Fossils may turn 'evolution on its head'

[liberal N proud]

latimes.com
Fossils may turn 'evolution on its head'
Analysis of a near-complete skeleton of a human ancestor found in Ethiopia radically changes scientists' thinking about the appearance and behavior of our earliest forebears.
By Thomas H. Maugh II

October 2, 2009

A treasure trove of 4.4-million-year-old fossils from the Ethiopian desert is dramatically overturning widely held ideas about the early evolution of humans and how they came to walk upright, even as it paints a remarkably detailed picture of early life in Africa, researchers reported today.

The centerpiece of the diverse collection of primate, animal and plant fossils is the near-complete skeleton of a human ancestor that demonstrates our earliest forebears looked nothing like a chimpanzee or other large primate, as is now commonly believed. Instead, the findings suggest that the last common ancestor of humans and primates, which existed nearly 2 million years earlier, was a primitive creature that shared few traits with modern-day members of either group.

The findings, analyzed in a large group of studies published today in the journal Science, also indicate that our ancestors began walking upright in woodlands, not on grassy savannas as prior generations of researchers had speculated.

The discovery of the specimen called Ardipithecus ramidus "is one of the most important discoveries for the study of human evolution," said paleoanthropologist David Pilbeam of Harvard University, who was not involved in the research. "The find itself is extraordinary, as were the enormous labors that went into the reconstruction of a skeleton shattered almost beyond repair," he said in an e-mailed statement.

"It is so rare to get a more or less complete skeleton," said paleoanthropologist Andrew Hill of Yale University. "In the entire course of human evolution, at least until you get to Neanderthals, there are only three to four available. We can always tell so much more from a skeleton" than from the jawbones and skulls that are more commonly found.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-fossils2-2009oct02,0,3420742.story

[closeupready]

1. It's a fake. Some atheist planted this there.

Not gonna fall for that one. The Earth is only 3000 years old. :sarcasm:

[Hassin Bin Sober]

14. Blasphemous SPLITTER!!!! The earth is 6000 years old!!!

[Q3JR4]

71. Nope, you're wrong.

The Earth is actually 10,000 years old. Get your facts straight.

http://www.rael.org/rael_content/index.php

Q3JR4
:tinfoilhat:

[seabeyond]

72. i am not going into site, but like to get facts correct for argument. are you

syaing the creationists are now saying 10k. cause i dont want to use almost 7k, when really the number is 10k. then we will argue that instead of the stupid thinking.

[Q3JR4]

79. Nothing to do with the creationists,

just like to argue from the Ralien perspective to make their (the creationists) heads explode.

Q3JR4.

[RedCloud]

95. The Earth is only as old as I am. Nothing existed prior!

I don't remember any of it.

[Q3JR4]

111. I've been toying with the idea of becoming

a last Thursday-ist.

In a nutshell: the universe, everything in it, with every atom and photon of light placed precisely where it needs to be, including all living creatures and their memories was created last Thursday.

It's that or any other number of crazy beliefs I can dig up. :shrug:

Q3JR4.

[Renew Deal]

86. You're right. Here's the proof

[Echo In Light]

2. Thanks for posting

[xchrom]

3. Ardipithecus ramidus

this is so cool.

though the woodlands theory of development has been around for a while now -- not sure it's really all that earth shaking.

[csziggy]

8. The "earth shaking" part is that it moves the common ancestor back

The common ancestor for apes and human was thought to be closer to 2-2.5 million years ago and this seems to move it back about 2 million years more.

That has significance because of the difference in the environment at the different times.

This has got to be about 50,000th time the human ancestry charts will have been redrawn in my lifetime, and everything I learned in Physical Anthropology is even more outdated.

[seabeyond]

15. that is so cool. closer to 2-2.5 million years ago , so makes it 4-5 mil

with the new info.

i have been curious what the number is

interesting stuff

[xchrom]

16. yeah i've gotten used to them moving the time line around.

makes me feel old.

