Tool Use By Humans Pushed Back By 800,000 Years 189
gpronger writes "The journal Nature reports that newly discovered tool marks on bones indicates that we were using tools at minimum 800,000 years earlier than previously thought. This places the start of tool use at 3.4 million years ago or earlier. The most likely ancestor in this time frame would be Australopithecus afarensis. The researchers, led by palaeoanthropologist Zeresenay Alemseged of the California Academy of Science, San Francisco,and Shannon McPherron, (an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany) state that cut marks on the bones of an impala-sized creature and another closer in size to a buffalo, indicate butchering of the animals by our distant ancestors. However, they do not believe that they were in fact hunters, more likely scavenging the remains left behind by large predators."
What, from their club days? (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, wait... wrong Tool.
(I hate babysitting databases... makes the brain go all squiggly at 2 in the morning. At least now I can stop wondering if they found a fossilized CD player next to the bones...)
Re: (Score:2)
3,400,092 BC, that is.
Re: (Score:2)
No, you misunderstand. "Use By Humans", which was to have been their 4th full-length release in two decades, has been delayed 800,000 years.
I hope this is what you had in mind, because this is what you're getting.
Re: (Score:2)
I hate babysitting databases...
You had me wondering for quite a while here about who
the hell would run a babysitting database, and if it could
be someone from the "think of the children" crowd...
Tool use is widespread (Score:5, Insightful)
Turns out we're not the only animal that uses tools [wikipedia.org] so there's no reason why it would have appeared recently in human evolution. What's more impressive is our ability to design tools to attain a certain objective by using only our imagination (abstract thought) rather than the ability to pick up a rock from the vicinity to carve up a carcass. That's likely much more recent.
"That's likely much more recent" - Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"That's likely much more recent" - Really? (Score:5, Funny)
> The first person to think of trimming a sharp rock for better performance was a genuine innovator.
If only they'd patented it!
Re:"That's likely much more recent" - Really? (Score:5, Funny)
The first person to think of trimming a sharp rock for better performance was a genuine innovator.
Sadly, the word innovation and all the derivative vocabulary that comes with it due to overuse in the latest marketing fodder triggered an image of a caveman named Zog making a sharper rock. When he had finally created this technological marvel the word quickly spread in the local tribal community. The tribe would go out hunting, and those whose rocks didn't meet required sharpness criteria would be considered to be fools clinging to obsolete technology. In a matter of days, Zog had ascended from lowly rockbasher to an expert in the field of innovative hunting.
Zog had it all: finely cut food from the most tasty animals the local wildlife had to offer, the adoration of the masses, commanding power over the world because of his fearsomely sharp weaponry, and a veritable harem of alluring females. A few weeks after his rise to power though, things weren't looking so great anymore for Zog. Nerg, the foul smelling tribal lunatic, had taken his innovative rocksharpening technique and had improved the process by a factor of 2 by means of sustained repetitive bashing. No longer did Zog have the sharpest rocks in the tribe, and almost instantaneously he lost it all. The masses no longer adored him for they were too busy hunting with Nerg. His power over the world stagnated and eventually had to make way for the sharper weaponry of Nerg. But most important of all, his considerably sized harem of willing females left him for the newer more powerful rocksharpener.
And that is how the Tribal Patent Orgnanization was formed. Scratched into a cavewall for all eternity we find the worlds first patent: "TPO Issued Patent #00000001 : A technique for sharpening rocks by bashing rocks against eachother.". It includes various drawings on rock sharpening techniques and a vague description of acquiring a harem by the use of these techniques. Unfortunately Zog never got to sue Nerg in a tribal court of law, because Nerg bashed in his skull with an incredibly sharp rock several minutes after filing the patent.
To this day, Nerg is remembered as the worlds first innovator and harem owner.
True story!
