Fossils Bridge Gap in African Mammal Evolution

Reuters to My Yahoo! ^ | Wed Dec 3, 2003 | Patricia Reaney

[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.

[cyborg]

Wow thinking that I am above animals, that God created human beings is emotional?? I happen to think that I AM more important than a slug. Evolution is only a theory, and I don't subscribe to it.

[Hunble]

Like you, I also believe that God created me and all other forms of life. Science simply tries to explore and understand how it was done.

To deny the factual evidence that science explores, is denying God also. God created that evidence and spiritual people should pay attention to what is being reveled.

[cyborg]

Scientific exploration is fine. However, the study of evolution is dominated by people who do not believe a person can be scientific and even believe in God at all.

[Pharmboy]

Not subscibing to evolution necessitates a tremendous amount of denial of evidence; and, although I am not a believer, there are many people who DO belive in BOTH God and evolution.

[Just mythoughts]

Until the day a full "skeletal remains" are dug up, then scienctists don't have anything but what they dream up.

Interesting how many discoveries have been made and yet these supposed intellectuals, hold fast to the very thing that removes their credibility.

[cyborg]

Oh well... I will have to respectfully disagree.

[Leonine]

Wasn't there a deliberate fossil hoax on the part of the ChiComms--something to do with Archaeopteryx?--saw it in the Geographic a while back.

[cyborg]

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4229news3-2-2000.asp
Yes. More on that story here.

[Leonine]

Thanks, cyborg. Another hoax was an embryology scandal in about 1966 claiming that the coccyx was a vestigial tail, not an anchor for musculature.

[Leonine]

Oh, and don't forget about the inclusion of the flawed Miller experiment in 1970s textbooks--and then there's ...

[Just mythoughts]

"Arguments we think creationists should not use from Answers in Genesis".

Genesis does not tell us when this "earth" or heavens were created. Genesis is the "beginning" of a "the man" Adam created in a flesh body, his generations and those whom he and his generations came into contact. "The Adam, fell and through he and Eve would come Christ. We are told that these things happened as an ensample (example) for our admonition, (warning) upon whom the ends of the world (flesh age) are come.

As a matter of fact no where is it written exactly when "IN THE BEGINNING" started. So I do not fit in with the "common" belief of "creationists". We are given an idea as to when "man" was created in a "flesh" body, but that by no means is the "BEGINNING".

[cyborg]

I agree

[Agamemnon]

Don't forget to mention the the original "comparative embryology" frauds published by Ernst Haekel, which were expose as such back in the late 19th century.

[Leonine]

Now why would anyone perpetrate a scientific fraud?
A) The perpetrator has overwhelming faith in a pet theory and feels an urgency to proselytize by deception.
B) The perpetrator is incompetent and desires peer respect.
C) The perpetrator is not a scientist and finds pleasure in hoodwinking those who take themselves too seriously.
D) The perpetrator is afraid of Pascal's wager.
E) All of the above!

[Hunble]

Oh, and don't forget about the inclusion of the flawed Miller experiment in 1970s textbooks--and then there's ...

Ok, I give up. How was the Miller experiment flawed?

It seems to me that many people have been able to reproduce that experiment with identical results. Basic hydrocarbon gases, subjected to an energy source, do produce amino acids.

Are you stated that the Miller experiment was flawed and did not produce amino acids?

If you state something, please be kind enough to explain what the heck you are talking about.

[Leonine]

Read The Case for Faith by Chicago Tribune legal editor Lee Strobel for all the sordid details.

[VadeRetro]

This should give some clues, about all those missing "links", but oh well, guess they will have wait til they meet up with old Darwin to find the answers.

The article itself says they just found a bunch more "missing links," things that have been turning up regular as clockwork. To the extent you even notice, you say, to never mind that. There's still something called "the missing link" and it's still missing and it's proof that science is a house of cards.

What bothers me isn't just that creationism/ID is wrong. It's wrong-headed. It's anti-knowledge, anti-thinking.

[PatrickHenry]

Until this thread, I never knew there was so much misinformation out there. Probably a good idea to expose a fraud or two on the other side:
300 Creationist Lies.

[PoorMuttly]

The Aarsinoithere was a wonderful creature...though somewhat flatulent (but nobody cared), and extremely delicious to eat, tasting something like a cross between barbecued short-ribs, and a creamsicle.

It evolved into the Gnat, which is presently to be found loose in most zoos (but nobody cares).

[Central Scrutiniser]

You should know better than to try to talk logic to a creationist...