we have found to it's "good" variety (excluding serious genetic disorders like Down's Syndrome and the
Re:Problem with Evolution Studies:It never studies (Score:5, Funny)
I disagree. You should see some of the effing fossils I work with.
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I don't know if you noticed, but brain matter doesn't fossilize particularly well.
Of course it does. That's how you make congresscritters.
Have a little perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
The photo of the Ardipithecus (Score:3, Funny)
Wow, I saw her walking down Ash street the other night. I didn't know they had crack 4.4 million years ago!
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Some people have no sense of humor. Troll? I guess the moderator must be a crack smoker, otherwise how would that offend him?
Hypotheticals to muse upon (Score:2, Interesting)
If a genetically-modified human were cloned today, would that clone be outside common ancestry?
Would it be designed?
Do we know this hasn't happened in the distant past?
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If a genetically-modified human were cloned today, would that clone be outside common ancestry?
nope.
Would it be designed?
not any more than a naturally occurring sequence of mutations
Do we know this hasn't happened in the distant past?
The burden of proof is on you to show that it did.
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Interesting. I thought words meant what they mean, like "ancestry" denoting biological descent.
not any more than a naturally occurring sequence of mutations
Well, self-evidently false. See the part about "words meaning what they mean".
The burden of proof is on you to show that it did.
I was hoping to hear an answer on more of a philosophy or philosophy of science level, rather than on Judge Judy fan level.
But thanks!
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It simply does not matter whether a genetic change was brought about by human manipulation or random chance. A change in the genome is a change in the genome. You are still starting with a genome, right? There's your common ancestor. Was the genome designed? No. Were the changes designed? Yes. Is the resulting organism designed? Surely with our level of technology, not enough to even register.
I don't mean to be a dick, I'm really trying to be polite, but your questions simply do not merit a philosophical or
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I was hoping to hear an answer on more of a philosophy or philosophy of science level, rather than on Judge Judy fan level.
Your query was on the "how do we know that intangible pink unicorns don't run the universe?" level. Unless there's evidence that would indicate such a thing happened, it's not worth thinking about in a *scientific* way.
If you wanna think about it while toking up, be my guest.
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You saw me in church last Wednesday? Must have been some biologically-enhanced clone.
Glad to hear so many Slashdotters nowadays have personal omniscience, though. Arguments depending on that implicit premise are so amusing!
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What if there's no such thing as gravity, and we're all just held down by the FSM's noodly appendage?
What if the world were created last Thursday, complete with us and all our memories?
What if the entire universe is just a figment of my (deranged) imagination?
See, hypotheticals are fun!
In all seriousness though, assuming that someone/something reached down and tweaked our DNA, then left the solar system leaving no other evidence behind takes a pretty big leap. Especially when we have no reason to think tha
Re:Hypotheticals to muse upon (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, if you insist I not be flippant about the subject, so be it.
What creationists don't understand is that science isn't about killing religion, science couldn't care less what the religious implications of its discoveries are. Science is about the quest for knowledge, and knowing that humanity didn't evolve naturally would be the most important piece of knowledge ever discovered. In short, if evidence existed that contradicted our current scientific beliefs, it is in every scientists interests to bring that evidence to the table; the risk might be large but the payoff is enormous.
Unfortunately, the claim of an intelligent creator is difficult bordering on impossible to prove scientifically; it makes no predictions that can be tested, it happened so far in the past that there no remaining evidence to support it, and, unlike evolution, it is not an ongoing phenomonon.
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Hmm... well, I'm not interested in a false dichotomy of "evolution" versus "religion", actually. "Evolution occurs" is clearly the case, I'm just not interested in the scientifically-invalid non-sequitur inference of "only evolution occurs".
Whatever my views (which, yes, I know you have to assert in the absence of any actual knowledge of what they are, to start your false-dichotomy argument), my question is interesting to me from a scientific standpoint apart from any religious question.
What precisely does
Re:Hypotheticals to muse upon (Score:4, Informative)
Part of the problem is that you're not really explaining yourself. What do you mean here? Do you mean altering of existing genes (1)? Do you mean creating completely new and novel genes (2)? Do you mean inserting kelp genes into humans (3)?
In the first example, that's pretty much an artificial form of normal genetic changes. The second example would be pretty unique, but still, the bulk of the new organism would definitely be human (or whatever species). The third example is very rare in more complex organisms, but horizontal gene transfer can occur here as well. Some part of our genome is, in fact, the product of viral infections (endo-retroviral insertions), which means that nature has already given us examples of my third type; genes that come from completely different lineages.