(I apologize for the precious time I stole from you to read this, but the code I'm writing right now is slowly killing my brain unless I entertain it a little in small doses. Tune in next comment, when Dorg invents fire and accidentally burns down his cave, and is remembered throughout history as the worlds smartest and most stupid caveman of all time. Don't miss out on how Dorg later also invents insurance fraud.)
Re:"That's likely much more recent" - Really? (Score:4, Funny)
alleged insurance fraud. It hasn't been proven yet.
Re:"That's likely much more recent" - Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree. We know more, there are some things in our social organisation that are better (democracy, vs feudalism, bans on toruture, etc.).
On the other hand, we can sometimes be worse: we can be cruel and uncarig - which is perhaps why 13th century England had only 188 suicides over a century [rcpsych.org], whereas the UK currently has about 3,000 a year (a MUCH higher per capita rate even with the roughly 30 fold population growth).
Re: (Score:2)
All animals with some kind of nervous system have abstractions. The whole point of a nervous system is summarize sensory input and decide on a course of action. What humans have is a means to communicate abstractions of arbitrary level from one to other; in other words, a symbolic language.
not exactly... (Score:4, Informative)
People try stuff out and see what works, often discovering a very different application then originally intended or finding the thing useless. This is selection.
It is the accurate transmission (or in evolution terms reproduction) of complex multi-step tool production methods that allows for cumulative cultural evolution. This kind of thing is hard to prove for animals- but there are chimpanzee troops with multi-step tool production.
The recombination of such behaviors/tools/ideas is accelerating the process even further, which is why technological evolution is accelerating while genetically we haven't changed that much (conjecture!). In fact we have not so distant relatives (so called Boskop man) that had larger average cranial volume.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, abstract thought might not be as recent or require as much evolutionary development as is often thought either. See the video embedded on this page [www.noob.us] where I'd say that a chimpanzee is clearly demonstrating abstract thought, not only working out what too
Re:Tool use is widespread (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, abstract thought might not be as recent or require as much evolutionary development as is often thought either.
While I agree that this is a possibility, I think it's rather funny that you're using the behavior of a modern-day chimp as evidence. You do realize that the chimp in that video has had just as much time and "evolutionary development" as we have, don't you?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
+1 Insightful
Chimps might appear to be more primitive than humans, but they are just as evolutionarily distant from our common ancestor as we are. Looking to chimps for evidence of human-like behavior is interesting in that it shows behaviors like tool use are not unique to humans, but is not really indicative of the capabilities of our ancestors. There is nothing really "advanced" about humans, we have simply evolved different capabilities. Remember that pound for pound and average chimp is about 10x st
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, modern-day bacteria are also just as evolutionarily distant from our common ancestor as we are, yet I'd say they are quite a bit more primitive than us.
Re: (Score:2)
But if I have a gun, it'll take a lot more than one chimp to cause trouble for me.
Right, that was kind of my point. We (humans) have a very strong collaborative society that allows us to do things like research and manufacturing. In that sense the argument is very compelling that the development of higher order intelligence places us at an advantage over other organisms.
That gun is a very good metaphor for the research and manufacturing capabilities that our particular evolutionary path has allowed. I'm not arguing that humans are not the dominant species on Earth, but if you put huma
Re: (Score:2)
You do realize that the chimp in that video has had just as much time and "evolutionary development" as we have, don't you?
lol, you think evolution is progress and that progress is getting smarter. You do realize how erroneous that is, don't you?
The chimp skull resembles those of our early ancestors. The only conclusion you can draw is that abstract thought is possible in a primate brain of a certain size.
Re: (Score:2)
lol, you think evolution is progress and that progress is getting smarter
I do? Interesting. I'd be curious to know how you've come to that conclusion, given that I was saying the exact opposite.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You do realize that the chimp in that video has had just as much time and "evolutionary development" as we have, don't you?
Yeah something like six thousand years. :P
*removes flamesuit*
Re: (Score:2)
Well, some birds do design their own tools [youtube.com] (kind of) to attain a certain objective.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And then you have species like dolphins, elephants, and pigs--all of which are very intelligent, they just lack the dextrous digits humans have so their ability to manipulate the environment is limited. Elephants are something of an exception due to their trunks, though--they can manipulate tools and perform complex tasks with them.
