It's kind of interesting that evolution has always taken the "huge leap forward" theory ...... and that may not be right. We keep finding relatives of modern man going back further and further ......
The fact that it's hard to find anything dating back that far is just astonishing.
Discovery in human evolution unveiled KSU anthropologist on team that recovers skeleton indicating humans walked upright 400,000 years earlier than was thought
By Carol Biliczky Beacon Journal staff writer
A Kent State anthropologist says humans walked upright hundreds of thousands of years before previously thought, smashing beliefs about the famous ''Lucy'' skeleton.
C. Owen Lovejoy said the conclusions come from the recovered remains of a male in the East African country of Ethiopia, ''a truly special find in understanding the early evolution of humans.''
The discovery was announced Monday afternoon in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa. The research will be published this week in the Early Online Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Lovejoy was part of a team led by Yohannes Haile-Selassie, curator and head of physical anthropology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, that spent five years extracting skeletal remains from a dig about 210 miles northeast of Addis Ababa in a desert that the semi-nomadic Afar people inhabit.
The international team also included Bruce Latimer, interim director for the Center of Human Origins at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland; and scientists from the United States, Sweden, France and Ethiopia. Thirty-five to 40 Ethiopians did the excavating.
Starting with a chance discovery of a fragment of a lower arm bone in 2005, the team pulled together remains of the 5-foot-6-inch male they named Kadanuumuu, or ''big man'' in the local people's language.
They turned to KSU's Lovejoy, a specialist in biomechanics and the anatomy of the lower limbs, for help in interpreting the find.
When Lovejoy reassembled casts of Kadanuumuu's skeletal remains, he found he was a robust adult who had fractured his ankle as a youth about 3.6 million years ago. More importantly, Kadanuumuu was a member of the Australopithecus afarenesis species, the best-known direct early human ancestor.
His shoulder blade and rib cage are similar to modern humans. His legs were surprisingly long, so he could run and walk at least 400,000 years earlier than it was previously thought possible and a million years before the discovery of the first stone tools.
''The skeleton establishes, once and for all, just how ancient upright walking is in our family heritage,'' Lovejoy said.
Small-brained Lucy
Only one other partial skeleton of the same species as Kadanuumuu has been discovered: the small-brained ''Lucy'' of 3.2 million years ago. Lovejoy received international attention when he reconstructed her skeleton in 1974, six years after joining KSU. At the time, she was the oldest hominid discovered.
It turns out that Lucy, recovered just miles from Kadanuumuu, pointed them in the wrong direction.
As she was just 3 feet, 6 inches tall, with short legs and arms that dangled to just above her knees, researchers believed humans of her time were ''incompletely adapted to upright walking,'' Lovejoy said. In other words, she both walked and climbed trees.
Now researchers believe she had short legs for a simpler reason: because she was short.
''She was fully adult, but she just happened to be one of the smallest individuals of her species,'' Haile-Selassie said.
Lovejoy said there are tall and short individuals in today's humans, and Kadanuumuu and Lucy represent different ends of the spectrum from more than 3 million years ago.
Kadanuumuu is the second discovery to be announced in less than a year by the Ethiopian-born Haile-Selassie and Lovejoy.
Earlier discovery
In October, they were among the scientists to announce the discovery of Ardipithecus ramidus, a hominid species that lived 4.4 million years ago in Ethiopia.
''People think that we evolved from apes,'' Lovejoy said at the time, ''but, no, in many ways, apes evolved from us.''
Ardi is not a missing link between apes and humans, but pushes human evolution closer to the time 6 million years ago when humans and chimps shared the same ancestor.
The Ardi discovery was so significant, Science magazine and publisher AAAS named it 2009 Breakthrough of the Year.
That any skeleton is discovered, albeit fossil fragment by fossil fragment, from these times is astounding, Lovejoy said.
While most bones are trampled, pulverized, crunched by hyenas and obliterated, ''every now and then a body gets strewn about and gets covered by water and deposit and that begins the fossilization process,'' he said.
Such is the case with Lucy, Ardi and now Kadanuumuu, giving scientists more fodder as they ponder human origins.
The chances of finding a human skeleton of that age are ''astronomically small,'' Lovejoy said.
Micah 6:8; He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
John 14:19 Jesus said: Because I live, you also will live.
Quote: Ardi is not a missing link between apes and humans, but pushes human evolution closer to the time 6 million years ago when humans and chimps shared the same ancestor.
Bestiality in it's earliest form.
We don't have to agree with each other, to respect each others opinion.
Quote: ''People think that we evolved from apes,'' Lovejoy said at the time, ''but, no, in many ways, apes evolved from us.''
