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Fossil Find Is Missing Link in Human Evolution, Scientists Say
National Geographic News ^ | April 13, 2006 | John Roach

Posted on 04/13/2006 12:18:35 PM PDT by Senator Bedfellow

When the famous skeleton of an early human ancestor known as Lucy was discovered in Africa in the 1970s, scientists asked: Where did she come from?

Now, fossils found in the same region are providing solid answers, researchers have announced.

Lucy is a 3.5-foot-tall (1.1-meter-tall) adult skeleton that belongs to an early human ancestor, or hominid, known as Australopithecus afarensis.

The species lived between 3 million and 3.6 million years ago and is widely considered an ancestor of modern humans.

The new fossils are from the most primitive species of Australopithecus, known as Australopithecus anamensis. The remains date to about 4.1 million years ago, according to Tim White, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley.

White co-directed the team that discovered the new fossils in Ethiopia (map) in a region of the Afar desert known as the Middle Awash.

The team says the newly discovered fossils are a no-longer-missing link between early and later forms of Australopithecus and to a more primitive hominid known as Ardipithecus.

"What the new discovery does is very nicely fill this gap between the earliest of the Lucy species at 3.6 million years and the older [human ancestor] Ardipithecus ramidus, which is dated at 4.4 million years," White said.

The new fossil find consists mainly of jawbone fragments, upper and lower teeth, and a thigh bone.

The fossils are described in today's issue of the journal Nature.

Found Links

According to White, the discovery supports the hypothesis that Lucy was a direct descendent of Australopithecus anamensis.

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


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: ardipithecusramidus; crevo; crevolist
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To: VadeRetro
And there's an evil, dumb, world-wide, all-powerful, secret conspiracy out to keep the truth about Piltdown Man hidden. The Piltdown Papers must be destroyed.

The evil, racist Darwinian conspiracy had originally embraced the Piltdown discovery as an ancient prehuman species - ignoring the obvious conclusion that Piltdown Man was one of the earliest (fully human) immigrants to discover England after the Flood. Then, when the Australopithecines & Homo erectuses started popping up, the Conspiracy had to modify the storyline to claim that the upright gait & smaller jaws & teeth came first, before the bigger brains. Thus the original, valid Piltdown discovery (with its bigger brain) had to be discredited at all costs.

It was a massive public relations deception campaign that required the permission of the Queen of England, and the expertise of the Illuminati to carry out.

But when, in 2008, intrepid young American paleontologist Sarah Johnson unearths an almost-complete Piltdown-type skeleton in an abandoned quarry outside of Luton - caressing a small leather scroll with markings that look at first glance like early Hebrew - the Conspiracy must spring into action once again to save the Big Lie from exposure...

321 posted on 04/13/2006 9:46:59 PM PDT by jennyp (WHAT I'M READING NOW: "The Bitter Wells Dude on the Sweetwater" by Kalbaugh)
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To: jec41

Indeed, I am finding this out...a whole different life, does begin at 60...its fun and I am loving it...


322 posted on 04/13/2006 9:47:23 PM PDT by andysandmikesmom
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To: Coyoteman
I like your post about writing. I love to write. I have a manuscript that I am "hoping" to get published. It's so stinkin hard to know where to start. Right now I'm looking for a literary agent. I've been inquiring, but since I don't know anyone in the business it's like opening a phone book, closing my eyes, and placing my finger on a name.


(The real key is to write every day, five (or however many) days a week. Every week. Rack up lots of words. Don't go to writing seminars, just write!)

This is true. It's kinda funny! My book is historical fiction. But, I would get in this zone whenever I would write. It's like these characters I had created are talking to each other inside my head, and I'm trying to get it typed as they go. My husband would come in and say something, and I'd be like, "Shhh! I'm arguing with myself, and I can't hear if you're talking!" He learned to walk into the room real quietlike.


(But first, you have to crank out the words. Don't worry at first how good they are, just get them down. Don't go back and edit until you are done. WRITE! And then WRITE SOME MORE!)

Amen to that! I would still be on the first chapter otherwise. I'm a wordy person, so I ended up editing a lot out. Now, it's my grammar, and punctuation that I'm obsessing over. And that part is NO FUN!
323 posted on 04/13/2006 9:47:47 PM PDT by Conservative Texan Mom (Some people say I'm stubborn, when it's usually just that I'm right.)
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To: Fruit of the Spirit
The theory of evolution has only been around for a few hundred years while the history of the Bible has been around for thousands of years.

Again, I'm not sure who you think is attacking the Bible -- I sure am not -- but in any event, are we playing "oldest theory wins?"

Geocentrism anyone?

While scientists are busy searching for alternatives to creation, the end will come and prove that they weren't as wise as thought they were.

Is that a threat?

324 posted on 04/13/2006 9:49:02 PM PDT by Alter Kaker ("Whatever tears one sheds, in the end one always blows one's nose." - Heine)
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To: thomaswest
The view that pixies make airplanes fly or pixies push electrons around etc.

You know? what is with you people? Who says that but ‘your side’

I mean this whole post here by you kind of encapsulates a big part of what goes down on these thread from the 'evo side'. I think you can do better thomaswest.

