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Scientists Discover Common Ancestor of Monkeys, Apes, and Humans
reporter writes "According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, scientists have discovered the common ancestor of monkeys, apes, and Slashdotters. The 47 million year old fossils were discovered in Germany. The ancestor physically resembles today's lemur. Quoting: 'The skeleton will be unveiled at New York City's American Museum of Natural History next Tuesday by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and an international team involved in the discovery. According to Prof. Gingerich, the fossilized remains are of a young female adapid. The skeleton was unearthed by collectors about two years ago and has been kept tightly under wraps since then, in an unusual feat of scientific secrecy. Prof. Gingerich said he had twice examined the adapid skeleton, which was "a complete, spectacular fossil." The completeness of the preserved skeleton is crucial, because most previously found fossils of ancient primates were small finds, such as teeth and jawbones.'"
Is this a revolutionary finding? Shouldn't the common ancestors be in Africa?
I believe we were created by god, to evolve. Obviously, thousands of years ago, we were different, but evolved to what we are today. What's interesting, is when I say that, depending on which side of the creationism/evolution debate you are on, sparks controversy from both sides ;)
The Africans have been subject to tyranny of countless nations, and now they face the oppression of their own dictators. And I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but one's scientific success is heavily dependent on luck and ambition, not just intelligence.
There's even more to it, Africa's major axis is north-south instead of east-west, which means the continent has a lot of variance in climate with a lot of natural barriers (think about the Sahara) for species, knowledge and trade to cross. This as opposed to North America or Eurasia, both of which have east-west axes with a steady climate that's good for agriculture and diffusion of technology and trade.
Also, Africa has virtually no domesticable large mammals and large parts of Africa have been (or still are) not fit for agriculture at all. Finally, when Europeans started colonizing African countries they had a head-start in technology, and resistance to many diseases they were exposed to living next to their domesticated animals (pigs, horses, sheep), resistance the Africans never had a chance to develop. The same holds for South America, people still like to think the Inca's and the Aztecs where conquered by military force, while in fact their population was decimated by germs like the flu, bubonic pest etc.
Mandatory reading for the guy you responded to and for anyone interested to know why North America and Europe became the most developed societies, and not Africa, South-America or Polynesia (all of which at one point in history had a lead):
http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393061310/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242498876&sr=8-1
For those who don't like reading, the spoiler: it has nothing to do with intelligence/inventiveness, genetic superiority, laziness or any other form of inherited or acquired traits.
Any monkey story will automatically degrade into theology versus Science when the total number of posts exceeds 3. It is really not important whether or not people accept Darwinism - evolution will still be dealing the hand they and their descendants get.
There is no need to argue with them, that is what they want, they want the air of publicity. As for the rest of us Darwinist Protestants, I, like many, celebrate this find and look forward to the addition to the sum total of human knowledge it will provide
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
. . . in the proper context. The true beauty of this is that no one can really understand the infinite. For all you know, you may be your own god. See http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html. On the line between knowing everything and knowing nothing, we all sit so close to nothing that the probability of knowing/guessing the ultimate truth of the universe (even if there is such a thing) is infinitesimal. Therefore, evolution is as likely to be wrong as creationism. The advantage of creationism is that is gives hope to people who otherwise have nothing. The advantage of Darwinism is that it help us understand biology. Being right or wrong in the absolute sense is like arguing about when the next rock will roll on a planet in a galaxy that is one billion light years away. It would seem more relevant to argue about Brittany Spears' next lover.
I've always felt the idea of religion in general is a bit antiquated in most modern societies where people are educated en masse.
From my point of view, I've always seen religion as a crutch for the weak and/or unintelligent. If you can't go about your day without killing, stealing or banging your neighbours spouse without a book telling you not to do so, by all means cling to said book to quell those impulses and/or teach you right from wrong.
If you fall into that category, you may want to also check out the works of Aesop.
The other types of people I see clinging to religion are the one's trying to hedge their bets on the afterlife. You better get on board with the right one, or else you'll spend an eternity in the worst misery that you can imagine. Scaremongering at it's finest.
The flip-side to that is that if you pick the correct religion and follow, you can be given wings and a cloud when you die. Maybe you like the one religion where you get lots of virgins to have sex with, or even the one that gives you a new body to start all over again. Who needs proof when you have blind faith and the willingness to believe anything someone in a funny outfit tells you.
By and large, religions nowadays continue to exist solely for MONEY. I think George Carlin said it best when he said:
"When it comes to bullshit... big-time, major league bullshit... you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion. No contest. No contest. Religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time... ...But He loves you.
He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story. Holy SHIT!"
Unfortunatly, DNA decays very quickly, even under ideal conditions. Tassy tiger and Mammoth are very recent (relatively speaking), and they have soft tissue to work with. The only 1 million years plus dna that anyone has been able to extract came from some amber. And even in this case, it is still strongly debated as to whether the DNA was simply contamination. Even if the DNA is legit, were still talking only 0.001% that could be extracted. I would love for them to be able to analyse some ancient DNA (imagine what we could learn!), but it seems unlikely that we'll ever be able to extract anything usefull. Unless someone can work out the ole time machine...