1.8 Million-Year-Old Skull Suggests Three Early Human Species Were One

ananyo writes "A 1.8 million-year-old human skull dramatically simplifies the textbook story of human evolution, suggesting what were thought to be three distinct species of early human (Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis and Homo erectus) was just one. 'Skull 5', along with four other skulls from the same excavation site at Dmanisi, Georgia, also shows that early humans were as physically diverse as we are today (paper abstract)."

Comments

Obligatory creationism troll.

[Anonymous Coward]

What! Science says that there were three different species of humans, now it says that there was only one. See. Scientists keep changing their mind. How could you put your faith in them? Put your faith in Jesus, God and read the bible instead. The truth in bible doesn't change over time, unlike science. Creationism triumphs over evolution once again.

Re:Obligatory creationism troll.

[nospam007]

"What! Science says that there were three different species of humans, now it says that there was only one."

Just as the Homo Scientificus. He has a tendency to believe that any piece of bone he finds is a new species to bring him fame.

Re:Obligatory creationism troll.

[Anonymous Coward]

"What! Science says that there were three different species of humans, now it says that there was only one."

Just as the Homo Scientificus. He has a tendency to believe that any piece of bone he finds is a new species to bring him fame.

...or perhaps the OP goes to prove that God develops through trial and error and not "perfect creation".

Said another way, perhaps God was just "messin about one day" just to see what could be created?

Re:Obligatory creationism troll.

[Anonymous Coward]

The face of God, or whatever you call a supreme being, You have seen? I haven't yet. So I'll suppose you are founding a new religion, that says the above. Now show us your humanity, by not building a rock to stand upon, and cast fishes too the people. Show them the way is to hide in their houses in a closet. And be afraid of life.

Re:Obligatory creationism troll.

[Chemisor]

> Put your faith in Jesus

You mean put your faith in God who is both one and three at the same time? It seems this finding can disprove your entire religion.

Re:Obligatory creationism troll.

[Anonymous Coward]

I stand with some South Park episodes as a reference.
They have the same scientifical value than the whole Quran and the Bible put together.
Maybe even more.

Re:Obligatory creationism troll.

[mysidia]

What! Science says that there were three different species of humans, now it says that there was only one. See. Scientists keep changing their mind. How could you put your faith in them?

Science evolves, based on the results of new experiments, and the acquisition of new information.

Religious doctrine on the other hand; always stays the same, even when factual information proves something wrong.

For example: it was proven that the earth and other planets revolve around the sun.

Put your faith in Jesus, by all means. But don't be a dogmatic moron, and think that your religion tells you what all the historic and physical facts are.

Jesus never said anything about God having created everything directly with a wave of the hand, not through any indirect mysterious processes such as evolution.

Re:Obligatory creationism troll.

[flyneye]

uh-hmrm. I was just scrolling by, minding my own business; when I saw your little faux passe about the truth in the Bible not changing over time.
Apparently , you never knew any of the controversy over the ages of translation mistakes, both accidental and political, the entire Septuagint rewritten from memory by Ezra while whacked out of his skull on the ancient "cup of fire" entheogen tea. The whittling down of the 600 or so books by the Catholic church for oftimes whimsical and political reasons to establish themselves over the several other factions of Christians present at the time.(Genocides followed, guess we know that tree by its fruit.Ask a Jew) How about the large amount of truth cut out of the King James Version itself? That started out many books larger than the condensed version in your mitts now. Gee, maybe we couldn't take all that truth. We should let submorons who aren't fit to decide how the solar system works, decide important things in our lives.
Creationism could even mean there were established hominid species and Adam and Eve were created separately with self awareness and souls to differentiate them while allowing sexual compatibility with Fred Flintstone. Who knows, you sure as hell don't. I guess it's not as important as you think, unless you want to just cause chaos amongst people who can't tell the difference between rooting for a sports team and finding truth in philosophy. It's always about "being right" no matter what, with no regard for the unknown, conflicting data or the MESSAGE BEHIND ALL THE FUSS!

Re:Obligatory creationism troll.

[flyneye]

No no, Homerus Scientificus. He tends to believe any piece of bone he finds still has meat on it. mmmmmmmmmmm

Re:Obligatory creationism troll.

[Anonymous Coward]

science is a an evolving story. it is there to help logically understand the world round us through tests and studies until proven other wise by other tests and studies. contrary to popular belief, science is never going to be established-just like everything else in the known universe. its always evolving. the only reason the bible hasn't changed is simply because of the stubbornness and false sense of superiority from those who hold the bible in such high regard. your ignorance is showing. perhaps you should cover it up.

Re:Obligatory creationism troll.

[Empiric]

I was just scrolling by, minding my own business; when I saw your little faux passe about the truth in the Bible not changing over time.

You actually didn't address his statement at all. While it's fun to talk about how many books there were, and how many changes there may have been, it actually doesn't make any more difference to the truth of the content than book editions today, or how many may be rejected by a publisher covering the same topic. Far from "whimsical", the criteria, determined at absolute minimum, by people deeply engaged in the topic at the time, was largely consistency with the baseline, most-trusted documents. If the writing lacks consistency with those, or even internally with itself, by any criteria it should be rejected--and that is precisely the basis by which they were. Christians tend to believe that the bible accurately transmits the essential truths of the religion due to the historical guidance of God, but your argument doesn't even rise to being a valid criticism of, say, the most mundane topics such as the creation and selections of a textbook on physics.

And, the notion that the essential truths to be conveyed was selected based on political considerations is highly implausible, as the core was selected by Irenaeus before 200 AD, well before the Catholic Church had notable political power to "protect" by your fanciful notion of "political" motivations. Since you didn't present even the barest notion of some political gain to be had even theoretically, by means of some relevant theological conclusion that could be "manipulated", how about you make something up now, to fill in your argument that much, at least?

If you can name an essential difference in actual doctrine (analogous to presuming wildly varying accepted understandings of physics because of physics books typos or consolidations) that one would derive differently based on the history of the documents, that is, the "truths" that are proposed to be there, to make your argument relevant, then do so and we'll take it from there.

Re:Obligatory creationism troll.

[flyneye]

Actually I did. Reread it.
I didn't address your concerns at all.
When the criteria starts out " There are four winds and four corners of the earth so there shall be four gospels" it starts whimsical and stays that way. The only serious part of it is that changes were made for political control reasons. Oh , I suppose you can listen to "divine" excuses all day and believe them if you have limited capacity like the majority, but a spade is still a spade and the self proclaimed Catholic organization is a sham. The only thing worse is the Protestants (Protesting Catholics) who shaved even more data off for their purposes. These reasons were silly and further, the exclusions were made on top of frivolous exclusions before it. So I'll hear none of the USUAL apologeas.

If you had an inkling of the history of the church from Christ forward, you wouldn't say stupid things like "the notion that the essential truths to be conveyed was selected based on political considerations is highly implausible". Irenaeus is the moron I quoted above. When you start with shit, it stays shit and we all know alchemy is fluff , so you won't be transmuting gold from it anytime soon. Better to quit relying on others and their agendas, especially lit up in neon as they are, and pick up the truth by your own judgement. Constantine was even worse and was a sure sign that the "Catholic" organization was completely in the wrong and has yet to transmute gold from the shit that began it. Ask a Jew, ask a molested child, others too. Infallability, bullshit.

Go read some history and make note that when you edit you can change entire meanings. Do the meek inherit the earth or do the resilient? Is the MDMA-like calmus an ingredient in the Annointing Oil, or is cannabis? Archaeology and Anthropology have uncovered loads of information not presented to the public by their "organizations". Quit relying on organizations, seminaries and "ministers", all reek of taint like a Repubmocrat on the campaign trail.
How many know there were other branches of Christianity busily seeking truth when the Catholics began killing them and burning their data? Again we know a tree by the fruit it produces. Female Popes having babies during parades and being stoned to death. The FATHER of Lucrecia Borgia murders his way past the others to become Pope Alexander VI. Whooee with leaders like that, I can't imagine there being any other truth.

Differences? Well, we can begin by comparing what is left with what has been thrown out or never included. Like the Book of Jasher, in a way, a plain language copy of the Septuagint, actually mentioned in the old testament twice, as an old example. For new examples we have the NIV adding the text : "In saying this Jesus declared all foods clean " to Mark 7:19, which is complete bullshit and could only be manipulated out of meaning by a car salesman who never did much more than Sunday School as a child. Further Paul is twisted to saying the same things by those who didn't realize what the point is.
These Apostles still followed the law and kept the holidays and never was all food made clean. Romans 6:14 has been obfuscated through several translations to nearly mean its opposite. It is never mentioned that "Under the law" or Curse of the law means "responsible for ones sins" and is never compared to the subject spoken of before in Deut, 11:26-28. So now we not only have hidden truth, but also painted over truth. Many many many others and I am not going to write a book today. So yes I would call Clean Food a MAJOR difference in doctrine.

There is much to be found in Apocrypha,pseudepigrapha, early christian writings and other excluded books. Are they all real? Of course they are, they are a slice of the history of Christianity and the struggles and beliefs of those seeking. Are they all truthful or even genuine? Most have truth, some are fanciful and replete with bullshit, but they all have value in creating a window for us to see what really happened. This is something to be judged by an individual and not a self appointed political bureaucrazy. You want truth, go find it, but don't tell me how you have some authority on truth inherited from something someone told you once.