BTW, the theories of flight aerodynamics had some big errors and misconceptions there, and somehow man designed and built those airplanes on flawed theory, just as he has with other flawed theory in the past.

In the case of heavier than air aircraft, you start with the theory but do not adhere to the theory 100% for that’s where testing and modification come in. This in fact is a good place to start into looking at other theories. I will talk about that later.

Wolf
325 posted on 04/13/2006 9:49:44 PM PDT by RunningWolf (Vet US Army Air Cav 1975)
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To: Iscool

I personally don't go with that one either.


326 posted on 04/13/2006 9:50:55 PM PDT by Conservative Texan Mom (Some people say I'm stubborn, when it's usually just that I'm right.)
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To: Oztrich Boy; Sofa King; jennyp; js1138
I asked this Darwinist to explain how Evolution could be possible in the face of "DNA's missing link", and he couldn't answer me. Praze Be!

Probably because nobody knows what "DNA's missing link" is supposed to mean. I let my suscription to Creationist Talking Points Weekly lapse.

327 posted on 04/13/2006 9:51:55 PM PDT by Alter Kaker ("Whatever tears one sheds, in the end one always blows one's nose." - Heine)
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To: Leatherneck_MT
Yeah another missing link to fit the missing link parts that were missing in all of the other missing link parts.

Who's crazy?

Who's going to fill out post 68?

Who's John Galt?

328 posted on 04/13/2006 9:57:21 PM PDT by jennyp (WHAT I'M READING NOW: "The Bitter Wells Dude on the Sweetwater" by Kalbaugh)
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To: Alter Kaker

Many creationists like to deliver threats...sometimes quite openly, sometimes slyly...but they are threats nonetheless...the ones who are open about it, will openly condemn anyone to Hell, who support evolution, even tho while supporting evolution, they also have a belief in the God of the Bible...and really, its quite beyond me, why folks like these enjoy delivering these threats...and many of them do enjoy it...a typical response of some of them goes like this..."Well, soon enough you will have to account for support evolution, and when God send you to Hell for it, I will be up in Heaven, laughing my head off at your torment"...no kidding, I have actually seen this very sentiment on FR, not that long ago....

Threats of this sort are just a weak attempt, to solidfy their own stand...if they cannot convince those who support evolution to change, with their witnessing, they will deliver threats...weak, weak, weak...

They cannot win on the facts,they cannot win on the evidence, so the last resort is to deliver threats...


329 posted on 04/13/2006 10:01:32 PM PDT by andysandmikesmom
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To: thomaswest

I don't think I'm following you. Can't say I know enough about Pixie's to answer your question. And, as far as I know, Jesus has never been responsible for a plane crash. Don't know that he makes them fly either. And to the best of my knowledge, aerodynamics is not in conflict with the Bible. I'm sorry if someone has offended you by bashing pixies. If I encounter a post in which someone bashes pixies, I shall address it.


330 posted on 04/13/2006 10:02:04 PM PDT by Conservative Texan Mom (Some people say I'm stubborn, when it's usually just that I'm right.)
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To: Fruit of the Spirit; Alter Kaker

Actually evolution was thought before the bible by Plato, and Aristotle.

Here is one who thought it in the 13th centry and also the dates and statements by Aristotle.

Tusi's Views on Evolution

by Farid Alakbarov

Nasiraddin Tusi (also known as Nasir ad-Din Tusi) was born in 1201 in Tus, Khorasan, in what is now Iran. As a scientist and all-around genius, he is known for many things: founding an observatory in Maragha (the ancient cultural center situated in Maragha which is east of Tabriz in present-day Iran), interpreting and developing the mathematics of Euclid, predicting the existence of land west of the Atlantic Ocean as well as writing more than 80 influential books in Arabic and Persian about astronomy, geometry, geography, physics, law, history, medicine, philosophy, logic and ethics. Today he is highly revered and honored in Azerbaijan, and several education institutions are named after him, including the Tusi Pedagogical Institute in Baku.

What few people know, however, is that Tusi also developed a basic theory of evolution - more than 600 years before Charles Darwin.

This theory appears in Tusi's popular work "Akhlag Nasiri" (Nasirean Ethics), a treatise on ethics in the Greek tradition built upon the 11th century "Tahdhib al-Akhlag of Ibn Miskawayh", which Tusi drafted in prison while being held by the Assassins, a religious terrorist group. He later revised it for his Mongol master (the Mongolian occupation led to his release from prison). "Nasirean Ethics" was translated into English by G.M. Wickens and published by George Allen & Unwin in 1964.

"Akhlag Nasiri" is about the perfection of humans. Tusi divides this perfection into two parts - material and spiritual perfection. He uses the term "takamul", which means "perfection" in Arabic. In modern Azeri, this same term now means "evolution".

Different Approach
Various evolutionary ideas existed before Tusi's time, as shown in the folklore and religious beliefs of certain Oriental peoples, including the Babylonians, Egyptians and Medians. However, these ideas were more mythological than scientific. They were later adopted and expanded upon by ancient Greek scholars such as Empedocles (490-430 BC) and Aristotle (384-322 BC).