Micah 6:8; He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
John 14:19 Jesus said: Because I live, you also will live.
There are some people today who truly make me think that my dog is smarter then they are. Maybe apes were just really, really dumb people who couldn't master langauge or higher brain function ..... and, in a way, de-evolved. That really would be moe consistent with observable behavior than evolution would.
Face it .... civilizations typically don't "evolve" themselves out of existance ... they de-evolve themselves out of existance. Some aspect of civilization breaks down and *poof* people separate and go back to more basic existances.
It would not surprise me if there were several highly advanced civilizations on this planet somewhere far in its past. Experts estimate that all traces of human existance would vanish within something like 200,000 years. Everything would be gone .... satellites .... buildings ..... roads ...... time vaults ...... everything. There would be nothing but extremely minor traces of human civilization.
Imagine if some 2 million years from now an excited archeologist finds pieces of your skeleton along with remains of a badly rusted and deteriorated table knife or bow ... and that's about it. What inferences would he draw about your life on Earth?
The more we learn ... the less we really know.
Micah 6:8; He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
John 14:19 Jesus said: Because I live, you also will live.
We had "modern" human history as we know it start somewhere following the end of the Ice Age. Human civilization began to rebuild itself around a newly temperate climate with plenty of fertile land. This started somewhere within the last 20,000 years.
Imagine, if you will, that there was a civilization that had reached approximately the level of the horse and buggy sometime before the Ice Age hit. There would not be any of the technology we possess today, and a massive Ice Age would wipe out most of the people. Those who survived would be forced back into primative conditions ..... and most of their overall civilization would be lost over time, with only a few closely held beliefs or traditions surviving.
The most current Ice Age started what ... 2.5 million years ago? What if there were basic civilization back then? What if they mastered farming and such? What if they had a heirarcy, communities, trade, and religion? If they were at the level of horse and buggy, they would have been wiped out when the Ice Age hit ..... and most of the people would probably have died off as well. Food would have become a scarce commodity ..... animals would have also died off ...... and civilization would have fallen apart. Those who survived would likely have been the most disease resistent, and those with the skills necessary to survive in a harsh environment. Civilization would have taken a back seat to survival.
Living through an Ice Age would not be an ideal time for a population of people to expand. People would probably have lived in small groups ..... with limited interaction with other groups. Disease (or the meat of one sick animal) could wipe out an entire clan in one stroke.
Once the Earth warmed back up, and the ice receded, then people could start to farm ..... and settle lands ...... build communities again ......
Did it happen this way? Who knows? Could it have? I believe so. The majority of any eevidence from such a civilization would be lost to time. It would have decayed and rotted, lost in the rigors of freeze, thaw, and flood.
We truly will never know for sure.
Micah 6:8; He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
John 14:19 Jesus said: Because I live, you also will live.
Could you imagine an apocalyptic event in today's society.
What would become of the lazy? The sick? The disabled?
With all the people who rely on someone else to do virtually everything for them, they would be lost.
How many have the knowledge and/or skill to build and maintain a small community to sustain life within what would be a ruthless lawless world?
Like Mad Max Road Warrior. the small community trying to survive, trapped inside their walls by a horde of marauders who'd rather live off the hard work of others and just take what they need?
We don't have to agree with each other, to respect each others opinion.
I think that perhaps this is why we are getting so many zombie flicks these days.... we're being trained for survival, lol! The helpless that you refer to are the mindless zombies.
Browns is the Browns
... there goes Joe Thomas, the best there ever was in this game.
Quote: I think that perhaps this is why we are getting so many zombie flicks these days.... we're being trained for survival, lol! The helpless that you refer to are the mindless zombies.
i thought these movies were just satires of what we are living through right now (only we don't get to bash zombies heads in with baseball bats)
Quote: know aliens came and helped design and build the pyramids
Al Gore created the Pyramids
And he wired them for the internet.
Micah 6:8; He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
John 14:19 Jesus said: Because I live, you also will live.
And... the Pyramids are surrounded by an exceptionally large expanse of dead, arid land... thus we can conclude that the Pyramids are causing Global Warming!
It all makes so much sense now!!
Browns is the Browns
... there goes Joe Thomas, the best there ever was in this game.
Micah 6:8; He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
John 14:19 Jesus said: Because I live, you also will live.
Well duh ..... but they needed the generator for the force fields ......
Micah 6:8; He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
John 14:19 Jesus said: Because I live, you also will live.
Quote: Could you imagine an apocalyptic event in today's society.
What would become of the lazy? The sick? The disabled?
With all the people who rely on someone else to do virtually everything for them, they would be lost.
