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Stone Tool 1.83M Years Old Discovered In Malaysia
goran72 writes with news out of Malaysia that archaeologists have announced the discovery of stone tools more than 1.8 million years old — the earliest evidence of human ancestors in South-east Asia. Researchers believe the tools were made by members of the early human ancestor species Homo erectus. The tools actually date as slightly older than the earliest H. erectus fossils, which came from Georgia and China. No bones of that antiquity have so far been found in Malaysia. "The stone hand-axes were discovered last year in the historical site of Lenggong in northern Perak state, embedded in a type of rock formed by meteorites which was sent to a Japanese lab to be dated."
But it's very hard to explain a whole bunch of tool-like rocks together in one heap as anything other than people making them. And that's what they found here.
"at what point does a stone that happens to have been eroded/chipped naturally into the rough shape of an axe-head become a stone that has been intentionally crafted by (pre)human hands."
That question seriously underestimates the abilities of both those who made stone tools and those who found them.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Well, they do have previously discovered examples of Lower Paleolithic tools to compare this find with. I think the original finds were pretty thoroughly (and skeptically) reviewed.
I don't think the comparison to Intelligent Design is very useful. In Intelligent Design, we know nothing about the Designer, the Designer's methods or the Designer's goals. There is no real experimental work being done.
In contrast, we have a pretty good idea of who made (or who would have made) these tools, what their goals were and what their methods were. Based on this, we can do quite a bit of experimentation to figure out what we don't know (or even whether or not they're tools at all).