Posted on 11/18/2004 7:00:02 PM PST by Pharmboy
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An ape that lived 13 million years ago in what is now Spain may have been the last common ancestor of all apes, including chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and humans, researchers said on Thursday.
The fossil provides a missing link, not directly between humans and an apelike ancestor, but between great apes and lesser apes such as gibbons, the researchers said.
The creature, named Pierolapithecus catalaunicus, had a stiff lower spine and flexible wrists that would have made it a tree-climbing specialist, the researchers write in this week's issue of the journal Science.
"This probably is very close to the last common ancestor of great apes and humans," said Salvador Moya-Sola of the Miguel Crusafont Institute of Paleontology in Barcelona, Spain, who led the study.
Remains of an ape, named 'Pierolapithecus
catalaunicus' are presented near Barcelona, Spain
on November 18, 2004. The creature that lived 13
million years ago in what is now Spain may have
been the last common ancestor of all apes,
including chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and
humans researchers said. (Albert Gea/Reuters)
It would have looked something like a modern chimpanzee and probably ate fruit, said his colleague Meike Kohler.
"It may have looked a little bit in the face comparable to that of a chimp but with some differences," she said in a telephone briefing.
"I would call it a missing link, because it really fills a gap," she added.
About 25 million years ago, old world monkeys, which now live in Africa and Asia, split off from the line that eventually led to apes.
The great apes -- orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and humans -- are believed to have branched off from the lesser apes such as gibbons and siamangs about 11 million to 16 million years ago.
Humans branched off from chimpanzees an estimated 7 million years ago.
The researchers had just begun digging at the site near Barcelona when a bulldozer turned up the first bits of the fossilized skeleton. They immediately knew they had something unique.
The animal's rib cage, spine and wrist all looked like a great ape's, specialized for climbing. Monkeys, in contrast, while excellent climbers, have more general movement abilities and are not so specialized.
But the new find has small hands, unlike modern great apes.
"This newly discovered fossil, a new ape species from Spain called Pierolapithecus catalaunicus, or its close relative, may have been the last common ancestor of all living great apes, or close to that ancestor," said Brooks Hanson, deputy editor for physical sciences at Science magazine.
"Although this group includes humans, it's important to remember that we've had millions of years of evolution since then, she added."
Even from an evolutionary point of view, there is no way to presume they are examples of a linear development... the presentation presents someone's imagination of how a linear development might look, put used by you and others to suggest it somehow proves your assertions.
By the way, how do you know they are chronological?
I think the first skull is that of a modern chimp and the last one is that of a modern human skull ... or am I mistaken?
I think that's what VadeRetro said, and I certainly don't disagree. I think the last few were all found in France, and I think the rest were found in Africa.
In strictest accuracy, the development is not linear. In evolution, it's always a tree. In the human ancestry case, it's this tree.
From The Human Ancestors Hall.
Nevertheless, a tree like that can and did create the progression shown in the figure we've been discussing:
From 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution. Note the presence and ordering of dates for the species. Note that all of the species are well established, the literature linked being only a tiny sample what you can google up on the net in each case.
- (A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
- (B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
- (C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
- (D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
- (E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
- (F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
- (G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My
- (H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
- (I) Homo heidelbergensis, "Rhodesia man," 300,000 - 125,000 y
- (J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y
- (K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y
- (L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y
- (M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y
- (N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern
Note too that in your clawing and scratching you have nevertheless moved far away from Plan A, the crowing that there is no fossil evidence and scientists are furiously scratching their heads looking for same. Again, I invite the dispassionate lurker to note the difference between evidence not existing and evidence being thrown out. Now consider that the dodges being used against what has been presented so far can, would, and will be used against any possible preponderance of real-world evidence for macroevolution. No matter how much evidence there is and how good, the defense won't have to change a thing.
For what's funnier yet, read the top article of this thread. It announces that scientists have found something not found up to now but which, if evolution is true must have once existed: a likely last common ancestor for great apes from after the split with the lesser apes. If this specimen isn't exactly that ancestor (there's no DNA to test), it's a close enough relative to same to have all the expected features. This is something that in the creationist view need never have existed, but it's another case that we now know did.
