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Oldest Modern Humans Found
DrLudicrous writes "Anthropologists have reconstructed and dated three skulls from Ethiopia that they believe to be the oldest anatomically modern human skulls in existance. They date to 160,000 years ago, in agreement with genetic studies that pin the arrival of modern humans to at least 150,000 years ago. The skulls also demonstrate evidence of ritual burial." UC Berkeley has the original release as well.
The Herto skulls were not found with other bones from the rest of the bodies, which is unusual, White said, leading the researchers to infer that the people "were moving the heads around on the landscape. They probably cut the muscles and broke the skull bases of some skulls to extract the brain, but why, whether as part of a cannibalistic ritual, we have no way of knowing."
I was rather surprised by the possibility of ritualistic brain-eating amongst the earliest ancestors of our species. Maybe they were extracting the brains not for appetizers, but for the same reasons Egyptians removed the brains prior to mummification: so that dead would not be encumbered by the useless grey gunk inside their head on the journey to the afterlife.
Why does this just not quite add up to me.
How many times in your life have you changed the world? The concept to stop chasing wildlife, and to settle down and grow crops is revolutionary, and would be a scary step (since you're betting on crops coming in right until you can build up enough storage) even for those who have plenty of knowledge in the subject. The combination of knowledge, wisdom and courage to take that step is not commonly found, and even when the step was take, the society might easily disappear if there were a short drought. I have a harder time imagining why someone would do this, then why they wouldn't.
I feel I must correct you here.
The bible has most certainly changed over the last few thousand years, especially in the first few centuries after Jesus' supposed crucifixion. The Dead Sea Scrolls pose some interesting contradictions to the bible, as well-- many pertaining to the Nephilim described in the old testament. Over the years those who had the power (kings and churches) sought to enhance and secure their position by keeping the people dumb and manipulating them by altering passages from the bible in their favour. So many bits and pieces have changes, been ommitted or added, that you don't even know anymore what parts were actually in the original scriptures and which not.
That said, someone else pointed out the way science works: these are theories and they work from the basis of that. Nothing is 100% sure and when somebody finds out this and that is more true than the other thing, no one will feel shamed when this fact becomes the generally accepted one.
Or is this more of the overly simplistic logic that starts by assuming the Bible is false and then proceeds to construct some alternative scenario?
How do we know anything is true, we must and do on a daily basis make assumptions about the world around us from what we observe. I see a table, i walk up to it, touch it, i know it's a table. We use simple logic to assume things are right or wrong, true or false. If i am told something is true i do not believe it unless i can verify it for myself.
As such, i believe there is a book called the bible with many secular variations. Having read some of it, I know it contains some fascinating insights into human nature and accounts of historic events. But my wider knowledge allows me to put it in picture with the history of the roman occupation of the area, simultaneous Chinese philosophy, Mayan empires, etc. And my knowledge of human nature, culture, behaviour; to come to the simple logical conclusion that it is most likely that Jesus existed and was immensely insightful into human nature and further evolved a system of living by which humanity and all it's individuals could prosper. However i see no good evidence for divine intervention.
What your parents tell you to believe in ... isn't always right
My spelling isn't bad, I'm evolving the language
> Don't you mean revise science, the Bible hasnt changed in thousands of years (note the dead sea scrolls which are the same as the current versions of the Bible). It is science that changes its mind everytime something new is discovered, cant they stick with one story.
And there's the difference between science in religion. Religion wants to preserve a tradition, so its adherents stick to their story regardless of what the evidence says. Science wants to understand the universe, so it goes whereever the evidence demands.
Of course... it only takes a casual familiarity with history to see that religion slowly changes its views over the generations as well, however much the practitioners want to pretend otherwise.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> Sixth, the idea that the rulers wanted to "keep the people dumb" is just propaganda.
When you have a bit of idle time, visit the talk.origins newsgroup and ask about the role of religion in the Neocon "wedge document". As one guy puts it in his
IIRC their philosophy goes at least back to Plato, who (IIRC) suggested a model state where the "guardians" knew religion was a hoax, but espoused it anyway in order to control the masses.
Notice in passing how convenient it is for a government to send soldiers to their deaths and then assure the public that they have a secure spot in Heaven (as if the politicians would know!), or to shrug off "collateral damage" when everyone 'knows' that God won't let the innocent suffer in the afterlife.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that cultures evolve to the technological level that they need to survive.
In the classical "Cradle of Civilization", the Tigris-Euphrates valley, there were few animals to eat, and plants didn't grow regularly. So, the people needed to learn how to make the plants grow regularly. Irrigation developed. Wait, we grew too much, we need something to store all this food in! I found this clay over here, let's make some pottery.