Now maybe you would have something of a point if we completely constructed an organism from artificial genes, or maybe constructed an organism from an entirely different replication chemistry. In that case, yes, it would be an example of wholly different tree of life. I would argue if its more a spare parts sort of an affair, where they construct a new genome from genes found in existing lineages, while it gets complicated, at its root, it still fits within the tree of life, just at multiple points. But then again, that would apply to any form of horizontal gene transfer. I've listed one pathway; ERVs, prokaryotes like bacteria often move genes back and forth, sometimes between very distantly related lineages.
Re:Hypotheticals to muse upon (Score:4, Insightful)
...it seems rather odd to me that we could've had a significant population of ancestors that failed to leave a fossil record.
That isn't at difficult to explain. The problem lies in the assumption that evolution is continuous, steady change over time and that fossilization events are spread evenly throughout history. In reality, neither of those is true. Sudden changes in environment the rate of evolution to increase as ecological niches are created and destroyed. Likewise, fossilization events are rare and not spaced evenly throughout history. All it requires to create a seamingly large gap in the fossil record is for there to be a dearth of fossilization events while at the same time a sudden change in environment.
Re:Hypotheticals to muse upon (Score:4, Interesting)
and it seems rather odd to me that we could've had a significant population of ancestors that failed to leave a fossil record.
It's not really so odd. First, however, is the assumption that there is a significant population who didn't leave fossils. It's probably more likely that there are fossils and they just haven't been found. The Earth is big and only a small percentage of it has been searched for fossils.
Then you have to consider that not all geologic structures and death conditions are conducive to fossil formation. Go out into a wild area today and count the number of animals you find. Then count the number of somewhat intact carcasses you find. You won't find many. So of the critters out there alive today, only a tiny percentage of them will end up as fossils in another few million years. On top of that, if the places humans like to live today were in similar conditions (near large sources of water, for example), there's a good chance that we've built over any fossils many times over.
I suspect that if you made a Drake-Equation like formula for predicting finding fossils of any particular type that even if many fossils might exist, very few of them would be found. Consider that of the millions of A. afarensis that probably existed, we have only found a handful of their fossils.
So sure, there is a gap, but there's a pretty reasonable explanation for that gap. Until we have exhausted such possibilities, and without startling evidence to the contrary, we can't seriously claim that the gap in the fossil record is caused by divine or extra-terrestrial intervention.
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No, because it would still be human. Many species of prokaryotes swap genes all the times, sometimes with other Prokaryotes of much different lineages. Even in eukaryotes, horizontal gene transfer can happen (very often due to retroviral infections, which can in fact act as a gateway for genes from different groups to get transplanted).
In your example, yes.
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Given this, care to venture to offer a precise working definition of "common ancestry"? If it does not mean "reproductive descent" (which, technically, I agree with), and
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Clones are hardly unknown in the biological world. Many species of prokaryotes are clones (that is, the daughter organism is nearly identical to the mother, and there is no recombination involved).
I know what you and the parent are trying to say, that if we insert or modify the genetic makeup of some cloned individual, that somehow it is "parentless" and thus beyond common descent. But that's not the case, not unless you made an individual up many different genetic sources. Still, if this is a modified c
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And if I did?
Technologically, eventually, it's going to happen. Eventually, we'll synthesize the whole DNA custom to our desires. Will "common ancestry" then no longer be true? If not, what event will cause it to no longer be true, and how will we know?
Not to harp too much on this point, but I find this edge-case fascinating. Rather like the question of if you replaced every neuron in your brain with
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There are limits to what we know how to do. We've figured out how to do mammalian cloning (with some caveats and high inefficiency; Dolly the sheep for example). We could, if we expended sufficient effort, take chromosomes from different people and probably produce a viable clone from that, but the ancestry could be traced: It wouldn't be mom and pop, but mom(s) and dad(s). We could get a bit more exotic
Ewww (Score:2, Troll)
Dr. Tim White of UC Berkeley had been 'sitting' on A. ramidus
Is this something like Clinton wanting to "date" an Aztec mummy?
Ardipithecus FAQ (Score:5, Informative)
I have an FAQ up on my blog [johnhawks.net].
It gives some of the story behind the news, and delves into the anatomy and implications for hominin origins. I'll be updating it as the day goes on to add more information.
