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"Key" Human Ancestor Found: Fossils Link Apes, First Humans?
National Geographic News ^ | April 8, 2010 | Ker Than

Posted on 04/11/2010 1:38:48 PM PDT by valkyry1

Identified via two-million-year-old fossils, a new human ancestor dubbed Australopithecus sediba may be the "key transitional species" between the apelike australopithecines—and the first Homo, or human, species, according to a new study.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: australopithecus; godsgravesglyphs; notagain; pseudoscience; sediba
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To: allmendream; wendy1946
No what she was saying for the descent to work at some point the descendant had to be bred from the ancestor and she was using Neanderthal man as an example (it did not happen) and that genetically he was closer than the chimp. I have no problem with the larger concept that man did not descend from Neanderthal or the chimp-like creature.

All that evolutionary biology needs is circular logic saying that it is true, everything else is interchangeable and easily replaced.

Now all the evolutionist hyperbole aside, the latest missing link is obviously another ape. It was 4’ tall, had long arms and hands and a very small brain.

For one thing, unlike human species but like other australopithecines, A. sediba had a very small brain. The fossil species also had long ape-like arms with primitive wrists that were well suited for climbing trees.

41 posted on 04/12/2010 9:38:04 AM PDT by valkyry1
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To: valkyry1

Not at all what the poster said. Neanderthal IS closer in DNA to humans than to a chimp, that doesn’t tell you if it was in a direct line of descent that led to humans.

Creationist “science”; invent a ludicrous requirement, point out that reality doesn’t support the ludicrous requirement - conclude that the science is faulty because it doesn’t live up to your invented criteria.

All that evolutionary or ANY science needs is a model that explains the data. Common descent of species explains the data as to why humans and chimps are closer to each other than either is to a gorilla. It also explains why we and other apes form a pattern of similarity and divergence in our ERV sequences.

Creationism as a model doesn’t explain the data. Most creationists don’t know understand or even CARE to know the data.

The latest fossil find is obviously of a species of bipedal ape.

Humans are, zoologically, a bipedal ape; the only one extant upon the Earth today.

At differnt times and places apparently there were several different species of bipedal apes.

Once again evolutionary science has a model that explains every observation. Once again creationism has nothing, does nothing, explains nothing, and doesn’t lead anyone to any further knowledge.

Just the way creationists like it!

After all, the more someone learns the less likely they are to be a creationist!


42 posted on 04/12/2010 10:06:50 AM PDT by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
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To: allmendream
The actual truth is that this thing could be just another extinct ape, that's all. With only two examples there is no way to tell. But you have already accepted it as fitting into your preconceived model, the one that explains everything for you. That is hardly science. But plenty of other people have their doubts because it does not fit fit their preconceptions on the ancestor of Homo. One such person is this anthropologist.

For example, A. sediba's arms are too long—too apelike—and the species isn't as well adapted for upright walking as some scientists expect the direct ancestor to the first humans to be, Wood said.

Also, at 1.95 to 1.78 million years old, the A. sediba fossils simply aren't old enough to represent an ancestor to Homo, said anthropologist Brian Richmond, also of George Washington University. (Explore a prehistoric time line.)

"It's hard to argue this is the ancestor of Homo when it's occurring much later than the earliest members of the genus Homo by half a million years," Richmond said, referring to an early fossil of H. habilis that dates back to 2.3 million years ago.

 

43 posted on 04/12/2010 10:43:48 AM PDT by valkyry1
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To: valkyry1
The anthropologist is not doubting that it is OF the line of descent that led to humans, just if it is IN the line of descent.

Humans are, zoologically speaking, apes. The two closest related apes are humans and chimps.

It could be just another extinct BIPEDAL ape.

Evolutionary science has a model that explains where bipedal apes came from.

Creationism has nothing.

44 posted on 04/12/2010 10:52:40 AM PDT by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
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To: metmom

LOL !!!


45 posted on 04/12/2010 11:07:28 AM PDT by celmak
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To: allmendream

It’s not a science. And well of course it has a model that makes such explanations. Evolutionism is based on atheistic philosophy (or a mixture of them) and it becomes its own religion. Thats why the model works so well for them.

The evolutionist is either unaware of this or tries to keep that knowledge hidden.


46 posted on 04/12/2010 11:12:35 AM PDT by valkyry1
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To: valkyry1
It is science. Science creates theoretical models that explain data and helps to make predictions. The theoretical model of common descent through evolution explains the data of why we and chimps are most similar in DNA, and the pattern of our ERV’s, and where extinct bipedal apes came from. Creationism explains nothing.

Evolutionary science is not based upon any philosophy other than the scientific method. One can accept the theory and be of any religious faith. Most Christian denominations have no problem with acceptance of any scientific theory, including evolution.

Most scientists in the USA are, like myself, people of faith in God. Creationists are either unaware of this or try to keep that knowledge hidden.

It seems that creationists are aware that they cannot win the argument on its merits, so they attempt to mischaracterize the struggle as being “science” vs “god”; instead of the reality being the science helps us to discover the reality that God created.

47 posted on 04/12/2010 11:19:08 AM PDT by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
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To: allmendream; valkyry1
Evolutionary science has a model that explains where bipedal apes came from.

And?

Maybe explaining the past. That's nice.

And of what benefit is that?

FWIW, creationists have an explanation of where man came from as well, so we're even.

48 posted on 04/12/2010 11:33:26 AM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: allmendream; betty boop; Alamo-Girl
Evolutionary science is not based upon any philosophy other than the scientific method.

Oh? The scientific method is a philosophy?