Re:Obligatory creationism troll.

[Empiric]

So, still no plausible combination of proposed scriptural change and actual political advantage that would be offered by it. You could have at least parroted some Dan Brown, even if that would put us at laughable levels of historical scholarship.

The rest of your post is all over the map, lots of insults and very little useful content, but to answer what you appear to be staking out as your main relevant counterpoint, on "clean foods"...

Here's a straightforward rationale found with a simple google search, linked mainly for the verse citations. As we see, the number of verses supporting that there was an actual rescoping of expectations corresponding to a direct spiritual rationale, is not singular, but has multiple mutually-reinforcing verses within scripture.

http://www.gotquestions.org/foods.html

On your last part on "finding truth", there is no necessary contradiction between how you came across a truth, and whether it is truth. If you want the formal name of the fallacy of this thinking, it is a Genetic Fallacy. Overall, you simply have rejected a-priori a particular source for your personal reasons, and will fog over resolving questions for yourself with whatever degree of refusal to do the work of discerning what's true (among which are the very basic, stated tools of evaluating internal logical consistency) that is necessary.

Re:Obligatory creationism troll.

[flyneye]

When you eliminate other schools of thought by violence and ignorance in order that your school of though prevail, what about that doesn't appear to be a political advantage?
If you don't like crap, relevant to the discussion pointed out, tipetoe through the pasture to the sister-boy forum where you can feel secure. If it happened and lends cause or effect as illustration, so be it. If it was to be historical record, they should've done something ethical instead. If you are insulted, were you involved somehow? Control yourself, I'm certainly not going to. I'm not damn pleasant to be around at all. Blame poor socialization skills if you need to sleep better.

Ah yes, the rationals, well if you must represent the Monster truck faith with a link, I will ,of course, throw in a kosher link. We've gotten nowhere but , we have entertainment and a barbeque. http://www.new2torah.com/2012/07/not-under-the-law-video/

On finding truth; first differentiate what you think, know, feel and believe. They are very different things.
Now, breathe.
If I KNOW beforehand the history of the people involved through modern means of Archaeology and Anthropology , along with relevant ancient writings(thanks to Etymology) and the backgrounds of their contemporary competing religions and those of surrounding areas and peoples. I can compare records ranging from gospels to scribal receipts for hemp and acts and behaviors of characters involved, take into account timelines, politics and triangulate truth with a greater efficiency than the FCC finding pirate radio stations.
Now I must THINK about the variables of what could've happened and file them away with equal priority until one branch or another receives supporting data. Once this data comes in supporting one variable or another, it is added to the variable branch. This in no way devalues other variables. Like Schrodinger cat it either is till it isn't or isn't till it is. While all this happens, I must judge the players involved by their acts, words, motives and anything I can find about them, relegating fact to fact and rumour to rumour, in order to apply a third dimension to the findings at hand.
Once you can see all you can in 3 dimensions, there isn't much more truth you can get.
But to rely on others , especially inferior to yourself, to discern truth that you must base your lifes philosophy on, is pretty fucking stupid. I don't care how you FEEL about it, Believe that!

Re:Obligatory creationism troll.

[Empiric]

More thinking, less trolling, if you are capable of it. You're stuck like a broken parrot on the notion of "political manipulation" (and now, that you have been shown to have no basis for your claim, you just desperately rhetorically amplify it with equally-unbacked "violence"), when there is simply no basis for it being relevant, when it could be actually relevant to your argument, before 200 AD.

I don't rely on others. Stop with this ludicrous "all positions are somebody's, therefore whenever I feel like it, I refer to that other somebody and claim my opposition's position is wrong because it's also somebody else's" nonsense. It's childish, and irrational. The specific reason it is formally, provably irrational I have already given you--it is formally a Genetic Fallacy.

I listened, considered, investigated, and now I -know- as fact. I know, you do not, and unfortunately I can't help you with that, because you are willfully refusing to think rationally, and will therefore fail on this and any other philosophical question.

Re:Obligatory creationism troll.

[flyneye]

Do you actually know anything about the subject or are you merely pissing into the wind?
Study the subject, then come back and pretend you know what you're talking about.

My method questions all who came before me and many are found lacking. Not unlike other sciences.
I will either take or dismiss the findings that came before on merit of credibility.
I operate from a meta-view crossing disciplines and arts and you come to me with your pathetic genetic fallacy of rational.
Don't make excuses for not keeping up.
I should warn you against making many important financial decisions regarding large amounts of money though. The weakness in your education , makes you a mark for any scoundrel coming by. Kinda gullible.

Re:Obligatory creationism troll.

[Empiric]

Yes, I know more than you about this, and every related subject. You need to take your poseur ego panhandling elsewhere. You have generated nothing but useless conceptual junk with your "meta-view" method, and neither have nor can present any concerted view with actual useful content. "Not that" is not a position, it is not an accomplishment, it is literally nothing--for another basic logical fallacy among the many you need to have a clue about to achieve the basic abilities at thinking you currently lack, that one's a Reification Fallacy.

If you are wrong, you are wrong, if you are right, you have said nothing about anything with any validity. It's a vacuum of capability on your part you've somehow managed to impress unquestioning others with enough to satisfy your goalless ego-stroking--however, I am not among them.

Re:Obligatory creationism troll.

[Anonymous Coward]

On the subject of "Adam and Eve".

If God only created those two ... does that mean we are ALL decendants of an inbreed "Adam and Eve family"??

Re:Obligatory creationism troll.

[flyneye]

Forgive me if I doubt you, for you appear full of shit. It detracts from your credibility. Anything you've presented is so pedestrian as to be recited by middle school logic students, as if logic were a course there. Did T.G. Seuss actually write the book you've studied?
My method, time tested and true has made my part of my fortune in everything from Archaeology to consulting. No one has ever complained at my lectures. The rest are military contracts and unrelated.

          All right, I'll throw you a bone since you are persistent.
When you have several thousand bits of a painted pot, you can only put it together once, it isn't all there and most of the paint is missing. You painstakingly adhere piece to piece like an insane puzzle in your white room. When you are done you can see there was script along with ornate illustrations. In the end, you will know what it says. It will be radiated, debated, translated, berated, updated, slated and fated to the backroom at institute X. BUT, it will be a piece of data of those who came before. If it's data can be connected directly GREAT, if it can be placed or associated indirectly HELPFUL, If it isn't related to anything. JACKPOT! You've just discovered something NEW! Best to make direct connections to people places and times. I had to work hard for my education. You go dig yourself. When you quit sounding like a textbook of foppish nonsense and begin sounding like someone who has delt with Antiquities dealers, Scumbags, Overzealous volunteers, Acquisitions dept.s, foreign service industries, politically bad regimes, DHS and every moron waving a certificate of Ordination; then we will discuss your credibility.
Until then brush your teeth, say your prayers and study hard.

Here'e the problem

[jbmartin6]

A nice example of the problems with using a point in time technique like taxonomy and applying it to an extended period of time. There's no single point where one species transforms into another, this is a very slow process. Any given sample, depending on where it is on the timeline, could belong to two different species. All the homo this and homo that is pretty much a waste of time, or so it seems to me.

Re:Here'e the problem

[G3ckoG33k]

It is not exactly like that. It is rather that any given sample along one line, regardless where it is on the timeline, belongs to only one and the same species, regardless of evolutionary change! A new species is _only_ formed when one line is split into two lines. And even more surprising, to many, then is that neither is the same species as their ancestor, for solely technical reasons.

Re:Here'e the problem

[jbmartin6]

You are correct, I think I should have clarified by saying that the point on the timeline where a new species is formed is entirely arbitrary, and an individual at that point is wholly compatible with some number of generations to either side.

Re:Here'e the problem

[brunes69]

The true definition of species is a group that can and do inter-breed to make offspring. So, the line actually *IS* very clear cut... as soon as a mutation occurs that branches one set so they can no longer reproduce with the other, it is a new species. The problem is, determining that point in history using only archeology is very difficult and full of guesswork. Even if you have the DNA from all 3 sides of the tree, we aren't adept enough yet to be able to look at two pieces of DNA and say "yes these two could reproduce and make viable offspring", vs. "yes these two could reproduce but their offspring would all be sterile". That is when you form a new species.

Re: Here'e the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Half breeds: Mule, Beefaloes, Liger, Zebroids, Grolar Bears, Wholphins, etc.

Re:Here'e the problem

[TapeCutter]

A new species is _only_ formed when one line is split into two lines.

Yes, but pinpointing the "split", is quite a problem. You don't need fossils to show this 'problem', it can be seen in what are known as "ring species" that are alive today.

Basically one species spreads both directions along a circular geological boundary. Despite the fact that all individuals along the expanding route can breed with the different races on either side of them, when the two expanding ends of the population meet at the other side of the boundary, they have become distinct species that can no longer interbreed. There is no point along the genetic line where the species forked, yet fork they did since each "end" of the route is a different species.

Another more linear example (like the fossil record) are the changes that occur as a species expands it's range up a tall mountain, there's a continuum of slight genetic variations from the species at the bottom of the mountain to the (different) species at the top. Again, there is no point on the genetic continuum where it can be said the species "split".

Re:Here'e the problem

[Hognoxious]

The true definition of species is a group that can and do inter-breed to make offspring.

It's not as simple as that.