Summary is slightly misleading... (Score:3, Informative)
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srsly? :-o
Somehow the goofiness of vestigial things we have like tailbones and the appendix may lead one to believe that we're very unlikely to be "another race". Nobody has ever claimed (with any knowledge) that we descended directly from chimps, but merely that we likely have a common ancestor.
The simple fact that by sheer statistical analysis of decoded DNA, we're closest to chimps makes that a pretty logical starting point, don't you think?
We could start with snails and work backwards, but that seems a
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Re:Science (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Science (Score:4, Informative)
Well, humans come from apes, not monkeys.
Re:Science (Score:4, Informative)
Well, humans and apes came from a common recent ancestor.
Re:Science (Score:5, Informative)
Humans and apes come from a common recent ancestor in the same way that Great Danes and dogs came from a common recent ancestor.
That is to say that humans are apes.
Apes are simply members of the superfamily Hominoidea, parvorder Catarrhini, order Primates, class Mammalia, phylum Chordata, kingdom Animalia.
Even more specific, humans are Great Apes (please ignore the narcissism), or members of the family Hominidae, which is restricted to humans, chimps, bonobos, bili apes, gorillas and orangutans.
Humans have:
superfamily Hominoidea, family Hominidae, subfamily Homininae, tribe Hominini, genus Homo.
Chimps, Bonobos, and Bili apes have:
superfamily Hominoidea, family Hominidae, subfamily Homininae, tribe Hominini, genus Pan.
Gorillas have:
superfamily Hominoidea, family Hominidae, subfamily Homininae, tribe Gorillini, genus Gorilla.
Orangutans have:
superfamily Hominoidea, family Hominidae, subfamily Ponginae, genus Pongo.
Re:Science (Score:4, Insightful)
If we'd applied the same criteria to these groups that we apply to other mammals, there actually wouldn't be two genuses here, there'd be one.
Humans are descended from a monkey-like ancestor (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Science (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly what's mentioned in one of the articles: "Ardi has many traits that do not appear in modern-day African apes, leading to the conclusion that the apes evolved extensively since we shared that last common ancestor."
It makes sense, if we evolved from the common ancestor in six million years, it's only reasonable to assume monkeys and apes also evolved. Think of the common ancestor not as an ape, but something that's as different from modern apes as it's different from humans.
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Keep in mind that this common ancestor most likely didn't walk on two legs, wasn't hairless, and probably couldn't control its breathing, making it impossible to either talk or swim. So, yes, chimps certainly must have evolved somewhat, but not as much as humans and not in anything resembling the same direction. Therefore, this common ancestor was an ape (not a "monkey" as some insist on suggesting), though not a "modern" ape.
Also, no one seems to have pointed out, this creature bears a strong resemblance t
Re:Science (Score:5, Informative)
"So, yes, chimps certainly must have evolved somewhat, but not as much as humans"
I would contend that they are equally as evolved as humans. They simply evolved in a different way.
Simply because they didn't evolve to be more akin to humans doesn't make them less evolved.
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This is exactly what's mentioned in one of the articles: "Ardi has many traits that do not appear in modern-day African apes, leading to the conclusion that the apes evolved extensively since we shared that last common ancestor."
It makes sense, if we evolved from the common ancestor in six million years, it's only reasonable to assume monkeys and apes also evolved. Think of the common ancestor not as an ape, but something that's as different from modern apes as it's different from humans.
My useful (I think) analogy: I did not descend from my cousin. We both descended from my grandmother, who is different than either of us.
Re:Science (Score:5, Informative)
why is it so interesting to study where humans have come from
How could you NOT be interested in knowing where humans came from?
and why exactly monkeys?
Because both the fossil record and DNA say that chimps are humans' closest relatives, with 96% identical DNA.
intelligently and in other ways they're totally different
The intelligence is only a matter of degree, and in many (perhaps more) ways that matter more than intelligence they are the same as us.
Monkeys have come from somewhere too
Monkeys and apes (including us; we are an ape species) have the same anscestors, for reasons mentioned above.
I'm not trying to troll or anything
If you are, you're doing a poor job of it.
Re:Science (Score:5, Insightful)
How could you NOT be interested in knowing where humans came from?
A religious upbringing, a lack of imagination, and a poor understanding of why abstract scientific endevours can be of practical use to mankind all help. That and having your head firmly planted up your posterior.