We just hit the evolutionary lottery, as it were: opposable thumbs, high intelligence, complex vocal communication, abstract thought, and self-awareness. Those traits can all be
Re:Tool use is widespread (Score:5, Insightful)
Good link. I was sitting here thinking about all the tool using animals I've ever heard of. That page pretty much covers them. And, of course, primates pretty much lead the list. There was a story in the last couple years about a band of primates discovering a newer, better way to catch termites from a termite mound. I think they frayed the bit of straw or stick, giving the termites more area to grab hold of. The chimp got more termite chow for the same effort with the improved stick. The interesting bit was, they taught another band how to do the same thing.
Man may be the most prolific tool user, but he certainly isn't unique.
Re: (Score:2)
The interesting bit was, they taught another band how to do the same thing.
Even house cats learn from others. The mammo cat teaches the kittens how to use a litter box, for example. My daughter's cat try to mimick human, to the point of petting your arm when they want to be petted themselves. The oldest one learned how to use a doorknob to get through a closed door.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Man may be the most prolific tool user, but he certainly isn't unique.
But perhaps mankind is unique in our ability to consider ourselves unique, and to be off-put by the revelation that we aren't.
Also, we may be unique in contemplating the idea of wiping out those other pesky tool-using animals to restore our uniqueness.
Or maybe that's just my uniqueness. :)
Re: Tool use is widespread (Score:3, Insightful)
Turns out we're not the only animal that uses tools so there's no reason why it would have appeared recently in human evolution.
The only surprise would be if the most recent common ancestor of ourselves and chimps *didn't* use tools, some six million years ago.
And (Score:2, Interesting)
------
How tool are you today?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
With luck, another 800 000 years.
Re: (Score:2)
This is funny, because I thought reality television pushed human culture back 800 000 years.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"How long until we learn to use them properly, i.e. mindfully and responsibly? "
Until Evolution selects for those behaviors.
Good god... (Score:4, Funny)
...then we've been using tool even before earth, the sky and whatnot were created! What a mind blowing revelation.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually it makes you wonder, if the progress to get there took 800000 years, then what happened in the past 10000 is really incredible.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
what the hell is a mediphore?
Re: (Score:2)
Something that eats drugs? And can't spell metaphor?
Re:Good god... (Score:5, Interesting)
I disagree. What I see is that our civilization behaves like biology does not exists. All the numerous useful facts and predictions of evolution and ecology are constantly and often deliberately kept unintelligible to the general public. Biology is the queen of all sciences, hands down, and it is the most relevant to us as a species. Sure, physics, maths and inorganic chemistry are all very important and necessary foundation, but organic chemistry and biology are the real deal.
Almost nobody understands evolution properly. I am just back from lunch with my fantastically intelligent colleagues-physicists and they definitely did not know evolution. I mentioned to them that during the domestication of wolves as much as we selected them, they selected us too. They were baffled.
I said "Imagine that the wolves are coming closer to human settlement. The bravest wolves come the closest and try to pick some left overs. Eventually over time a mutually beneficial system emerges - we feed them, they help us hunting and guarding the settlement. We selected the wolves that are most-human friendly (least afraid of humans) and then encouraged their survival and procreation. All is well. Now, suppose that in the neighboring settlement a behavior "I hate/ I am afraid of wolves/dogs" occurs among the humans (genetically or socially determined or both). Well, this village will not have the benefit of guarding dogs against predators or other humans. They will suffer more casualties than the first village. Over time the difference becomes more and more significant until the "I hate/ I am afraid of dogs" behavior becomes negligibly small or vanishes. The net result - humans selected by wolves...even after this example which is quite clear IMO, I did not see the spark of enlightenment in the colleague's eyes. Even to this people - non religious, highly educated (from three different continents too), "selection" could only be a directed, conscious effort.