So, the line actually *IS* very clear cut... as soon as a mutation occurs that branches one set so they can no longer reproduce with the other, it is a new species.

What mechanism do you propose for causing the same (or at least compatible) changes in all the group at the same time? It's pretty unlikely to happen by chance.

Re:Here'e the problem

[brunes69]

Normally what causes the group to become differentiated is not a matter of "all at the same time". Groups become differentiated because they stop cross-breeding outside the group, due to either environmental or social barriers. Over time, these isolated groups develop their own mutations that are specific to them. And over an even longer period of time, they would not be able to reproduce with animals in the other group. It's no different than the process that resulted in humans evolving different feature sets in different regions of the wold, because of isolation... if humans had remained isolated and never developed technology, then eventually we would have split into many different species.

Re:Here'e the problem

[mysidia]

The true definition of species is a group that can and do inter-breed to make offspring. So, the line actually *IS* very clear cut... as soon as a mutation occurs that branches one set so they can no longer reproduce with the other, it is a new species.

That's one form of speciation. Another form, is some of the species settle in a different region --- with a very larger distance between two groups of the same species, they will become a different species, because they don't interbreed: even if they are still physically able to breed --- they won't.

They'll meet the can requirement, but because they are separated by distance they won't; failing the can and do requirement.

Re:Here'e the problem

[MightyMartian]

I don't agree with this at all. Even where a population never diverges, almost certainly speciation can and does occur, if you at least invoke simplistic (and obviously not entirely correct) notions like interfertility.

Re:Here'e the problem

[MightyMartian]

That is not the true definition of species. Wolves and coyotes can interbreed, but are still considered two different species by almost all taxonomists. At the same time Great Danes and Chihuahuas cannot directly interbreed, and yet are both simply considered subspecies of C. lupis.

The notion of "species" is largely a human construct; an idea of convenience. Once you get to the Genus level, things start getting very muddied.

Re:Here'e the problem

[MightyMartian]

The issues is also whether there is in fact any split at all. So far as we know, there have been damned few hominid species who have been truly isolated. Gene flow may have been fairly small, but it seems likely that even with H. erectus in Eurasia, there must have been some small amount of gene flow. We even have some evidence from nuclear DNA studies that there was possibly interbreeding between Neandertals and Moderns. Where even a relatively low level of gene flow is maintained, there is a fairly good chance that speciation will not occur.

Re: Here'e the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to add Obama to that list.

Re:Here'e the problem

[__aaltlg1547]

It's not as clear cut as all that either. When you take two populations that have been separated for a long time, they may be fully interfertile or they may have various degrees of ferility. For instance, horses and donkeys can have crosses (mules or more rarely hinnies) and sometimes female mules are fertile. Dogs are are still fully interfertile with wolves, but they have different physical and behavioral (esp. breeding) characteristics. They're also interfertile to some degree with coyotes, but those hybrids have more genetic problems and lower fertility than normal coyotes or dogs. (The same is true of jackals.)

So it appears that loss of fertility between populations with shared ancestry is not typically abrupt and species may continue to have some gene exchange even after their genetics have become distinct.

There is now solid evidence that Neanderthals and Denisovans interbred with humans long ago in Eurasia and most of us (all except maybe Africans) have Neanderthal as well as early H. sapiens ancestors, but most of everyone's ancestry is from a population of anatomically modern folks who evolved in Africa.

Of course, we pretty limited evidence to go on, but it's safe to say that as long as Neanderthals existed as a separate type alongside of H. sapiens, the interfertility must have been limited, certainly more than mules but maybe not so smooth as dogs vs. coyotes.

And then there's sasquatch. Admit it, you didn't know I was going there but you're glad I did. Nobody knows how closely related sasquatch were to modern humans, denisovans or heidelbergensis.

Re:Here'e the problem

[jbmartin6]

yes, that is my point. It is perfectly clear when taken at a single point in time. It is not clear at all if you are dealing with a series of individuals over a (evolutionarily significant) length of time. Say, for example, that individuals can interbreed with any ancestor or descendant at +/- 50 generations. Outside of that range, genetic drift is too severe to permit interbreeding. So an individual at -30 gens can breed with one at generation 0, and can also breed with one at -70 generations. But the individual at 0 gens cannot breed with one at -70 generations. So where is the idea of a 'species' as you define it in this scenario? This is why they have so much trouble attributing fossils to this homo species or that, they are trying to shoehorn a concept that only works at a single point in time to samples taken potentially millions of years apart.

Re:Here'e the problem

[jbmartin6]

Kudos for these terrific examples of the idea I was trying to communicate!

Re:Here'e the problem

[__aaltlg1547]

and if we migrate to other planets, we will.

Re:Here'e the problem

[__aaltlg1547]

By that definition, every isolated population immediately becomes a new species. The housecats of the Isle of Man, for instance, would be a unique species because without humans to transport them to England or Scotland, they can't interbreed with Irish or British housecats. Do you make an exception because housecats and other domesticated species have tricked humans into helping them spread their genes? How isolated does the population have to be? Were American Indians a separate species from Frenchmen because for thousands of years, there was little or no gene exchange? But now they are the same species because they can make boats that can cross the Atlantic?

Re:Here'e the problem

[jamesh]

The true definition of species is a group that can and do inter-breed to make offspring. So, the line actually *IS* very clear cut... as soon as a mutation occurs that branches one set so they can no longer reproduce with the other, it is a new species.

Suppose you have a string of islands, call them A-E. Birds on adjacent +2 islands can interbreed with fertile offspring, but birds at either end of the string of islands cannot. By the standard definition you can argue that the birds living on A are a different species to the birds living on E, but birds on A and E can breed with C, so the birds living on C must therefore belong to both species.

Just because you have a clear cut _definition_, doesn't mean that applying that definition will get you clear cut results

This makes for interesting reading

Re:Here'e the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The line is not clear cut and this is known as the species problem. Organisms with different characteristics that don't usually interbreed in nature are often classified as different species, even if they can produce fertile offspring.

This paper doesn't prove that Homo habilis, erectus and rudolfensis aren't separate species. It just shows that the variation in skull size within the three groups is similar to the variation between them, and thus skull size can't be used to classify them into separate species. There are some other anatomical differences between them and there could be DNA differences.

Whether they are separate species, a single population with wide individual variation that we have separated into 3 groups, or separate groups of the same species that have evolved different characteristics is not clear. As there are such a small number of individuals known it is hard to tell. Just as it was hard to tell what was going on between humans and neanderthals until DNA work was done.

Re:Here'e the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

homos are not a new species. I know people don't choose to be homos, i just can't figure out how they reproduce.

Re: Here'e the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

If they are reciprocally monophyletic, yes, they would be a distinct species.

Re:Here'e the problem

[Hognoxious]

Which is completely *not* what you wrote before.

Also, your definition would make lions and tigers the same species. Even if you added "... that can reproduce", it doesn't allow for oddities like ring species.

Simple

[symes]

Simpler is almost always better - and I for one am pleased to see our past more neatly explained. I worry about our willingness to complicate things in the name of science, sometimes.

Re:Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

our willingness to complicate things in the name of science

Your "in the name of science" is completely wrong. Scientists are taught about Occam's razor (principle of parsimony) and favor simpler explanations. Here, they first thought the situation might be complex, then everybody is very pleased to see how new data allow a simpler understanding.

Re:Simple

[sumdumass]

I don't know, can you explain the differences between hominoidea, hominoidae, and hominini in scientific terms that don't make my eyes want to gouge my brain out?

I know what they are, it's just a headache keeping them strait or learning more then a simple understanding,

Maybe an anomaly

[sl4shd0rk]

Not sure I'd want all the text books to be re-written based on a single find. How do they know the skull5 wasn't due to some genetic defect?

Re:Maybe an anomaly

[Patch86]

That's pretty much the problem for the whole field. There are so few complete specimens (we're talking dozens, rather than hundreds) and they're generally so diverse geographically and chronologically that is becomes very difficult to say whether something was "species wide" or just individual variance. So you find a 4 foot tall skeleton on an island and you might be tempted to say "I've found a new miniature-species of human!", conveniently forgetting the fact that you only have one skeleton and dwarfism is a relatively common feature of the only human population we have a good sample of (modern us). That skeleton could have been the only 4 foot tall adult within a 100 mile and 100 year radius, and yet there's no way of telling unless you can find more specimens that agree or disagree. And those specimens may simply not exist to be found.

I've always found fields like archaeology & palaeontology particularly fascinating for this reason. It's one of the few areas of science where there will be some things that simply CANNOT be known, because no evidence has survived of it and we can't ever study the past directly. It is one of the only areas of modern study where there is a real sense of mystery that will never and can never be lifted. Every little discovery we make is like finding a single piece of a 100 million piece jigsaw- you learn something, but the balance of things not known is still colossal.

Re:Maybe an anomaly

[Alomex]

there is a real sense of mystery that will never and can never be lifted.

Never is a very long time.

I can go back to my childhood and make a long list of "we will never know" things that we know now, starting with the Titanic. I've read several books saying how we would never reach since it was at depths much beyond what divers and submersibles could reach, and in a span of ocean too vast to be effectively searched. Yet here we are, retrieving artifacts from the bottom of the sea.

I can give many other examples.

Re:Maybe an anomaly

[Anonymous Coward]

That's HISTORY!

