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Ancient Fossil Offers Clues To Primate Evolution
langelgjm sends in an update to a story we discussed over the weekend about an extremely well-preserved fossil of an ancient primate, Darwinius masillae, that sheds light on an important area of evolution. The 47 million-year-old specimen has now been officially unveiled, and while many media outlets are stumbling over themselves with phrases like "missing link" and "holy grail," it's clearly a very impressive find. "Discovered two years ago, the exquisitely preserved specimen is not a direct ancestor of monkeys and humans, but hints at what such an ancestor might have looked like. According to researchers, 'The specimen has an unusual history: it was privately collected and sold in two parts, with only the lesser part previously known. The second part, which has just come to light, shows the skeleton to be the most complete primate known in the fossil record.' The scientific article describing the find was published yesterday in the peer-reviewed, open-access journal PLoS ONE. Google's home page is also celebrating the find with a unique image." Science blogger Brian Switek offers some criticism of the academic paper and the media swarm, saying, "I would have hoped that this fossil would receive the care and attention it deserves, but for now it looks like a cash cow for the History Channel. Indeed, this association may not have only presented overblown claims to the public, but hindered good science, as well."
... says it's a hoax. Any takers?
Actually, even if not, the circumstances are now rather dubious. Hopefully it hasn't been damaged in the course of it being sold in two parts and shipped around in private hands.
Oh noes! People made money off it!! Science was "hindered"!
Please. Any hindrance is temporary (47 million years old and it's been a couple more years! Avast!!) and the fossil getting this much attention can only help the cause - money pouring into the area isn't a bad thing either unless you really like staying a poor researcher.
Isn't it rather scary that while scientists are getting excited over this 47 million year old fossil that there are fossils in Congress who will swear on a stack of Bibles that the earth is only 6000 years old and that evolution is bunk.
That people can get elected without having basic modern ape like intelligence is the scary bit, this primate was probably more self-aware than many of those elected officials.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
This is more of a media event than a true major discovery. All orchestrated by the History Channel.
See this article.
Why is this 'news', it is an old report IF you look at archeology reports.
Why is everyone so behind the times?
... says it's a hoax.
Of course it's not a hoax...it's my Ex. I just forgot where I buried her.
Interesting New Scientist blog: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/05/is-ida-a-pop-star-fossil-or-po.html They seem to make two main points- firstly that the whole thing is degenerating into hype, but more interestingly that there wasn't a big debate here anyway. Yes, it's a missing link, but it's one that all rational people knew must have existed somewhere. It hasn't ignited debate between creationists and evolutionists, for the reason that they don't really debate each other anymore- at least not in scientific circles.
They mean that it is a relative of modern humans, but not a direct ancestor. You inherited DNA from your grandmother, but not your aunt.
http://www.mhall119.com
Not a chance. They'd have to reduce the Hitler coverage to do that.
rj
I hardly believe anything Congress or the House says anymore. Calling them ancient fossils isn't going to help matters either.
It's weird that people think following the supposed arbitrary whims of a giant invisible daddy figure in the sky is a decent basis for morality.
No it won't,the science behind evolution has been there for years and that doesn't stop them. They'll just argue that there's still a gap between this fossil and the rest of the great apes clade so it doesn't count.
But its foot bone look similar to a humans so it got to be a missing link. Seems like a bit of a stretch to me.
You must have faith to believe that God designed evolution.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
She was found in 1983 by an anonymous collector. She was sold to the University of Oslo two years ago.
Tony.
-- "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" -- Juvenal
Correlation is not causation. Just because different "racial" groups statistically have different levels of "intelligence" (a culturally defined and therefore biased concept) doesn't mean that race has anything to do with it. The assumption that this difference is caused by "racial"/genetic factors, without offering any evidence to support that assumption, is invalid and may be considered racist.
The history of humanity suggests that culture is the overriding causal factor. Asians and Europeans are just as capable as Africans (or any other "race") of having a primitive, oppressive and destructive culture, as has been well established through the ages. For example, we saw the same abject poverty in Europe during the Middle Ages, for cultural reasons that are well known. Also, contrary to popular prejudice, there are African countries that are doing pretty well.
The only question is whether or not it indeed had a Human father and a Cylon mother.
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php
1) Wary, not weary.
2) Nobel Prize for X, not the Peace Prize.
Let's just think for a moment about which branches of science contradict creationism:
biology
biochemistry
genetics
physics
astronomy
astrophysics
I'm sure there are other _genres_ of science too. Are you really saying that it doesn't matter if a leader of society believes that all the scientists working in these fields are wrong?