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I disagree; human intelligence seems to have reached a critical threshold when we learned to accumulate knowledge over time. Of all the species on earth, most continue in the same way (limited by the rate of genetic evolution) generation after generation. Not people. Our lifestyles have evolved radically in the last 5000 years. So much so, it is clear no species on earth ever reached the threshold before, because we are exploiting the planet like no species b
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There's more to trolling than getting people to respond to your post. From slashdot's FAQ:
Well, maybe he was just trying to waste my
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A few points:
1. We are very clearly related to monkeys, but morphologically and genetically.
2. A helluva lot of behavioral research over the last fifty years has shown that even in our psychological makeup, we're not really that different from our closest relatives. Tool-use, language, culture have all been seen in other primates. Admittedly is nowhere near our level, but our capabilities are more about degrees of difference than in any particular novelty.
3. Your last sentence makes no sense whatsoever.
I believe you are not trolling (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I have seen, you are too earnest and concerned about your karma to be trolling. So let me kindly point out some of the misconceptions others may have missed. Obviously, you get the point that nobody thinks we are descended from monkeys. That's been hammered home, yes? But above that, you seem to be laboring under the delusion that biological science consists of deciding which critters look like which other critters. While this used to be the case, back before we had better methods, we can now do genetic analysis and figure out much more accurately what is or was related to what.
You also seem to be confused as the the concept of 'related.' If you and your sister are descended from the same point, say, your mother and father, are you related? Yes. Yes you are. We are not the descendants of monkeys, but we are still in the same family, so to speak. In fact, based on genetic evidence, even several million years after we split off from our common ancestor, we were still occasionally getting it on with them and making babies. It was discussed right here on Slashdot some time ago.
I can't really tell you why this whole idea of common descent is interesting, either you find it so or you don't. I can tell you why it is interesting to other people, though. Science is a process that approaches, but never reaches the truth. We make theories, and we see what predictions those theories make. Then we look for evidence showing whether or not those predictions are true, Finally, if the evidence shows the predictions are not true, we modify our theories. For instance, we had to modify Newton's theory of gravity when its predictions about the orbit of Mercury proved false. That lead to the Einstein's theories of relativity. But we still use Newton's theories in day to day engineering, because they are simpler to calculate and give correct results outside of relativistic situations. The truth or falsehood of theories is irrelevant, the only relevant question in science is, does the theory make accurate predictions?
How does this relate to the theory of evolution? Well, it is one piece of a giant puzzle. We have all of these pieces of evidence: fossils, DNA, carbon dating, and so on. They all fit together, forming a giant structure of factual support for the theory of evolution. If even one of these pieces did not fit, for instance, if we found a rabbit skeleton from the Jurassic period, then we would have to modify inconceivably large chunks of our current theories, not just evolution, but just about everything would need reevaluation.
So here we have a new piece. Does it fit? I find that question interesting. Many other people do too.
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I am reminded of the Star Trek TNG episode where these guys who looked like a cross between a lizard and a human refused to admit the obvious fact that they were descended from dinosaurs.
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Re:Science (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Science (Score:4, Interesting)
Man this sounds like an infinitely recursive loop.
And not in a bad way. If you think about the computer simulations we're been able to create in the short existence of our computer systems, it's pretty clear that someone else could had created our whole world as a simulation. Computing power is quite infinite; we're making even more and more progress all the time. And if simulation theory would be correct, we cant possibly know what kind of systems are running us.
(yeah it sounds matrix like.. but atleast it makes more sense than any religious/god crap anyway)
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- Douglas Adams
Re:It bothers me (Score:5, Informative)
If you had read the article - you would know that there were pieces of a large number of individuals found.
You can assume carbon testing was done, it's routine.
There's also the issue of associated plant and animal material in the fossil layer - which tends to give credence to the find.
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Without ends on the femur it's pretty hard to be sure about the height. There's a lot of art to this science and that still leaves most conclusions still debatable. Not that I would disagree, I'm just sayin'. Maybe that's why it took so long to publish.
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That's what God invented comparative anatomy and comparative developmental biology for. While you're never going to know exact average heights for any extinct species, you can do some reasonably good guessing by looking at other similar and related animals for which you do know something about to get at least a reasonable number.
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Compared to which species? The only picture I saw was in the Times article. They mention bones from other specimens but did any of them have intact fibulas AND femurs? Probably not. Considering all these bones have been through, that is a fabulous set that they have there. I was dissenting with GP about the conclusions that the QUALIFIED EXPERTS have arrived at, and agreeing with you. I'm just saying that these are subjective conclusions, subject to differing interpretations. I imagine Dr. White would concu
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Compared to modern apes, that's what species. It isn't perfect (sometimes we can fooled by much greater sexual dimorphism than modern humans exhibit), but generally speaking, it's likely that this animal wouldn't have been terribly different than modern apes (including us).
