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Ape-Human Split Moved Back By Millions Of Years

E++99 writes in to let us know about a development in paleo-anthropology. It seems that up until now, scientific consensus has placed the divergence of man from the ape line five to six million years ago (based on "genetic distances"). But newly discovered fossils in Ethiopia place the divergence at least twice as far back, and perhaps as long ago as 20 million years. They also largely put to rest any doubts that man and modern apes both emerged from Africa. From the article: "The trail in the hunt for physical evidence of our human ancestors goes cold some six or seven million years ago... Beyond that... fossils of early humans from the Miocene period, 23 to five million years ago, disappear. Fossils of early apes especially during the critical period of 14 to eight million years ago were virtually non-existent — until now... [T]he new fossils, dubbed 'Chororapithecus abyssinicus' by the team of Japanese and Ethiopian paleo-anthropologists who found them, place the early ancestors of the modern day gorilla 10 to 10.5 million years in the past, suggesting that the human-ape split occurred before that."

16 of 390 comments (clear)

  1. How very fitting by d3vo1d · · Score: 5, Funny

    that this comes right after the story entitled "Attack of the Evil Monkeys From Hell".

    1. Re:How very fitting by Samah · · Score: 2, Funny

      You're forgetting of course that we all split from the Peanuttius Butria gene millions of years ago.

      --
      Homonyms are fun!
      You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
    2. Re:How very fitting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Apes and Man were created by God six thousand years ago. If you believe in anything else you are doomed to eternal hellfire. Evolution along with all science is an attack on God. May the flying butt monkeys from Hell tear your soul apart.

  2. Creationists Declare Evolution Disproved by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    in 5... 4... 3...

  3. Millions of years... by Corpuscavernosa · · Score: 1, Funny

    ... and Duke Nukem still isn't out.

    --
    We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.
  4. THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO, before the dawn of man as by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    an ape-like creature making crude and pointless toys out of dinobones and his own waste, hurling them at chimp-like creatures with crinkled hands regardless of how they behaved the previous year. These so-called "toys" were buried as witches, and defecated upon, and hurled at predators when wakened by the searing grunts of children. It wasn't a holly jolly Christmas that year. For many were killed.

  5. Re:simpsons quote by timmarhy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yep, it's cheap and easy to do because the idea that the world is 6000 years old and was greated by a big man in the sky is so stupid.

    --
    If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
  6. Re:simpsons quote by kestasjk · · Score: 4, Funny

    Don't make a caricature of my faith; we've come a long way. Now we believe that the creator came down in human form to get his shit ruined by us, so that he could forgive us for the symbolic sin of eating some fruit that made us really smart. God didn't actually come down and wrestle with Israel, and he didn't actually make a donkey talk, it was just a symbol. If you can't figure out what a donkey talking symbolizes, well I feel sorry for you and your "logic" based mindset.

    --
    // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
  7. Re:simpsons quote by salmonmoose · · Score: 2, Funny

    Does it symbolise God talking out of his ass?

  8. HaHa,,, STILL trying to PROVE evolution... by Star!+(Score+6) · · Score: 1, Funny

    Piltdown man
    A tooth of a pig drawn into an apeman!
    A lie and a fake 5 years by 1927.

    Nebraska man
    A lie and a fake for 40 years.
    By then everyone in the world thought they were from apes.
    How did it take 40 years for the scientific community to find it was a clumsy fake?

    Javaman (homo erectus)
    Discovered by Dr Dubois and he himself declared in 1938 that it was just a monkey (gibbon).
    He had found human skulls in the same stratum did not tell anyone for 30 years!
    A lie and a fake. He eventually renounced the javaman as a fraud himself.

    Peking man
    Dr. black discovered it, a tooth and some ashes.
    Soon after human remains were found mixed with animal remains. The animal remains were the food of the humans.
    Hey but they wanted an apeman! so they grabbed bits of both and made Peking Man!

    1972
    Richard Leaky
    Found a skull that supposedly blew evolution out of the water by 2.5 million years. The only thing left was
    Ramapithecus. Just some fragments of jaw bones and some teeth. The same size and shape as a babboon in Ethiopia.

    It never has been found and it never will be found a creature that is more than brute and less than human.
    Also there is such little evidence for apemen that the amount would not be accepted in any other field of science.

    And there's plenty more scientific evidence for the non-existenance of evolution!

    (I know this is not what you like to hear, so just score me nothing as usual. Thanks)

    1. Re:HaHa,,, STILL trying to PROVE evolution... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Apparently the 98% genetic similarity with chimpanzee doesn't convince you. That just proves that our intelligent designer is a lazy bastard who copied most of his work from the chimps' intelligent designer.
      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    2. Re:HaHa,,, STILL trying to PROVE evolution... by guabah · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's what happens when the Chimp's Intelligent Designer licensed his work under the BSD.

    3. Re:HaHa,,, STILL trying to PROVE evolution... by Paracelcus · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hey! I deeply resent the implication that I am not a direct linear descendant of a clod of dirt that had life breathed into it by a bronze age semitic deity!

      But which one?
      Yahweh?
      Baal?
      El?
      Lilith?
      Pazuzu?
      Rodney Dangerfield?

      --
      I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
  9. Re:simpsons quote by bhiestand · · Score: 2, Funny

    I think it's safe to say choosing a cat as an example was a big mistake. I could link you to hundreds of pictures of cats flying, and I can personally verify my last cat's ability to do so. You could have said spaghetti monsters can fly and started a flame war over the One True FSM, or you could've picked a less agile animal, such as the turtle, but please don't disparage cats by bringing them into this argument.

    --
    SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
  10. Re:simpsons quote by flewp · · Score: 4, Funny

    Before eating the fruit, whatever that means, man answers to istinct and/or is incapable of sinning because he can't tell. After, he is able to sin. Just to make sure I've got this straight:
    • Man was incapable of sin until eating the fruit.
    • Man became capable of sin after eating the fruit.
    • Man at the fruit while incapable of sin.
    • Eating the fruit was a sin.
    There's a ??? step I'm missing somewhere... Not only that, but you're missing the most important step... PROFIT!
    --
    WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
  11. Re:simpsons quote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Not only that, but you're missing the most important step... PROFIT!

    Or do you mean PROPHET! =)