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Fossils Bridge Gap in African Mammal Evolution
Reuters to My Yahoo! ^ | Wed Dec 3, 2003 | Patricia Reaney

Posted on 12/03/2003 4:53:26 PM PST by Pharmboy

LONDON (Reuters) - Fossils discovered in Ethiopia's highlands are a missing piece in the puzzle of how African mammals evolved, a team of international scientists said on Wednesday.

Little is known about what happened to mammals between 24 million to 32 million years ago, when Africa and Arabia were still joined together in a single continent.

But the remains of ancestors of modern-day elephants and other animals, unearthed by the team of U.S. and Ethiopian scientists 27 million years on, provide some answers.

"We show that some of these very primitive forms continue to live through the missing years, and then during that period as well, some new forms evolved -- these would be the ancestors of modern elephants," said Dr John Kappelman, who headed the team.

The find included several types of proboscideans, distant relatives of elephants, and fossils from the arsinoithere, a rhinoceros-like creature that had two huge bony horns on its snout and was about 7 feet high at the shoulder.

"It continues to amaze me that we don't have more from this interval of time. We are talking about an enormous continent," said Kappelman, who is based at the University of Texas at Austin.

Scientists had thought arsinoithere had disappeared much earlier but the discovery showed it managed to survive through the missing years. The fossils from the new species found in Ethiopia are the largest, and at 27 million years old, the youngest discovered so far.

"If this animal was still alive today it would be the central attraction at the zoo," Tab Rasmussen, a paleontologist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri who worked on the project, said in a statement.

Many of the major fossil finds in Ethiopia are from the Rift Valley. But Kappelman and colleagues in the United States and at Ethiopia's National Science Foundation (news - web sites) and Addis Ababa University concentrated on a different area in the northwestern part of the country.

Using high-resolution satellite images to scour a remote area where others had not looked before, his team found the remains in sedimentary rocks about 6,600 feet above sea level.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: africa; archaeology; crevolist; evolution; ggg; godsgravesglyphs; history; links; mammals; multiregionalism; neandertal
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To: Dimensio
The statement implies that if a creator specially designed each species individually, then there's a lot in the work that seems unprofessional or incompetent.

OK, so God is not just incompetent, but unprofessional also.
341 posted on 12/04/2003 3:02:38 PM PST by bluejay
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To: bluejay
OK, so God is not just incompetent, but unprofessional also.

You completely ignored everything after the line that you quoted. It's clear now that you're so dead-set in your insistence that a "god" match certain attributes that you demand be present that you're willing to deliberately lie about what I've said to achieve that goal.

Once again, you're completely wrong. I explained why you were wrong, but you ignored it as you are too dishonest to engage in intelligent debate. I'm not going to spell it out again, because I know that you'll just dishonestly ignore it all over again. I don't have time for liars like you.
342 posted on 12/04/2003 3:04:48 PM PST by Dimensio (The only thing you feel when you take a human life is recoil. -- Frank "Earl" Jones)
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To: Just mythoughts
Check out Job starting in chapter 38

Will do

343 posted on 12/04/2003 3:10:48 PM PST by null and void (The meek shall inherit the Earth. The Stars belong to the bold.)
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To: VadeRetro
What bothers me isn't just that creationism/ID is wrong. It's wrong-headed. It's anti-knowledge, anti-thinking.

It won't be a FR Evolution debate without the man of science VadeRetro spewing insults.

Does "science" support insult spewing?

344 posted on 12/04/2003 3:11:03 PM PST by Last Visible Dog
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To: Last Visible Dog
All you ever do, you are doing here. No one is allowed to notice that creationists post non-factual, non-responsive arguments. You'll be there to scream "police brutality!" It's a farce.

Wait'll you read ahead to where Justmythoughts screams for real fossils, then pretends he/she can't see them. You'll probably think I said some mean things there, too.
345 posted on 12/04/2003 3:17:42 PM PST by VadeRetro
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To: Dimensio
Darwin is dead, and has been for over a century. No one will be "meeting up" with him.

Care to provide evidence to support this belief?

Your fingers are typing checks your science can't cash.

346 posted on 12/04/2003 3:17:43 PM PST by Last Visible Dog
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To: Last Visible Dog
Care to provide evidence to support this belief?

I could dig up his corpse, but I'd be arrested.

Are you suggesting that the burden of proof is upon me to show that Darwin faked his death and that he's somehow still alive after over a century?
347 posted on 12/04/2003 3:20:30 PM PST by Dimensio (The only thing you feel when you take a human life is recoil. -- Frank "Earl" Jones)
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To: Last Visible Dog
To Dimensio:

Care to provide evidence to support this belief? ["Darwin is dead, and has been for over a century. No one will be 'meeting up' with him."]

Why? Did you see him with Elvis at a Burger King last week?

348 posted on 12/04/2003 3:21:05 PM PST by VadeRetro
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To: bluejay
You do not object to the notion that God may exist, you just think he is incompetent.

If he won't say it I will!

I feel in in my sinuses, my 'S' curved back, the charming way the bile duct and pancreatic duct are so close to each other that a gall stone in the bile duct can cause the pancreas to explode, the way small kidney stone won't drain out of the kidneys because the duct isn't on the bottom, the clever positioning of the prostate - a little swelling and ruptured bladder, the appendix, the slick way food has to pass over the airway to get to the esophagus, and putting the sewage disposal facilities right next to the playground...

