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Fossils Bridge Gap in African Mammal Evolution
Reuters to My Yahoo! ^ | Wed Dec 3, 2003 | Patricia Reaney

Posted on 12/03/2003 4:53:26 PM PST by Pharmboy

LONDON (Reuters) - Fossils discovered in Ethiopia's highlands are a missing piece in the puzzle of how African mammals evolved, a team of international scientists said on Wednesday.

Little is known about what happened to mammals between 24 million to 32 million years ago, when Africa and Arabia were still joined together in a single continent.

But the remains of ancestors of modern-day elephants and other animals, unearthed by the team of U.S. and Ethiopian scientists 27 million years on, provide some answers.

"We show that some of these very primitive forms continue to live through the missing years, and then during that period as well, some new forms evolved -- these would be the ancestors of modern elephants," said Dr John Kappelman, who headed the team.

The find included several types of proboscideans, distant relatives of elephants, and fossils from the arsinoithere, a rhinoceros-like creature that had two huge bony horns on its snout and was about 7 feet high at the shoulder.

"It continues to amaze me that we don't have more from this interval of time. We are talking about an enormous continent," said Kappelman, who is based at the University of Texas at Austin.

Scientists had thought arsinoithere had disappeared much earlier but the discovery showed it managed to survive through the missing years. The fossils from the new species found in Ethiopia are the largest, and at 27 million years old, the youngest discovered so far.

"If this animal was still alive today it would be the central attraction at the zoo," Tab Rasmussen, a paleontologist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri who worked on the project, said in a statement.

Many of the major fossil finds in Ethiopia are from the Rift Valley. But Kappelman and colleagues in the United States and at Ethiopia's National Science Foundation (news - web sites) and Addis Ababa University concentrated on a different area in the northwestern part of the country.

Using high-resolution satellite images to scour a remote area where others had not looked before, his team found the remains in sedimentary rocks about 6,600 feet above sea level.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: africa; archaeology; crevolist; evolution; ggg; godsgravesglyphs; history; links; mammals; multiregionalism; neandertal
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To: Right Wing Professor
I guess I'm not too KEEN on that.
1,021 posted on 12/12/2003 7:30:21 AM PST by Elsie (Don't believe every prophecy you hear: especially *** ones........)
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To: Right Wing Professor
If 100 people try to jump a crevasse, and only a few survive, you really can't argue the result is that humans learned to jump further, even though the ones who survive will likely be genetically more capable of jumping a long way.
One thing that both the "C" and "E" side DO agree on is that Humans are more intelligent than any of the OTHER animals, and, by being so, we have had a SURVIVAL advantage over the stronger, faster, hungrier dudes who would just love to munch us into oblivion.

And we probably agree than Einstein was a really smart dude -- running rings around most OTHER Humans, brain wise. Therefore one would think that on an Evolutionary scale, his genes would start to be propagated down the line of his family tree. ('Survival of the Smartest' and all that being the name of the game)

Well..... is that true? ARE his children and grandchildren showing examples of "what we'd expect" if the theory is true?

1,022 posted on 12/12/2003 7:37:57 AM PST by Elsie (Don't believe every prophecy you hear: especially *** ones........)
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To: js1138
There is another theory that big brains evolved better to pick up women. Sexual selection.
See the above........
1,023 posted on 12/12/2003 7:40:01 AM PST by Elsie (Don't believe every prophecy you hear: especially *** ones........)
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To: Elsie
Gosh this has become a nitpicking contest. An algorithm is not necessarily a program, but a program is always an algorithm. Applican programs are algorithms comprised of many smaller algorithms.
1,024 posted on 12/12/2003 7:47:18 AM PST by js1138
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To: Elsie
One thing that both the "C" and "E" side DO agree on is that Humans are more intelligent than any of the OTHER animals, and, by being so, we have had a SURVIVAL advantage over the stronger, faster, hungrier dudes who would just love to munch us into oblivion.

The human level of intelligence is not necessary for survival, and in fact it may eventually result in our extinction.

Bacteria have no intelligence in the usual sense of the word, but they comprise about 90 percent of the cells you walk around with. They have far more survival advantages than the beasts with big brains.

And even within the human community there is no evidence that superintelligent people have more offspring than the average.

1,025 posted on 12/12/2003 7:53:16 AM PST by js1138
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To: Virginia-American
I'll just 'toss' this out.....
...made several times in evolution (archer fish spit accurately at flying insects).
(overheard during the 'learning process...)


Hey there, pre-Nemo: Whatcha doin'?

Oh, nuttin'. Just spitting up in the air.

What!!!
You actually put your LIPS in that poisonous stuff!?!?!

What do you mean: poison?

That stuff'll KILL ya! Don't you remember how our Uncle Finny flopped out on the bank one day, trying get away from the Enforcer Fish? He figured he could survive better by trying to get oxygen from the 'Air' easier than staying around to avoid them sharp teeth, but, as we all know, he found out he couldn't.
But that hasn't stopped his kids from trying it as well (what few there are LEFT of them!)
No! Keep your lips safe: don't spit. Practice Safe Eating by getting the bugs that land IN the water.