[csziggy]

56. Yes, we've lived through an amazing period of scientific discovery

For instance, I was a child when the discovery of DNA first made big headlines. I remember when Life magazine had their big spread about it. Now human DNA and that of many species has been mapped, and we are really getting a grip on how inheritance and development really works past the simplistic Mendelian ideas.

Too bad so many Americans refuse to admit any of it is true. That makes me feel older than the discoveries do!

When I was in high school, I corresponded with a relative who was born in 1890. She and I talked about the introduction of cars and the discoveries that had been made in her lifetime. She was so excited about the moon landing! Think of that - she was raised when transportation was horses or trains and lived to seen man on the moon. As I get older, I think that her attitude of being thrilled and excited about discoveries rather than frightened and denying them is the way to live longer and be happier.

[madokie]

4. I've never felt that man was ever a primate

in the sense that we know primates today. I've always believed we've been a separate species from day one. In that I believe we evolved from then to now to be what we are today.

[tabatha]

5. when we share 99% of our DNA with chimps?

[stray cat]

6. you share alot of your dna with intestinal worms as well

[tabatha]

9. Yep, we are all connected in some way.

[cliffordu]

43. My brother in law might.....But I sure don't.

[seabeyond]

45. lol lol lol. i say the same when people validate the ugliness in world with we are all animals

after all

well

you be the animal, i will be the human, with conscience, brain and oh whatever else that makes us unique. evolved? ya. evolved

[Joe Chi Minh]

119. The real difference between us and the animals is that we're not

scared of vacuum cleaners.

[seabeyond]

121. right. that is about it. except, both boys when young were. i guess the are my little pets.... nt

[Statistical]

67. Food for thought

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3170245.stm

[Javaman]

48. Kind of explains republicans, you know?nt

[seabeyond]

49. i thought that the lizard. no, knuckle dragger, nah... to many of our guys into that. hm....

slug

[Joe Chi Minh]

118. And fruit flies....

[sinkingfeeling]

12. Then how did we become the primates that homo sapiens are today?

Here's the description of this 'new' find:

Ardi stood about 47 inches tall and probably weighed 110 pounds. Many researchers had previously believed that such an early ancestor would, like modern chimps, be a knuckle-walker, using the knuckles for support while moving on all fours. Instead, Ardi appears to have climbed on all fours on branches, but walked upright on the ground. Her feet, like those of monkeys but not chimps, were designed more for propulsion than for grasping.

Her face had a projecting muzzle, giving her an ape-like appearance, but many features of her skull, such as the ridge above the eye socket, are quite different than those of chimpanzees. Her brain is about the same size as Lucy's.

[madokie]

66. Why can't we have always been human/

while apes were apes and so forth

[endarkenment]

82. uh, because of this bloke named Darwin, our common

understanding is that we can't always have been 'human', which term doesn't actual have a specific definition anyway. Did you mean homo sapien? We homo sapiens are part of the Hominidae famiily, which in turn is part of the parvorder Catarrhini. This discovery may juggle stuff around within the timeline, with chimps branching out after our branch diverged from a lower order common ancestor. Pushing the branch back 2 million years does not change who we are or how we got here.

[comrade snarky]

88. Always is a very long time

How do you explain the long history of Earth when there were no apes of hominids?

Do you think we just poufed into existence?

[anigbrowl]

102. Because the idea makes no sense unless you believe in the literal truth of the Bible

Mammals etc. didn't just spring into existence fully formed.

[sinkingfeeling]

109. Homo sapiens (humans) belongs to the Family Hominidae as the genus Homo. The Hominidae

Family falls under the Suborder Haplorrhini in the Order 'Primates'. So by definition, humans are primates.

[LeftyMom]

112. Because the fossil record and our DNA both say otherwise.

[snooper2]

26. So did we start coming out of the oceans along with amphibians

In the Devonian period about 370 million years ago :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[havocmom]

55. I would suggest humans may have evolved from snakes

but snakes seem too honorable for that to be a viable theory. ;)

[Name removed]

77. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AngryAmish]

80. That is strange - especially when we share a lot of behavior with chimps

Violence, tribal warfare, hunting, tool use.