In Darwin's lifetime there were many such last common ancestors (creatures from so-far unrepresented positions) on the tree of life. They've been turning up regularly since 1859. Apes-humans, dinosaurs-birds, reptiles-mammals, land animals-whales, land animals-sirenians. Every time we have a thread about one of them, the creationists show up chanting the mantra that there are no such things and never will be. That's very odd since the very thread is about how we just found another one.
That post 75 that set you all off linked a whole bunch of those predicted-and-found transitionals that you guys simply claim don't exist. Almost none of you bothered with the links because that dramatic picture alone was enough to set you to yapping, screeching, and flinging dung.
Such is the scholarship of creation science.
You may be confusing my involvement on this thread with someone elses, but this is at least the second time you've characterized my responses in way that has no relation to the responses themselves.
I have made no other claim or assertion other than point out the willingness of evolution aplogists to deceitfully misrepresent things as certain which are arguably uncertain, and assert that the entire theory of evolution is built in that manner.
LOL! Beat me to it.
My characterizations ignore tag-teaming, true. It's not about you. It's about the side you jumped in on which is wrong.
I have made no other claim or assertion other than point out the willingness of evolution aplogists to deceitfully misrepresent things as certain which are arguably uncertain, and assert that the entire theory of evolution is built in that manner.
Your objections are not about a few error bars here and there. You refuse to make even the most obvious inferences, never mind reasonable inferences. That's all I needed to show and it's certainly out there.
I don't mean to be obtuse, but I really don't understand what you mean here. I might understand, but I'm not certain. I would appreciate clarification if you are willing.
By the way, I completly understand the tag-team thing... I've dont it before myself many times. :o)
The biggest misconcepion about evolution is that there are missing links of any kind.I don't know how many times the mantra got chanted. I was thread jumping and there are at least two threads going on this fossil find. At any rate, a minimum of two people on this thread were saying that something reasonably to be expected in the fossil record or elsewhere isn't there. As I've already explained, that's absurd.
So I posted what I did. Here's your take on it in 96:
I would assert that the graphic can not possibly be believed to represent actual samples of linear development with any certainty, and therefore the skulls are simply arranged in order of size and shape in order to suggest a picture of what the imagined lineage might look like. However, evolutionists feel free to present such uncertain things as certain.This is a true bludgeoning by refusal to infer. Let's take it a bit at a time.Also, I would assert that the entire evolutionary theory is built on such uncertainties being presented as certain, and building more uncertainties upon them and presenting them as certain. That practice is NOT science, it is propoganda.
I would assert that the graphic can not possibly be believed to represent actual samples of linear development with any certainty, and therefore the skulls are simply arranged in order of size and shape in order to suggest a picture of what the imagined lineage might look like.
An assertion, yes. Unsupported, wrong, and unjustifiable. The things are obviously photos of fossil specimens. The only things you can call imagined are the colored fill areas between the fossil bone fragments. The assumption that these areas existed does not strike most people as unreasonable and does not take much imagination. The assertion that the sort is by shape rather than chronology is wrong, although more understandable. They do form a progression in their shapes, but that's my point and not yours.
However, evolutionists feel free to present such uncertain things as certain.
The fossil species (many of them multi-specimen) existed at the times indicated and had skulls which look approximately as shown. You have a scoop if it isn't so.
Also, I would assert that the entire evolutionary theory is built on such uncertainties being presented as certain, and building more uncertainties upon them and presenting them as certain.
More unsupported and wrong assertion.
That practice is NOT science, it is propoganda.
More unsupported and wrong assertion.
Recap: People were saying there's no evidence. I showed that there's plenty of evidence. You and at least one other refused to see the evidence as evidence.
Given what already exists, I can imagine no possible fossil sequence and no possible molecular/genetic data which will make any difference in the intransigence of the militant anti-evolution movement screaming their mantras in school board meetings around the country. There is no evidence because the talking points have already been printed up and "There is no evidence" is one of the talking points.
Note the total lack of logic here. The premise "there IS (sic) NO MISSING LINKS BETWEEN SPECIES" in no way leads to the conclusion: "all animals were created by a 'highly intellegent being' (their way of admittting[sic] that there is a God) that must have created all life."
This is wrong in so many ways that one can lose count. It is so poorly constructed as to not even really qualify as fallacious, it doesn't pretend to enough logic to warrant it.
