Posted on 05/18/2008 8:47:24 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The first-ever chimpanzee fossils were recently discovered in an area previously thought to be unsuitable for chimps. Fossils from human ancestors were also found nearby.
Although researchers have only found a few chimp teeth, the discovery could cause a shake-up in the theories of human evolution.
“We know today if you go to western and central Africa that humans and chimps live in similar and neighboring environments,” said Nina Jablonski, an anthropologist at the California Academy of Sciences. “This is the first evidence in the fossil record that they coexisted in the same place in the past.”
It had previously been thought that chimps never lived in the arid Rift Valley — they prefer more lush environments like the Congo and jungles of western Africa. For years, scientists believed that early human ancestors left the jungles and moved east to the less wooded grasslands, and that this move caused the evolutionary split between the human and chimp lines.
But now, with the discovery of ancient chimps and humans in the same area, evolutionists may have to rethink what caused humans to become humans.
“For many years people have used this kind of geographic split in environment as an explanation as an origin of humans and bipedalism,” co-author Sally McBrearty of the University of Connecticut told LiveScience. “People have still retained this idea of a split geographic distribution of chimps and humans. This shows it certainly wasn’t true half a million years ago, and may not have been true before that. We need to look for another reason for the evolutionary split.”
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
While there is room on the paper to draw another branch to the tree, that is reason enough.
“We need to look for another reason for the evolutionary split.”
Uhm. . . maybe there wasn’t one.
Nah, that couldn’t be the reason. At least not for the true believers and apologists.
uh,... Cap’n Liberal. scuse me Cap’n, the SS Evolution is leaking.
“This is the first evidence in the fossil record that they coexisted in the same place in the past.”
If that place was California, they probably inter-married!
Geez, I’m still trying to figure out who Cain took up with after he killed Able and left to the hinterlands.
Humans and chimps live in the same places now. That doesn’t seem to affect the separation of the species. Two groups do not have to remain separated to evolve into different species. Ring species do it today.
“A ring species, therefore, is a ring of populations in which there is only one place where two distinct species meet. Ernst Mayr called ring species “the perfect demonstration of speciation” because they show a range of intermediate forms between two species. They allow us to use variation in space to infer how changes occurred over time. This approach is especially powerful when we can reconstruct the biogeographical history of a ring species, as has been done in two cases.”
http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/irwin.html
No one is suggesting that all monkeys evolved - the evidence is clear that apelike creatures evolved into more manlike creatures, and that we are now evolving back to more apelike creatures.
OMG! Interspecies dating? How progressive!!
“We need to look for another reason for the evolutionary split.”
And Global Warming has stopped for the next ten years, then it will resume at an incredible rate.
When facts catch up to you, stall, get more grant money, and go dream up some other explanation.
The only great discovery here seems to be that a different Rift Valley environment existed a half million years ago.
Current theory holds that humans and chimpanzees split about 6 million years ago. The split became bold about 3 million years ago, when chimpanzees remained climbing animals, as evidenced by their upper body strength, and humans became running animals, based on their bones, leg strength and musculature.
But chimpanzees are limited by environment, whereas humans can and do roam about everywhere. Importantly, both where chimpanzees are, and where they aren’t.
And we all know the Dems are wearing the monkey’s ring.
You pagans amaze me. Cain killed Able because he got to "know" Eve more often. ;)
What??? Another shake up of the proven beyond a shadow of doubt theory of human evolution.
I wonder if the I.D. proponents changed their theories every other day, what would the evolutionist say?
Cain and Able SLEPT with their MOTHER?!?!?!
Wha...????
Don't we hear from other "scientists" that climates were so different even 10,000 years ago, and that there are mountains now were seas once were? How would they have any clue about "environments"?
ML/NJ
“Ring species” is one of the most ridiculous concepts ever presented.
Internal to the theory the supporters acknowledge how rare the process “is”.
And they have the nerve to use the example of one salamander becoming a another “species” of salamader!!!!
I was being a bit satirical. Were you being a little serious?
Finally, proof that the DEMORATS existed before Tammany Hall ....
The Religion of Darwinism is as dead as Hillary’s run for the presidency. It’s just that the choirs refuse to stop singing.
As a firm believer in the Bible and man of faith, I believe the reason is patently obvious.
IMHO, one day evolution scientists will be led to the conclusion (as many have already come to) that intelligent design, ie. God, had His Hand in this.
It’s only a matter of time before we find that humans coexisted with the dino-saurs.
Agreed!
I wonder if anyone has ever considered this?
Maybe all these ‘pre-humans’ were just Satan’s failed attempts to recreate what God had achieved with Adam and Eve? Hmmm...
10,000 years ago, North America was still in the last vestiges of the Ice Age, Woolly Mammoth, Mastodon, Saber Tooth Tigers, Giant Ground Sloth, the Short-Faced Bear, camels & etc lived on most of the land that wasn't ice covered. So yes, scientists agree climates were very different even 10,000 years ago. The only mountains that now exit where seas once were are volcanic. Few and far between at that.
