Chimps Used Simple Tools 5 Million Years Ago

David_Bloom writes: "Evidence that chimps have been using simple tools over 500 million years ago has been unveiled by an archeological dig in West Africa. Tragically, it will probably be another 500 million years before my mom figures out how to use the simple Windows taskbar. [sigh]" Update: 05/23 22:45 GMT by T : Actually, as the linked article really says, that should be five million, rather than 500 million.

Comments

Umm, that 5 million years ago.

[Halvard]

Read closer!

Re:Umm, that 5 million years ago.

[David_Bloom]

D'oh!

IF A MODERATOR IS READING THIS: Could you please modify the story so it says 5 million, not 500 million? TYVM in advance.

500 = 5

[rw2]

But you were only off by a factor of 100. Probably and astrophysicist, eh?

By any chance...

[Snafoo]

By any chance, is your Mom named 'Lucy'?

Re:By any chance...

[mgarraha]

Did the archaeologists find a large black monolith among all the little stone fragments?

Too Bad

[erasmus_]

It's too bad most of the Slashdot crowd is so progressive. This is one of those perfect articles to get into flame wars about whether or not evolution really happened. And how every thing that seems to contradict the Biblical version of time is placed on this earth as "a test of faith."

Regardless, this is clearly fascinating. Although in my mind it raises the question of why that species has not advanced significantly more in all this time. I realize the article states that the researchers will look for differences in modern behavior, but my guess is that their methods are still basically the same.

Which I guess is good for us, as who wants super-monkeys taking away all of our jobs. Although if they could just comment their code, I might give them a shot.

Re:Too Bad

[Milo77]

I've always seen it as a contradiction to hold to the Bible's portrayal of creation while clinging to the belief that it's portrayal is detectable by science. If what the Bible says is true it is almost certainly indetectable to science; "super-natural", in other words "outside of nature".

Further, the seemingly natural origins of the universe do not create "tests of faith" - rather, they allow for Faith. What would happen to Faith if one could prove conclusively (hypothetical) that the Bible was correct in its telling of the story(to the point where no intelligent person could reject it)? Would this not destroy Faith?

Re:Too Bad

[ashtonb]

What do you mean 'whether or not evolution really happened'?

It is still happening. You can watch it happen in our hospitals right this very moment. Take a look at those people with drug resistant bacterial infections... some of these bacteria simply didn't exist 10 years ago. They are all descendants of older non resistant bacteria's.

Evolution never stopped, and cannot be stopped.

I place people who don't believe in evolution with people who think the world is flat in the the same group... stubbornly blind followers of dogma.

I can show you evidence of evolution... now can you show me evidence of creation, or a god?

Re:Too Bad

[codeButcher]

... the Biblical version ...

I find that most views attributed to the Bible ("The Bible says this or that") are actually someone's mindless regurgitations of some other ostensibly learned theologician's obviously flawed interpretation of the scriptures, usually made to fit his particular church's teaching. Quite difficult to get involved in a flame war where you agree with neither side :-)

Re:Too Bad

[kroymen]

Regardless, this is clearly fascinating. Although in my mind it raises the question of why that species has not advanced significantly more in all this time. I realize the article states that the researchers will look for differences in modern behavior, but my guess is that their methods are still basically the same.

Evolution doesn't just happen. Life doesn't move inexorably toward "higher" forms. Life forms only evolve when there is environmental pressure to do so. If there weren't any huge challenges to the chimps' survival in that time that would have required intellectual adaptation, there's no reason that they would evolve. We, however, presumably had certain survival pressures that favored complex social interaction and abstract communication...like LAN gaming parties and slashdot comments.

Re:Too Bad

[erasmus_]

Good point. Of course, as the article points out, there has been some of that environmental pressure that you mention, which is why that species is now getting to be a rarity. Of course on an evolutionary scale, this has come only recently, due to humans, so the species has not yet had a chance to adapt.

Re:Too Bad

[ashtonb]

You have not given any real counter-evidence. You may be right that super germs are not an example of recent spontaneous mutations, but they are an excellent example of natural selection.