Re:Maybe an anomaly

[Patch86]

That's sort of my point. It's idiotic to say that we can never reach the bottom of the ocean- that's just an engineering problem. And while it's possible that it could be a "never" for humans travelling to other stars, never is indeed a very long time.

But history is different. Barring time travel, if evidence for something hasn't survived, there is simply no way of knowing it. There might have been a really interesting species existing somewhere once with some really fascinating features and which could tell us a lot about evolution in its relative species. But fossils only form in really specific circumstances, and even once they're formed they only survive if they're left undisturbed. What if the local geography is fossil unfriendly, and not a single member of the species has left remains to be found today? We will simply never know it existed. And I mean properly never. It is knowledge that is lost to us and cannot ever be obtained. Similarly, want to know what language was spoken by the people of stone age Britain? Tough, you can't- they didn't write it down, and there is quite literally no way for you to know. Ever.

That's what's so mysterious and fascinating about it.

Re:Maybe an anomaly

[Alomex]

Barring time travel, if evidence for something hasn't survived, there is simply no way of knowing it.

Correct, however how do you know if evidence didn't survive. Who in 1920 would have guessed we could reconstruct the main residence places of a person from mineral isotopes in the bones of said person?

Similarly, want to know what language was spoken by the people of stone age Britain? Tough, you can't- they didn't write it down, and there is quite literally no way for you to know. Ever.

The entire language likely not, but I bet already today we can use phylogenetic tools to identify some words that have survived from then until today. Once again who would have predicted 80 years ago that we could one day do analysis of this kind?

Re:Maybe an anomaly

[__aaltlg1547]

They don't. But what are the odds that of five individuals recovered from one location, one of them would be a freak? Or the location could have been populated by several different species over a period of as much as 20,000 years. That is certainly long enough for it to have happened. But the simplest explanation is one species with skull variations in its population not much greater than what we see in modern humans.

Re:Maybe an anomaly

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that's exactly the kind of linguistic analysis that was being done 80 years ago.

Re:Maybe an anomaly

[Anonymous Coward]

we're talking dozens, rather than grosses

1.8 Million-Year-Old Skull Suggests ...

[mrwolf007]

Man, the real story here is the skull.

It dont really care what it suggests, the mere fact it was talking is creepy...

Re:1.8 Million-Year-Old Skull Suggests ...

[znrt]

Man, the real story here is the skull.

the majority of audience here is us-american and the "debate" around creationism is a typical and unique us-american meme, it's kind of a ritual they pull off at every occasion. for the first 30 seconds it can even be funny. if you take it seriously it quickly becomes creepy.

Re:1.8 Million-Year-Old Skull Suggests ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not as creepy as a talking skull!

Re:1.8 Million-Year-Old Skull Suggests ...

[mrwolf007]

Actually i was just poking fun at the title, for claiming "1.8 Million-Year-Old skull Suggests ..." instead of reading "Scientists studying 1.8 million year old skull suggest ...".

Re:1.8 Million-Year-Old Skull Suggests ...

[znrt]

ok, thanks, guys.
to my skull: woosh!

Re:1.8 Million-Year-Old Skull Suggests ...

[Anonymous Coward]

ROTFL!!!!

Re:1.8 Million-Year-Old Skull Suggests ...

[Anonymous Coward]

At least it only suggested. That last one that Louise Leakey found just blathered on and on....

Re:1.8 Million-Year-Old Skull Suggests ...

[__aaltlg1547]

At least it's not one of these: http://patcoston.com/images/things/tv/Land%20of%20the%20Lost/74~Season%203%20-%20Sleestak%20leader%20speaks%20English%20-%20Season%202%20The%20Longest%20Day%20the%20dad%20and%20Sleestack%20hung%20out%20in%20the%20library%20of%20the%20skulls%20and%20could%20talk%20to%20each%20other.jpg

Re:The Problem

[Arancaytar]

Yeah, yeah, sure. We've become such an awful species now, compared to the enlightened past when slavery and genocide were considered a-ok.

Stuff we know and stuff we assume

[cripkd]

I really have question and then it's not ironic or rethoric.
How do scientists know, when it comes to any prehistoric animal or human skeleton, when an individual becomes to a new species, to some sort of missing link or just-split subspecies, and not just a slightly different individual belonging to a known species?
I mean how do they know when a lightly larger bump on a skull is not normal variation and it's for sure a new species where all individuals will have that bump?
What puzzles me is that we find like 0.00000000001 of all living individuals from that time and species and yet we know it's relevant.

Re:Stuff we know and stuff we assume

[gd2shoe]

How do scientists know, when it comes to any prehistoric animal or human skeleton, when an individual becomes to a new species, to some sort of missing link or just-split subspecies, and not just a slightly different individual belonging to a known species?

When it permits them to publish a paper.

No, I'm serious. When I was in school, the best lecturer in the department was almost canned because the department didn't want to give him tenure. Their excuse? (among other things) He didn't publish enough.

The pressure to publish is enormous, often to the detriment of real science.

Re:Stuff we know and stuff we assume

[evilviper]

How do scientists know, when it comes to any prehistoric animal or human skeleton, when an individual becomes to a new species, to some sort of missing link or just-split subspecies, and not just a slightly different individual belonging to a known species?

The short answer is that there are standards, but this field is an imperfect science, and finds like this, as well as DNA testing do redefine species lines. But does it really matter? A few changes to the ultimate family tree, here and there, doesn't fundamentally change any scientific theories, and probably has zero impact on you. Just consider it the margin of error...

Re:Stuff we know and stuff we assume

[Anonymous Coward]

I really have question and then it's not ironic or rethoric.

How do scientists know, when it comes to any prehistoric animal or human skeleton, when an individual becomes to a new species, to some sort of missing link or just-split subspecies, and not just a slightly different individual belonging to a known species?

I mean how do they know when a lightly larger bump on a skull is not normal variation and it's for sure a new
species where all individuals will have that bump?

What puzzles me is that we find like 0.00000000001 of all living individuals from that time and species and yet we know it's relevant.

I suppose the best answer, really, would be to read the papers in question.

Re:Stuff we know and stuff we assume

[rasmusbr]

I think they look at the complete picture and make their best guess based on all the evidence that they have and the best models that they have. The species concept is also inherently fuzzy. I'm not a biologist, but I've been told it can be fairly hard to tell if two living organisms are of the same species or not. Obviously, we should not expect perfect certainty about individuals that died 2 million years ago.

Scientists never really know anything, because knowing something with full certainty is an absurd idea. When it comes to the distant past our best hope is to be able to paint a rough picture. Of course, advances in chemistry and physics may make it possible to analyze fossils at the molecular and atomic level and find out all sorts of amazing things about them that were previously thought impossible, but even then the whole detailed picture will always elude science.

Creationists love this, but the problem with biblical creationism and Islamic creationism is that if there was a global flood 4000 years ago there would still be a global flood today, because there is nowhere for the water to go. Also, the moon missions would have crashed into the firmament that holds the flood gates to the waters beyond when they orbited the moon since the moon is attached to the firmament. It's funny that there are grown men that hold on to early iron age beliefs about the cosmos...

Re:Stuff we know and stuff we assume

[gl4ss]

man you can't really argue with creationists about the flood since they can say that god drank the water or threw the water into the sun.

for further points, see my sig.

as to how scientists make decisions if some skeleton with deformed legs is a new species or not.. they make educated guesses, based on how the joints are laid out etc. as such history - biological or cultural - tends not to be an exact science but best guess science.

Re:Stuff we know and stuff we assume

[MightyMartian]

Short answer... They don't, not directly anyways. What they do use is techniques like comparative anatomy to determine if a substantial morphological differentiation in existing closely related species similar to those found in fossils represent two different species. But really, the idea of species is somewhat a convenience even in extant populations.

Re:Stuff we know and stuff we assume

[jonathonjones]

At a research institution, the primary responsibility of professors is to advance their subject through research and publishing. Teaching is secondary. So it is entirely appropriate and normal for such an institution to fire a professor for not publishing enough.

Re:Stuff we know and stuff we assume

[__aaltlg1547]

The decide whether it's different enough. And they assume that most of the specimens they find are not freaks.

Re:Stuff we know and stuff we assume

[gd2shoe]

This wasn't a research institution, but a state college. Their mandate is teaching students to allow the economic advantage of having an educated population. Besides, any college with a bachelors program that doesn't value the one teacher who best teaches students is shooting themselves in the foot.

Even in research institutions, quantity of published material is a terrible metric. It's far better to have the genius who publishes once every few years than the nimrod who publishes every month. Unfortunately, it's often about caché (sp?), and not about science. Good institutions understand this, but there are enough out there that aren't that we get a near constant barrage of junk science.

Re:The Problem

[johnsnails]

Ray Comfort http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0u3-2CGOMQ

Re:Does this support creationism?

[abdullah]

No, but It highlights that more scientific rigor is needed around evolution theory, something like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoMAp8Q7nZM supports creationism

Re:Spare me!

[Mr D from 63]

You forgot to close with the obligatory "MUAHAHAHA!"

Re: Spare me!

[Vanderhoth]

I'm not religious, but I don't understand why evolution couldn't be a mechanism created by God? Science and religion don't have to be mutually exclusive. I had a science teacher who was religious when I lived in NC who told me the way he looked at it was God created the rules, but left it to us to figure them out. Science is just the method we use to do that.