[sakabatou]

90. Then please, explain human chromosome #2

[notadmblnd]

106. How about a hybrid?

a mix between the apes and space aliens i what I'm thinking?

[jmondine]

117. Me neither. We're a very specialized subspecies of aardvark.

[tabatha]

7. This is not about turning evolution on its head

it is about changing how scientists have considered the evolution events of man's forbears.

It does not change the fact that we evolved from earlier species - it is the road that we took that will be refined.

[SidDithers]

20. +1...nt

Sid

[redqueen]

27. The fact that so many editors choose 'sexy' over 'factual'...

well I don't want to mention Idiocracy again, but...

[eppur_se_muova]

30. Definitely a dumb headline. nt

[Orsino]

51. +10 n/t

[GreenPartyVoter]

61. +10

[GaYellowDawg]

63. + infinity

I could not agree more.

[sakabatou]

91. infinity + 1

[HughMoran]

105. It's an utterly moronic headline designed to attract neanderthals (freepers)

:rofl:

[seabeyond]

108. ya... but the upside, once they start reading, will knock em on ass. nt

[sudopod]

129. Science journalists should have a degree in science

so that nonsense like this doesn't make it to print.

What the hell.

[blogslut]

10. Let's see if this works

[MilesColtrane]

35. Very "Planet of the Apes"-esque...

[comrade snarky]

89. That is a fantastically complete specimen!

Wow!

I hadn't seen the bones yet! There's plenty of foot, leg and pelvis to figure out locomotion and stance. Teeth and skull fragments for facial shape and brain size. Having the hands and lower arms can tell you something about the shoulders and upper arms though I'd love to see more spine and something around the shoulder connections.

Just damn though! That is way more than I'd expected. Absolutely astounding for the age.

[enlightenment]

11. Interesting.

The last bit of speculation is pushing it, though . . .

The most controversial aspects of the papers involve the authors' -- particularly Lovejoy's -- interpretations of what the fossils say about behavior. Of particular importance, he said, is that the sizes of males and females were about the same, and that the specimens do not have large, sharp canine teeth. Both findings suggest that the fierce, often violent competition among males for females in heat that characterizes gorillas and chimpanzees was absent in Ardipithecus.

That implies, Lovejoy concluded, that the males were beginning to enter into monogamous relationships with females and devoted a greater proportion of their time to caring for their young than did earlier ancestors.

So, the males were monogamous (the females? What about them?) and enjoyed spending time with the kids.

A stretch to build all that off the absence of large canines . . .

[tabatha]

17. There is also the possibility that it was a parallel

development that was not an ancestor of man, much like the Neanderthals.

[seabeyond]

24. so true. nt

[theHandpuppet]

54. That seems a very real possibility

I wonder why this wasn't discussed in the article or if the theory was rejected by scientists, just why it was rejected as an explanation.

[Statistical]

70. Likely because the media dumbs everything down.

[seabeyond]

23. competition among males for females in heat .... was absent. bah hahahahha. i am truly

just laughing my ass off.

of course that speculation is pushing it. but the evo psych babble of today that has become religion for some has always pushed it and people seem to not care. regardless of reason

[bertman]

29. I agree heartily, seabeyond. That sounds like a theory promulgated by a "nerdy dweeb" who

was afraid to talk to girls when he was in high school.

But, hey, he's entitled to speculate, I suppose.

[Gman2]

32. Look at how many of the clues are absent in humans?

Bonobo's have a swelling. Same with chimps. We don't. Look at the lengths the Islamics go to to hide any hints at fertility?

[RedCloud]

98. now, now. Have you ever noticed an amazingly sweet breath...

coming from the female of your species around ovulation time? There's a free PhD for someone who wants it. I am too tired to research it.