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Re:It bothers me (Score:5, Insightful)
The long delay can be attributed to the scientist actually doing his job. Catalog, research verify, then publish. Its the difference between reactionary pseudo science and actual work that produces results.
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I'm sure you can find some better reasons to be skeptical than what you list.
Yes, but perhaps his real reasons for being skeptical will earn him a vicious mocking from others, and he wishes to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt without stating what his real issues are?
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That apes are not an inferior species but instead specialized in one direction and humans in another has been well understood by biologists since at least the 70's...the 1870's.
Oh yeah? Well if apes aren't inferior, then why do we have writing and houses and cars and microprocessors and big office buildings with cubicle farms where we go to work every day and mortgages to pay off, while they just sit around lounging in the sun taking naps and eating fruit?
Wait...
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Oh yeah? Well if apes aren't inferior, then why do we have writing and houses and cars and microprocessors and big office buildings with cubicle farms where we go to work every day and mortgages to pay off, while they just sit around lounging in the sun taking naps and eating fruit?
You forgot digital watches. It's all about the digital watches.
(I don't have a digital watch. *sigh* My life is incomplete.)
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I'm not sure where you get the idea we're more social. Both members of genus Pan are highly socialized (pygmy chimps are probably more socialized than humans are).
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I'm not sure where you get the idea we're more social. Both members of genus Pan are highly socialized (pygmy chimps are probably more socialized than humans are).
Umm... Do they have Facebook? I thought not. So obviously they are even less social than me.
Re:most surprising conclusion from this (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not sure where you get the idea we're more social. Both members of genus Pan are highly socialized (pygmy chimps are probably more socialized than humans are).
Umm... Do they have Facebook? I thought not. So obviously they are even less social than me.
Perhaps, but Bonobos (pygmy chimps) clearly get laid more than you do.
Sex for food? (Score:3, Interesting)
Another article [nationalgeographic.com] mentions that " Instead of fighting for access to females, a male Ardipithecus would supply a "targeted female" and her offspring with gathered foods and gain her sexual loyalty in return.
To keep up his end of the deal, a male needed to have his hands free to carry home the food. Bipedalism may have been a poor way for Ardipithecus to get around, but through its contribution to
Re: (Score:2)
Sex for food? It totally works.
-l /Yeah, I'm the cook in our family...
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Did he use his froggy magic twanger or did he just invent evolution and let statistics do the work for him?
Re:More importantly.... (Score:5, Funny)
...can she run Linux?
No.
The OS designed for monkeys is MS Windows.
Re:I see what they are trying to piece together, b (Score:5, Informative)
Except that that is not how the evidence points. As a couple of scientists I've talked to have pointed out, the real destruction of your theory isn't genetics itself, it's developmental biology. If all organisms were, as you said, simply examples of copy and paste, why on Earth would, during developmental, would fetal snakes have signals that basically turned off the leg producing genes? Those genes are still there, still pretty close to identical to the genes found in the closest relatives to snakes that do have legs.
In fact, one of the chief arguments against life being engineered, that common genes being an example of procedural code being moved around like it was some sort of biological glibc is that everything about development is made up of hacks of this kind. Whether it's developmental hacks that shut down instructions to grow legs, to the very nature of many organisms physiology (such as a certain bipedal species with spines and knees only halfway adapted to full time upright walking) that would indicate that if your theory is right, the guy that made life is outrageously incompetent or malicious to the extreme.
Besides, it isn't just a matter of some similar genes. It is the differences in genes that are often key as to relatedness. Chimps and humans have a high degree of similarity, but it isn't one-to-one for many genes. Over time the two species have diverged, which means that even the same genes aren't always identical. These differences, particularly in mtDNA, can actually be used as molecular clocks to make estimates as to when the two species diverged.
In short, the evidence does not support your point of view. That view was long ago falsified. We are not the products of copy-and-pastes, but the products of evolutionary forces that work on populations over long stretches of time.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Charming idea except that might sound good superficially but really doesn't fit the actual evidence. First, life forms of a nested hierarchy (you know, the whole tree of life thing?). Designers don't make nested hierarchies unless they are trying to be deceptive. Evolution does. Nested hierarchies don't form when someone is just copying useful parts of one model to another.
A related problem is that humans and apes share some of the same mistakes in our DNA. For example, we share many of the same ERVs. ER