Many native american tribes didn't go any higher than stone age in some technologies, because they didn't need to.
Yes and no... there are some ambiguities about translation of the bible. Some words only appear a few times, or even once, making their meaning impossible to know for sure. The meanings of words also change over time, so a word that meant something when the bible was translated into greek, say, might have been given a different meaning than when it was first written down.
This is not to say that translation is impossible or a useless effort. It's just to say that the exact meaning of a given word is often ambigous. Often, these (in my view, somewhat silly) arguments about what the bible says center around individual words.
For example, does "four corners" mean four geometric corners? Does it mean "prominent places", or was it a colloquial expression?
(My favorite one is when the Israelites were building the Tabernacle in the desert, and they used "Dolphin Skins". Where did they get Dolphin skins from? It's a funny little thing, and you wonder if the text is really refering to the skins of animals we call dolphins, or something else. But dolphin skins? From Egypt?)
The whole topic of translating ancient texts (not just the bible) is a facinating one. If you're interested in an alternate english translation of the bible, the Jewish Publication society put one out under the name "Tanakh" (the Jewish word for the bible). Every page there are footnotes with the comment "meaning of original hebrew uncertain" , or providing an alternate translation.
DISCLAIMER - I am not a linguist or biblical scholar. (IANALOBS)
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
> > And there's the difference between science in religion. Religion wants to preserve a tradition, so its adherents stick to their story regardless of what the evidence says. Science wants to understand the universe, so it goes whereever the evidence demands.
> While it's true that religions tend to stick to their stories regardless of the evidence, the same tendency has been observed among scientists as well. If you had asked Einstein about non-local effects in quantum physics, I imagine you'd have gotten the same kind of response you'd get by asking Jerry Falwell about evolution.
Yes, science is practiced by humans and therefore all the usual human follies can be observed among scientists.
However, scientists are well aware of that fact, so science as a "field" or "institution" is based on the notion of sanity checks and second opinions. The bad stuff like Piltdown Man and Cold Nuclear Fusion eventually get weeded out, because although they appeal strongly to individual's follies they can't stand up to the checks.
I.e., ultimately Einstein's personal opinion doesn't matter.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> I don't know what Bible you are reading, but mine says nothing about any staircase or rope breaking.
Whoops - spank me for the staircase; that's what I get for relying on memory rather than looking it up. But if you delete the staircase and procede from there, my post should still make sense.
And yes, the broken rope is an extra-biblical fiction. That was part of my point. (I suspect the staircase was also an extra-biblical fiction that I was taught as a child, with some Sunday School teacher thinking he needed somewhere to "fall headlong".)
> As for the Bible contradicting archeology, this is simply not true. For example, just recently, the a city was unearthed that fits perfectly with the Bible's description of Jericho, and even the walls were still intact, with one section of them broken down. What they found in the structures fit with the Jews taking over the city.
Ah, Jericho has long been excavated; even as a child I was fed nonsense about the archaeologists finding that "the walls had fallen outward, rather than inward as would have happened in an ordinary seige".
And BTW, the oldest walls a Jericho are older than the universe, at least according to the dates derived from the Bible.
But more to the point, finding archaeological sites that correspond to Bible stories does nothing to validate the bigger claims of the Bible. I mentioned elsewhere in this thread earlier that The Illiad guided an archaeologist to historical Troy, but no one concludes from that fact that The Illiad is a true story.
> The scientific community is just as guilty of trying to disprove the Bible as the so-called "Christian scientists"
There may be some scientists pursuing such a grudge, but by and large that's not what's going on at all. Scientists (by and large) are just trying to find out about the universe. That endeavor fell afoul of the Bible over two centuries ago, even though the scientists of the day were (by and large) religious men.
The Bible no longer falls within the goals of science in general, although recent political pushes to have it substituted for a real science curriculum are causing more and more scientists to speak out on that topic.
"Christian scientists", OTOH, correctly understand that over the last couple of centuries the facts have refuted their religious beliefs over and over again, so they busy themselves with discrediting mainstream science, or at least forcing open a small gap that they can hide their God in, because they perceive that their religion would be falsified otherwise. (Notice that most Christians outside Fundamentalist sects simply take the findings of science in stride. It's only those who take biblical literalism as an article of faith who have problems with science.)
> There will always be people who believe in God because when you see REAL miracles in response to prayer, speculation over a skull in Africa seems irrelevant.
"REAL miricales in response to prayer" suffer the same problem that unconstrained biblical interpretations do. People pray for rain and they get it, so they credit God with it; other people pray for rain and don't, and they conclude that God is trying to teach them patience. I.e., people think they get "REAL miricales in response to prayer" whether anything actually happens or not. Substitute peace, health, etc. for rain, and the same observation still holds.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade