Posted on 08/28/2022 5:13:37 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A blackened, broken leg bone from Earth’s prehistoric past may hold the answer to when early humans diverged from apes and started their own evolutionary path.
The fossilized find, first uncovered two decades ago, suggests that early humans regularly walked on two feet some seven million years ago... Since many consider bipedalism the major milestone that put our own lineage on a different evolutionary path than the apes, Sahelanthropus could be the very oldest known hominin—the group consisting of modern humans, extinct human species and all of our immediate ancestors.
The species could even be our oldest non-ape ancestor, if its lineage led to Homo sapiens instead of dying out. But while the fossil femur appears to have supported the demands of habitual upright walking, Sahelanthropus’s chimp-like forearms show that it still spent plenty of time in the trees. Two surviving arm bones reveal that the species used a grasping climbing technique to support a type of hybrid lifestyle that could have persisted among early hominins for some three million years...
Boisserie and colleagues, some of whom originally described Sahelanthropus in 2002, compared more than 20 traits of the femur and forearm bones with a large sample of living chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, fossil Miocene apes, early hominin bipeds like Orrorin tugenensis and Ardipithecus Ramidus, and remains of prehistoric Homo and Homo sapiens. They compared external shapes, curves, internal structures and thicknesses to learn if the bone had the same characteristics as those known to be well-suited to the demands of force, balance and other requirements of upright walking. The femur of S. tchadensis showed many similarities with other hominin species, while no traits of the femur were also found exclusively in apes.
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
LOL!
How likely would that be to pass peer review?
Sorry, but whoever tried to publish it would be kicked to the proverbial scientific curb, branded with the folks who made claims of skeletons of Giants, ancient astronauts, etc.
Wasn't there a dinosaur in recent years with amazingly preserved collagen, which had anti-evolutionists going berserk -- "see, see, see! No way can DNA survive millions of years, therefore must be Young Earth!!" Well... there was no dino-DNA, but there were bits of collagen which showed that dinosaurs taste like chicken. And I suppose that's good to know, right?
Dunno. most dinosaurs would be well past their 'use by' date. Even though I prefer beef, a newer chicken likely would more healthy.
Bottom line: no evidence falsifying basic evolution theory has ever been confirmed.
And none which proves the transitions critical to the theory has been presented either, namely from unicellular to multicellular organisms, from invertebrates to vertebrates, nor other critical junctures where the limbs attach to that family tree. In the end, it's all what you want to believe. Look at how long it took, despite evidence, to admit that pre-Clovis cultures were present in North America. My Archaeology Prof was a virtual heretic for even suggesting the Americas could have been populated as much as 32,000 years ago or more, yet, the data is finally coming out nearly 50 years later. Much of what didn't fit was either destroyed or lies buried in a dusty back room somewhere, because the people "qualified" to dig it out and report it were the ones with PhDs controlling what got published or living in terror of being discredited by demagogues standing on scientific orthodoxy.
Either way, it isn't just about science, it is about grant money, tenure, prestige, and preserving that prestige, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.
We just saw a tremendous example of how that works with COVID.
One would expect biochemical similarities in creatures of similar type and complexity in a given chemical and physical environment, as that is essential to survival. That does not imply a hereditary relationship.
For example, the dosage of Ivermectin to rid horses and humans of parasites is the same: 0.2 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, and since those bodies are mainly water, that means the serum levels, in order to be effective, are very much the same. Yet, though the drug will eliminate parasites in either, no one claims humans and horses to have evolved one from the other.
You remember the rule, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"?
In our hypothetical example, we've posited finding human bones in a 40 million year old geological stratum, what do we do?
Well, first, there are at least three major issues:
That's one way to do it, and my guess is that at least one of the independent reports would not support the most radical interpretation -- that's how science is supposed to work.
Smokon' Joe: "And none which proves the transitions critical to the theory has been presented either, namely from unicellular to multicellular organisms, from invertebrates to vertebrates, nor other critical junctures where the limbs attach to that family tree.
In the end, it's all what you want to believe."
No, it's not, not if you accept the basic ideas of science itself.
Then you would quickly recognize thousands upon thousands of "transitional forms".
Indeed, if you think about it, every individual is "transitional" between its ancestors and it's descendants, if any.
Of course, without knowing an individual's specific genealogy, it's impossible to say if one individual is ancestor to another younger version of the same form.
However, virtually every fossil ever found can be placed in a sequence of transitional fossils over many millions of years.
So you claim that "proves" nothing, of course not, for one reason: in scientific terms theories are not "proved", they are confirmed or falsified by evidence.
Millions of transitional fossils help confirm evolution theory.
Smokin' Joe: "Either way, it isn't just about science, it is about grant money, tenure, prestige, and preserving that prestige, even in the face of evidence to the contrary."
And yet, even in your own example, the truth did eventually win out, or so it seems.
The rule that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," did eventually produce enough to satisfy most critics.
That's how science is supposed to work.
Thanks BroJoeK for this:
- Here is a brief summary of geochronology methods.
- And here a summary of radiometric dating techniques. Note that all-told they mentions dozens of different dating methods, of which carbon-14 is just one.
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.