And what about naturalistic materialism? You mean science isn't based on that as well?

49 posted on 04/12/2010 11:35:34 AM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: allmendream
"The closest relative to a human in DNA is the chimpanzee,"

So what is the second closest relative?

50 posted on 04/12/2010 11:40:05 AM PDT by celmak
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To: allmendream
You have tried your best to hijack the thread, but so far you have not succeeded.

Look I would not have won an argument in Germany with Nazi Anthropologists either, but that would not mean I did not know enough about their field of knowledge to doubt or reject it. Science as you call it does not have all the answers. People who identity themselves as scientists for the vast majority are not scientists either.

Here are a few tenants of materialist beliefs. Think someone might see a resemblance in you?

MATERIALIST BELIEFS

Believe that the material universe, governed by natural laws and chance, is the ultimate and only reality and that all apparently nonmaterial substances, such as mind, are explicable as modifications of matter.

Believe that science is the means of understanding all the secrets of the universe, for all phenomena are the result of material processes which are governed by predictable, natural laws.

Believe that man, the highest and most complex of the evolutionary process prevailing throughout the universe, may continue to evolve into an even more perfect being or higher species (utopian materialism).

Believe in Darwin's theory of evolution as scientific fact, and in naturalism, holding that the known world is all that exists, and that it has no supernatural or spiritual creation, control or significance.

51 posted on 04/12/2010 11:55:28 AM PDT by valkyry1
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To: metmom
But does creationism have an explanation for where all these extinct bipedal apes came from? Or a reason as to why God thought it necessary to create them? Or what function they served?

Also, unless you are a postmodern liberal, not all explanations are equivalent.

As I have repeatedly tried to impress upon you to obviously no discernible effect; the scientific explanation is of USE.

Creationism is of no use.

Nobody ever creates anything of value using creationism.

An accurate model that allows one to explain data and make predictions, the scientific method, creates value every day.

So “even” the two explanations are not.

One explanation leads to further knowledge and value.

The other leads nowhere, it is an intellectual dead end.

Which is perhaps one of the reasons why the more educated a person is the less likely they are to be a creationist.

52 posted on 04/12/2010 12:01:19 PM PDT by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
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To: valkyry1
Godwin's rule invoked.

Epic fail.

I never said science had “all the answers”. That is a strawman of your own construction.

Neither do I suppose that the “only” reality is that which can be explained observed and predicted using the scientific method.

Once again you seem to acknowledge that you cannot win the argument on the merits of fact data or theory; so you attempt to re-frame the debate to the only one you think you have any chance of winning ‘atheism’ vs ‘god’.

But I, and most scientists, are not atheists. Nothing in evolutionary theory is predicated upon or dependent upon atheism, and most scientist, like myself, have faith in God.

53 posted on 04/12/2010 12:06:23 PM PDT by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
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To: allmendream; metmom

Okay so look if you want a thread attacking creationists why dont you start one.


54 posted on 04/12/2010 12:10:21 PM PDT by valkyry1
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Comment #55 Removed by Moderator

To: allmendream

cretins? who is that here?


56 posted on 04/12/2010 12:31:18 PM PDT by valkyry1
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To: allmendream; valkyry1
But does creationism have an explanation for where all these extinct bipedal apes came from?

Yeah, God made them from the dust of the earth as He told us He did in Genesis. So, scientists have made up explanations about where they think that extinct bipedal apes came from? Big deal.

Or a reason as to why God thought it necessary to create them? Or what function they served?

Fine. You criticize creationism for not having answers to those questions. What's science's answer to those questions? Why did they evolve? What function did they serve?

As I have repeatedly tried to impress upon you to obviously no discernible effect; the scientific explanation is of USE.

Exactly what scientific use is there in the *scientific* explanation of where bipedal apes came from? How does that affect future research? How does that affect anyone's every day life? What does it help scientists predict about the next stage in evolutionary development? What's mankind's next stage in evolution?

57 posted on 04/12/2010 1:14:56 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: allmendream; valkyry1
I never said science had “all the answers”.

Not in so many words, so you can legitimately deny it, but you keep telling us that nobody else has any answers and then referring back to science to answer those questions. Hence, by your actions you ARE telling us that science has all the answers.

58 posted on 04/12/2010 1:17:21 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: valkyry1

It’s just easier to hijack one and then come out thinking you look like the hero for exposing those ignurint creationists for what they are.

I notice that virtually any time a thread is posted that makes evolutionism look bad, it gets turned into a creationist bashing fest.


59 posted on 04/12/2010 1:19:47 PM PDT by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: metmom
So God made them “from the dust of the Earth”, and that is as far as creationism can take you.

I too was made “from the dust of the Earth”, and to that “dust” I shall return. But I was also made via cellular processes involving DNA.

Was I any less made “from the dust” than Adam?

Why is it OK for “from the dust” to be metaphoric in my case, with an underlying explainable physical process; but not in the case of Adam?

Science doesn't postulate motivations for God. As to the function of a bipedal ape, usually they seem to think one of their primary functions is the production of MORE bipedal apes. And they evolved into bipedalism because there was a reproductive advantage for those traits at that time. Just as all things unfold in the fullness of time according to God's will.

As to the use of a scientific explanation of evolution through natural selection of genetic variation; it is used every day in assessing the relevance of model species, in industrial settings to produce enzymes of use, in developing new drugs and combating drug resistance in pathogenic microbes.

Science produces real world value.

Nothing of any value is ever produced using creationism.

60 posted on 04/12/2010 1:23:55 PM PDT by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
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