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.

[Ahban]

You are idealistic, and your ideas are not bad ones, but it is the Lewontins of the world that actually control the grants, funding, journals, and prestige. The actaul achievments of actaul scientists has been subverted by the dictates of Naturalism. Consider this case of Creationist Dr. Ray Damadian...

Nobel Prize Committee Accused of Rewriting History 10/10/2003
When Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield got the Nobel Prize for Medicine last week for their work on MRI scanning technology, Dr. Raymond Damadian was shocked. It was he who had first envisioned whole-body MRI scanners in 1969. It was his paper, written in 1970, published in Science in 1971, that demonstrated that water molecules in living tissues responded to nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and affirmed that this held promise for biological diagnosis. It was he who proved this with experiments on laboratory animals, and later on humans. It was he who had produced the first working MRI scanner (now in the Smithsonian). It is he who holds the patent on MRI, a patent hard-won against technology thieves over the years that resulted in his vindication by the Supreme Court in 1997.

He has the National Medal of Technology for his work on MRI, is enrolled in the Inventor's Hall of Fame for his invention of MRI, and is the president of a company Fonar Corporation, that builds MRI scanners. It is his company that remains on the cutting edge of MRI advancements. No one has devoted more of his life to MRI technology; his name is almost synonymous with MRI.

None of this seemed to matter to the Nobel committee. They gave the prize, with all its historical prestige, to two men who merely made technical improvements based on Damadian’s foundational discovery. Without Damadian’s pioneering lead, they might never have considered the possibilities of MRI. (See this timeline of MRI for credit discovery and invention, and also this background of the dispute over credit for MRI in Opinion Journal, written over a year before the Nobel announcement.)

Damadian’s company and supporters took an unusual step. With the support of colleagues at the State University of New York School of Medicine, where much of his research was done, and with quotes from colleagues and authors of books about MRI, they took out full page ads in the New York Times and Washington Post. The ad accuses the Nobel committee of revising history. Their evil was intentional, the ad claims, because the rules clearly allow for three people to be named for the prize, so there is no excuse for excluding Damadian. It is also contrary to the purpose of the prize as stated in Alfred Nobel’s will, that it should be awarded for the “most important discovery [not procedure or refinement] within the domain of physiology or medicine.”

Damadian feels the committee has robbed him of 33 years of his identity, and has been effectively written him out of the history he helped make. The decision is “a shameful wrong that must be righted,” the ad proclaims in bold type. The committee showed “inexcusable disregard for the truth,” it says, making a decision that is “simply outrageous.” Now that the committee has “disgraced itself,” the ad calls for readers to join their voice with “the many distinguished physicians, scientists and authors who are expressing their outrage at this decision,” and to urge them to include Damadian in the 2003 Nobel Prize for Medicine. The Nobel committee claims the award was correctly chosen, however, and the decision cannot be appealed.


This guy was cheated. He can get technology awards, but not science awards. This is just one example. The bias of naturailists that control the process have a chilling effect on those who would question the status quo.

[jennyp]

JennyP remains at the computer!

[Ahban]

How did I infer a timeframe from the source? It's right there in the article. Here is an excerpt from the thread I linked you to....


Simultaneous, rapid changes in human abilities suggest replacement of previously existing hominids with modern humans. The fact that all these events happened ~50,000 years ago precludes any possibility that previously existing hominids could be our ancestors, since Homo erectus died out 300,000 years ago, and Homo neandertalensis has been proven to be too genetically different from us to have been our ancestor (27, 28). Where does this leave the evolutionists and their descent of man theory? Well, they can always fall back on their favorite line - "the fossil record is just incomplete." Alternatively, check out Genesis 1:26.

---

Other places in that thread also maintain that humans were created less than 50K years ago. It is all right there, and expounded on in the thread. A hypothesis of "GOd did it" is hard to nullify, and therefore a lousy hypothesis. Its too vague. I am arguing that God the Son did it in accordance with the Bibical record.

As far as motivation, that does not have to be a part of the theory- yours or mine.

[VadeRetro]

But then why have you bothered to offer candidates to fill that gap?

The literature appeared to show a couple. One is Australia's Mungo Man initially announced at about 65kya, the other was something in China. The dating of each has been at least thrown into doubt. Why would I not mention that your claim appeared to be contradicted when you made it?

You don't [have a fossil from 90-50kya], so you cry "pathetic".

Try to understand. Here's the timeline.

Your chosen grounds for the proof of non-evolution--God zapped one species out of existence and poofed in another one--lies in the region between 1 and 0 on the vertical axis, except it's really just the part of that space between about .9 and .5 if such markings were shown.

There are actually far bigger gaps visible in the sequence, at least for now. Take practically the whole space from 6 to 5 million years ago, for instance. In Darwin's day, the only fossils on that chart would be a couple of Neanderthals, period. All the rest would have been two big gaps. Well, now you have more hiding places, but smaller. Still after all this time and all these discoveries, for creationists, the gaps are not proof of the spottiness of the fossil record, but of some kind of spottiness in history itself. This, you will pardon me, is one stupid science.

Here's what makes it really pathetic, though.

Shown above, "Qafzeh 9" from 90-100kya.

Whereas this is "Cro-magon man." Certainly not the same head, but if anything even more blocky-robust.

Both pics from this site.

Another site on Qafzeh here.

Supposedly, the old skulls are a different "created kind" from the new ones in Ahban-theology-paleontology. That is the point of your gap game: the new must not have evolved from the old, hence evolution is false at least for our precious human ancestry.