There are no common terms, insufficient number of terms,asserting the negative (NO MISSING LINKS BETWEEN SPECIES), assertion without proof, (all animals were created), and, among others, begging the question, (must have created all life.)
I find it funny that there is this fervent questioning of "evidence" when there is a dearth of evidence for the creationist side.
Where is the fossil record for the Garden of Eden? Or the Tree of Life? Or the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? Or that Moses' cane turned into a snake? Or that Egypt ever held the Jews as slaves? Or that the devil took Jesus upon on the spire and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world? (An incident that could have had no witnesses.) Or that the cock crowed 3 times and not 4 times? Or that it was 30 pieces of silver and not 24 or 33 or 36?
Why are the writings of a man 150 years ago suspect but not those of 2000 years ago? What about the other writings from that period that were not "cannonized" by the church more than 300 years after they were written, for political reasons, but had just as much validity as those that were? If one believes in that act of cannonization, how could one be anything other than a Catholic and expect to be saved?
they continue to look for that "impossible dream" so that they don't have to even think about the possibility of "intelligent design".
Which here is truly the "impossible dream?" I also have a pet peeve with this last term, "intelligent design." This term is completely redundant. "Design" implies intelligence, by definition. The fact that the term has to be qualified is an admission of the intellectual poverty of the phrase.
What, there is "intelligent design" as opposed to "unintelligent design?"
But this is representative of the intellectual rigor of this argument, i.e., none.
Hypothesis Contrary to Fact. Asserting the Negative.
Sorry, it's bunk.
Assertion without Proof.
Then where are the half-ape half-humans?
They are riding wooley mammoths just past the sunset of history.
Great observation.
My favorite line from Romeo and Juliet:
ALL ARE PUNISH-ED!
This reveals a startling ignorance about evolution.
There are any number of residual species, from horseshoe crabs, to crocodiles, to cockroaches to frogs, that have been relatively comfortable in their niches for millions of years, while certain portions of the population became isolated in more hostile environments that forced them to evolve while their ancestors did not. For example, the eyeless, white snakes and crickets that live deep in caves, many of which are distinct species, yet are traceable to their above ground relatives, which haven't changed in millenia.
If you doubt my word read about the Cambrian explosion and answer the questons(sic) posed by that phenomonon.
The Burden of Proof is upon you to come up with another reason for that fossil record aside from evolution, other than God was just trying to fool everybody as to the origins of life. Whether it was a burst of radiation from a nearby (relatively) nova or a drastic environmental change that drastically increased the food supply and greatly expanded the number of niches, or both at the same time, is irrelevant. The fact that you acknowledge there was a Cambrian explosion is tacit admission you accept that validity of the fossil record and all it implies. And the only thing it implies is evolution.
Good morning. :) By the way I understand your explained use of the graphic in terms of responding to other's post.
And I believe I understand your use of "refusal to infer"... Until a little googling, I was not familiar with the term.
My point is not simply refusal to infer, but a pointing out that such inference is premature and based on a vast amount of subjective speculation (and I do not use the word vast hyperbolicly), despite the fact that evolution apologists make a habit of defending themselves in such a way as to conceal the speculation on which their conclusions are based and build more speculative conclusions on them.
In terms of the graphic, I'll try to reiterate my point... I think even staunchly pro-evolutionary scientists would have to admit that any evolutionary relationship defined between one skull and another in the graphic is very subjective, speculative, and uncertain. In fact, the second graph you posted is evidence of this, as such a "tree" is in disagrement with other conclusions about the same fossils' relationships.
My point is not that they are WRONG, my point is that they are speculative... And that the evolutionary theory as a whole is based on speculative conclusions being used to INFER conslusiveness. That, is NOT science, that is propoganda.
Back in that post 75, the uproar against which drew you in, I linked an exchange with one supposed secular skeptic of evolution, whom I told, "You only know the pig-ignorant science a YEC knows." I went on to note that his only citations of literature were of Gish and Menton, and that, a supposed vaccine immunology student, he had misspelled "immunologist."
You're looking about as genuine as that guy was. People can go to your profile, read your posts, and tot up the score. You're insulting everyone's intelligence with this.
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