How many have the knowledge and/or skill to build and maintain a small community to sustain life within what would be a ruthless lawless world?
Like Mad Max Road Warrior. the small community trying to survive, trapped inside their walls by a horde of marauders who'd rather live off the hard work of others and just take what they need?
You are right....it's like the Hank Jr. song " A Country Boy Can Survive".
I know that's simplistic, but it's true.....while I can skin a buck, run a trout line, and catch catfish from dusk to dawn....I don't know how to grow corn, really preserve meat, make candles, weave blankets.
Add in the fact much of our knowledge is now stored on disk and not in books, it wouldn't take long for things to fall apart and things be lost forever.
I just saw a movie...can't remember the name.....but it was more true than I like to think....some earth/life extinction event occurred... the main survivors became the cannibals of the planet as food became scarce.
Life is fragile....everything we know as life today can pretty much be gone tomorrow given a big enough event.
Turn off the power today, it might be 1700 years before we get it turned back on.
If everybody had like minds, we would never learn.
Micah 6:8; He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
John 14:19 Jesus said: Because I live, you also will live.
Quote: ''People think that we evolved from apes,'' Lovejoy said at the time, ''but, no, in many ways, apes evolved from us.''
I find this odd also. It could be that our ancestors evolved bipedality and certain populations went back to a bi/quadpedal mix that we see in modern apes, but this is less likely to happen. Granted, we do have examples of the return of previous phenotypes. Evolution favors those groups that are best adapted to an environment and live long enough to reproduce.
Quote: Maybe apes were just really, really dumb people who couldn't master langauge or higher brain function ..... and, in a way, de-evolved. That really would be moe consistent with observable behavior than evolution would.
It seems you might be misunderstanding what evolution is and how it works. Modern Evolutionary theory is the change in gene frequency over long periods of time. What you are proposing is something similar to Linnean genetics. Linnean genetics is the idea that if you were to get big and beefy, think Mr Universe big, your progeny would inherit that characteristic, the big muscles and dense skeletal structure. More commonly you see the example of a giraffe stretching its neck, reproducing and making a giraffe with a bit longer neck, which stretches it's neck and then produces another giraffe with an even more extended neck. This idea doesn't match current observations and hasn't for the past 150 years since Natural selection made it onto stage.
My comment was more a social commentary than an honest attempt at evolutionary theory.
Micah 6:8; He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
John 14:19 Jesus said: Because I live, you also will live.
Quote: Maybe apes were just really, really dumb people who couldn't master langauge or higher brain function ..... and, in a way, de-evolved. That really would be moe consistent with observable behavior than evolution would.
It seems you might be misunderstanding what evolution is and how it works. Modern Evolutionary theory is the change in gene frequency over long periods of time. What you are proposing is something similar to Linnean genetics. Linnean genetics is the idea that if you were to get big and beefy, think Mr Universe big, your progeny would inherit that characteristic, the big muscles and dense skeletal structure. More commonly you see the example of a giraffe stretching its neck, reproducing and making a giraffe with a bit longer neck, which stretches it's neck and then produces another giraffe with an even more extended neck. This idea doesn't match current observations and hasn't for the past 150 years since Natural selection made it onto stage.
Not referring to Ytown; but this thread reminds me:
l I think that majority of folks who knock the validity of Evolutionary theory often-times don't actually understand what it is all about. I always think about 40 and 50 somethings that subscribe to the Mr. Garrison version* of Evolution and they bash it like its some crazy scientists hair-brained, crackpot theory.
KSU anthropologist on team that recovers skeleton indicating humans walked upright 400,000 years earlier than was thought
I'm sorry? 400,000 years earlier than was thought? Thought by whom?
- I never subscribed to anything these idiots say. - I guess I shouldn't call them idiots, after all, they are scientists. - And in this case, these really smart people were only 400,000 years off, and their theories are starting to look more invalid every day.
- These guys don't know what they're talking about. They use a bunch of big words and technological instruments, and post theories. They claim that their technological instruments prove their theories. - Then we find out that it's all nonsense that we never should have supported.
KSU anthropologist on team that recovers skeleton indicating humans walked upright 400,000 years earlier than was thought
I'm sorry? 400,000 years earlier than was thought? Thought by whom?
- I never subscribed to anything these idiots say. - I guess I shouldn't call them idiots, after all, they are scientists. - And in this case, these really smart people were only 400,000 years off, and their theories are starting to look more invalid every day.
- These guys don't know what they're talking about. They use a bunch of big words and technological instruments, and post theories. They claim that their technological instruments prove their theories. - Then we find out that it's all nonsense that we never should have supported.
Wow....