[Odin2005]

120. I find it ironic that it's OWEN LOVEJOY saying it!

:rofl:

[Gman2]

31. Not true. Dimorphism has many implications. Or lack thereof.

Large males, mean that beachmaster types get all the goodies. It also means that the larger is USUALLY supposed to leave the group. to find other genepools. That both males and females were similar in size, is huge. It leads to knowing which is YOUR baby. It lead to our paranoia of our mate doing the nasty with others. Likely much of our religion is for this purpose. It has also likely driven many primative wars. That is how they used to improve the size of the genepool.

[MilesColtrane]

41. Agreed.

Maybe they used their fists to fight, or even rocks.

If they weren't fighters, where the hell did WE get that from?

[seabeyond]

42. hmmmmm. ohs noes.... how are we gonna figure out who we are now. nt

[AngryAmish]

114. well the females liked playing dress up and playing with dolls

all of which is impossible with large canines...

[DeschutesRiver]

130. Maybe Republicans should take a lesson from their ancestors

who apparently had better family values than today's average Republican. Oh wait, forgot - this fossil can't be real because the earth is only 6,000 years old.

Never mind.

[seabeyond]

13. ruh - roh. lol. interesting. nt

[Hassin Bin Sober]

19. Why "ruh-roh"?

[seabeyond]

25. just cause. different reasons. interesting stuff. nt

[Hassin Bin Sober]

33. Ok. I was worried you were some creationist who was going to jump up and down...

... saying "see? their "theory" is wrong"!!!!!

[seabeyond]

34. i dont buy into todays religious cult like macho evo psycho babble

guessing and suggesting all for male ego. pisses me off. and because i dont buy into the crap i MUST be a creationist person. rollin eyes.

also gonna get people up in a roar about see see (your creationism thing) but times them back even further, so i think that is a nifty part.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

36. Wha?

[seabeyond]

40. if you dont know, you are better for it. nt

[SidDithers]

44. You and me both...nt

Sid

[Hassin Bin Sober]

46. I know. Speaking in tongues?

[Javaman]

53. My first thought was...

Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now.

[seabeyond]

47. not all posts are put out for all people, at all times. dont get it? dont have to. nt

[Javaman]

50. Um, okay then

:scared:

[SammyWinstonJack]

59. .

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

78. Poster's an anti-vaccer.

So, yeah, Creationism seems likely.

[seabeyond]

81. i am. golly gee. didnt know. so the over 30 vacs i have given my two kids

are... ?????

what

that which makes me an anti vaccer

or is it my declaration that i refuse all vaccinations. that i have declared all vaccinations are bad. do, give me a link to that.

[Name removed]

85. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[CoffeeCat]

131. Don't worry...this person hurls accusations for sport...

...In an earlier thread, I was accused of all types of things...I was also called an anti-vaccer by
this person. And I too, got my 2 kids all of their vaccinations.

Bizarre and baseless accusations get hurled at warp speed.

It's like one of those tennis-ball machines that just won't shut off.

[seabeyond]

141. for years

i have not replied on most all of his posts. i know better. my bad. says the most outrageous for the sake of outrageous. i do not particpate in dishonest conversation for the most part. waste of my time. i found it interesting though. and the threat to manhood, wow, challenge their evo psycho babble and they have no compass. so really, it was worthwhile.

sometimes, he even makes me laugh. i can always value that

regardless of search abilities, and damn if they arent good, i am impressed, not much there

when a person is not a creationist hard to make them so.

[frogmarch]

18. Bipedalism may have

appeared many times in the primate line, and then disappeared. It's unlikely that all ancient primates who walked upright were our ancestors.

[tabatha]

21. Exactly.

As I said previously, it could be a parallel development.

[redqueen]

28. Very good point.

This is a great find, and very interesting... but the breathless hyperbole is just silly.

[hunter]

38. Humans and their ancestors have a very deep genetic toolkit, sort of like dogs.

It's very difficult to tell what is going on by appearances. We have a great capacity for evolving rapidly in changing environments.

A world with a variety of human species was probably the norm until our very mobile species came along spreading diseases and killing off or starving out all the others.

To this day the only surviving apes are those living in environments which were previously inaccessible to humans. Sadly, utilizing our modern technology, we're now driving these species toward extinction too.

