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.

[VadeRetro]

Naturalists have their dogma and Theists have theirs.

Naturalist dogma is that things should be taken straightforwardly to be what the physical evidence says they are. Against that, a certain kind of theist--I wouldn't swear how typical of theists overall this kind is--says that if God didn't leave the right kind of evidence trail, we have to lie for Him.

Out for the night.

[Hootowl]

Boy, they're almost too numerous to mention, but I'll give it a shot. Urey and Miller used a carefully selected variety of organic gases in concentrations designed to favor the formation of soem of life's building blocks. Nor suprisingly, they got the result they wanted. However, did it replicate actual conditions on earth? No. Earth's original atmosphere (as posited by scientists, not creationists) couldn't hold heavy gases like xenon and krypton, let alone the lighter ones like methane and ammonia. Urey and Miller's experiment subjected the test gases to carefully controlled electrical stimulation to get their result. A real lightning bolt would have fried the potential result. Going farther, Urey and Miller carefully screened their experiment from real-world concentrations of ultra-violet light, which would have been as plentiful then as now. They did this because ultra-violet light breaks down ammonia faster than it can form, so in the real world the combination of ingredients used by Urey/Miller wouldn't have had a chance of working. Plus, if all these things were in on the beginning, sedimentary rocks ought to show significant amounts of organic stuff. They don't. Need more? Real life amino acids are all of one special form, called left-handed molecules. Urey/Miller's experiment produced a "racemic" mixture of amino acides, approximately equal proportions of left- and right-handed amino acids. If that had been the case from the beginning, we'd still have left- and right-handed molecules, but we don't find right-handed molecules in any life form today. All for now. I'm tired of typing. ;^)

[Leonine]

The Miller experiment is about earth's atmosphere, not the universe. To be honest, I did overstate that the primitive (It isn't academically correct to use the word primitive, now.)atmosphere hadn't any NH3, etc. There may have been traces, though NASA found none. Ammonia and methane are not at all "the most common molecules in the Universe," and surely you know that, since it contradicts your statement that "The Universe that I live in, is almost nothing but H2." The point is that informed scientists have known for a quarter of a century that the Miller experiment is flawed, and yet the agenda continues.

[Leonine]

Thanks for the correction. I did intend CH4.

[Hunble]

Good grief, I study the spectra of stars and know all about nuclear reactions and how atoms interact.

For our Creationists friends, here is an outstanding website for Color spectra of elements undergoing electrical discharge excitation.

http://home.achilles.net/~jtalbot/data/elements/index.html

Using this knowledge, you can study objects in space by simply observing the light that they emit. Simple concept, but that is what Science is all about.

I believe that God created life and the Universe. But if I actually followed the "evidence" the the Creationists provide to demonstrate their side of the debate, I would be forced into only one conclusion:

There is no Universe or God!

That is a false argument, so I must question their intentions.

[PoorMuttly]

...yes, it did have to start somewhere...it evolved as the first "inboard" biopropulsion mechanism...but nobody cared.

The problem was...that they were hard to steer...and stop...so God fed them to the early Muttlys, and other elevated creations.

...and boy were we grateful !

[Leonine]

My wife says I've gotta go! HootOwl can bring you up to date academically. Go Hootie! Go Hootie...

[bluejay]

The Miller experiment demonstrated how hydrocarbon gases, when subjected to an energy source, were able to combine and produce Amino acids. This experiment has been reproduced so many times, and under so many different conditions, it would be difficult to list all of them. So, what was the flaw in this experiment? There is nothing wrong with the Miller experiment. There is some thing wrong with the conclusion that the experiment offered a potential model for how basic organic compounds were first synthesized: 1. Most now do not believe that ancient atmosphere was a predominantly reducing environment (as required by the experiment). 2. The energy requirement for the experiment is tremendous. It is unlikely that early Earth lightning storms would have produced enough energy to generate the vast amounts of organic molecules. 3. Recently, meteorites have been found to contain amino acids. It is unlikely that these compounds were created by the method that Miller proposed.

[Hunble]

The Miller experiment is about earth's atmosphere, not the universe.

False: The Miller experiment was to demonstrate that basic hydrocarbons will combine to form Amino acids. That molecular chemistry was and is a fact.

Distortions of the basic experiment are for political or religious reasons.

[Hunble]

Have a nice evening. The wife is always the boss!

It was fun tonight.

[Leonine]

The Miller experiment was to demonstrate abiotic genesis--Good night!

[RightWingAtheist]

The arsinotheres are one of the most intriguing puzzles in mammal evolution; although they apparently related to the same branch of mammals as elephants, manatees, aardvarks and hyraxes, HOW they are related to them remains a mystery. Here's a pic:

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[RightWingAtheist]

Evos Gone Wild!