Here is a small story to illustrate:
The History of the Universe according to me (or why biology is the queen):
In the beginning it was physics - a set of forces and rules and looooong time. Everything that could happen, happened, so we got stars and most of the elements and all the possible inorganic components between those elements and all the possible products and processes of nuclear physics. That was the first of the "phase spaces" the Universe explored.
And among the elements there was carbon, which could chain with itself within certain limits of temperature and pressure. And it opened the second of the "phase spaces" - organic chemistry. And it was good, because the number of possible products and reactions was huge compared to inorganic chemistry and nuclear physics. Just the number of different chemical reactions between organic compounds in the "primal soup" of the Earth for a mere millions of years greatly exceeds the number of all atoms in the observable Universe. And since the time scales were still truly vast, anything that could happen, happened. And among the things that happened was the first immortal (but imperfect) replicator making copies of itself from components in its environment. And thus evolution began.
And once the so-called "nervous systems" of the living beings became so complex as to allow conciseness to emerge, an Observer of the Universe, the third "phase space" was accessible - the "phase space" of the mind, which is not even a material thing (as atoms) but "merely" a process carried out by a living, evolved beings.
And the complexity, intricacy and relevance (to us) of those phase spaces increases from the first to the second to the third. Thus biology, with its subsets like medicine, ecology, neurological sciences est. is the queen. And thus, it is no small matter at all when people are deliberately kept ignorant of it.
So, until society smartens up enough, we must challenge ignorance given half a chance. Our very survival is at stake!
...to allow conciseness to emerge.... (Score:2)
Its a bit long of a post to hope for that....
Somewhat, concisely, "evolution with direction" is little more than creationism in wolfs clothing. It assumes there is a grand goal, to which evolution is the mechanism of achieving.
Re: (Score:2)
If the idea of "phases" as you posit, is true, then in fact, you have shown biology NOT to be the 'queen' you espouse.
Whilst biology does indeed have subsets such as neurosciences, medicine, ecology etc., I''d argue they're phase-2 related, or at the very most, phase 2.5.
They all pretty much concern thee physical study of life-forms. Since phase two was the growth of carbon-based systems, be it organic chem., or life itself, biochemists, biologists, doctors of medicine etc. are all studying the physical pr
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I disagree. What I see is that our civilization behaves like biology does not exists.
There is a quote that I thought was from Illuminatus! that goes:
There are two rules of human behavior. Rule 1 is "Humans are primates" and rule 2 is "Most humans don't know rule 1."
but I can't seem to track it down.
Re: (Score:2)
I mentioned to them that during the domestication of wolves as much as we selected them, they selected us too. They were baffled.
Just wait until next time you tell them that cheese selected for Europeans. That culture is an active part of determining genotype is hard to grasp.
Re: (Score:2)
Some still believe that it's unadulterated truth even though it's obvious that the bible is a book written by "man" for "man" to control "man"..... The whole purpose of the Catholic church is about control of the unwashed masses.
That's probably not the "whole purpose" of the Catholic church. I wouldn't know, I'm not Catholic. Southern Baptists, for example believe that The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God's revelation of Himself to man. [sbc.net]. Gerald Schroeder has some very interesting books attempting to bridge Science and Genesis together. Schroeder [geraldschroeder.com] is both a Jewish theologist and teacher and physicist, although his background is a bit more weighted towards science.
Some how, I have a bad feeling I'm about t
Evolution (Score:5, Funny)
Nearly three and a half million years of humans using tools, and I can't even put up a shelf. If you want evidence that evolution isn't all it's cracked up to be, there it is.
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
I can put up a shelf. But I can't butcher a carcass. Evolution in reverse eh?.
The other day I was sitting in a release planning meeting, listing to a discussion about our version control system and related tooling. Suddenly I had this thought that we were all just a bunch of apes, manipulating abstractions of abstractions of tools ultimately designed to help us catch our dinner. Now I don't know how we do it at all. It all seems so unlikely.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I thought you were going to say: The other day I was sitting in a release planning meeting and all I could think about was butchering carcasses.