[comrade snarky]

97. So far all bipedal apes

Have been in the hominid line. Not all are direct ancestors of modern humans, Boisei and Robustus for example.

This is the earliest upright walker by far so even if this particular species isn't the direct ancestor of the hominid line it's probably very closely related to that ancestor.

There are a lot of adaptations necessary for bipedal locomotion, I'd tend to doubt it appeared and disappeared multiple times.

[frogmarch]

22. Bipedalism may have appeared

several times in the primate line, and then disappeared. It's unlikely that all ancient primates that walked upright were our ancestors.

[alfredo]

69. Glenn Beck is a prime example.

[LeftHander]

37. We are mollusks!!!

We came out of our shell at some point.

[scheming daemons]

39. The headline is complete garbage, but the story is fascinating

[Solly Mack]

52. K&R

thanks for posting

[derby378]

57. Misleading headline, but great story

If the findings are confirmed, it's more of a paradigm shift as far as evolution goes. The theory is still valid, but our interpretation of the evidence we've collected so far may need another look.

[felinetta]

58. Uh oh. Kirk Cameron will have to now denounce this. Can't have pesky science rain on his parade.

[Krakowiak]

65. The real question: Did a banana fit easily into their hands?????

I hope Kirk clears this up right away.

[seabeyond]

68. lol. hm. cute. nt

[Warren DeMontague]

115. Don't you see? Last week, "Darwinists" DIDN'T HAVE ALL THE FACTS.

So they must not HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS.

They don't HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS because they haven't looked in the one place that HAS ALL THE ANSWERS, THE BIBLE.

If Science was wrong about this little detail or that, how do we know it's not wrong about -gasp!- EVERYTHING?

:sarcasm:

[thereismore]

60. Early hominids may have used these guys for food. We may never know.

They may or may not have been our ancestors. Nice find.

[Zoeisright]

62. And unlike 'creationism', science will adapt and adopt this new finding.

Because science understands change and discovery. While 'creationists' have to tie themselves into knots making scientific discoveries fit their 'beliefs'.

[seabeyond]

64. bet there will be a group that has a tough time adapting and adopting. tough when you put all eggs

in one basket.

[Joe Chi Minh]

127. "Creationism" is a grotesque misnomer. God doesn't need the endorsement

of "scientismificist" nerds, but if he did, evolution would only be a greater tribute to his imagination, intelligence, skill, on-going care and overall power.

Our "scientismificist", secular "fundie" friends always speak as if Darwin refuted the divine creation of the Universe and everything in it - without, of course, a shred of evidence.

From Mazur: Altenburg.

"Meanwhile, Kauffman's had a breathtaking career, beginning as a medical doctor, honored as a MacArthur fellow (genius) and has worked with Nobel prize winner Murray Gell-Mann at the Santa Fe Institute where he first studied self-organization. Looking at simple forms like the snowflake, he noted that its "delicate sixfold symmetry tells us that order can arise without the benefit of natural selection". Kauffman says natural selection is about competition for resources and snowflakes are not alive -- they don't need it.

But he reminded me in our phone conversation that Darwin doesn't explain how life begins, "Darwin starts with life. He doesn't get you to life."

Thus the scramble at Altenberg for a new theory of evolution.

But Kauffman also describes genes as "utterly dead". However, he says there are some genes that turn the rest of the genes and one another on and off. Certain chemical reactions happen. Enzymes are produced, etc. And that while we only have 25,000 to 30,000 genes, there are many combinations of activity." (On edit: so, it cannot be not "natural selection", which would require intelligence on the part of vegetable life; it must be "natural attrition", arising from conflicts of superior and inferior programming).

As a matter of fact, while Kauffman honestly concedes that "Darwin starts with life", he proceeds from that point with another misnomer, "self-organisation", albeit by way of explaining the inadequacy of the current somewhat inchoate understanding of natural selection, or rather, what they imagine to be "natural selection", but is a misnomer.