SO they found some actual evidence that says that australipithecus(sp) may have walked hundreds of thousands of years b4 they had theoretically thought---so they are now idiots.....how exactly did anything look more invalid today??!?!
How does Science work again?!?!?
Seriously, I am asking you...
Please describe the scientific method. Some ppl on this board kill me.
Quote: I'm sorry? 400,000 years earlier than was thought? Thought by whom?
- I never subscribed to anything these idiots say. - I guess I shouldn't call them idiots, after all, they are scientists. - And in this case, these really smart people were only 400,000 years off, and their theories are starting to look more invalid every day.
- These guys don't know what they're talking about. They use a bunch of big words and technological instruments, and post theories. They claim that their technological instruments prove their theories. - Then we find out that it's all nonsense that we never should have supported.
Why so much bitterness? Theories are not meant to be the final answer for any problem. They are ideas that are most consistent with available evidence. They must be changed, and are all the time, in the face of new evidence. Otherwise there would be no such thing as progress.
And if you think it is pointless to try and understand evolutionary principles, understand that the same selective principles studied in larger organisms apply to bacteria and viruses as well, and result in a very large modern medical problem; drug resistance.
Quote: And in this case, these really smart people were only 400,000 years off, and their theories are starting to look more invalid every day.
This isn't like testing a previously characterized sample at a later time point and finding that it now measures differently. They found a new sample that dated out to be before previously known time points of that species. It's a new data point, not an old one corrected. The only thing changed (and it's a minor change) is that the species was around earlier than previously unearthed fossils of that species. I'm going to agree with Tyler and Tjs and ask you to explain how this finding in a historical science invalidates the theory of evolution by natural selection. It seems like you're letting your bias against ToE get in the way of making an objective decision.
This is just a general reply to the Creationist/Intelligent Design lukers on the board, as well as an FYI to those interested in promoting logic/reason-based approaches to what we observe in nature. The quote has all pertinent information and link.
Quote: The Institute for Creation Research suffered a significant legal defeat in its lawsuit over the Texas Higher Education Coordination Board's 2008 decision to deny the ICR's request for a state certificate of authority to offer a master's degree in science education from its graduate school. A June 18, 2010, ruling in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas found (PDF, p. 38) that "ICRGS [the Institute for Creation Research Graduate School] has not put forth evidence sufficient to raise a genuine issue of material fact with respect to any claim it brings. Thus, Defendants are entitled to summary judgment on the totality of ICRGS's claims against them in this lawsuit."
As NCSE's Glenn Branch explained in Reports of the NCSE, "When the Institute for Creation Research moved its headquarters from Santee, California, to Dallas, Texas, in June 2007, it expected to be able to continue offering a master's degree in science education from its graduate school. ... But the state's scientific and educational leaders voiced their opposition, and at its April 24, 2008, meeting, the Texas Higher Education Coordination Board unanimously voted to deny the ICR's request for a state certificate of authority to offer the degree." Subsequently, the ICR appealed the decision, while also taking its case to the court of public opinion with a series of press releases and advertisements in Texas newspapers.
The issue was not, strictly speaking, about accreditation, but about temporary state certification, which would have enabled the ICR graduate school to operate while it sought accreditation. When in California, the ICR graduate school was accredited by the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, which requires candidate institutions to affirm a list of Biblical Foundations, including "the divine work of non-evolutionary creation including persons in God's image." TRACS is not recognized by the state of Texas, however, and after the ICR moved from Santee, California, to Dallas, Texas, the ICR expressed its intention to seek accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
Finally, the ICR filed suit against THECB in 2009, accusing it and its members of imposing "an unconstitutional and prejudicial burden against ICRGS's academic freedom and religious liberties." The prolix style of the ICR's initial complaint — which the Dallas Observer (April 20, 2009) quipped "reads kind of like stereo instructions" — was apparently continued in its subsequent documents; the court complained, "It appears that although the Court has twice required Plaintiff to re-plead and set forth a short and plain statement of the relief requested, Plaintiff is entirely unable to file a complaint which is not overly verbose, disjointed, incoherent, maundering, and full of irrelevant information" (p. 12).
In summary, the ICR claimed that THECB's actions violated its rights to free exercise, free speech, and equal protection, its rights to procedural and substantive due process, and its rights under the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, as well as that "Standard 12" — the civil regulation on which THECB's decision was based (19 Texas Administrative Code sec. 7.4(14)) — was vague. The court found merit in none of these claims. With respect to the free exercise claim, for example, the court found that "the Board’s decision was rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest, and there is no evidence the decision was motivated by animus toward any religious viewpoint" (p. 24).
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