But I got REALLY close to an ant the other day! If I keep trying, maybe MY kids will get FRESH bug juice instead of these old waterlogged things all the time.

OY! What will become of you, pre-Nemo????

1,026 posted on 12/12/2003 7:53:54 AM PST by Elsie (Don't believe every prophecy you hear: especially *** ones........)
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To: js1138
Gosh this has become a nitpicking contest.

True.... let's drop it.

1,027 posted on 12/12/2003 7:55:04 AM PST by Elsie (Don't believe every prophecy you hear: especially *** ones........)
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To: js1138
And even within the human community there is no evidence that superintelligent people have more offspring than the average.

Then what was Cro-Magnon's advantage? less apt to get the flu?

1,028 posted on 12/12/2003 7:56:52 AM PST by Elsie (Don't believe every prophecy you hear: especially *** ones........)
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To: js1138
Hey there!!!

Are you my long lost twin brother????
1,029 posted on 12/12/2003 8:01:15 AM PST by Elsie (Don't believe every prophecy you hear: especially *** ones........)
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To: js1138
But the tribe consisting of any strain of bacteria learns through evolution, in a way that is functionally equivalent to the trial and error learning observed in organisms having nervous systems.

I think that's a unwarranted broadening of the word 'learning', which ususally means the long-lasting change of behavior of an individual in reponse to stimuli. In evolution; some die and some don't, and the population changes, but no individual changes.

1,030 posted on 12/12/2003 8:06:01 AM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: Right Wing Professor
Your caution is warranted, but then I consider learning to be a change in the probability of behavior. I think this kind of change can be mapped to the change in allele frequency characteristic of evolution.

This is just a conjecture, but there are lots of folks in experimental psychology who support it.
1,031 posted on 12/12/2003 8:12:52 AM PST by js1138
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To: Elsie
And we probably agree than Einstein was a really smart dude -- running rings around most OTHER Humans, brain wise. Therefore one would think that on an Evolutionary scale, his genes would start to be propagated down the line of his family tree. ('Survival of the Smartest' and all that being the name of the game)

Well..... is that true? ARE his children and grandchildren showing examples of "what we'd expect" if the theory is true?

One of Einstein's grandchildren is a quite well-known engineer, but by and large they diodn't reproduce his success. He wasn't outstandingly fecund, either.

As for evolution in humans; in general social conditions at the moment don't seem to be selecting for high intelligence. But there's no reason why they should. There is no reason evolution need necessarily lead to the improvement of the species. If youi select for males who fornicate promiscuously and then abandon their many offspring, by making sure said offspring are raised by the state, then obviously you'll have a population that's 'enriched' in genes for that sort of behavior. We probably became relatively civilized because women favored men who were unlikely to abandon their offspring; invert the selective pressure and we'll move in the opposite direction.

See, you can be completely materialist and abhor promiscuity. :-)

1,032 posted on 12/12/2003 8:13:48 AM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: Alamo-Girl
I see precious little difference between this and learning by trial and error (other than semantics). Creatures of low intelligence learn by trial and error and sometimes the error is deadly.

The essential difference is that in natural selection, no individual learns, the population just changes. When you put an earthworm through a simple maze, the individual earthworm changes. You can extend 'learning' to a population, if you like, but I think that's an unwarranted broadening of the term, which makes it less useful.

Frankly it bothers me that pharmaceutical researchers of the day – with the full knowledge of evolution theory - didn’t “train” bacteria with the new antibiotics to see how long it would take them to "learn" to defeat it. Perhaps they had no appreciation for how aggressive the bacteria could be.

To be fair, penicillin was discovered long before we knew molecular genetics. But I agree that once resistance was discovered, we should have changed policies on the dispensation of antibiotics, and for various reasons we did not.

1,033 posted on 12/12/2003 8:23:47 AM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: Right Wing Professor
There are always problems and misunderstandings caused by extenting a metaphor. The trick is to avoid arguing backwards from the overextended metaphor. I think there is something to be gained by applying evolutionary principles to learning. Probably less to be gained by going the other direction.

So I will argue that learning involves change and selection, but it is probably not useful to describe biological evolution as a form of learning.

1,034 posted on 12/12/2003 9:05:00 AM PST by js1138
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To: Right Wing Professor; Alamo-Girl; Phaedrus; js1138; tortoise; marron
Hi, RWP!!!

The article on "amoeba learning" is at the Karl Jaspers (not Popper) Forum, http://www.douglashospital.qc.ca/fdg/kjf/55-TAHON.htm

Alamo-Girl, regarding the photon speculation and Attila Grandpierre's work on the structure of consciousness: As I recall, he assigned different fields to different mind levels. He conjectures that the EM field is very important to conscious thinking; but that at deep mind levels, it is the photon, not the electron, that is critical. I take this to mean that he suspects that the brain/mind is coupled with the universal vacuum field at its very deepest levels.

I agree with you, he would find the Popp investigations to be highly significant for his own work. Fortunately, I know he will soon be reading the McTaggert book. :^)
1,035 posted on 12/12/2003 9:08:02 AM PST by betty boop (God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world. -- Paul Dirac)
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To: Right Wing Professor; betty boop; js1138
Thank you so much for your reply, RWP and thank you for the link, betty boop!