But why would anyone who didn't know the urgent theological reasoning ever say so? Some of the Cro-magnon guys are just as robust, just as low-crowned and brow-ridged. They look like the same species. If a time machine could be employed, the Qafzeh guys could probably have mated with ease with Cro-magon and maybe with us.

[Dimensio]

You did show some justification for a timeframe, I will admit that. You did not, however, show justification for hypothesizing that the "God of the Bible" (as opposed to any other gods) is responsible, however.

[Last Visible Dog]

Not one of those guys ever bought an airplane ticket, either. If God wanted us to fly, he'd have given us wings.

Think again. If God had meant use to fly, he'd have bought us tickets.

[Stultis]

[Damadian whines, sues, takes out ads, yada, yada, yada...]

You got a price check on Alaskan eggs to go along with that?

[PatrickHenry]

P L A C E M A R K E R

[Ahban]

you ping people on your 507 like you said something worth hearing. I give specific examples for my contention and you respond with empty mockery. You have just lost this debate.

[Ahban]

Thank you for acknowledging the timeframe point. As for why I picked the God of the Bible as opposed to some forgotton Mesopotamian deity, I should think it would be obvious. IF there is a God, and IF He has ever revealed Himself in human history, then WHO would He be? Who are the candidates? The God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob is the one that plays by FAR the most prominent role in human history. It makes sense, using historical and legal evidence rather than scientific evidence I admit, that He is the Creator of mankind, if there is one. Do you need any scientific evidence to justify the position that you like chocolate? If you do, you know it experientially.

More than that though, I have seen what He has done in my life and the lives of others I have known. I have experiental knowledge that He actually is God, therefore I don't need to conduct any experiments to justify that position.

[Ahban]

That chart is of too large a scale to even be pertinent to the issue here. The place where I have made my case is on the near end of the scale. Those piles of bones from long ago can and have been arranged into a number of trees. There is no way to know if any of them are correct.

The near end of the scale is what at issue. All you have to do is show the fossils, but Q9 is at the edge of the window, or outside it. Plus, it should not even count. The Q9 skull you show looks very different, and much more neandertal, than the cro-mag skull. Look at the size of the teeth and nose socket compared to the cro-mag. Look at the round shape of the giant eye-sockets. Those are neandertal features. From a front view it is hard to tell, but the skull also looks much narrower than the cro-mag skull.

The face is enormous, and appears to have a weak chin and a small 'muzzle'. Q9 looks like a mideast neandertal. They are not as cold adapted as the European ones, and thus appear a bit more sapiens-like. It does not mean that the DNA tests are wrong and we really came from them. It just means that group of neadertals had a build more similar to sapiens. And I have no doubt cro-magnon was robust. To survive in those times, I am sure you had to be. Give us a few generations of such contidions and we would look a lot more like that- with only the strong surviving. Give us a few millenia of good times, and our bodies will be back to their current spectra.

[Virginia-American]

I've always found this page amusing. The creationists *know* that a given fossil is either ape or human - they just disagree which is which!

To me, that in itself is strong evidence of transitional forms between apes and people.

[Dimensio]

Who are the candidates? The God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob is the one that plays by FAR the most prominent role in human history.

Justification for this assertion?

It makes sense, using historical and legal evidence rather than scientific evidence I admit, that He is the Creator of mankind, if there is one.

No it doesn't. You're just assuming it because you want it to be the case.

[Stultis]

I give specific examples

You mean one example, which had nothing to do with evolution or creationism -- excepting the speculation that Damadian was not included in the Nobel award because he's a creationist. And even if that were the case, and however clever the insights regarding magnetic resonance were, it has exactly zero to do with the topic we were discussing.

Magnetic resonance is a naturalistic phenomena, so it has nothing to do with "supernatural" elements being accommodated in scientific reasoning, nor did it require any other fundamental reformation in the philosophical or metaphysical presuppositions defining the nature of science, it's boundary conditions, what constitutes acceptable theories, or anything much more relevant than the price of eggs in Alaska. At least not that I could see.

[laredo44]

Darwin is in another dimension

What's it like, that other dimension?

[VadeRetro]

May as well mention that the next page directly explores a variety of facial types. How many of these would you call a different created kind if they were only represented by an old skull on the other side of a 40K year gap and there was no way to demonstrate cross-fertility with people alive today? Your science appears to me inextricably entangled with your theological convenience.

[VadeRetro]

To me, that in itself is strong evidence of transitional forms between apes and people.

Creationists are evidence that, if we have evolved, it wasn't very far.

[VadeRetro]

Meant to say, too, that no authority that I've found sees diagnostic Neanderthal features on the Qafzeh skulls. Other than your esteemed self, that is. You're a voice crying in the wilderness. What you're crying is "There has to be room for a miracle in here somewhere!" If a hole in the evidence trail is room for a miracle, then there's room for miracles everywhere. But where are the miracles?

[Right Wing Professor]

Damadian's MRI ;scanner' consisted of moving the bdoy in and out of a receptive region. It was like tking an X-ray of one part of the body, rather than a CAT scan. It is not what the scientific community considers imaging.

But hey, don't take my word for it, take Damadian's.

“If I had not been born, would MRI have existed? I don't think so. If Lauterbur had not been born? I would have gotten there. Eventually.

We don't give Nobel prizes to people who 'would have gotten there eventually'. We give them to the people who actually made the discovery.