Like the wee beastie referred to on this thread, no snowflake has a brain with which to organise itself. Well, maybe the brain of the former is in a different, as yet undiscovered form, but it seems a modest enough postulation, that inanimate matter, such as a snowflake, would be bereft of the intelligence necessary to organise itself or anything else; indeed anything that could be mistaken for intelligence. It's a different animal all together. Well, a different THANG.

So, Stuart Kauffman jumps from the fire into the frying pan, in a manner of speaking. But who can blame him in this witch-hunting ethos of modern, corporatist "scientificism" - so splendidly represented by our atheist "fundies" on DU?

Still, there seems to be a real epistemological problem right at the core of science as a study. The reductionism, which, in a manner of speaking, is actually pivotal to science as a discipline, is inevitably exaggerated to a wholly irrational degree in the scientismificis' mindset. Hence the bizarre cult of Darwin-worship, as if he had disproved the existence of God. By reductionism, I don't mean the dim exclusion of any understanding of the natural world that isn't mechanistic, which slowly, maybe even the scientismificists are getting over, what with the dawning of their awareness of the existence and proliferation of the paradoxes of the quantum world and the macroscosm.

Anyway, the point is, this has inevitably led to an "elephant in the living room" mindset even on the part of some of the brightest souls in the scientific community, since:

a) They know God's existence could only play a remote, philosophical role in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, quite tangential, since the latter is so extremely circumscribed, in comparison with other areas of human knowledge, even academic knowledge, such as theology and philosophy; in the case of theology, only partially academic, since it delves into sapiential areas only accessible to the heart and soul.

b) And, for that very reason, why argue the toss with the bombastic, triumphalist "secularist fundies"? The best the top-dogs can hope to do, is to refine their mutilated paradigm. Just as Kauffman does, for instance, in evoking the "self-organisation" of snowflakes, which has nothing to do with natural selection, while being bereft of even the "life" of plants.

[Confusious]

137. Amino acids found in comet

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17628-found-first-amino-acid-on-a-comet.html

[Joe Chi Minh]

140. Yes, I read a headline about it a short while ago. But this is the key

point to bear in mind:

"Elsila told New Scientist. 'We don't know how life got started ... but this adds to our knowledge of the ingredient pool.'

Jonathan Lunine of the University of Arizona agrees. he told New Scientist. "This provides another source .'"

As regards, 'Life had to get started with raw materials". Presumably, he means a living organism, though something more than a virus or even a vegetable, though even a vegetable might be a significant starting point. And "ingredients" are just that, "ingredients", not "life", not even a promise of "life".

Life, itself, in any case, is not animal, vegetable or mineral, although the current, unduly reductionist mindset would have no truck of course, with a distinction between the shell of a living organism and the life that animates it, and without any basis for believing otherwise, would, indeed does implicitly dispute it. All will be revealed by Science.

There's a kind of schoolboy eagerness. Rather like the way I view the Internet: a treasure-trove of knowledge. Although I have, alas, found that Google is not quite omniscient (having a particular interest, apparently, in MSM-type right-wing orthodoxy).

A notable deficit in philosophical capacity in scientists, generally, was noted by Einstein, and in fact by one of the philosopher- scientists at that Altenburg conference:

"Pigliucci says philosophers have two roles to play in science. One is to keep scientists – who are focused on the details – honest by looking from a distance and asking the big questions: "Well, is the paradigm that you're working with, in fact, working? Is it useful? Could it be better?"

[Q3JR4]

73. Isn't real science great?

A single fact can completely re-arrange or abrogate even the oldest scientific theories.

Q3JR4
Stick that in your fundie pipe and smoke it.
Also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty33v7UYYbw">... and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cCC8a6HMz4&feature=related">..., because I can. :)

[tabatha]

76. That is why science does not rest on its laurels

but constantly searches for more evidence.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

74. Question: How does this jibe with molecular biology, genetic drift, etc.?

At first blush I am surprised common ancestry could be pushed back in time much without a major recalibration of our expectations about genetic drift.