Aristotle wrote: "Nature gradually, step by step, develops from inanimate substances to living creatures." Muslim scholars such as Abu Reihan Biruni (972-1048), Ibn Bajja (1070-1138) and Ibn Tufail (1110-1185) later tried to develop Aristotle's evolutionary views


331 posted on 04/13/2006 10:13:59 PM PDT by jec41 (Screaming Eagle)
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To: Senator Bedfellow

Check out artist's renditions of this "link." It's an ape, people. The only things that apes produce are other apes.



332 posted on 04/13/2006 10:16:00 PM PDT by razorbak
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To: RunningWolf
Quoting--I asked this Darwinist to explain how Evolution could be possible in the face of "DNA's missing link", and he couldn't answer me. Praze Be!

I have never met a "Darwinist". Are you confused about a marxist, communist, nazi, zionist, anti-christian plot to fluoridate the water supply? Maybe you are against gravity. Some negatives to accepting a faith-belief in gravity belief are at http://www.re-discovery.org/gravity_1.html

I am curious about what you mean by a missing link. Do you mean the unexplained years in Jesus' history? Do you mean all the years the Catholic church of their history of popes with mistresses and children? Do you mean the periods when there were 2 popes, each claiming to be the "one true tradition of Christ? I am not sure what links--as to back and forth beliefs-- you choose to address and which one you take on faith. Are you saying that Protestant beliefs are superior to Catholic beliefs?

Please define "superior", as you see it in faith terms.

It is pretty clear that no pope, priest or pastor before 1860 had even a glimmer of understanding about DNA. Ecclesticastical types have never conrtibuted to knowlege about germs, medicine, biology, geology. Imans, priests, ayatollahs, who are ignorant about every molecule are in a poor position to assert moral judgements.

Ecclesticastics get huge benefits in tax exemption, but promote self-serving support. Promises of a one-way ticket to heaven. They know this is not honest, but they exploit believers.

Scientic understandings, with evolution, show enormous beauty. I think our human understandings of moralty and good political systems depend on us humans. There ain't no god to rescue us.

Please define "superior", as you see it in faith terms as regards evolution and creation/ID claims. I am interested in what you claim to be a superior faith.

the notion thatyou have the "only one, true, faith understanding and all evidence from evolution is wrong according to my faith" is weird.

I am doubtful. I notice that ID are not willing to give the rest us us God's email address. I suspect that you lie as to knowing God's will any better than the rest of us, who put on our socks one foot at a time.

Please let us not-so-blessed mortals know how you claim to know God and how you put your socks on.

333 posted on 04/13/2006 10:47:38 PM PDT by thomaswest (Just curious)
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To: razorbak
Check out artist's renditions of this "link." It's an ape, people. The only things that apes produce are other apes.

Please fill out post 86. We evos need your guidance.

334 posted on 04/13/2006 10:52:35 PM PDT by jennyp (WHAT I'M READING NOW: your mind)
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To: razorbak
Check out artist's renditions of this "link." It's an ape, people. The only things that apes produce are other apes.

Humans are apes, closer to chimps than chimps are to gorillas.

335 posted on 04/13/2006 10:55:31 PM PDT by Alter Kaker ("Whatever tears one sheds, in the end one always blows one's nose." - Heine)
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To: Ichneumon
And maybe you're unaware of the just how stupid someone would have to be to make such an elementary mistake.

Evolutionists have sure made plenty of them.

336 posted on 04/13/2006 10:58:32 PM PDT by connectthedots
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To: ahayes; ejroth
ejroth: I have a degree in Biochemistry and a doctorate in Medicine. The degree in Biochemistry included courses in biology, vertebrate morphology, taxonomy etc.

How long ago was this? In my assessment you don't seem entirely up-to-date on the theory of evolution.

Your comment proves the points ejroth was making. The theory of evolution is in constant flux because new evidence regularly exposes the flaws of evolution, which requires an even greater imagination to maintain ones faith in evolution.

Evolution is based on a lie, and as the lies become exposed, more and bigger lies are requires to cover over or hide the earlier lies.

337 posted on 04/13/2006 11:10:11 PM PDT by connectthedots
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To: Conservative Texan Mom

Old = my age + a couple of years


338 posted on 04/13/2006 11:18:54 PM PDT by stands2reason
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To: balrog666
He shoulda just said he had this educated uncle (PhD2, EngD, JD and LLD) that had utterly refuted evolution but was too busy to ever write it down ...

Nah, that's already been done.

339 posted on 04/13/2006 11:34:53 PM PDT by Ichneumon (Ignorance is curable, but the afflicted has to want to be cured.)
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To: connectthedots
The theory of evolution is in constant flux because new evidence regularly exposes the flaws of evolution, which requires an even greater imagination to maintain ones faith in evolution.

Really? Seems to me that the theory of evolution has remained pretty much exactly the same since it was merged with genetics into the Modern Synthesis of the 1930s. I'm sure you know better.

340 posted on 04/13/2006 11:37:38 PM PDT by Alter Kaker ("Whatever tears one sheds, in the end one always blows one's nose." - Heine)
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