...of management. Yeah that too.
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Funny)
You've been thru a Sharepoint deployment, too?
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Insightful)
The real abstraction you're talking about is post-industrial capitalism. Meat eaters often consider themselves somehow kin to the Great Hunter, that by eating a bloody steak they are somehow closer to the earth and it's mortal realities yet they couldn't be further from it. Rather, they cowardly pay another to kill a sick beast - stoned on antibiotics so that it can actually live and eat corn - on their behalf. I say that as someone that grew up on a farm and often ate what I killed with my own hands.
Unlike our hunter forebears, people caneat meat every day because of the abstraction of late capitalism. I encourage every meat eater to take the life of the thing they want to eat, at least once in their lives. Look at the beast in the eyes, take its life and then eat parts of its body. A highly valuable dietary - and somehow even spiritual - reality check.
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Funny)
As a vegetarian I do it every day, I look that salad right into the eye and put it out of its misery.
Re:Evolution (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe I didn't get the memo, but as far as I know salad shouldn't have an eye.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Well then, you should see the teeth on a cucumber...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
potato salads might have eyes.
Re: (Score:2)
Ha! Some of us have actually butchered our own meat. Deer, pig, and cows, not to mention loads of small game and fish. Butchering isn't a lost art out in the sticks.
And, yes, I like my beef medium rare to rare. I don't want the blood to actually dribble down my chin - but I most definitely want it JUICY!!
Re: (Score:2)
All I know is that bloody, sick, whatever - meat tastes good.
I've never killed a cow - but I regularly go fishing and then eat the fish... does that count?
Re: (Score:2)
> somehow even spiritual
I guess I can kind of imagine what you mean, but I can't relate. I've killed animals before and likely will again, but the feelings I get are a momentary thrill of success if it was a hunt, sorrow for the loss and remorse for what I've done, and a satiated belly if I eat it.
Re: (Score:2)
but the feelings I get are a momentary thrill of success if it was a hunt, sorrow for the loss and remorse for what I've done, and a satiated belly if I eat it.
I dunno, one of the functions of your average grazing animal is to be food for those higher up in the food chain, and that includes humans. I'd feel *far* more remorse if I simply killed an animal, or worse, stuffed and mounted the thing. Sport hunters? Seriously, you fuckers can go die in a fire. But hunting, and then eating what we kill, is, I
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The other day I was sitting in a release planning meeting, listing to a discussion about our version control system and related tooling. Suddenly I had this thought that we were all just a bunch of apes, manipulating abstractions of abstractions of tools ultimately designed to help us catch our dinner. Now I don't know how we do it at all. It all seems so unlikely.
But much more importantly: how did the release go?
So-so
Re: (Score:2)
Well, you need to be taught how to do those things or you'll do it very poorly if you even get it done at all. "If I see farther than other men, it's because I stand on the shoulders of giants."
I don't see how anyone could not be able to put up a shelf. At least a bad one, anyway. I was cleaning rabbits and squirrels when I was six or seven years old; my dad was an avid hunter. But like I said, if I hadn't been taught I'd do a piss-poor job trying to.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I can put up a shelf. But I can't butcher a carcass. Evolution in reverse eh?.
Sure you can. If you were put naked into the wilderness, surrounded with carcasses and no other food in sight, you'd probably be digging into them with a makeshift stone knife in a matter of hours, especially if you were aware that your life depended on it.
Don't underestimate the power of knowledge, even if it's just knowledge that something can be done, but not knowing how.
Re: (Score:2)
That would be true if evolution was a purely individual thing. But the evolution of social behavior, living in society where people specialized their skills to be more efficient and trade their skills against skills of other is also part of the evolution of mankind. That's why you'll always find someone to put up that tablet for you...
In the end, I feel that this social evolution is much more cracked up than the biological evolution.