Believing in creationism is like believing the earth is flat, and would have huge consequences in many many public policy areas.
Are you positively ABSOLUTELY sure it is 47 Million years OLD?
Really?
http://www.astroengine.com/?p=1382
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Creationists didn't hava a any leg to stand on....
Never did, it is simple an example of sensationalist journalism...
Anybody who thinks that creationists will simply give up one day when you show them a missing link is wrong.... creationists will simply point out that to them you just created two new missing links in the family tree....
The don't have arguments... just their dogma, you are not going to convince them.
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
It looks like something ate a small monkey and got projectile diarrhea on their website. Someone should hack in and add some flies to it.
"You can't really dust for vomit" --Nigel Tufnel
Just out of curiosity, would you say the same thing about physical attributes?
ie, are Asians and Europeans just as capable of certain African peoples of sprinting or long distance running?
have different levels of "intelligence" (a culturally defined and therefore biased concept)
Ridiculously silly.
For example, we saw the same abject poverty in Europe during the Middle Ages, for cultural reasons that are well known
I think you need to learn your history a little better. You're discussing myths and falsehoods, which makes whatever your beliefs about some "cultural" reasons utterly irrelevant.
As I understand it, IQ tests were largely developed by whites. You'd think that if they were biased, they'd have fiddled it so they came out on top.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Admit it, you're just pretending to be from Alabama. It's obvious.
If you were for real, you wouldn't be able to read.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Besides primate evolution is essential to the church. They start as vicars, progress to bishops and eventually end up as primate.
Looking at your post history, it seems as if you're just trying to troll but I feel like this point needs to be addressed
A key one is, "Why must the Bible mention dinosaurs?". The oldest book in my home is a '73 VW Chilton's manual, but why should I expect *IT* to detail every step of evolution, DNA, and the singularity?
You shouldn't expect that information in a Chilton's manual. Though, if the book didn't even hint at the existence of your engine, vaguely described the workings of the other components of the car, contradicted itself frequently, and was blatantly incorrect on major points, you might question the knowledge of the books authors.
Nice straw man. I never claimed the brain is exempt from these.
Ok, if you didn't, then cool--that makes up a lot of what I disagreed with. Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant when you claimed that culture causes intelligence--I took that as meaning intelligence has no heritability. Glad we agree on that point after all.
p.s. I still don't understand:
For example, we saw the same abject poverty in Europe during the Middle Ages, for cultural reasons that are well known.
That makes race a purely cultural concept.
Yes, race IS a cultural concept. I would not argue that point. I think I've been pretty clear in the last couple points about mentioning "certain African peoples" etc rather than saying "Blacks." As an example, using the example of Kenyan marathoners, most of the marathoners come from a small area of Kenya, and many are of same tribes. Tribes due to inbreeding are probably as closely as you can be related and not striclty be talking about families. "African" may not mean much, but when you look at the performance of sprinters and marathoners, it's hard to argue that many people of direct African descent dominate the scene.
I think you might be implying that brainpower is purely genetically or "racially" determined.
No, not at all. Let me put it this way--I don't believe people are getting smarter..well, maybe in some ways, but that's slow evolutionary change. I don't believe that we are in anyways smarter than people 2000 years ago, 4000 years ago, etc. 20,000 years ago? We might be smarter than them, hard to say. We're most definitely smarter than our ancestors of 100,000 years ago, etc.
Is intelligence genetically determined? IMHO (as far as I know, the science is still largely up the air), yes--with a but. The but is of course your genes give you a potential, doesn't mean you have to fulfill it. How many people with Michael Phelps' body would train hard enough to do what he did? How many people with Einstein's brain would do what he did? Difficult to say. I definitely believe genetics play a large part.
The point is, IQ, SAT, all these tests you keep talking about, they measure something, but it's open to interpretation as to what they measure. That's why I said you maybe have a point about SAT. Beyond that, when I said "brainpower is brainpower" what I meant is there are smart people, smarter people, and stupid people (and millions of variants in between). I believe in something called intelligence that is perhaps not universally quantifiable in a test, but that exists nonetheless.
Is "race" a genetically insignificant factor? Perhaps. The issue is that "race" and "skin color" are all most people think about. In reality there are basically clusters of somewhat related people. Is there a "Black" race or an "Asian" or a "White" race? -- absolutely not. The difference between your average East African and your average West African or South African can be huge. Ditto East European and North European, etc.
The modern world with all the movement and intermingle will completely undermine the concept of race in no time.