Offspring of a mule

[gd2shoe]

We like to think that it's clear-cut. When it's not, we quibble over just how to redefine "clear-cut".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule#Fertility

It seems we may be at the very tail end of Horse/Donkey differentiation.

(Yes this is an assumption on my part, but I doubt there's good reason to think otherwise. A case to demonstrate this for more than two generations is probably too statistically unlikely to ask for. It might conceivably be possible to get Donkey genes into the Horse population with a couple of really lucky generations. IANAG)

Re:Offspring of a mule

[brunes69]

I don't see how this contradicts the traditional definition of a species. Mules are infertile. Therefore they would not survive as a species in the first place if it were not for human breeders. They would just be essentially one-offs that happened occasionally in the wild, and die off. This is how evolution works; the mule would not be a successful species evolutionarily speaking.

Re:Offspring of a mule

[gd2shoe]

You didn't read the link, did you. Some female mules are not infertile. It's just incredibly rare.

If a fertile female mule mated with a horse and produced a fertile female offspring, it could lead to convergence between one donkey and the horse population. Even assuming I know what I'm talking about (I've made a number of genetic assumptions), the odds of this are extraordinarily unlikely... but baring a particularly good reason why not, it is technically possible. Saying that it doesn't work because they're different species would be begging the question.

Re:Spare me!

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if there were a god, I wouldn't submit to one as repugnant and evil as the god of the Bible.

Jesus wasn't white

[tepples]

God's own son wasn't especially white. The Bible makes it clear that he looked like a typical Galilean Jew; otherwise, he would have found it a lot harder to mix with crowds.

Re:Jesus wasn't white

[Anonymous Coward]

do you mean it resembled more a mix between MLK and indira gandhi ???

oh well... I suppose they crucified it for a reason...

(Anyway,he was God's' son so he was blonde and blue eyed and GOD IS WITH US)

Re:Jesus wasn't white

[Anonymous Coward]

He still got called "Honky" a lot, but that was a jab at his incurable flatulence.

Re: Jesus wasn't white

[Anonymous Coward]

Think jewfro

I don't know

[wisnoskij]

We have found distinct groups, and we have called they species.
At the same time we know they could interbreed, and there was no reason why they would not intermingle at times.

Just because they found a few bones that were in-between these species does not suggest anything like, "these species never existed".

Re: Spare me!

[dosius]

I tend to agree on that. Admittedly I'm an "old earth creationist" who believes that there was a "re-creation" or repopulation after a cataclysmic event, but I accept that from the point that life started here, it has not been stagnant, and has been changing and mutating in ways one might call evolution.

Day-age creationism

[tepples]

Yeah, I'm with you. I believe in day-age creationism, that the "days" of Genesis 1 correspond to periods up to billions of years. The Bible makes it clear in 2 Peter 3:8 that time periods from God's point of view aren't necessarily literal, and before the emergence of Homo on the sixth creative day, God's was the only point of view. Even English has idioms like "the good old days" and "back in the day". This and God's use of evolution as a tool show no big conflict between Genesis and the fossil record.

Re:Day-age creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'm with you. I believe in day-age creationism, that the "days" of Genesis 1 correspond to periods up to billions of years. The Bible makes it clear in 2 Peter 3:8 that time periods from God's point of view aren't necessarily literal, and before the emergence of Homo on the sixth creative day, God's was the only point of view. Even English has idioms like "the good old days" and "back in the day". This and God's use of evolution as a tool show no big conflict between Genesis and the fossil record.

Genesis conflicts explicitly with science in the order of creation. Oceans, grass and plants, and day/night, by the third day, but stars not until the fourth.

Re:Day-age creationism

[MightyMartian]

A *literal* interpretation of Genesis conflicts explicitly with the science. I think it's important to point out that the poster you're responding to clearly does not interpret Genesis literally.

I have absolutely no debate, save perhaps on philosophical grounds, with a Christian who accepts the age of the universe, the Earth and with evolution. Obviously any kind of theistic evolutionist is going to assert that God guides the process to one degree or another, but providing they're not claiming there is scientific evidence to that effect, then really, they accept as I do that humans, and indeed all life evolved from a common ancestor.

Re:Day-age creationism

[Camel Pilot]

If God uses evolution as a tool ... Then this alleged Being is not Good and Omnipotent. Darwin when he fully started to understand that ramifications of his theory remarked that:

"What a book a Devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low & horridly cruel works of nature!"

What sort of God would use evolution, lubricated with the blood, guts and unrelenting cruelty, as a means to bring about his favored species or race? Just doesn't make any sense.

Nevertheless Genesis is a earth centered creation story... told from a species centric position. I can't believe anyone would give it any stock or think it has some resemblance to reality. The one thing we do know is that the earth wasn't created first with the stars created at a latter date.

Re:Day-age creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

A *literal* interpretation of Genesis conflicts explicitly with the science. I think it's important to point out that the poster you're responding to clearly does not interpret Genesis literally.

No, even treating days as metaphors for (variant) ages, it still explicitly defines the order of creation in a way that conflicts with the temporal order the evidence presented by science suggests. Stars after the earth. Plants, before seasons. Day and night separately from the sun and moon. The Genesis narrative doesn't just substitute concepts to be more easily understood, it ignores or contradicts causality in a way that makes sense only if you imagine it to be written by people who had a pre-Iron Age understanding of the world around them.

I have absolutely no debate, save perhaps on philosophical grounds, with a Christian who accepts the age of the universe, the Earth and with evolution. Obviously any kind of theistic evolutionist is going to assert that God guides the process to one degree or another, but providing they're not claiming there is scientific evidence to that effect, then really, they accept as I do that humans, and indeed all life evolved from a common ancestor.

The specific claim was that there is concordance between the Bible and science on creation, specifically between Genesis and the fossil record. The GP cites the Bible to make the point that the Almighty's view of the universe wouldn't preclude the time periods, and that's fine as far as the narrative of the Bible goes. But it violate's Gould's non-overlapping magisteria. What happens when that narrative no longer aligns with the scientific one? We all know science doesn't sit still. Which worldview wins out? Would it not depend precisely on what philosophical ground you're standing on, at that point?

Unfortunately, historical precedent tells us that whatever happens next, it's rarely pleasant.

I'm all about getting along, but, unfortunately, I'm not about sustaining polite fiction to do it. If that makes me the asshole pedant of the party, so be it.

Re:Day-age creationism

[MightyMartian]

You fail right at the beginning, because you yourself are taking a literalist view of Genesis and insisting that the creative order itself is not metaphorical. In short, you're inventing a position that a theistic evolutionist will not likely have. You may not agree with their interpretation of Genesis, just as, I'm fairly sure, you're average subscriber to Answers In Genesis does not.

Do you see the irony on essentially siding with Biblical literalists on the interpretation of Genesis?

Re:Day-age creationism

[YttriumOxide]

The problem is that if you can take something so 'directly said' as being metaphor, then you can essentially pick and choose any part of the text to be metaphor the moment it disagrees with reality. By doing this, you no longer have a text with any meaning whatsoever.

If you don't do this and have pre-decided that 'these parts are metaphor', 'these other parts aren't'; then would you change your beliefs when a part that you believed to be statement of fact is proved wrong?

Re:Day-age creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

You fail right at the beginning, because you yourself are taking a literalist view of Genesis and insisting that the creative order itself is not metaphorical.

I've heard many a person say that the days in Genesis were a metaphor for eons, epochs, and so on. It's a simple connection to make.

I've never heard anyone claim that the creative order was a metaphor for anything. I'm interested to think what you think it is.

If the days are a metaphor, and the creation order was a metaphor, were all the objects metaphors? Was Man a metaphor? Was the act of creation itself a metaphor? What, in fact, are the statements of fact in Genesis?

At some point, the narrative has to hook into reality somehow, or it's not an account of anything real. That's the literary definition of fiction.

In short, you're inventing a position that a theistic evolutionist will not likely have. You may not agree with their interpretation of Genesis, just as, I'm fairly sure, you're average subscriber to Answers In Genesis does not.

No, I probably don't agree. But, considering there are a not insignificant number of believers who do take Genesis literally, I don't think I'm inventing anything in terms of the breadth of interpretation. I'm fairly certain there's theistic evolutionists who think of days in Genesis as a metaphor, and have thought it through no further than that.

Do you see the irony on essentially siding with Biblical literalists on the interpretation of Genesis?

Not when I come to the exact opposite conclusion that they do - that it's a book of tales, lessons, and fables, and not the literal Word of God - and certainly not a text that aligns with modern scientific understanding.

Re:Day-age creationism

[Anonymous Coward]

You fail right at the beginning, because you yourself are taking a literalist view of Genesis and insisting that the creative order itself is not metaphorical.

Day-age creationism hinges solely on the interpretation of the Hebrew word 'yom'. It makes no other claim as to the metaphorical quality of Genesis. Therefore, I would assume the creation order is taken as non-metaphorical.

Re:The Problem

[abdullah]

Similar scientific comparison - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34yAgtlCp0A, warning its about an hour long though

3 is now 1?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe it is further proof that there was more cross breeding that what they previously thought. And here is a news flash. If it was closer to when the interbreeding occurred it would not be uncommon to have very contrasting features even between siblings. So while all the bodies in the burial area may be related. It does not mean that there was not originally 3 different species

Surprise

[PopeRatzo]

I never knew before reading Slashdot how many "tech nerds" really hate science.