Re:Evolution (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe shelves have evolved a defense against being put up. Have you ever considered that?
I'm thinking of calling it "The IKEA Gene"
Re: (Score:2)
More like IKEA "documentation" - best defense against setting up a shelf ever devised.
Re: (Score:2)
More like IKEA "documentation" - best defense against setting up a shelf ever devised.
In all honesty, I have never bought an item from IKEA. It just sounds better than "cheap Chinese crap bought from Target". The documentation that gets my goat is when someone produces text-free instructions. Every step is just a drawing. I usually refer to them a hieroglyphics, and gripe that they couldn't pay one person who speaks the language of whatever country the product is being marketed in, to type up a description.
Re: (Score:2)
WELL (Score:3, Insightful)
It's only a theory. Like gravity and maths.
+6 flamebate on other sites, this sort of talk is you know...
Re: (Score:2)
only a theory. Like gravity and maths.
Mods, this should have been your clue.
+6 flamebate on other sites, this sort of talk is you know...
Did you mods even read this?
Re: (Score:2)
just a moment. the fact that people have been using tools for a very long time doesn't mean that they have to read the instructions before.
Did the author sleep through Anthro 101? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
and dismissing doomsayers as "Cassandras".
I don't see why. It's a neatly self-fulfilling act. We should all aspire to such monumental self-consistency in our foolishness. As an aside here, Cassandra's prophecies (concerning the fall of Troy) were accurate, but nobody believed them because they didn't want to. So when you call someone a "Cassandra", it doesn't reflect well on you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I always assumed "quantum leap" meant a distinct, significant jump as opposed to referring to the size per se. Next time I hear it used I'll have to ask what they mean.
And as the others say, in the U.S., colleges typically reserve 1xx for the intro courses.
Humans existed 800,000 years ago? (Score:2)
I was under the impression that we were maybe 300,000-400,000 years old as a species. How do they go back 800,000 to millions of years?
Re:Humans existed 800,000 years ago? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
sharpens Occam's Razor
Or, perhaps, they misinterpreted toothmarks left by serrated predator teeth as toolmarks, chose to stick with their hypothesis in the light of an overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary, thereby planting themselves firmly in the crackpot camp, and THEN lost their jobs?
Re:Humans existed 800,000 years ago? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
> we need to get humanity established elsewhere
Why "need"? In what way would the extinction of homo sapiens sapiens hurt the universe? Or the Earth? Or dead humans?
If mankind were gone, who but our surviving pets would miss us?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Concluding that a mark on a dinosaur bone was from butchering would be suspect without evidence of the tools themselves in the same strata, would it not?
Re: (Score:2)
They had experts in other fields examine the bones and concluded they were tool marks.
The author makes few claims himself, it is all testimony from real scientist. That's one of the things that impressed me about the book.
I see truth that doesn't fit gets modded down on /. as well. :)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"real scientist"? I know them. they're the guys with intelligent design and "LHC is gonna kill us all", right?
Re: (Score:2)
They had experts in other fields examine the bones and concluded they were tool marks.
Perhaps those experts need to be examined by experts? Concluding that something was made by a tool that has not been shown to exist until 100 million years or so up the strata is a bit of a stretch. I'd bet other "experts" would conclude that the same bone had been scraped against rocks when stepped on, etc.
