that's funny, ed!
Posted on 08/10/2008 4:21:37 AM PDT by Soliton
Nothing against fossils, but when it comes to tracing the story of human evolution they’re taking a back seat lately to everything from DNA to lice, and even the DNA of lice. A few years ago scientists compared the DNA of body lice (which are misnamed: they live in clothing, not the human body) to that of head lice, from which they evolved, and concluded that the younger lineage split off from the older no more than 114,000 years ago, as I described in a cover story last year. Since body lice probably arose when a new habitat did, and since that habitat was clothing, that’s when our ancestors first needed a haberdasher. The Y chromosome has been an even greater source of clues to human evolution, showing among other things that the most recent common ancestor of all men alive today lived 89,000 years ago in Africa, and that the first modern humans walked out of Africa about 66,000 years ago and became the ancestors of everyone outside that natal continent.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.newsweek.com ...
> The fossil record is no longer necessary for proving
> evolution. We can see its workings directly in genomes.
Spoken with the authority and finality of someone who’s been there and done that and has the hat to prove it.
Besides fossils are all out there in the dirt. Its hot sweaty work to find them.
This is much better as you never have to leave the ‘lab’ with its AC, lattes, and internet access.
Through comparison with the human genome, we have generated a largely complete catalogue of the genetic differences that have accumulated since the human and chimpanzee species diverged from our common ancestor, constituting approximately thirty-five million single-nucleotide changes, five million insertion/deletion events, and various chromosomal rearrangements. We use this catalogue to explore the magnitude and regional variation of mutational forces shaping these two genomes, and the strength of positive and negative selection acting on their genes. In particular, we find that the patterns of evolution in human and chimpanzee protein-coding genes are highly correlated and dominated by the fixation of neutral and slightly deleterious alleles. We also use the chimpanzee genome as an outgroup to investigate human population genetics and identify signatures of selective sweeps in recent human evolution.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=16136131
This same thinking has been seen in compute models of mechanical structures. People have abandoned older classical methods for the easier computer models. The problem is “garbage in garbage out”. Just because you have other methods of analysis is no reason to abandon tried and true methods. Believe the results if they can be confirmed by multiple methods.
Fossils are remnants of traits expressed by genes. We can now look directly at the genetics behind those traits. The fossil record isn't necessary anymore but it is still very interesting and very useful
Just curious. Did someone beat you with a bible?
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Not only is there no common ancestor for humans and chimpanzees, but the common belief amongst "evolutionary biologists(TM)" regarding a common ancestor for us and neanderthals only works for people who've never taken a basic logic course. The neanderthal has been completely ruled out as a plausible ancestor for modern man by DNA analysis since the genetic gap is simply too wide and all other hominids were much further removed from us than the neanderthal; i.e. if we could not be descended from the neanderthal, there is nothing else on the planet which we could be descended from.
Moreover this lack of true intermediate species is the general and unbroken rule on this planet. Darwin's vision of gradualistic evolution required that the vast bulk of all fossils be intermediates and all anybody has ever produced has been a handful of arguable cases.
Moreover, this lack of intermediate fossils was the main motive for Gould, Eldridge, Myer et. all. in devising the new defacto standard variant of evolutionism called "punctuated equilibria" or "punk-eek". If there was any rational way anybody could claim that there really are lots of intermediate fossils if you just look carefully enough, then Gould and Eldridge would not have bothered.
Real science theories do not need to be reinvented every twenty or thirty years. Punk-eek is entirely idiotic for a number of reasons not involving fossil counts and amounts to a claim of a massive refutation of the basic laws of mathematics and probability. In particular the claim that every species on Earth has arisen from genetic advantages acquired by "peripheral isolates" is like requiring Custer to win at Little Bighorn every day for tens of billions of years.
Basically, nobody with anything resembling brains or talent is defending evolution at this juncture; it is being defended by dead wood and second and third raters.
Um, I think saying that "abandoning" fossil seeking is being advocated is a bit of an exaggeration. I don't think anyone is saying that since have this new avenue to pursue we now have enough fossils.
Pure and utter nonsense.
Modern man's earliest known close ancestor was significantly more apelike than previously believed, a New York University College of Dentistry professor has found.
A computer-generated reconstruction by Dr. Timothy Bromage, a paleoanthropologist and Adjunct Professor of Biomaterials and of Basic Science and Craniofacial Biology, shows a 1.9 million-year-old skull belonging to Homo rudolfensis, the earliest member of the human genus, with a surprisingly small brain and distinctly protruding jaw, features commonly associated with more apelike members of the hominid family living as much as three million years ago. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070324133018.htm
Moreover this lack of true intermediate species is the general and unbroken rule on this planet.
All extinct species are intermediate species
Basically, nobody with anything resembling brains or talent is defending evolution at this juncture; it is being defended by dead wood and second and third raters.
Thousands of PhDs are wrong and Wendy1946 is right. Your ignorance of the topic is profound.
If you actually studied evolution before making such definitive statements about it you would look less the fool.
Fossil From Last Common Ancestor Of Neanderthals And Humans Found In Europe, 1.2 Million Years Old
I know what you're trying to say, but your statement is wrong. Most extinct species died out without leaving descendants. Several major extinction events killed off roughly 90% of all species living at the time, and the earth was repopulated by the minority which survived. Most of the extinct hominids you talk about all the time left no descendants; only Homo sapiens survived.
An extremely frightening statement, from a scientific perspective. We can ignore the only evidence we have of extinct life forms for billions of years, because our theory is perfect and must remain unchallenged.
That's very similar to the Global Warming cultists, who say "the case in closed" because their computer models say so.
Not "necessary," perhaps, but it's nice to have two major lines of evidence for a nested hierarchy.
Not to mention the joy of adding two more gaps every once in a while.
All life on earth has a common ancestor
The term "species" is an old taxonomic designation. A whale is a species and dolphins are a different species. However, whales and dolphins can interbreed to produce "wolphins" A species is simply a snapshot of evolution in progress. Chihuahuas are the same species as great Danes. If we killed all of the other breeds and only had those two left, they would be separate species because they could not interbreed.
Even the extinct species that left no descendants were intermediate. They were just killed before they could speciate further.
Your blind faith in evolution exceeds the informed faith of those who believe Scripture. The physical evidence for a Creator creating according to the Scriptural account is not lacking.
I love fossils
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