IIRC, previous fossil evidence was generally in line with molecular biology based estimates in terms of age of common ancestry.

[tabatha]

75. I don't know if they have been able to get DNA samples

from fossils - otherwise their work would have been so much easier.

[RebelOne]

83. The fundie nut cases are already saying it is false.

www.rr-bb.com/showthread.php?t=110943

[seabeyond]

84. lol lol. nt

[Mrs. Overall]

87. Not only are they calling it false in freeperville, but they are making racist comments

comparing the primate to Acorn workers and Michelle Obama. And the moderators don't delete it--absolutely amazing.

I absolutely can't stand those ignorant assholes.

[sakabatou]

93. Well of course the fundies would

They almost always do in these cases.

[Hello_Kitty]

92. Ugh. Bad headline.

I hate when the MSM puts misleading and sensationalist headlines on science articles. The finding does not challenge evolution at all.

[RedCloud]

94. even though she is pithecus, I find her quite attractive!

:loveya: :loveya: :loveya:

[lunatica]

96. I know Tim White

I've processed his travels to Ethiopia many times. He works out of the Research Museum of Paleontology in UC Berkeley.

[comrade snarky]

100. Tim White is a big part of

What makes the Berkeley paleoanthroplolgy department one of the best in the world.

Brilliant guy.

[tabatha]

110. I have read about him.

Reading about man's origins was one of my very first interests.

I attended a lecture given by Lee R. Berger in 1997 on that topic in Grahamstown, SA.

I also love James Shreeve's writing - he has written a bit out man's origins:

Lucy’s Child. Donald Johanson & James Shreeve.1989.
The Neandertal Enigma. James Shreeve. 1995.

[Cleita]

99. It would make more sense that upright walking evolved in woodlands.

The savannah theory never rang true to me. It seems that reaching for fruit from trees would be an advantage for mothers with infants hanging on their backs extending the time we can walk upright before falling back to the knuckle walking position. I do believe once we evolved to upright walking that it would be an advantage on the savannah after the fact enabling our budding species to extend territory for food exploitation while watching for predators.

[seabeyond]

101. .

i dont often not put a subject but accused of being a creationist, i dont want to now be accused of faking it. but this all is so intereting. love listening to you poeple that know wtf you are talking about.

coolest

told hubby about it just now. he is into it. so he wants the aritcle.

[comrade snarky]

103. That's one of the big questions in hominid evolution

How did we go bipedal?

Personally I lean toward a combination of things. Some chimps will use tools so I think it's reasonable to assume that Lucy's people and this new species used tools as well. The have larger brains than any chimp. Tools use requires dexterity and available hands. The more tool use the more you need hands giving an advantage to those who can stand on two feet for longer periods. Add to that a changing environment from forests to savanna and that might do it.

Australopithecus Afarensis (Lucy) was already fully bipedal. Preserved footprints have shown they were walking around pretty much just like we do today so the development of bipedal locomotion was much earlier. Looking at Ardi's feet it looks like they have big grasping "thumbs", something I'd expect in a tree dwelling ape. Could be a leftover or a transitional.

Makes this find really exciting!

[Vickers]

104. Not turning evolution on its head so much as bolstering the (scientific!) theory.

This must drive anti-science people crazy.

And the completeness of that skeleton...WOW!

[comrade snarky]

122. No kidding!

She's way better than Lucy.

I don't know whether we are wrong about the environment they probably lived in (that would suck for fossil formation) or if this is the luckiest find ever.

Either way.... Sweet!

[BlooInBloo]

135. Yep. Idiotic reporting of science. As usual.

[H2O Man]

107. Outstanding.

Thanks for the OP and link.

I find the brow ridge and teeth particularly interesting.

[Warren DeMontague]

113. Well, that settles it. Science is wrong, the Bible is right.

Thank heavens!

