China's Earliest Modern Human Found

The remains of one of the earliest modern humans to inhabit eastern Asia have been unearthed in China. The find could shed light on how our ancestors colonized the East. Researchers found 34 bone fragments belonging to a single individual at the Tianyuan Cave, near Beijing.

Comments

Re:Actually it is that old.

[mapkinase]

Dawkins is an arrogant media-hungry loser of science. I have seen similar figures in my field: computational biology. It has nothing to do with religion or anything else. Some people just want to flamebait on- and off-line.

Re:Actually it is that old.

[Lord Ender]

Richard Swinburne, the foremost living philosopher of religion

No - the foremost living philosopher of religion is Richard Dawkins

Actually, Daniel Dennett is probably the best mind in the field today.
He proposes many scientific tests for analyzing the propagation, benefits, and costs of religious ideas. He thinks memetics and evolutionary psychology provide the best way of understanding the state of religions.

He is also an atheist, and believes religion is in its death-throes in modern society.

Re:Actually it is that old.

[v01d]

But still, my point above stands, it's not for anyone on Slashdot (unless they hold a Ph.D and a university position in the subject) to say anything negative about a field.

Your point is just an inversion of the burden of proof fallacy. If I have a phd in the field of "teapots orbitting the sun", every one is more than welcome to question the value of my field. If your point was valid, any quack could create all sorts of completely pointless fields of study and no one would be able to say they were pointless.

The fact is if you are making a positive statement the burden of proof is on you. Almost by definition skepticism doesn't need proof, just reason.