Okay. Like you said, let's define terms. Here is a good definition of evolution:
'"Evolution," in the context most biologists intend to use it, is correctly defined simply as "descent with modification."' (Robert Moss)

New lets look for some evidence. Hmm. Don't suppose you have ever heard of a study on the beaks of finches in the Galapagos? I an not talking about what Darwin saw, but what a more recent investigation led by Peter Grant found.
His work is a great example of natural selection, a major part of evolution.

Now you are saying... 'that is only natural selection... we have no more species than before, no information gain.'

So now we get to the second half of evolution, change/mutation of genes.
Much of an organism is defined by its genes. There is little argument about this, even from creationists.
Forgetting natural selection, let's think about the reproduction of simple lifeforms. 'Either there is variation (mutation) or the cells copy themselves perfectly, every single generation, with absolutely no mistakes. Given entropy, that's just not possible! Mistakes are inevitable.' (Robert Moss).
Mutations do occur. But as you said, in the case of resistant bacteria, these are not information gaining mutations. Mutations never gain information. That isn't how it works. Mutations are about changing information.

So how does a genome gain information?
Let's imagine a hypothetical organism with one gene in a resource rich world. It reproduces constantly. Those organisms that have fatally deleterious mutations never breed. Those with other mutations breed at different rates, but since this is a resource rich world, all survive, and share their mutations with their neighbors. There is no speciation occurring, just one species with a single gene that constantly changing. They are a pretty homogeneous group.
Let's suppose this group got split in two. We have two separate colonies quickly becoming different species. But still we have single gene organisms. This goes on for a while, the two different species become adept at two different ways for getting energy out of the resources available.
Suddenly the colonies join again. The organisms are not so different that they can't still exchange genetic information, but are different enough that their genes cannot merge into a single hybrid gene. There is now some organisms with two genes. Both these genes have different methods of turning available resources into energy.
All these bacteria have been growing exponentially for sometime now. We have different species because this is a big world and the resources vary, and some of those species now have multiple genes. Suddenly we find that they have taken up all available area, and now must compete. Natural really kicks in, and many of the weaker variations of the major species disappear.
This world now has many distinctly different species, and some of these species have more genetic information than others. All the processes that I have described continue to occur. Sometimes there is a major event that knocks out most of the life, allowing new species to come to dominance. There is constant variation in the environment of this world, creating niches for organisms to specialize in. At some period a species develops the ability to join with others and becomes multi-cellular. This species finds it survives especially well in some niches. Et cetera, et cetera, until today, where all this evolution has resulted in todays world.
Sorry, I forgot to include individual genes growing in size/complexity. I am tired.

We have established that change and natural selection both happen. I have also demonstrated a method to gain new genes.
Evolution doesn't make any claims about the origin of life, just how life became to be a diverse as it is today.

Re: Too Bad

[Black Parrot]

> What I see is that AC agrees that there is natural selection and genetic mutations, but that these mutations never lead to an increase in genetic information.

And are we to suppose that AC has ever actually measured the information in a parent and offspring to see what the difference is?

Or even has a rigorous definition for 'information' in the context of inheritance?

Re:Too Bad

[kelddath]

Far from having been proven false, Po218 is a continuing mystery to ancient-earth believers. It takes a lot of faith in evolution to continue to believe in the face of that hard evidence.

Nonsense. Gentry's halos have been debunked time and time again. See http://www.ebonmusings.org/evolution/gentry.htm for example.

If you note the original post, ashtonb initiated it by stating that anyone who didn't believe in evolution was someone he put in the same class as someone who believes in the flat earth. Actually many scientists in past centuries believed in a flat earth, that heavy objects fall faster than light, etc. And did you know that such giants of our past as Newton, Maxwell, Pasteur, Pascal, and Babbage were creationists?

Is this the best argument you can muster? You're even more pathetic than I first thought. Hint: Sometime go and look up the birth dates of most of them and then look up the date of publication of the Origin of Species.

Re: Too Bad

[ashtonb]

No, creationists are the ones claiming you can get something out of nothing.
(A god appeared out of nothing, and created universe out of nothing more than a few words).

Evolutionist say that you can have a complex entity form from a less complex entity, or visa-versa

Now please define information, and please define an increase in information.

Re:Too Bad

[ashtonb]

(See the discussion in P. Gingerich et al, "Hind Limbs of Eocene Basilosaurus: Evidence of Feet in Whales," Science 249, July 13, 1990, p. 154).