I wonder how many of them are angry because they couldn't cut it.

Re:Surprise

[PopeRatzo]

Also, a surprising number of those who call themselves "skeptics" in the James Randi cult also resent science.

Simple rule: If science makes you certain, you're doing it wrong.

Re:Surprise

[MightyMartian]

Some things can be accepted with a high degree of certainty. It strikes me that it is almost certain that all life evolved from a common ancestor. It also strikes me as almost certain that the Earth and the other planets condensed out of a cloud of gas and material orbiting the young Sun. It also strikes me as certain that the observable universe was once very hot and very dense and began to expand and cool about 13.5 to 13.7 billion years ago.

There is not Truth in science, but there is something like provisional truth.

Re:Surprise

[PopeRatzo]

a high degree of certainty. It strikes me that it is almost certain

"Almost" and a "high degree of certainty" are very different than the kind of certainty you find in certain circles.

Specifically, religious extremists and pop skeptics.

provisional truth.

But even that changes occasionally. Certainty is a trap.

Re:Surprise

[MightyMartian]

Calling something "provisionally true" is hardly a trap. It recognizes the high degree of certainty while still suggesting that it, like any "fact", can be altered by future evidence.

Simply put, some things are known with a such a high degree of certainty that it would be all but impossible that it would be outright overthrown. We know, as much as ever can be known, that stars are fueled by fusion reactions. That's not to say that the picture is completely clear, or that as-of-yet unobserved phenomena are not at play, but the theory is so well grounded in our understanding of physics and in observation that we do not expect it to be ever overthrown. Enlarged, yes, perhaps even subsumed into some new theory of matter/energy interactions, quite likely.

It's rather like Newtonian mechanics. It would be incorrect to call them outright wrong, since, for most non-relativistic calculations (like, say, putting a probe in orbit around Jupiter), they work very very well. While certainly supplanted by GR, they remain a useful simplification for most real world applications.

Damned few scientific theories have been outright overthrown. I suppose a few, like alternative theories of continent formation and movement, have been pretty much eliminated by the theory of continental drift, but generally a theory is the product of a considerable amount of effort to explain the data by numerous researchers, sometimes in different fields. Thus a theory is almost always fairly rigorously built, debated and modified. It may ultimately be "wrong" in the same way that Newtonian mechanics is technically wrong, but in that case it is almost always subsumed into a larger theory.

I would put Linnaean taxonomy in the same category. It clearly is an antecedent, probably the major antecedent, to Common Descent, but in and of itself, isn't always strictly "right" (look at the debates of how many hominid species there might have been), but is still a useful taxonomical system, and has readily been adapted and altered by new evidence from extant and extinct species.

Re:Surprise

[PopeRatzo]

Damned few scientific theories have been outright overthrown.

The theory is not in danger but the assumptions are.

For example, there was postulation of the existence of microtubules before their existence was proven. The overwhelming consensus was that they could not exist, and even after they were directly observed, the assumption was that it was an artifact of microscope slides. The existence of electronic activity in the brain has a similar origin story. Consensus was that such a thing could not be real, until an occultist who was trying to prove psi energy developed instruments to measure the activity.

The important assumptions in science are often the ones made at the margins. And those are the ones that most often end up being wrong. Understand, I'm not saying they are mostly wrong, but rather when there is an assumption proven to be wrong, it's usually one at the margins. But that's where the important work is to be done, no?

Re:Surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh the common ancestor problem. If the conditions on earth were right for the creation of life, why would it have only created one type. Sorry but that is where the common ancestor breaks down for me. I would expect if the conditions were right for that initial spark of life it would have popped up all over in a variety of ways. In my mind that definitely reduces that high degree quite a bit.

Re:Surprise

[jamesh]

Some things can be accepted with a high degree of certainty. It strikes me that it is almost certain that all life evolved from a common ancestor. It also strikes me as almost certain that the Earth and the other planets condensed out of a cloud of gas and material orbiting the young Sun. It also strikes me as certain that the observable universe was once very hot and very dense and began to expand and cool about 13.5 to 13.7 billion years ago.

There is not Truth in science, but there is something like provisional truth.

I think the problem with "certain" in this case is when science makes you so certain that you will not consider any alternate theory. History is peppered with many examples of this.

Re:Surprise

[MightyMartian]

I'm not clear. Where in abiogenesis theory does it say only one type of life evolved? All we can say for certain is that only one kind of life survived.

Re:Surprise

[MightyMartian]

I frankly don't think the history of science is littered with those sorts of things. I can only think of a small handful of actual scientific theories being outright rejected (and no, pseudo-scientific nonsense like phrenology and Victorian racial "theory" were never science). The ones I can think of are theories like phlogiston, pre-tectonic geological theories, some other models for the universe (ie. steady state theory). The latter is an example of a theory that ultimately didn't completely collapse until the 1960s, though it had been delivered its mortal blow decades earlier by Hubble's observations. In the end, Big Bang cosmology won out because it explained observation in the most parsimonious way.

This idea that vast cabals of scientists disinterested in anything but propping up their own theories is pure rubbish. That was more the product of the pre-scientific age, when someone like Galileo could be imprisoned for questioning the Ptolemaic model, which was horribly wretched and really couldn't even explain observations at all.

Re:Surprise

[MightyMartian]

Do you actually think theories like plate tectonics or Proto-Indo European were developed at the margins? They may have initially been developed by researchers who, by the mere fact that they posited theories, were in the minority, but their success didn't come because the researchers dared to develop a new model, but because ultimately their models best explained observation, and just as critically, made further predictions as to what we ought to find if we went looking.

There's this great myth in science, perhaps promulgated by the likes of Popper, that science is a series of revolutions terminating periods of retrenchment and even inactivity. But an actual analysis of science demonstrates that for every "eureka!" moment, there are probably a hundred slow steady research programs that work towards modest goals, and its the sum of those programs' (successes and failures) that builds towards new understanding.

Re:Surprise

[PopeRatzo]

Wait, I think we're talking past each other. Of course not every important new theory is a "eureka moment", but the margins happen to be where a lot of the work is being done. After all, is anyone doing groundbreaking work in the movement of the planets? In fact, nearly none of science is done by flash of insight. And that wasn't even the point I was trying to make. I'm saying that a lot of the groundbreaking work happens because there was something missing in a previous assumption. But most work in science is not groundbreaking. Most work is incremental, but even those increments come because someone looked at a problem differently - made some different assumptions.

The first-hand observation of "science at work" has been entirely in mathematics. While I pay attention to the history and cultural foundations of science in other fields, that's the one I can see done every day, at home. And there are damn few eureka moments, that's for sure.

Re:Surprise

[jamesh]

This idea that vast cabals of scientists disinterested in anything but propping up their own theories is pure rubbish. That was more the product of the pre-scientific age, when someone like Galileo could be imprisoned for questioning the Ptolemaic model, which was horribly wretched and really couldn't even explain observations at all.

I said "peppered", not "littered". I wasn't implying that it happens all the time, but it does happen. The case of helicobacter pylori is the one that springs to mind immediately.

And if you replace "cabals of scientists" with "big pharma funding cabals of scientists" you come up with a statement that is a bit OT, but is anything but pure rubbish ;)

Re:Surprise

[jpkunst]

There's this great myth in science, perhaps promulgated by the likes of Popper, that science is a series of revolutions terminating periods of retrenchment and even inactivity.

That's Kuhn, not Popper.

Re:The Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Ray's an idiot. Better to bring Aliester Crowley to a physics convention.

Sad comment on the "science" ....

[fygment]

5 skulls leading to pronouncements on the species and its evolution?!

5 of several tens or hundreds of thousands is not statistically significant.

This is why creationism can survive, because it at times makes as much sense as the extraordinary extrapolations tossed out by scientists.

Make it right. Demand that the scientists also share possible margins of error (in this case HUGE).

Re:Sad comment on the "science" ....

[koan]

Science has a tendency to correct it's self, creationism does not, you see that's the trap of religion, in order to be valid it must remain unchanged.

Because if you change it.... =)

Re:Sad comment on the "science" ....

[Anonymous Coward]

5 skulls leading to pronouncements on the species and its evolution?!

In principle, it only takes one counterexample to disprove a hypothesis.

5 of several tens or hundreds of thousands is not statistically significant.

This is why creationism can survive, because it at times makes as much sense as the extraordinary extrapolations tossed out by scientists.

The skulls exist. They presumably can be explained. The paper proposes an explanation. If it's bullshit, future papers exploring the inferences will clarify that. Welcome to published science, where your incredulity means nothing.

Make it right. Demand that the scientists also share possible margins of error (in this case HUGE).

Margins of error are for measurements.

Re:Sad comment on the "science" ....

[Bite The Pillow]

The article has a few quotes from opposing viewpoints essentially calling bullshit.
Science will not change because of one data point or one opinion unless it is bulletproof, which almost never happens. The real problem is reporting, where data is simplified once for the reporter, again by the reporter, again by the headline, and probably once each by the editor and reader.
Go read the article, note both sides being represented, and admit how you simplified one person's report to mean all of science, and come back here to apologize for exactly the thing you are whinging about.

Re:Sad comment on the "science" ....

