Fossil skull fuels debate over human origin

CNN ^ | March 21, 2002 Posted: 10:28 AM EST (1528 GMT)

[RoughDobermann]

Most anthropologists believe that Homo erectus -- the species that is said to bear the first recognizable human characteristics -- emerged nearly 2 million years ago in Africa and spread across several continents to serve as an ancestor to modern man, or Homo sapiens.

[RoughDobermann]

Well, as a self-proclaimed Creationist, I would not expect you too! :-)

[f.Christian]

This is devolution, and it spells disaster for the species if we ever lose our technological base.

Our technologic--cultural base is moral--physical laws(science) that don't change...

evolution-"change" at its premise is worthless--perverted--detrimental--fatal!

[jennyp]

How is it that a single human ancestor 2 million years ago gradually populate the Earth and yet not evolve into a dozen different species?

Too much miscegenation goin' on all that time kept the races "impure". This prevented them from drifting away into true species.

[RightWhale]

evolution-"change" at its premise is worthless

What is evolution, --to evolve? The word means a "turning out". That is, it is a display of characteristics that were there all along but not displayed.

It has little to do with the genetic code, and this is the source of the peoblem with understanding what is going on. If we say that the genetic code has all the characterists contained in it, then what are we to do with the observation that each individual person has a different genetic code? Even if the offspring has a section of genetic code that seems new, that neither of the parents, --or parent in the case of asexual reporduction or cloning,-- had, what does that mean in terms of evolution? A mutation? What is that -- a mutation?

Imagine that the new characteristic was there all along --not in the genetic code because the genetic code is only part of the mechanism of expression-- in the nature of the organism but not expressed. Then we can get away from this mechanical explanation and perhaps get closer to the true underlying force of expression of characteristics.

[xm177e2]

Fossil skull fuels debate over human origin

What are "fossil skull fuels" doing debating over human origins? And who's moderating?

[RoughDobermann]

Dunno. OPEC?

[longshadow]

The original owner of this skull seems to have gotten off the Ark at an intermediate station, and didn't stay for the whole 40 days.

Yeah; layovers were a bummer 2 million years ago.

[JediGirl]

Looks like---moron---who

believes

in Social Darwinism

something

that evil people

will use to justify something that is

evil, because they are scientifically ignorant morons as well as heartless

pathetic excuses for human beings.

You pose the same

Tired questions

and once answered

¤you ignore the answers.

[JediGirl]

Schools Don't Provide Basic Understanding Of Evolution

Wanna know why? Because whiners and scientifically inept idiots come in to the school board complaining about all the perceived evils of darwinism and evolution in general because in their ignorant bliss they believe that evolution disproves something that one cannot prove (God) and try to legislate their religion and attempt to infiltrate our school with idiotic and watered down science curricula and/or scare Biology teachers into keeping silent on the subject of evolution.

[JediGirl]

And I have a question---who is f.Christian, what does he smoke, and where can I get some?

[f.Christian]

Evolution is a cheap vaudeville--carnival act---street performer--clowns on stage...

sorta of a carreer--occupation for freaks too!

We all saw the magician "too" perfectly landing knives close to a woman on a revolving target---how?

Well it is timed perfect---the guy with a mallet hits the knives from the backside while the audience does not see the magician throwing his knife to the side in a big pillow. The sound you hear is from the clown in the back knocking out the knives from the back! All of the skill is the coordination they need to synchronize their throwing--hitting and to build the suspense--entertainment.

We aren't allowed to have restraint of speech--trade--elections but education is being rigged by circus performers like clinton-reno and they know it unconsciously only to keep up their self respect and public dignity.

Now-a-days you don't need the clown---everything goes off electronically---via computers and the media...pop corn--soda--beer!

[RoughDobermann]

Are you inebriated or something?

[JediGirl]

This might help you out if you're seeking something a slight bit more scientific from Scientific American:

Image: Courtesy of Nature

Scholars of human evolution have long debated just how many branches and twigs make up the human family tree. Some place the known human fossils into numerous genera and species, creating a bushy tree. Others tend to see more similarities between fossils and opt for trees with fewer offshoots. Now newly described fossils from Ethiopia indicate that for at least one part of the human pedigree, less is more.

Announcing their findings today in the journal Nature, a team of researchers led by Ethiopian paleoanthropologist Berhane Asfaw reports that the million-year-old fossils, which belong to Homo erectus, lay to rest the idea that that species should be split in two. Some experts have argued that earlier African representatives of the group, which dates back as far as 1.7 million years ago, look so different from later examples from Asia that they warrant their own species, H. ergaster. In this scenario, Asian Homo erectus went extinct and H. ergaster spawned modern humans. But the newly recovered remains--including a complete skull cap (see image)--exhibit an intermediate anatomy that, according to Asfaw's group, bridges the gap between the two proposed species.

"Before this time, we really haven't had a good comparison between African and Asian forms from the same time window," says team member W. Henry Gilbert, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. "We've had early African forms and late Asian forms, and people have used the differences between them to generalize about all African and Asian specimens. Now that we have a later African form for comparison, we are finding that they are very similar in a lot of the features that people were formerly using to separate early African from late Asian ones."

"The anthropological splitting common today is giving the wrong impression about the biology of these early human ancestors," asserts Berkeley paleoanthropologist Tim White, another study co-author. "The different names indicate an apparent diversity that is not real." Homo erectus, he says, was a biologically successful organism, "not a whole series of different human ancestors, all but one of which went extinct." --Kate Wong

[Junior]

cheap vaudeville--carnival act---street performer--clowns on stage... sorta of a carreer--occupation for freaks too!

Hehehehe...f.christian...that's funny...

[f.Christian]

High wire artist trained from birth...soma-coma-laude---you need to detox!!

[f.Christian]

Did you ever read Plato's allegory of the cave entertainers who chain their audience in their seats---minds?

[AppyPappy]

Next week, they will find out it is really a 1000 year-old monkey skull.

[JediGirl]

High wire artist trained from birth...soma-coma-laude---you need to detox!!

FOAMA-LOAMA-SAUDE. abcdefghijklmnop!!! qrstuv!!! where's the rest of the abc's?

[RoughDobermann]

Yes, but which do you believe are the audience: the Creationists or the Evolutionists?

[f.Christian]

Both...all---

via polls---

45+% are creationists(unamused-frustrated) only...

45+% are creationists/evolution...mutants/grips---

less than 10% are evolutionists/atheism only...sorta the clowns-freaks-performers!

I got a cutting torch--TRUTH--escaped the cave--show!

Don't worry about jedigirl---she has her training strings on---big net--lotta applause!