Why would an animal be born with traces of legs when it currently has no use for legs?
That the vestigial stumps have no functional purpose in modern whales is obvious.
How, then, are we to explain the case of the whale's vestigial structures in a logical manner?

Re:Too Bad

[ashtonb]

Here. I ripped this wholesale another persons post.

----
A mutation can be a point mutation (change of information at one point within the genome), a deletion (loss of a nucleotide) or insertion (increase of information by one nucleotide). Any of these changes will change the nature of the sequence of the expressed protein, and may lead to loss of function, change of function or increase in efficiency of function. Mutations provide the de novo alteration of the genome. But not necessarily an increase in information, unlike the example I will discuss below

A well documented phenomenon in biology is that of "unequal crossing over' during meiosis. During meosis (the process whereby germ cells such as eggs and sperm as formed), the chromosomes are duplicated and four haploid cells emerge (each with a half genome). When these recombine with another haploid (ie sperm + egg) we get a fertilized egg. During meosis, the chromosomes undergo a shuffling, which is called recombination. During this recombination, the genome is shuffled with (ideally) each chromosome getting a new combination of old alleles. However, in some cases there is unequal recombination, and one chromosome ends up with both copies of a particular gene, and the other chromosome with no copies. When these gametes go their separate ways one of them (missing a vital gene) may eventually die, whereas the other has N+1 copies of the allele. This extra allele may then be subject to less constraint during subsequent mitotic/meotic duplication. If errors occur because of point, insertion or deletion mutation and it is not a burden on the cell, that extra new information is carried in the genome. Further selection may change the sequence of the gene slightly if the new sequence confers a slightly altered novel function for the expressed protein. We see evidence of this in what are called gene families. It is called "Duplication and Divergence". For example many of the genes in the globin family (protein that carries O2 and CO2 in blood) are obviously altered copies of each other, similarly, in rodents there are multi-gene families of serine proteinase inhibitors (proteins that regulate proteolysis). In humans there are not gene families of serpins, but all serpins (such as antithrombin, antichymotrypsin, plasminogen activator inhibitor I, II and III) are related to the archetype (alpha 1-proteinase inhibitor). Further some genes for human serpins are located close to pseudogenes. Pseudogenes are duplicated genes which did not get selected for on the basis of a change of function, are non-functional ie not expressed, but are not enough of a burden on the genome to disappear. Chimps and Hominids share some pseudogenes, suggesting that the unequal crossing over event took place before chimps and hominods split from their ancestor. Thus unequal crossing over provides an increase in genetic information in a subset of cells that go on to survive and reproduce.

Further, it has long been known that some plants are polyploid ie they contain entire genome duplications, mots common food crops are polyploid. The phenomenon is documented also for some frogs. Recent evidence is showing that major changes in evolution occur as a result of entire genome duplication (the theory was put forward in the 60's by a Japanese Scientist whose name escapes me, but a search at "Science' should bring up a recent article on the subject). Genome sequencing efforts of a variety of species have revealed the tell-tale trail of genome duplication.

Now obviously, duplicating a gene or a genome results in a net increase in genetic information.

No-one can argue with that, can they?
----

Thanx Steen

Re: Too Bad

[Black Parrot]

> Gentry's halos have been attacked time and time again

I presume it's a waste of time arguing with you, but any lurkers who don't want to be led astry might want to read this explanation.

Re: Too Bad

[Black Parrot]

> I have not personally measured the number of base pairs; very few have I'm sure.

If you're equating "the number of base pairs" with "information" then your argument is lost before you start, because we know that the number of base pairs can increase or decrease between parent and child.

> However evolutionists are the ones claiming that you can get something from nothing; it's up to you/them to come up with examples, it's not up to me to dance for you.

Actually, the theory of evolution is just the invocation of known facts to explain known facts. It is beyond argument that species have changed over time, and modern genetics gives us an explanation for how this happens. Creationists don't like this and so they incorrectly invoke the second law of thermodynamics or make up their own "fourth law of thermodynamics" to 'prove' that the biological explanation is wrong.

It is quite clear that children differ from their parents. Is this a change in 'information'? Who knows; creationists generally avoid defining their terms, because they always find themselves shown wrong when they do.

Do we "gest something from nothing" when a snowflake forms? Until you can answer that quantitatively then you should recognize that you're talking out your ass. (Or rather, echoing what came out of some creationist leader's ass.)

Re: Too Bad

[Black Parrot]

> t's too bad most of the Slashdot crowd is so progressive. This is one of those perfect articles to get into flame wars about whether or not evolution really happened.

I'm curious why you use the word "progressive" in this regard. The issue isn't progressive ideas vs. others, but rather whether you are going to let your views on the history of the world be guided by the evidence. This hardly strikes me as a "progressive" viewpoint, since the basic issue was resolved by all but the religion-dominated somewhere around 200-300 years ago.

Also, re -

> ...whether or not evolution really happened.

That evolution happened is beyond doubt, since the fossil record very clearly shows that the collection of species inhabiting the earth varies greatly over time, at least on geological timescales. The only thing open to rational discussion is what the mechanism for the changes was, not whether the the changes happened.

It happens that we have a theory that appears to explain that mechanism very well, to the point of making predictions about what you'll see if you go down to the lab and do some gene sequencing tomorrow. Some people object to that theory because it contradicts their religious beliefs, and it is commonly believed that others object to it due to a peculiar political ideology (namely that religion-as-opiate-of-masses is a good thing), but neither party has actually done any science that calls the current theory into question. So they resort to bogus pseudo-scientific claims, handwave arguments, misrepresentation of facts, mendacity (e.g., carven human footprints at Paluxy), attempts to poison the well by undercutting the public's trust of science in general, attempts to misportray their ancient mythology as science, attempts to bring science down into the gutter with their own beliefs by labelling it as a mere philosophy or even a religion, and sometimes to arguments that are so truly loopy that it is often commented that creationism is impossible to parody.

But something is needed to explain the changes to the species over time, and right now the only available explanations are the theory of evolution and magic. And the only theory constrained by the facts is the theory of evolution.

Re: Too Bad

[Black Parrot]

> And if evolution were to be true, why would one species (us) "evolve" into intelligence and one that had the nascent beginnings just stagnate for vast amounts of time?

Once a population splits the theory of evolution does not predict that they will evolve in parallel -- all the more if they move into distinct environments or adopt distinct lifestyles.

Also, don't underrate the intelligence of chimps. I suspect that an objective measure would put them a lot closer to the intelligence of humans than to the intelligence of, say, snails.

Re:Too Bad

[Wayne Hoxsie]

Quote: --

Regardless, it's still a bacteria

Are you suggesting that bacteria are fundementally different from other living entities?

That is an arrogant view to take.

-- Indeed! To a first-order approximation, all life on earth is bacterial.

Even if you only consider animals, Insects make up more biomass than all other animals put together!

Re:Too Bad

[Wayne Hoxsie]

Quote:
--

Now obviously, duplicating a gene or a genome results in a net increase in genetic information.

No-one can argue with that, can they?

--
Of course they can argue, but it is obvious they are wrong.

How hard is it--for even an average American with our paltry math/science knowlege--to not see that n+1 > n?

Re:Too Bad

[Wayne Hoxsie]

Quote:
--

So to you printing 5 extra copies of the New York Times is an increase in information? And you think there's an increase also when a child grows to an adult (more cells with that DNA)?

--
Hmmm. I don't recall newspapers being able to SELF-replicate, nor do INDIVIDUALS evolve, so the analogy is flawed from the start.

At any given time a breeding population has n number of alleles in the gene pool. If one of those alleles in one individual becomes mutated, then there are now n+1 alleles in the breeding population. How tough is that?

Thermo strawman alert!
Quote:
--

While it may be a decrease in entropy and therefore an increase in order, it is not an increase in information, merely ordering disordered matter into an already known pattern. There is a difference.

--
I can't make much sense of this, but you are clearly confusing thermo entropy with Shannon/Weaver entropy. Probably deliberately in order to equivocate.

Nonetheless, it is trivial mathematically to show that no thermo laws are broken by evolution. Let's take a dog genome, dg, and nucleotides AGCT, nu, and energy (ultimately from the sun), e:

dg + x(nu) + e -> 2(dg) + x(H_2O)

Now, let's add a cat genome (roughly the same size),cg, to each side of the equation:

cg + dg + x(nu) +e -> cg + 2(dg) + x(H_2O)

Now subtract a dog genome from each side:

cg + x(nu) + e -> dg + x(H_2O)

Now we see that thermodynamically, it is entirely possible for a dog to become a cat with no violation of thermo laws. Of course it is statistically so improbable as to be impossible, but it is clear that the thermo arguments are a strawman.

