Re: new 'human ancestor' skeleton found



All-seeing-I wrote:
On Oct 1, 10:48 pm, Paul J Gans <g...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Kermit <unrestrained_h...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Oct 1, 2:04 pm, All-seeing-I <ap...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Oct 1, 11:09 am, wf3h <w...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

interesting. of course it 'completely upsets' theories of human
evolution (what doesn't?)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33110809/ns/technology_and_science-science/

The story of humankind is reaching back another million years with the
discovery of “Ardi,” a hominid who lived 4.4 million years ago in what
is now Ethiopia.

The 110-pound, 4-foot female roamed forests a million years before the
famous Lucy, long studied as the earliest skeleton of a human
ancestor.

This older skeleton reverses the common wisdom of human evolution,
said anthropologist C. Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University.

Rather than humans evolving from an ancient chimplike creature, the
new find provides evidence that chimps and humans evolved from some
long-ago common ancestor — but each evolved and changed separately
along the way.

“This is not that common ancestor, but it’s the closest we have ever
been able to come,” said Tim White, director of the Human Evolution
Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

The lines that evolved into modern humans and living apes probably
shared an ancestor 6 million to 7 million years ago, White said in a
telephone interview.

But 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.

Behold.... THE EVER CHANGING FACE OF EVOLUTION
Yes, that would be called learning.
The reporter, of course, is trying to make this out to be more
significant than it is. I mean, it's very interesting for
paleontologists, but it's not unexpected in any surprising way.

I think it is in fact very significant.  Indeed, Science has
devoted a special issue to it.

It is not just the changing of the evolutionary tree, nor is it
just the moving of the time frame back a million years or so.
It is the fact that we not only get a fossil with many significant
parts (pelvis, cranium, etc.), but we also get a picture of the
environment.  Pieces of some 30 odd individuals were also found,
though not with complete skeletons.  And the strata yeilded
many clues as to the environment in which these individuals
lived.

It is hard to think of a single discovery in the quest for human
origins in the last 50 years that has contained as much
information.

As for the folks who claim that new discoveries show that the
theory of evolution isn't really a done deal, my feeling is that
we misread those folks.  They believe in authority.  Their answers
are *known* and do not admit of variation.  It is almost impossible
for them to understand science as an ongoing development.

We and they do not even talk the same language.  If one wants to
engage them, one has to talk on a level that they can understand.
They won't learn our language.  They start with certainty.  Period.
I'm very much afraid that we have to deal with their certainty
directly or we will get nowhere.  That does NOT mean an attack
on religion in general.  It does mean an attack on religion
as *they* understand it.

--
   --- Paul J. Gans- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

The layperson has no problem with science being an ongoing endeavor.

However, today's science seems to have been hijacked by an atheist
agenda. Don't you read some of the crap in the media?

Science is neutral towards religion. If your religious beliefs
conflict with science, that's your problem, not science's problem.

Valid science is good for humanity. But science needs to remember that
it works FOR humanity and should not work against humanity.

Do you suggest that paying lip service to religious cults would
benefit humanity? Politicians do that, and it only benefits
themselves, not humanity.

Replacing humanity's traditions and beliefs will have unintended (and
quite severe i can assure you) consequences.

Quite so. The germ theory of disease had quite a dramatic impact on
humanity, as did science's rejection of superstition in favor of
research. For example, we now know that malaria is caused by a
parasite, not bad air. I wonder if anyone has ever calculated how
many millions of lives have been saved just by vaccinations alone?

.

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