Study: Primates may have come along earlier than thought

The Gainesville Sun ^ | 16 Jan 2007 | JACK STRIPLING

[RightWhale]

The first primates were the size of a shrew and were bad-tempered, always hungry, combative, and insatiable, characteristics that have bred true over millions of years as primates became larger but otherwise became even more obnoxious. Dogs like us for reasons known only to themselves.

[Sols]

And before you go crazy because Alter Kaker and I gave you two different answers, my answer is considered the most recent ancestor to homo sapiens and Alter Kaker's answer is the most recent ancestor shared my homo sapiens and monkeys.

They are essentially two different answers to two different questions. Because I want to preempt any complaints.

[usslsm51]

OMG, there they are!

[Coyoteman]

IBTCPL

[TADSLOS]

All I needed to know about evolution I learned from Ms. Garrison:

Theory of Evolution

[Verginius Rufus]

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the Primate of All England.

For what it's worth.

[Sopater]

Looks like another researcher trying to justify his existance and make a name for himself by stirring up controversy. Everybody wants to shoehorn their pet fossil into the human ancestory somewhere. Here you go buddy... your 15 minutes of fame...

Dr. Jonathan I. Bloch

Assistant Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology
222 Dickinson Hall
Museum Road & Newell Drive
Gainesville, FL 32611
(352) 392-1721 ext. 515
Email: jbloch@flmnh.ufl.edu

Ph.D. University of Michigan, 2001

FLMNH Vertebrate Paleontology Collection

Research Interests

I study fossil mammals in order to address questions surrounding the first appearance and early evolution of the modern orders of mammals. A major emphasis is the interval from the terminal Cretaceous through the early Eocene, which includes the evolution and diversification of "archaic" mammals following the extinction of the dinosaurs (ca. 65 mya), and the first appearance of nearly one-half of the modern orders of mammals, several appearing coincident with rapid, large-scale, global warming at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary (ca. 55 mya). Specific research topics include: (1) the response of mammal communities to climate change; (2) use of phylogenetic methods to infer hypotheses of relationships; and (3) use of functional morphology in order to study the evolution and paleoecology of small mammals. I am currently doing related field-based research in the Paleocene and Eocene of the Clarks Fork, Bighorn, and Crazy Mountains basins of Wyoming and Montana.

[ASA Vet]

Deliberate ignorance is a sad thing to witness.

[LiteKeeper]

YEC INTREP

[metmom]

Details, details...

[SunkenCiv]

and there's Eosimias:

Google

[Coyoteman]

A nice science thread and you ping your list of science-deniers to it.

Then you post a link to some instances of scientific fraud, subtly implying that all science is fraud.

You are practicing a very hateful kind of apologetics. And you probably still deny you are anti-science!

Gimmi a break!

[UpAllNight]

--Further evidence--

Welcome to the old earth bandwagon, Theo.

"Jonathan Bloch, curator of paleontology at UF's Florida Museum of Natural History, says his team's paper gives the first conclusive evidence that modern-day primates find their roots in mammals that lived 65 million years ago. Prior to this paper, the fossil record has only conclusively shown primates appearing 55 million years ago; what happened before then has been a matter of educated conjecture, Bloch said."

[SunkenCiv]

I like to make my own fun.

Orangutans and human origins
Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz
Department of Anthropology
University of Pittsburgh

Humans have a larger number of features that are uniquely shared with orangutans than with any other living ape. Schwartz (1984) proposed that humans are more closely related to orangutans than to chimpanzees - a model that contradicts the greater genetic similarity of base pair sequences in humans and chimpanzees.

The view presented here is that genetic similarity of base pair sequences is not a necessary measure of phylogenetic relationship and that morphology continues to exist as an independently reliable source of information on evolutionary relationships. The orangutan model presents a conundrum for biological systematics over how to chose between morphological and genetic evidence when they are in conflict.

Higher Primates May Have Asian Root
by B. Bower
Science News
October 16, 1999

Researchers working in southern Asia have discovered 40-million-year-old fossil teeth and jaw fragments that, in their view, support the controversial notion that anthropoids originated in Asia. The find in Myanmar represents a new species, Bahinia pondaungensis, in the anthropoid group, which includes monkeys, apes, and humans, reports a team led by anthropologist Jean-Jacques Jaeger of Université Montpellier-II in France. The teeth show key similarities to those of Eosimias, a 45-million-year-old fossil creature from China that may also have been an early anthropoid (SN: 11/11/95, p. 309)... Jaeger and his coworkers view their new find as evidence for a much earlier origin of anthropoids in Asia, perhaps 55 million to 60 million years ago. In November 1998, the researchers recovered two fragmentary upper jaws and a broken lower jaw, each retaining a number of teeth, belonging to Bahinia. The same excavation level yielded the lower jaw of a previously identified species known as Amphipithecus. Jaeger’s group views Amphipithecus as a more anatomically advanced anthropoid that lived at the same time as Bahinia.

The Scars of Evolution
by Elaine Morgan

"The most remarkable aspect of Todaro's discovery emerged when he examined Homo Sapiens for the 'baboon marker'. It was not there... Todaro drew one firm conclusion. 'The ancestors of man did not develop in a geographical area where they would have been in contact with the baboon. I would argue that the data we are presenting imply a non-African origin of man millions of years ago.'"

[Coyoteman]

I'm not even going to bother responding to the "anti-science" and "apologetics" talking points, because they're faded and worn from all the previous rebuttals to them I've given you, which you've ignored.

You prove these "talking points" almost daily. You've admitted you are doing apologetics. Why can't you admit you hate science as well?

Your hatred for science is clear for others to see. You ping your list of science-deniers to nice science threads so they can come and trash them, then you claim you are not anti-science?

You yourself trash science every chance you get, then you claim you are not anti-science?

That dog don't hunt, Dave.