If you want to argue Shannon/Weaver entropy, then let's go. Where is any law violated?

Re:Too Bad

[Wayne Hoxsie]

Strawman alert!
No one but creationists think that the laws of nature work by random chance. Even your hero Yockey claims that most of say a hemoglobin protein is just bulk and its amino acid sequence is superfulous http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199602/0123. html.

Anyway, you are arguing against abiogenesis. Please stop moving the goalposts. The math above shows that there is no thermodynamic reason why a dog genome cannot become a cat genome in a single step. I acknowleged the fact that it is statistically nearly impossible. Fortunately for science, none of this is necessary for evolution to work. Since abiogenesis research is not likely to ever give the exact answer on how the first self-replicator on this planet formed, I have no beef with theistic evolutionists who claim god made the first self-replicator and let evolution work from there. I take it that this is NOT your position however, right?

Re:Too Bad

[Wayne Hoxsie]

See http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/woodmorappe-review . tml then bring up one or two points to argue. The entire paper is beyond the scope of critque on /.

Re:Too Bad

[Wayne Hoxsie]

Let's narrow it down a little further and discus one aspect of the "turbulent water problem."

Since I don't have (nor intend to purchase) Woodromappe's book, how does he explain how coral could have survived a global flood? Coral is very sensitive to even the slitest climatic changes. Adding even a few meters of water--not to mention water contaminated by silt from ground runoff--is sufficient to destroy coral due to blocked sunlight(1). Coral is also very sensitive to temperature, salinity, and nutrient load changes(1).

For now, we'll ignore the fact that coral, like trees and their rings, show anual layering that can be counted and like tree rings show climatic changes(2). Nowhere in the coral record of several reefs is there any evidence of a global flood.

1. Biology and geology of eastern Pacific coral Reefs Cortes, J CORAL REEFS 16: S39-S46, Suppl. S JUN 1997

2. Photosynthesis and calcification at cellular, organismal and community levels in coral reefs: A review on interactions and control by carbonate chemistry, Gattuso, JP;Allemand, D;Frankignoulle, M AMERICAN ZOOLOGIST 39: (1) 160-183 FEB 1999

Re:Too Bad

[Wayne Hoxsie]

Quote:
Indeed the flood was catastrophic; it buried billions of animals and wiped out just about everything.

Yet somehow a bronze-age boat survived?

Quote:
However if you're going to count ice rings and the like, you first have to show that they are based on annual data.

OK, from:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/295/555 9/1511/DC1 Describes in painful detail the methodology used in dating the Great Barrier Reef.

Quote:
For example, in Greenland the "lost squadron" of P-38's landed there during WWII. In the 90's some guy from Kentucky (rich man with an obsession, I guess) went up there with advanced echo-location sonars and found them under the ice. He dug them out. When they got down there, they were still perfectly level. If they'd sunken into the ice, they are so front-heavy that they would be tilted downward. And on the way down, he saw hundreds to thousands of ice layers (seen as rings if looked at in a core instead of from inside a tunnel). He stated that those layers form sometimes in days, that they are warm/cold not summer/winter rings. The point of this is, don't just assume annual unless you've proved it.

If you want ice core data, then see:
Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica Petit, JR;Jouzel, J;Raynaud, D;Barkov, NI;Barnola, JM;Basile, I;Bender, M;Chappellaz, J;Davis, M;Delaygue, G;Delmotte, M;Kotlyakov, VM;Legrand, M;Lipenkov, VY;Lorius, C;Pepin, L;Ritz, C;Saltzman, E;Stievenard, M NATURE 399: (6735) 429-436 JUN 3 1999

Here we see a painstaking description of the methodology used in dating the Vostok Antarctica ice core samples. Contrast this to your second-hand anecdotal reference to some airplane affectionado's wild-ass guess.

Quote:
And if you measure the growth rate of the Great Barrier Reef, it comes out to being roughly 4000 years old. Just old enough to have started growing right after the flood.