If you like to learn something about how scientists work, get a book or go to night school. (I assume your formal education is behind you)
Uhm. . . maybe there wasn’t one.
Nah, that couldn’t be the reason. At least not for the true believers and apologists.
To the true believers in the Church of Evolution, there's never a reason to question the dogma, you just need to invent more epicycles.
Really? I guess you don't read much. Here's an excerpt from the beginning of an article posted at the NY Times site.
WHALE FOSSILS HIGH IN ANDES SHOW HOW MOUNTAINS ROSE FROM SEAJust use Google. It's easy!
By MALCOLM W. BROWNE
Published: March 12, 1987Scientists have found fossils of whales and other marine animals in mountain sediments in the Andes, indicating that the South American mountain chain rose very rapidly from the sea.
If you like to learn something about how scientists work, get a book or go to night school. (I assume your formal education is behind you)
As for your snotty comment, you are the one who has a lot to learn. My degrees are in science from a school with a very high national reputation. I return from time to time to other schools with national reputations and engage professors there in subjects such as this we are considering here. As for books, I have a personal library that most people can only dream about, including I would assume yourself.
ML/NJ
The new debate over this discovery is proof that evolutionary scientists are will to honestly reassess their understanding of our past when new evidence emerges. Sadly the same cannot be said of their detractors.
>>We need to look for another reason for the evolutionary split.”
While there is room on the paper to draw another branch to the tree, that is reason enough.
How about because God said so.
What if he did. Or didn’t. What does it mean for the 7000 schools that collapsed in the China earthquake. Is it relevant to anything.
“Reconstruct” is evolutionist speak for “story telling,” but it sounds better to them.
Sorry, I don't by the theists stories, and I don't by the evolutionist doctrine, er... stories either.
One obvious reason is, they have to keep changing them.
Hank
Well that explains "Robert Bird"
One of those who is a legend in their own minds.... :)
The theory of evolution has changed over time as new facts have emerged. The biggest, recently, in terms of human evolution has been the idea that Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon lived together but were separate branches of the tree rather than Cro-Magnon being the decedents of Neanderthal.
We have also come to believe that two legged dinosaurs did not drag their tails but used them for balancing and that they are more closely related to birds than we thought.
On a recent trip to Utah, I saw a recently excavated dinosaur with amazing preservation of skin and tendon. This find, and others in the area, will change our understanding of these animals.
Science is constantly changing as new evidence is discovered. Sometimes there are dead ends and sometimes science is politicized, as with the global warming nonsense. But evolution, as a theory to explain the diversity of species and changes in the fossil record, is not going away.
In the same way that Einstein refined our understanding of physics but did not replace it, new discoveries will refine our understanding of the past but not overturn it. To claim that a discovery, like the one in the article about chimps, should make us abandon all of evolutionary theory is nutty.
The idea that thousands upon thousands of scientists, for 200 years, including geologists, anthropologists, paleontologists, geneticists, biochemists, physicists, astronomers, zoologists and naturalists of all kinds, are engaged in some kind of giant delusion, conspiracy or hoax is delusional in itself and indicates a deep lack of understanding on how science works.
Calling evolution a religion or a hoax is hardly different than criticizing the President without offering an alternative. What is the alternative theory to evolution? Where is the evidence? ID and others are incomplete. ID depends on an "intelligence" to explain the fossil record. What's even the point of doing that. Why even have science when you can just explain every phenomenon by saying, "God did it?"
Of course God did it. So? In the past, devout Christians used science to understand and appreciate God buy seeking to understand the world around us. Do today's Christians want us to just forget all we know? I, and all the geologists and physicists think the earth is millions of years old. Bishop Usher thinks it's a few thousand years old. Should the rest of us just ignore the data for a million year old earth?
If you don't agree with the evolutionary theory there is a simple solution. Instead of taking ignorant and cheap shots from the sidelines, do your research (might require getting one or more Ph.D.s) provide your evidence, and if your ideas have any merit, you should be able to convince honest scientists that you are correct. Of course, you will be trying to prove the existence of God, and he may not appreciate that.
bttt
There are many examples of ring species.
I assume that you are describing a fossil here.
Could you please explain how soft tissue becomes fossilized.
ML/NJ
She WAS the only woman on earth
Where is that in the Bible?
First ever? HAH! The anthropologists have probably been burnin them for decades. Or there’s a huge collection of them buried in some basement somewhere.
That answer is easy:
Genesis 2:7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
Free Republic isn’t in the Bible—does that mean it can’t possibly exist? :-)
Note the ‘maybe’ in my statement. No claims it came from the Bible. :-)
Romans 14:10-12 - Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written,
“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall confess to God.”
So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.
IIRC, there were a bunch of unnamed sisters as well as Able and Cain, not just Eve.
FreeRepublic isn't part of theology.
Creos don’t read any thing but the Bible, books by people who only read the Bible or about conversations held by people who only read the Bible. There are those who only read the KJV and repeat the process above.....
Neither is Darwinism. :-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.