If He was a designer working for me I'd fire Him!

349 posted on 12/04/2003 3:25:55 PM PST by null and void (The meek shall inherit the Earth. The Stars belong to the bold.)
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To: Sabertooth
Scientists, as a group, are no less inclined to hubris than anyone else.

It's a human malady, and keen intellects are poor predictors of an absence of pride.

True enough. At the same time the social structure of science mitigates very strongly against the kind of mewling conformism my correspondent was attributing to "evolutionists". Indeed it arguably does so as much or more than any other human intellectual institution. Whatever the individual failings of scientists, which certainly will be broadly the same as found among any comparable group of humans, science is highly competitive, and it does lavishly reward rigorous dissent.

You can confirm this for yourself, and not just by reading journals. There are many scientific conferences that you can attend as a layman, and even as a non-member of the relevant organization. (For instance the annual AAAS conventions.) Go and listen to a few papers being read. You'll note that time set aside for Q&A is invariable as long as that for the presentation, and often longer, and that the questions are predominantly critical and sometimes almost rudely aggressive.

(BTW, although I've only attended one creationism conference, it was exactly the opposite: 45 minutes for presentation and 15 minutes for questions. There was only one creationist at the conference -- Kurt Wise who was hosting at Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee -- that I heard to ask critical questions of the presenters.)

350 posted on 12/04/2003 3:30:14 PM PST by Stultis
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To: whattajoke
"I didn't come from pond scum is more than just an opinion; you should give yourself more credit. It's a fact.

Whatajoke, if you think the nature of man's origin is based in fact...please enlighten us....WHAT do you think are the facts of our origin?

351 posted on 12/04/2003 3:40:17 PM PST by Last Visible Dog
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To: Junior
So, if other observers do not exist (even though you can see, smell or hear them), everything is simply a figment of your imagination and the point is moot -- the universe is whatever YOU think it is (which has greater theological implications than the theory of evolution even approaches).

I see, smell and hear people in my dreams...Junior, are people in my dreams real?

352 posted on 12/04/2003 3:43:40 PM PST by Last Visible Dog
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To: Last Visible Dog
Care to provide evidence to support this belief?


353 posted on 12/04/2003 3:49:31 PM PST by whattajoke (Neutiquam erro.)
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To: whattajoke; Last Visible Dog
whoops, that tiny dot is actually a link.
354 posted on 12/04/2003 3:50:26 PM PST by whattajoke (Neutiquam erro.)
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To: Last Visible Dog
WHAT do you think are the facts of our origin?

We came from the mind of an autistic boy with a snowglobe.
355 posted on 12/04/2003 3:52:31 PM PST by whattajoke (Neutiquam erro.)
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To: VadeRetro
All you ever do, you are doing here. No one is allowed to notice that creationists post non-factual, non-responsive arguments. You'll be there to scream "police brutality!" It's a farce.

VadeRetro - you just don't get it. Clearly you are in possession of the data and you are very good at arguing based on your data - but you sometimes seem a bit short on logic and reason - the ability to connect the dots.

VadeRetro, you defend your position admirably so why do you have to resort to stupid insults. "anti-thinking" and other nonsense like that has nothing to do with "science" - it your pointed-headed opinion, an insult. Stick to your data and cut the childish insults.

VadeRetro, you know far more about this subject than I do and I am in no way challenging your knowledge on the subject. I come to these debates to READ - to see how people defend their position - to get insight from people that know more about it than I do. The problem is there is a small group of arrogant evos that pop into this debate and insult the opposition turning these "debates" into little more than food fights.

Please keep your nasty opinions and insults to yourself and stick to the data. You do a fine job when you stick to logical debate, you look like a blow-hard when you spew insults. Hey, it is fine if that is the way you feel but it adds nothing to the debate. I am more impressed when you defeat a position rather than just insulting it.

356 posted on 12/04/2003 3:58:04 PM PST by Last Visible Dog
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To: Dimensio
I could dig up his corpse, but I'd be arrested. Are you suggesting that the burden of proof is upon me to show that Darwin faked his death and that he's somehow still alive after over a century?

Actually I want you to support this claim you made "No one will be "meeting up" with him." Meaning you are certain there is no "afterlife". Please bring forth your evidence so we can put this age-old debate to rest.

357 posted on 12/04/2003 4:01:48 PM PST by Last Visible Dog
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To: VadeRetro
Why? Did you see him with Elvis at a Burger King last week?

Don't be silly. Just last week Elvis told me he swore off fast food.

No Mr. Perceptive, I was questioning this statement "No one will be "meeting up" with him"

358 posted on 12/04/2003 4:04:47 PM PST by Last Visible Dog
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To: whattajoke
How does your link prove nobody will be meeting up with Darwin (life after death)?
359 posted on 12/04/2003 4:07:01 PM PST by Last Visible Dog
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To: Last Visible Dog
Please keep your nasty opinions and insults to yourself and stick to the data.

If you can find no other outlet for your authoritarian urges I suggest you police your fellow ignorami and leave the supporters of science to monitor their own behavior as needed.

360 posted on 12/04/2003 4:08:39 PM PST by VadeRetro
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