Watch Dzhobansky and Haladane chug a six-pack-each!-on Miami Beach! Thrill as E.O. Wilson burys Lewonotin in the sand, and covers him with fire ants! And you'll be utterly AGAPE when you see the Leakey girls at Mardi Gras!

[Hunble]

I will use the planets Jupiter and Saturn as examples.

As you stated: 1. Most now do not believe that ancient atmosphere was a predominantly reducing environment (as required by the experiment).

2. The energy requirement for the experiment is tremendous. It is unlikely that early Earth lightning storms would have produced enough energy to generate the vast amounts of organic molecules.

3. Recently, meteorites have been found to contain amino acids. It is unlikely that these compounds were created by the method that Miller proposed.

Item 1:

Even I have the equipment (telescope and spectrometer) at home to study the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn. I can identify the major "reducing environment" currently present in the atmosphere of those planets.

Who told you that the Earth did not also have such an environment when it first formed? If not, then why not?

Item 2:

This same experiment has been conducted using the low intensity light, cold temperatures and known gasses present on the planet Mars. Once again, amino acids were produced.

Even in the icy world of Neptune, complex hydrocarbons and amino acids have been found.

Who told you that this molecular reaction of hydrocarbons requires such high energy?

Item 3: Meteorites have been found to contain amino acids. If anything, this confirms how common this chemical reaction is.

Once again, I must seriously question the motives of people who have been telling you this stuff.

[Just mythoughts]

I will not disagree that most ID/Christians do place parameters around a belief that goes against what can be seen.

E's have a mass of evidence and one huge "MISSING LINK". E's have their own set of parameters in the opposite direction.

Consider for a moment that each individual person was in a non-flesh body thus left no "skeletal remains" in the days of the dinosaurs. Thinking about the purpose of "man" not just in flesh but in a non-flesh body cannot be answered by flesh man.

Just because one cannot see in another dimension does not make that dimension non-existent.

Consider these questions.

Then from the storm Jehovah spake to Job,

Pray, who is it that maketh counsel dark
By words devoid of knowledge, [AND OF TRUTH]?

Gird up thy loins, now, like a man; for I
Will ask of thee, and do thou answer ME.

Where wast thou when I earth's foundations laid?
Say if thou know'st, and hast intelligence.

Who fix'd its measurements? (for thou wilt know),
Or who upon it stretched the measuring line?

On what were its foundations made to rest?
Or who its corner-stone [so truly] laid,

(When all the morning stars together sang,
And all the sons of God did shout for joy)?

Or, who fenced in with doors the [roaring] sea,
When bursting forth from [Nature's] womb it came?

What time I made the clouds its covering-robe,
And darkness deep the swaddling-band thereof;

When I decreed for it My boundary,
And set its bars and doors, and to it said,

"Thus far - no farther, Ocean, shalt thou come:
Here shalt thou stay the swelling of thy waves"?

Hast thou called Morning forth since thou was
born;
Or taught the early Dawn to know its place?

[Bid Morn] lay hold on outskirts of the earth;
[Taught Dawn] to rout the lawless from their place?

[Bid Morn] change earth as clay beneath the seal;
[Bid Dawn] enrobe the beauteous world with light?

Thus Morning robs the wicked of their prey,
And stays, arrested, the uplifted arm.

The fountains of the sea hast thou explored?
Or, has thou searched the secrets of the deep?


Job 38:1-16

I suppose "thinking" and "knowledge" could be what is called in modern times "ones own perception" of each.

[Ahban]

"Naturalist dogma is that things should be taken straightforwardly to be what the physical evidence says they are."

I am sorry, that is simply not the case. Naturalist dogma is that the possiblity of Divine Intervention as a cause must be ruled out "a prior" regardless of where the evidence might lead.

Evolutionist Sir Arthur Keith said, "Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We beleive it because the only alternative is Special Creation, and that is unthinkable."

Atheist Scientist Richard Lewonten, " Materialism is absolute......we cannot allow a Divine foot in the door."

I have had evos right here on this board try to tell me that it is "unscientific" to even consider the possiblilty of Divine Intervention as a cause for anything. I suppose that means we must continue to seach for "natural causes" even if all evidence points to the contrary. THAT is wrong headed.

[Doctor Stochastic]

I'm a member of the conspiracy to force you to post things twice.

Any good conspiracy covers its tracks completely; that's the dead giveway.

[Central Scrutiniser]

Scientists change when they have tangible proof, creationists work from the same unending script, oblivious to any science or new data.

[Central Scrutiniser]

I actually saw some hyrax in the wild, did some hiking in S. Africa on the bottom of Africa (or the top, depending where you are). Odd little beasts...