[devent]

If you think the margins of error are huge if you have like you claim "5 of several tens or hundreds of thousands" like in palaeontology, what kind of error margins have you if it is "0 of several tens or hundreds of thousands", like in Creationism, infinite?
Because at least we have evidence in the faculty of palaeontology and in natural evolution, but none evidence for Creationism.

Re:Sad comment on the "science" ....

[Anonymous Coward]

5 of several tens or hundreds of thousands is not statistically significant.

Too bad the sample space of the available skulls is not thousands in size.

Re:Sad comment on the "science" ....

[Empiric]

... in order to be valid it must remain unchanged.

No, it doesn't. It shares the same process of contextual application as... most every domain of human activity. Is the U.S. Constitution "valid"? Does the fact we now aren't talking about literal militias and muskets in applying it, invalidate the principles?

Feel free to continue making up universally logically-impossible criteria and false definitions, such as the meaning of "faith", and wishfully projecting that onto religious practice, though. Enjoy. We'll just continue on with what it actually is, and what we actually do.

Re:Sad comment on the "science" ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the U.S. Constitution "valid"? Yes. As valid as people want to make it, unfortunately that doesn't work for religion because God in the form sold by the 3 majors doesn't exist, it is a logical fallacy.

"Does the fact we now aren't talking about literal militias and muskets in applying it, invalidate the principles?"
I actually belong to a "literal" militia, recognized by the state, and while I don't own a musket I do own the modern equivalent.

"feel free to continue making up universally logically-impossible criteria and false definitions, such as the meaning of "faith", and wishfully projecting that onto religious practice, though. Enjoy. We'll just continue on with what it actually is, and what we actually do."

I do feel free as I don't buy into concepts fronted by the 3 major religions, which are human centric drivel, have little to do with reality and have been for years used as control and oppression tools.

Your "faith" is my joke, that you deign to scold me is evidence enough of your unrelenting arrogance, anyone of merit would have skimmed past my post, but you took it personally.

"universally logically-impossible criteria and false definitions"
Did I do that? Holy shit that's impressive as I sound quite a bit more intelligent than I actually am.
Good luck with your religion thingy.

Re:Sad comment on the "science" ....

[Empiric]

God in the form sold by the 3 majors doesn't exist, it is a logical fallacy.

This in itself is sufficient to demonstrate you have no idea what a logical fallacy is, or how logic is applied. Which fallacy? The real ones are actually formalized and enumerated. Theism is not among them.

I actually belong to a "literal" militia, recognized by the state, and while I don't own a musket I do own the modern equivalent.

This is relevant only insofar as you are agreeing with me. The founding fathers certainly didn't have the precise form of your "militia" in mind when the principle was drafted, yet, I presume you feel it applies. It is also quite-unproblematically used to apply to individuals "bearing arms" in general, though that lacks the precise correspondence to the original text that you claim would make it not "valid".

Your "faith" is my joke, that you deign to scold me is evidence enough of your unrelenting arrogance, anyone of merit would have skimmed past my post, but you took it personally.

Yawn. You might be able to troll me with that if I didn't know otherwise as fact. We'll take up the discussion to elaborate on the question at a much-later date, though. Your participation non-optional.

Re:Obligatory WTF

[thunderclap]

White men were created by God resembling Him.
Blacks and Muslims devolved from monkeys.

I am unsure this was intentional or not. It says devolved from Monkeys. Meaning Monkeys were higher on the evolutionary ladder. To be accurate: He is suggesting that current blacks are actually monkeys and current monkeys are evolved blacks.

Re:Obligatory WTF

[labawi]

I am unsure this was intentional or not. It says devolved from Monkeys. Meaning Monkeys were higher on the evolutionary ladder. To be accurate: He is suggesting that current blacks are actually monkeys and current monkeys are evolved blacks.

I would suggest that devolution would have positive descendance, but the change is negative. So the named people would be retarded monkeys

Re: Spare me!

[Anonymous Coward]

True. I believe all laws of the universe can be created by God and therefore everything that is happening naturally can be thought of as God's will, and therefore it is indistunquishable and our fate etc dependant on some other power which is a power of nature power of fate power of God, call it whatever you like but it is the same Power which governs us all ... Makes sense to me.

Re:The Problem

[flyneye]

Put on some Speed Stick and you wouldn't be so awful.
I'm just delighted to be able to explain the ridge brow, knuckle draggers I've had to cover for all my life.
Of course these species are one. Still are! As are Homerus Erectus,(average hominids) Gluteus Rex,(species attracted to elected office) Rattus Habilis,(law enforcement and judicial hairy lizards) various mamosauruses (double breasted rod suckers) and ptero shrews( pinchy face complainers).
I can't get down the street for herds of them making nuisances of themselves all day long. We need a hunting season...

Re:The Problem

[flyneye]

Not a problem, I'll let him know, he's over at Ozzy and Sharons for tarot poker.
I'll see your Crowley and raise you one Lovecraft as a Seminary lecturer.

Re:The Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, Ray is still an idiot.

How much can bones tell ?

[raurau]

Amateur question here, but how much of the story can be learned just from bones ? All dogs are the same species for example, but their skeletons show such a huge variance that I bet they would be mistaken for multiple species.

Re: How much can bones tell ?

[dcraid]

Interesting question, but I am afraid that the variation in size of dogs is due strictly to human intervention, to thousands of years of selective breeding. I cannot think of another species with such variance.

Re: How much can bones tell ?

[gl4ss]

variations in dog size and form doesn't really take thousands of years...

more like couple of decades.

interestingly the concept of eugenics came to be couple of decades after breeding funny looking dogs became all the rage in high society(then it became all the rage in lower society and the variations went too far, to plain unhealthy, as they are today).

and then we have the possibility that humans - through intentional means - have had the possibility to mess with their offsprings look by adjusting things as they grow. like tying their heads so they look funny or their legs so that they can't run.

Re:The Problem

[YoungManKlaus]

well ... for population control (which would reduce ressouce need) there is nothing better than having people either starve, kill each other or die of dissease (black death) - or preferably all-in-one.

Re:Does this support creationism?

[__aaltlg1547]

Both proponents of creationism and anthropologists agree that all living humans must have one common male ancestor at some point. They Y-MRCA (most recent ancestor of all y-chromosomes, and the guy who had it) is estimated to have lived sometime between 140,000 and 300,000 years ago. That would probably make him H. sapiens because sapiens has been around for about 200,000 years. However, we can't be sure. If the oldest date is right, he might have been h. heidelbergensis.

Color me completely unsurprised

[Anonymous Coward]

In my Physical Anthro course 16 years ago, I specifically remember the prof lamenting H.habilis as a "wastebasket taxon". Don't know how it fits- throw it in there.

There is tremendous pressure on professors to find "new" species to secure funding. This leads to all kinds of taxonomic irregularities. Over time, though, these things tend to get smoothed out.

Re:The Problem

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Heh. Bucaille is a dimwit, and a beautiful example how even supposedly smart people can be scammed.

Re:The Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is he a dimwit ?

Re:The Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

This article is one good example of how supposedly smart people can be scammed and can scam others, Bucaille is entitled to his scientific opinion.

New name?

[Anonymous Coward]

Homo apatosaurus?

An online word masher suggests "Homo wibilysruwalfotsasohictid," which really rolls off the tongue.

Re:The Problem

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Because as a scientist, he should have been able to recognize the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Come on, this is high school stuff! The level of senility that would make you forget the most basic principles should force you into retirement, and not into making public speeches.

Re: Spare me!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your proposition is incredibly subjective. You need to decide this for yourself. I do not read Slashdot to discuss the notions of how much influence an invisible pink unicorn had in the creation of a mechanism.

Re:The Problem

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I've always held it suspicious how the supposed ancestral and sibling species to Homo sapiens exploded in numbers in the recent decades, based on such fragmentary finds. I think I'm entitled to some gleeful Schadenfreude right now. B-) Now, mind you, this will be contested, and there's a serious chance that these scientists will be proven wrong to a large extent. But one has to wonder how many of the currently recognized hominid species are fictional. We've seen that happen before in paleontology; it's not like this would be something new.

Re:Obligatory WTF

[MightyMartian]

They aren't separate species because 1. Interbreeding produces fertile healthy young, 2 the genetic distance between human populations is very small.

John Godfrey Saxe on laws and sausages

[tepples]

If God uses evolution as a tool ... Then this alleged Being is not Good and Omnipotent.

God is all-powerful, but that doesn't mean he likes to waste power. God is good, even if giving humankind what we need doesn't necessarily include giving us everything we might want.

What sort of God would use evolution, lubricated with the blood, guts and unrelenting cruelty, as a means to bring about his favored species or race?

One who intends to hand stewardship of all non-Homo species over to Homo, as in Genesis 9:2-3. What John Godfrey Saxe wrote about laws and sausages applies equally well to sapient apex species.

Nevertheless Genesis is a earth centered creation story... told from a species centric position.

I agree, and I have a hypothesis about that. God reveals what we need to know to serve him, and as of right now, we don't need to worry ourselves with the other class-M planets that he's running.

Re:John Godfrey Saxe on laws and sausages

[Anonymous Coward]

If God uses evolution as a tool ... Then this alleged Being is not Good and Omnipotent.

God is all-powerful, but that doesn't mean he likes to waste power. God is good, even if giving humankind what we need doesn't necessarily include giving us everything we might want.