Another lie from the anonymous coward. See:
Geology 29, 483 (2001).

From the abstract:

Coral reefs are important as marine ecosystems, and their growth has been linked to the carbon dioxide content in Earth's atmosphere. However, the timing of major reef growth has been uncertain for many reefs, including Earth's largest, the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. Analysis by an international consortium of two recent drill cores taken from the Great Barrier Reef indicates that it began to form about 600,000 years ago. This age is based on magnetic stratigraphy through the drill core (and the absence of the marked geomagnetic reversal 790,000 years ago) and on the Sr isotope composition of the corals. This age implies that the Great Barrier Reef has grown by about 10 to 28 centimeters per year, which is similar to the growth rate of other reefs worldwide. Why reef growth started at that time is unknown, but it might reflect a period of increased sea surface temperatures, a connection with atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, or both.

Re:Too Bad

[Wayne Hoxsie]

You keep spouting these mysterious "evidences" yet can't seem to come up with any that actually work. Where's the reports on this greenland airplane ice study? It took scientists over 5 years to select the vostok site to be absolutly sure that they were getting a core from ice that was not moving and that had remained undisturbed for millenia. Where's the fesability study for for the greenland airplane ice site?

Where's there any studies on the problems with radiometric dating? There are entire journals devoted to radiometric dating with all their data out there in the open for anyone to examine and critique. You'd think with all the so-called problems creationts claim there is with radiometric dating, at least one of them would submit a scientific critique to those journals. Maybe scientists doing real science actually come up with methods that work.

Do you think it is just a bizzare coincidence that ice-core layer counting, ice-core CO2 radiocarbon dating, ice-core 36Cl radiometric dating, cave stagmite layer counting, cave stalagmite 36Cl radiometric dating, stalagmite U-Th radiometric dating, overlapping oak tree-ring counting, oak tree-ring 14C dating, coral layer counting, coral 90Sr radiometric dating, and the SINT200 stacked geomagnetic record all just happen to give very similar overlapping calibration curves? The odds would be astronomical (something about a tornado in a junkyard comes to mind). All these dating projects were done independantly and at different times over the last few decades and remarkably, they all tell a similar story as to the age of the earth. Sure, creationists can spout off anecdotes about how such-and-such rock gave a date 5 million years off or somesuch, but they never seem to produce any real data to back up these claims. Its all hearsay, or outright fabrication. Even if they did have a genuine datapoint or two that didn't seem to fit, that pales in comparison to the mountain of data that do fit.

I kown you'll just brush this off too. Fine with me; live in your fantasy world. It's obvious you don't care about evidence or real science. You just cheerfully handwave it away. That's your right, but don't try and cram your religous propaganda into our public schools and at least have the decency to admit that creationism is a religion and has nothing to do with science.

Have a nice day.

Re:Too Bad

[Wayne Hoxsie]

Quote mining. The last refuge of the creationist scoundrel. I'm sure those are all out of context, but I'm not going to bother looking. It is clear enough that you don't care about reality. Just for the record, I did do a quick search for Richard Lewontin as I've seen his work before and I know that your characterization of him is absurd. Here's a typical creationist misquote of Lewontin:

The WTBTS book, Life -- How Did it Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation?

Requoting Jim Lippard >
> That question has already been resolved--they sure have. For examples,
> see Hector Avalos, "The Jehovah's Witnesses and the Watchtower Society,"
> _Free Inquiry_, vol. 12, no. 2, Spring 1992, pp. 28-31. A couple
> instances:
>
> _Life_, p. 143: "Zoologist Richard Lewontin said that organisms 'appear
> to have been carefully and artfully designed.' He views them as 'the
> chief evidence of a Supreme Designer.'"

Note what the book says - "He [Lewontin] views them as [literal quote]the chief evidence of a Supreme Designer.[end literal quote]" Now if this doesn't say that Mr. Lewontin holds this view, then I'm not who I think I am! If you think that it doesn't say that, then English is not something with which you are especially skilled.

