MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
|
|
|
From the Readers
- barefooted 8 months ago
- PeraclesPlease 9 months ago
- PeraclesPlease 10 months ago
- PeraclesPlease 10 months ago
- PeraclesPlease 11 months ago
- PeraclesPlease 12 months ago
- artappraiser 1 year ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- artappraiser 1 year ago
Creative corner
- PeraclesPlease 10 months ago
- PeraclesPlease 11 months ago
- PeraclesPlease 1 year ago
- artappraiser 1 year ago
- artappraiser 1 year ago
From the Dagbloggers
- Michael Wolraich 10 months 2 weeks ago
- Danny Cardwell 3 years 1 month ago
- Doctor Cleveland 3 years 10 months ago
- PeraclesPlease 4 years 1 week ago
- PeraclesPlease 4 years 1 week ago
- William K. Wolfrum 4 years 1 week ago
- William K. Wolfrum 4 years 1 week ago
- Doctor Cleveland 4 years 1 month ago
- Doctor Cleveland 4 years 1 month ago
- William K. Wolfrum 4 years 1 month ago
Hits of the Day
- artappraiser (17)
- oldenGoldenDecoy (16)
- artappraiser (15)
- artappraiser (15)
- oldenGoldenDecoy (14)
New Fossils May Redraw Human Ancestry
By artappraiser on Fri, 09/09/2011 - 7:36pm |By Nicholas Wade, New York Times, September 8/9/2011
An apelike creature with human features, whose fossil bones were discovered recently in a South African cave, is being greeted by paleoanthropologists as a likely watershed in the understanding of human evolution.
The discoverer of the fossils, Lee Berger of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, says the new species, known as Australopithecus sediba, is the most plausible known ancestor of archaic and modern humans. Several other paleoanthropologists, while disagreeing with that interpretation, say the fossils are of great importance anyway, because they elucidate the mix-and-match process by which human evolution was shaped.
Dr. Berger’s claim, if accepted, would radically redraw the present version of the human family tree....
URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/science/09fossils.html?ref=todayspaper
- Add new comment
- 1221 reads
Comments
the operative word here is "may" as in "may redraw." The evidence given our understanding how evolution works, specifically the reality of growth of brain size, says Berger's claim is most likely off the mark.
by Elusive Trope on Sat, 09/10/2011 - 1:28am
Agreed. I like Wade's explanation:
Dr. Berger's only human, as are his fellow scientists and New York Times readers. All of us instinctively attach far more importance to our own ancestry than to some now-extinct branch of the ape family. Totally unscientific, but there it is.
What this discovery demonstrates to me is that the same evolutionary forces that turned one line of australopithicenes into humans continued to reshape other lines that did not. Evolution didn't develop with the human race as its goal. In fact, if our line had died out, there would probably still be bloggers and rocket scientists and palaeoanthropologists today -- and Berger's claim would be true. He just wouldn't be around to make it.
by acanuck on Sat, 09/10/2011 - 2:15pm
All who have examined these fossils agree that the find of such a complete specimen from one species, 2 skulls, teeth, foot, hand, pelvis with a confusing mix of ape and homo traits show that (1) if you just find a tooth, a hand or a pelvis (which is often the case) you won't be able to say for sure 'it must be homo', it may or may not be. (2) paleontologists need to figure out what trait(s) distinguish homo, (as they have with mammals-lower dentary = one bone). It may be we will never find or figure out which collection of bones was the absolute first homo species, or even agree on which traits are necessary to say we have a homo species (without interviewing the subject!).
by NCD on Sat, 09/10/2011 - 7:42pm
Give it time… Is there enough DNA to start working on a clone?
by Verified Atheist on Sat, 09/10/2011 - 8:01pm
Just wanted to say that I found your comment especially helpful in understanding the situation, so thanks.
by artappraiser on Sun, 09/11/2011 - 2:51pm