[Joe the Liberal]

116. Ah God truly is testing us.....

putting those fossils there and then sending those researchers NO....ANGELS down from the heavens to find them. He's just trying to see if we will lose our faith in him, well God, I will NOT lose faith in you, God bless jeebus!!11!!11one1!1 :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: :sarcasm:

[Odin2005]

123. Sweet! The lack of sexual dimorphism is interesting.

This indicates that there were several shifts in reproductive behavior in the different hominid groups. Ardipithecus may have pair-bounded. The australopithecines, which were hugely dimorphic, were probably the ape version of baboons. It shifts back to pair-bonds in the genus Homo.

[The Straight Story]

124. So the science we may have been teaching our kids might not be right?

Oh and there is "researchers had speculated"

and then: "as is now commonly believed"

Belief, speculation, and if someone challenges any ideas they are called fundies?

And no - I am not a creationist, just wonder why people don't challenge teaching some things as fact when we hear later it was 'speculation/believed'. And if someone has a differing belief/speculation we call them names.

Teach evolution and what we currently know? YES - teach that there may be alternatives and that we are only basing what we know on what we have now and we could be wrong? Yes again.

[seabeyond]

125. middle of thread. and look what we become if we dare ask/think/speculate.....

attack is rampant. i am an anti vac creationist

but exactly.

i dont believe in teaching my children a fact when it is theory... but what we do discuss is the premise of theory and they understand things can shift along the way.

works for us

allows us to keep that open mind and not have to battle past beliefs.

[comrade snarky]

126. Fine, you come up with a theory that better explains

The morphological, genetic and historical evidence and we'll teach that.

Your Nobel Prize awaits.



Until then maybe we should go with what all the evidence points to.

[InvisibleTouch]

128. There are so few well-preserved hominid fossils from that era...

...that practically every new discovery will re-write the whole tree. It's not exactly being "turned on its head," though - it just rearranges a few branches and pushes the existance of an early ancestor back a bit further in time. The only thing I really see that's new here, is the evolution of bipedalism in a woodland environment, as opposed to grasslands. What advantage there might be in bipedalism for this species, is a mystery at the moment, but that's what makes evolutionary biology fun. :)

[glinda]

132. personally, i always liked the woodlands better than the grasslands

[Chulanowa]

133. Sigh. I hate new hominid finds

They always go exactly the same way. Whoever finds them IMMEDIATELY announces that they've found a new ancestor of modern humans. Why? It grabs attention and funding, it's like putting "e-" in front of your company's name in the 90's, instant investment. Barring that it's always announced as some radical, science-shaking new find.

It's never just a new species, it always needs drama and flash bulbs and fanfare. Weird species of birds don't get this when we dig them up.

Odds are this critter isn't an ancestor, but rather more of a "wacky cousin." Why can't an arboreal hominid be interesting in its own right?

[Confusious]

139. Because

THAT's America. ( imagine my arms outreached, with both hands palm out, shaking, when I say that )

You have to be sensationalist, or no one cares. You have to grab attention to get funding.

I wish it was more like bell labs. They sat down, got a lot of funding, and dreamed shit up. Cells Phones, transistors, Unix, etc.

No company ( American ) looks that far forward anymore. They can't see beyond the tip of their noses ( shoved in a pile of money ).

*SIGH*

[TheKentuckian]

134. If people really believe in science then they will accept that knowledge is always on the move

What seems fundamental and logical today may turn out to be tomorrow's myth. Our discovery is always in motion and every answer creates new and more challenging questions.

The best theories can turn out to be incorrect as more data churns up and proofs can certainly be quite workable but may not reflect what is really going on. If you don't keep that kind of open mindedness with you all the time you start to slip away from science towards belief.

OF COURSE what we are teaching the kids is either incomplete data, theory, educated guesses, speculation, and probably at some levels erroneous. For all intents and purposes we are at the beginning of knowledge, far closer to children asking why the sky is blue than knowledgeable professors.

[1]

136. evolution is such a strong theory. all it takes is the next fossil to "turn it on its head."

gee, let's wait a week to see how the next fossil will alter its course once again...

[Lagomorph]

138. I am amused at how many times

science as had to throw out "proven facts" and start over from scratch.

What I am skeptical of is "conviction" in both science and religion.