Strangely, I had just located your post on the subject from a previous thread which I excerpt below for Lurkers:

Here's an interesting selection from Slavoj Hontela that elaborates this idea:

"Let us to observe the behavior of an Amoeba in the microscope’s visual field. We can see there an Amoeba, of Proteus species, slowly moving by stretching out its pseudopodia, looking probably for food. We place now with a glass pipette close to her few powdered pigments of a dried Chinese Ink. The amoeba stretches one of her pseudopodia to a pigment grain closest to her (evidence of a chemotaxic reaction or ability !) and involves the grain into her pushing it down to the nucleus where the digestive vacuoles are present. It is certainly interesting that the pigment transported through the pseudopodia towards the nucleus, doesn't yet touch the nucleus capsule when obviously the Amoeba recognized the undigestibility of the Chinese Ink pigment, the further transportation in the direction to the nucleus stops and the foreign body is quickly pushed back and finally eliminated from the Amoeba's body.

"From this observation it is possible to make already several conclusions:

"1) The amoeba was able to recognize and approach the foreign body which might be its potential food,

"2) A. was able to mobilize her pseudopodia giving them the appropriate message to approach this pigment and engulf it.

"3) With a certain delay which was obviously necessary to process the information related to the characteristic of the foreign body and the realization that it is indigestible follows another set of messages and the pigment was eliminated.

"We have to presume there were neuro-biological elements equivalent to those of more developed organisms and obviously there were present a appropriate number of genes ....

"The second phase of the observation experiment was even more interesting because it brought to the evidence the proof of the presence of memory. We have removed the pigment from the underlying microscopic glass dip, we put there a new drop of clear water and again placed there another pigment grain of Chinese Ink. The Amoeba stretched the pseudopodium to the closest pigment but did not touch it and, in contrary pulled back from the pigment grain. Obviously it preserved the memory for the identification of the indigestible pigment!

"It would be an exaggeration to speak about the mind or thinking but the period of might be 30 seconds which were passed by between the pigment taking and eliminating it; evokes the impression that the Amoeba needed a certain time to process the obtained information, i.e., it was 'thinking.'"

RWP, you said "You can extend 'learning' to a population, if you like, but I think that's an unwarranted broadening of the term, which makes it less useful."

I disagree. There is considerable evidence for collective conscious behavior among the species - from muskoxen to bees. The linked FR article and discussion explores this in many interesting ways...

1,036 posted on 12/12/2003 9:22:27 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: betty boop
Thank you oh so very much for your posts - all of them!!!

Alamo-Girl, regarding the photon speculation and Attila Grandpierre's work on the structure of consciousness: As I recall, he assigned different fields to different mind levels. He conjectures that the EM field is very important to conscious thinking; but that at deep mind levels, it is the photon, not the electron, that is critical. I take this to mean that he suspects that the brain/mind is coupled with the universal vacuum field at its very deepest levels.

I agree with you, he would find the Popp investigations to be highly significant for his own work. Fortunately, I know he will soon be reading the McTaggert book. :^)

I am absolutely tickled pink that he will be reading the McTaggert book!

The discussion of Popp combined with our previous discussion of Grandpierre's evolution of consciousness has raised all kinds of possibilities in my mind!

Considering his previous work and affiliations and as a solar physicist, Grandpierre may be able to shed some 'light' on the subject rather quickly.

Specifically, I am now curious if the harmonic distortion of photon emissions may not be as arbitrary as one might think...

1,037 posted on 12/12/2003 9:35:24 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl
I found the piece you excerpted also, using a web search for amoeba and learning. I'm still skeptical. I've read a couple of modern papers on the mechanism of phagocytosis in amoebae, and nowhere is learning mentioned. The observations described by Hontela could well be explained by damage to the amoeba by the ink particles.
1,038 posted on 12/12/2003 9:57:05 AM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: Right Wing Professor
Thank you for your reply!

The observations described by Hontela could well be explained by damage to the amoeba by the ink particles.

Even the second observation, where the amoeba seemed to remember not to engulf the ink?

1,039 posted on 12/12/2003 10:31:00 AM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl
Even the second observation, where the amoeba seemed to remember not to engulf the ink?

One would certainly intepret non-engulfment that way, if one were disposed to find learning in amoebae. The control would be to see if the amoebae were able to engulf other kinds of particles, and therefore had made a specific change in their behavior with respect to the ink particles, and hadn't just been damaged in such a way that inhibited phagocytosis.

As a reductionist, I tend to ask - what is the mechanism for this behavior? Amoebae, depending on the species, have various kinds of G-protein surface receptors that detect chemicals of various kinds, but you'd need a feedback loop that detected the specific chemical in the vacuole, sensed it wasn't food, and then relayed that information to the surface, inhibiting the response of that specific surface receptor. And all within a single cell. I'm skeptical.

1,040 posted on 12/12/2003 10:43:07 AM PST by Right Wing Professor
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