The complete Lewontin response:

> Cited source: Lewontin, "Adaptation," _Scientific American_, September
> 1978, p. 213.
> Lewontin himself, complaining about this exact same misquotation as
> presented in an issue of the Institute for Creation Research's
> _Acts _Scientific American_, from which these snippets were lifted, was
> precisely that the 'perfection of organisms' is often illusory
> and that any attempt to describe organisms as perfectly adapted is
> destined for serious contradictions. Moreover, the *appearance* of
> careful and artful design was taken *in the nineteenth century before
> Darwin* as 'the chief evidence of a Supreme Designer.' The past tense
> of my article ('It *was* the marvelous fit of organisms to the
> environment ... that *was* the chief evidence of Supreme Designer') has
> been conveniently dropped by creationist [Gary] Parker in his attempt to
> pass off this ancient doctrine as modern science." (Lewontin, "Misquoted
> Scientists Respond," _Creation/Evolution_ VI, Fall 1981, p. 35)

He clearly shows that He does not hold that view, and that the original quote cleary stated that he was referring to belief's of people who are all DEAD now! But the WTBTS clearly states that it is indeed _his_ view, now!

Typical liars for jesus. Your god must be proud.

Re:What are their dating methods anyways?

[ObviousGuy]

I believe they took them out dinner and observed them eating with a knife and fork.

Millions of years of tool using, and they can barely feed themselves in a civilized manner. Products of bad breeding, I say.

How does one know that a rock is a tool?

[BusterB]

I know that they found these rock fragments concentrated around trees, but how does that mean that they were being used as tools? I can use a rock to break open a pecan, but when I put it down, does it suddenly look like a tool? Would someone be able to pick up that rock later and say 'hmm..looks like someone cracked a pecan with this one.' You can call it a 'tool fragment', but come on, these are rocks around a tree. Apes could have been eating them and pooping around trees, for all we know.

Re:How does one know that a rock is a tool?

[americanFatCat]

I think it usually has to do with the way the rocks have been shaped. Then again, I'm not a paleontologist, neither are you. They would know the answers. they don't get funding for nothing. Your comment is like saying, "I can't divide. therefore, division can't be done."

Re:How does one know that a rock is a tool?

[flewp]

BBC Article URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2 006000/2006309.stm (I use it as a reference in this post)

Well, they found pits in the rocks that indicate they've been used repeatedly (perhaps for generations) for the same purpose. Using another object for a specific task repeatedly is a tool, no? Okay, so that's not the exact definition of a tool, but it sure fits the criteria for a tool if you ask me. The stones also took a degree of skill to use, and could take 7 years to master. Hit it too hard, and you smash the inside of the nut, hit it too soft, and you still get nothing. So it's not a matter of just smashing things with a rock. The younger chimps apparently practice too as well, using smaller rocks. One thing they haven't done though, is create tools of different shapes and sizes.
Yeah, they could be eating and pooping them out, but the rocks weighed 15 kilograms.

Re:How does one know that a rock is a tool?

[teamhasnoi]

I saw 'The Scorpion King'. The Rock is a Tool.

oog use tools

[Anonymous Coward]

oog use tools! oog use win95 in 29 days! oog have high tech carreer!

Re:oog use tools

[fdisk3hs]

Stop flinging your dung at me Koko.

LR

From the article

[ynotds]

at the close of what is known as the Miocene era, when Ice Age conditions cooled the planet

Any paleontologist worth their salt will be so familiar with the stratigraphic boundaries between the various geological epochs, including the Miocene, that they aren't going to think to give their dating a special mention, especially not in a CNN one page summary.

hominids

[BigBir3d]

if the hominids of the time were doing the same thing, who says that the apes didn't learn from the hominids, or vice versa?

maybe hominids had a higher capacity for creativity and were able to do more with the 'simple tools' once they 'saw the light?'

this is all such a intrigueing, yet wasteful thing to discuss, until we have time travel. i guess i need to fall through a worm hole and find out ;-)

tool use ibn the animal kingdom

[Cyno01]

this raises questions about other parts ters use rocks to cof the animal kingdom, otrack open oysters, sea urchins and the heads of greenpeace members to feast on the innards. also, many members of the animal kingdom use trees to scratch their butts

sorry about the above comment

[Cyno01]

sorry, i accidentally highlighted and dragged a piece w/o realizing it, it should have read... this raises questions about other parts of the animal kingdom, otters use rocks to crack open oysters, sea urchins and the heads of greenpeace members to feast on the innards. also, many members of the animal kingdom use trees to scratch their butts