Or was the author implying that there was a tool-using dinosaur? Seems like a stretch, but there are tool-wielding birds... so anything is possible.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Humans existed 800,000 years ago? (Score:5, Informative)
Off Amazon, order a book called the Hidden History of the Human Race (The Condensed Edition of Forbidden Archeology)
No, please don't. [talkorigins.org]
The Hidden History of the Human Race is a frustrating book. The motivation of the authors, "members of the Bhaktivedanta Institute, a branch of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness" (p. xix), is to find support in the data of paleoanthropology and archaeology for the Vedic scriptures of India. Their methods are borrowed from fundamentalist Christian creationists (whom they assiduously avoid citing). They catalog odd "facts" which appear to conflict with the modern scientific understanding of human evolution and they take statements from the work of conventional scholars and cite them out of context to support some bizarre assertion which the original author would almost certainly not have advocated. Cremo and Thompson regard their collection of dubious facts as "anomalies" that the current paradigm of paleoanthropology cannot explain. Sadly, they offer no alternative paradigm which might accommodate both the existing data and the so-called anomalies they present; although they do indicate that a second volume is planned which will relate their "extensive research results" to their "Vedic source material" (p. xix). Kuhn noted that "To reject one paradigm without simultaneously substituting another is to reject science itself" (1970, p. 79); and that is precisely what Cremo and Thompson do. They claim that "mechanistic science" is a "militant ideology, skillfully promoted by the combined effort of scientists, educators, and wealthy industrialists, with a view towards establishing worldwide intellectual dominance" (p. 196).
[ ... ]
Cremo and Thompson's claim that anatomically modern Homo sapiens sapiens have been around for hundreds of millions of years is an outrageous notion. Accepting that there is a place in science for seemingly outrageous hypotheses (cf. Davis, 1926) there is no justification for the sort of sloppy rehashing of canards, hoaxes, red herrings, half-truths and fantasies Cremo and Thompson offer in the service of a religious ideology. Readers who are interested in a more credible presentation of the overwhelming evidence for human evolution should consult Ian Tattersall's wonderful recent book The Fossil Trail: how we know what we think we know about human evolution.
Re: (Score:2)
GM = General Mastodon (Score:2, Funny)
Is that supposed to be our car analogy for this article?
Pushed back again? (Score:5, Funny)
Tool use by humans pushed back again, and by 800,000 years? I can't wait that long. I have to fix my brakes this weekend.
The Inspiration (Score:2)
This is just after the appearance of the monolith, right?
Hopefully this puts an end to the vegan propoganda (Score:3, Interesting)
The earliest known tool use was to carve up a tasty critter. Hopefully this puts an end to the myth that the natural diet for humans is vegetarian.
By all means make your personal choice for whatever reasons. Just don't pretend its the rest of us who are acting in a manner contrary to our nature.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'd think the existence of canine and incisor teeth in humans would be enough to convince any reasonable person that were are evolved to be omnivorous.
brain size very small at that time (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
How many early humans were tools ...
Less than the number of internet users who are tools. /s
Maybe if they were more honest (Score:2)
We wouldn't have so many people who don't believe in evolution. When they try to group all these different human like species together, it makes evolution seem completely unscientific. Homosapiens are the only human species. Those other species are different species just like there are different species of fish, cats, and just like humans aren't rodents even though we share something like 95% of our genes with them.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe they're not being dishonest; maybe they're being mindful of the fact that setting up precise boundaries between these different species is not as simple as you think. What precisely makes for a different species? The human-like species would have been very closely related genetically, and in some cases may have been able to interbreed naturally. So are they different species, or sub-species of the same species? Don't be fooled by the simple nomenclature system into thinking that species taxonomy is a
Re: (Score:2)
For your first question, not just us. Crows have demonstrated the ability to bend a piece of wire to make a hook from it, and then use it as a hook. Also, according to another slashdot poster can figure out dragging frozen food under an idling car's tail pipe.
Re: (Score:2)
they do not believe that they were in fact hunters, more likely scavenging the remains left behind by large predators
It's highly likely but we can't be sure until they find some primitive C&D orders carved on stone.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it just me or is this a bit depressing. Before it was look at all we've accomplished in the past 2.5 million years, now it has become: it's taken 3.4 million years to get to where we are?
But look at how fast we're preogressing now. I'm 58, looking back at my childhood, things were really primitive back then. A computer was a multimillion dollar building sized machine that your cell phone is now more powerful than. All telephones had cords and dials, there were no microwave ovens, color TV was a rarity, n
Re: (Score:2)