A universe was created with 10^80 atoms, to allow 10^30 atoms to form a planet that could house a target species that could only live on part of it. 13.75 billion years of cooking time was required to get us to about 95,000 years of that species' existence.

Its like the word 'waste' doesn't mean anything.

What sort of God would use evolution, lubricated with the blood, guts and unrelenting cruelty, as a means to bring about his favored species or race?

One who intends to hand stewardship of all non-Homo species over to Homo, as in Genesis 9:2-3. What John Godfrey Saxe wrote about laws and sausages applies equally well to sapient apex species.

That makes God amoral. He becomes a kid with an ant farm.

Nevertheless Genesis is a earth centered creation story... told from a species centric position.

I agree, and I have a hypothesis about that. God reveals what we need to know to serve him, and as of right now, we don't need to worry ourselves with the other class-M planets that he's running.

Personally, I'd sooner reveal what we can know about the M class planets, and not worry ourselves after God.

Re:Homo erectus- isn't he still with us?

[__aaltlg1547]

they don't always. But there's some sketchy validation for it in the fact that we are all descended from Africans. Never mind that Africans evolved just as much as the rest of us since our differently-colored populations split from the seminal herd.

Sometimes they do it like this:
http://tinyurl.com/kov942a (Slashdot wouldn't accept original URL because it's Russian and "too long"

The best guess would be to give them neutral racial characteristics. We have no clue when skin colors and hair types diverged. They might have been just as varied among h. erectus as they are among modern humans, since they had just as long or even longer to adapt to varied conditions and climates.

Re:The Problem

[flyneye]

wul , yeah
But, anyway Ozzy, Sharon and Al are having a barbeque and I think I'm just gonna go hang there for a bit....

Re:The Problem

[johnsnails]

He might be an idiot... But do you care to answer any of his questions in the video? Maybe he 'Cherry Picked' his professors. In any case, it does little to help the fact that he would get served once you look into Christianty unfortunately.

Re: Spare me!

[SecurityTheatre]

There is absolutely no scientific reason that the "Big Bang" couldn't have been created by a higher power who then set the laws of physics and motion and energy, etc.

Or it could have happened out of some sort of mathematical singularity.

I think it's pretty clear that this "god" doesn't get involved in the outcome of sporting events, or the determination of which individuals of a certain species live and die (or get a passing grade on their paper, or anything else that people pray for), and it seems pretty implausible that he would take certain individuals who were especially naughty and burn them forever in some sort of fire lake under the ground.

In fact, it strikes me that some deity capable and interested in setting up the laws of thermodynamics wouldn't give two shits about who is "forgiven" and who is repentant and whether or not you love your brother.

If he indeed created a universe 13.8 billion years ago, and we suddenly started believing in him approximately 3500 years ago, doesn't that strike you as a bit odd?

As Tim Minchim said.... "I don't go in for ancient wisdom. Just because ideas are tenacious, doesn't mean they are worthy."

Re: Does this support creationism?

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely an ancestor with as much variation in the species as described in the article does support creationism. This ancestor had a diverse gene pool which supports devolution as races became more distinct over time, ie, a shallowing of their gene pool rather than random mutation.

Religion aside, if all our evidence points to a single common ancestor is it not just as possible that he was created by an alien than an accident of the universe. How long before mankind can make life? Why couldn't an alien do the same before us? Just saying this because creationism doesn't mean religion and is worth scientific debate

Re:The Problem

[flyneye]

38 minutes to get around to questions? Not on my valuable time.
I will say for the benefit of the snake handling faith healers among us; I can find NO place where evolution disproves the creation story. I can find NO place where the Science we have isn't feasable to creation. What I CAN find are two factions, who can't tell the difference between rooting for a team and searching for truth, both replete with bullshit, closed minds and the priority to be right over the priority of truth. Most of this fault is attributed to laziness and lack of rigor on behalf of what passes for Atheism and Christianity. Both, as it stands, lack a reasonable presentation of facts to either eliminate or nurture faith, due to the general ignorance and political aspirations of their erstwhile leaders/spokesmen.
It's like a bunch of kids jumping around in cape costumes pretending to be superheroes while everyone knows they are merely children.
The Christians haven't delved far enough into Hebrew history, let alone the books they purport to live by and the Atheists haven't even gotten that far.
It really resembles an old Looney Tunes feature to watch both their "arguments", yet I am not amused and more disturbed that my equanimity has been challenged by their distant farting.

Re:The Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

No. He's not owed any answers from me, and he's not asking them in an intellectually honest fashion. He cherry picks superficial inconsistencies in the layman's understanding of evolution, then when presented with more rigorous explanations, hides behind his "I'm a simple man" facade.

The number of cuts he makes in the video should tell you something about how he doesn't want his subjects to get a word in edgewise. Even Eric Tovind replays his videos in their entirety when he does his Presuppositional apologetics.

Re: Does this support creationism?

[__aaltlg1547]

Surely an ancestor with as much variation in the species as described in the article does support creationism. This ancestor had a diverse gene pool which supports devolution as races became more distinct over time, ie, a shallowing of their gene pool rather than random mutation.

Religion aside, if all our evidence points to a single common ancestor is it not just as possible that he was created by an alien than an accident of the universe. How long before mankind can make life? Why couldn't an alien do the same before us? Just saying this because creationism doesn't mean religion and is worth scientific debate

No, the evidence supports the idea that either (a) two or more species used the same site "about the same time" if you allow for "about the same time" to cover 6x recorded history OR the individuals found represent only one species that was about as varied as modern man. There's no evidence of "devolution." Genes change by random mutation in every generation. Your genes are not 100% faithful copies of your parents' genes. http://www.sanger.ac.uk/about/press/2011/110612.html On average, people have 60 new mutations with each generation. Most of those random genetic changes are harmless, but some of them matter and devolution WOULD occur if it were not for natural selection screening out genes that result in lowered rates of reproduction.

Even minor harmful mutations are screened out over many generations. Likewise a mutation that gave a mere 1% advantage in reproduction 1.8 million years ago (the time at which these proto-people lived) would have been present in every living descendant within 50,000 years. We all have the best of what those hominids had 1.8 million years ago plus a whole lot of mutations that occurred since.

Regarding the likelihood that life was somehow introduced to our planet a billion years ago, the burden is on those who would like to advance such ideas. There isn't any reason for the rest of us to entertain such complications.

Re:The Problem

[Fenster Karton]

It has happened before.

Re: Spare me!

[Vanderhoth]

I'm not religious and don't believe in a higher power anyway. I'm quite happy believing the universe is a completely freak accident. I'm pretty well in agreement with you that if there was a God, he/she/it probably wouldn't care about us or anyone person. All the things people attribute to God are things they made up or did themselves. "I got a good grade, must have been God", doesn't really fly with me, you studied and worked hard to get the grade you received or you made some good guesses. Sure things we can't explain happen, but rather than "we can't explain them" I prefer "we can't explain them yet".

bible does not tchange

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the bible does not change, it has not been changed much since each section has been written. Let's face it it is not a very fluid document, except in some peoples minds.

Re: Spare me!

[Quirkz]

I think it's pretty clear that this "god" doesn't get involved in the outcome of sporting events

Just once I'd like to see someone say after a world championship, "I'd like to thank God for having a grudge against all the other teams."

Re:The Problem

[airdweller]

So, you're an agnostic?

Re:The Problem

[flyneye]

Nope, so far I believe. A mountain of stuff to sort out, how much I believe.( Apocrypha, early writings, archaeological finds, etc.)
I just believe something more, with finer details. I don't stumble over things like creation stories, because I understand how records were kept in the Septuagint.
What I can't believe is that; with all we have found, nearly nothing of importance has trickled down to J.Q. Public, sitting in a pew, who is still asked to believe that men lived well over 100 years. He is never told that this data reflects the tribes and communities along with their longevity and that we can physically SHOW him that. Further, this is only 1 example.
History and findings SHOULD be included in everyones faith, so that we are able to make an informed decision about just exactly WHAT we believe.
I assure you, if you attend church and this was part of it, no one would be ready to nod off, ministers wouldn't come off as babysitting clowns to be patronized and everyone could have an opportunity to know what the hell they were talking about.

Re:The Problem

[frankcox]

The ignorance of their own religion among evolutionists never ceases to amaze. For a long time now honest evolutionists have said habillus was a dishonest taxom, just assorted bones of southern apes. Erectus was fully human . ", Wood and Collard have even suggested that the species rudolfensis (exemplified by cranium KNM-ER 1470) and habilis (exemplified by cranium KNM-ER 1813) be transferred from the genus Homo to Australopithecus " Wood, B. and Collard, M., The changing face of genus Homo, Evolutionary Anthropology 8:204, 1999 All we find is that humans have always been humans and apes ,apes. Same with cats and dogs, ask your local vet , there are greart variations but the only apeman was Piltdown .

Re:The Problem

[flyneye]

Whadda you mean was? I'm pretty sure I worked for a piltdown ,years and years ago in a warehouse. Skull shape was there. Eyebrow longer than his hair, short , barrel shape, profuse body hair, one syllable grunts, fairly proficient with hand tools, hunched over most of the time.
They walk among us.

Re:The Problem

[johnsnails]

So, you do think there are good answers given by the Professors? but just taken out?