The famous becomes infamous.
Posted on 01/02/2005 9:41:39 PM PST by bondserv
Anthropologist Claims Humans, Neanderthals, Australopithecines All Variations on One Species 01/01/2005
According to a news story in the UK News Telegraph, all fossil hominims, including modern humans, Australopithecines, Neandertals and the recent Indonesian “hobbit man,” belong to the same species: Homo sapiens. Reporter Robert Matthews wrote about Maciej Henneberg (U of Adelaide) and his argument, based on skull sizes and body weights for 200 fossil specimens, that all known hominim bones fit within the range of variation expected for a single species. Henneberg made the startling claim in the Journal of Comparative Human Biology, where he said, “All hominims appear to be a single gradually evolving lineage containing only one species at each point in time.”
Henneberg still believes humans were evolving, but his analysis points out several important shortcomings in the “science” of paleoanthropology that should make the thoughtful reader wary of its practitioners. (1) There is a huge range of variation possible within a single species. (2) It is difficult to assign any human bone to one or another species. Notice what this led Henneberg to state: “There is no precise way in which we can test whether Julius Caesar and Princess Diana were members of the same species of Homo sapiens” (emphasis added in all quotes). Consider what that means when judging bones of alleged human ancestors. You could tell any story you want. (We like the one that Caesar and Diana were different species.) (3) The article reminds everyone that paleoanthropologists often bicker about the meaning of their discoveries (see 12/21/2004 headline). Geoffrey Harrison (Prof. emeritus, Oxford) said it best: “Clearly there is a need to be more aware of the possibility of variation – but that is not the inclination today. It has been a problem because the discoverers have usually put so much effort into finding the evidence, so they want it to be important.” (4) There are too few bones to make any conclusions. Henneberg said there are fewer than 30 Neandertal specimens available for study. (5) Neandertals could be considered fully human. The article refers to Henneberg stating, in effect, that “What evidence there is, however, is consistent with Neanderthals being from the same species as modern humans.” Christopher Stringer (Natural History Museum, London) adds that Neandertals were not signficantly different from us in skull or body size. “The argument they are a different species is, of course, only a hypothesis...” (italics added).
Best quote from the story is the last paragraph:He [Henneberg] added that the never-ending announcements of new species said more about those making the claims than about human evolution. “The problem is there are far more palaeontologists than fossil specimens”.Corollary: it also says more about the editors of National Geographic than about human evolution, too – both when they make never-ending announcements, and when they become strangely quiet about stories like this one.
YEC SPOTREP!
Hobbits are humans?
The famous becomes infamous.
Can you send me a URL for your graphic? Thanks
Just incase you are not on the other list.
This is one Vade uses all of the time to cement his fossil record. Much of it is just cement. :-)
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/images/hominids2.jpg
This is from a quick web search. There is often more than meets the eye than is found in an initial freeper post.
Along with Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Trolls and don't forget Pinocchio from the Clinton/Gore ancestral line.
Thanks for adding more info to the thread.
I am pleased someone has raised this issue; I've been noting it for many years. Considering that genetic drift is a constant process, the transition between species must be a gradual shift. Many people, particularly opponents, seem to conceptualize these abrupt, dramatic transitions which simply aren't what evolution is all about. It is conceivable that a modern Briton and an ancient Roman would be genetically incompatible, and therefore of different species (or at least subspecies).
Granted, there's a compelling reason to deduce that Julius Caesar and Princess Diana were indeed of the same species. That is, groups of humans isolated from each other since long before Julius Caesar's time are nonetheless capable of reproducing with one another, and therefore are of the same species.* There is no plausible reason to think that genetic drift since the 1st century BC Italy to 20th century AD Britain was greater than that from 10,000 BC Siberia or Polynesia.
* please spare us the mules..
Guess what? We're all one species. Maybe a bunch of local variations (races), but--we're all one species!
If you look at the migration patterns, you have diversity of many tens of thousands of years. With this time span, Julius Caesar and Princess Diana are chickenfeed. One species, no question. Before we need to test that they were members of the same species of Homo sapiens, lets see any evidence they were not. Otherwise you are just wasting our time.
And as I posted at the time, Henneberg's "analysis" is so simplistic as to be worthless (but when has that been a problem for the creationists before?):
For Henneberg to say, "well they're in the same extreme size range, they must have been have been the same species", is utterly ludicrous. Not, of course, that that stops "Creation-Evolution Headlines" from using it as "proof" of their misconceptions about biology...The problem is that such a "weights and heights" measure is an extremely simplistic measure. Just because there are modern humans who are midgets, that doesn't mean that an Australopithecus would be taken for a "normal" modern human if one were to be brought to the present using a time machine. You'd still freak out if you saw one walk into the 7-11.
I don't know *any* modern humans who look even remotely like *this*:
Massive brow ridge, *NO* forehead, a braincase you could wrap your hand around like a football, a prominent protruding muzzle, small close-set eyes, jawbone larger than the braincase, etc. etc. Compare to the proportions and angles of a modern human skull:
Modern humans belong to the same species as the Neanderthals(otherwise known as the French)?!! Oh no!!!!!
"Other authorities hailed Prof Henneberg's findings as a much-needed reality check. 'Clearly there is a need to be more aware of the possibility of variation - but that is not the inclination today,' said Geoffrey Harrison, emeritus professor of biological anthropology at the University of Oxford. 'It has been a problem because the discoverers have usually put so much effort into finding the evidence, so they want it to be important'."
"Professor Chris Stringer, a leading expert on human fossils at the Natural History Museum, London, said even Neanderthals were not significantly different in skull or body size from modern humans. However, he added that they do differ in other details, such as inner ear bones."
One of the largest landmasses on Planet Earth is currently unexplorable - Antarcia.
There is no foundation for life evolving from Africa. There is every reason to believe life evolved on Antarica and Antarica is the source of dispersal.
Because science cannot investigate does not support their biased hypothesis.
I am right. They are wrong. Prove me otherwise.
It says human, neanderthals, and australopithecines, not french or liberals.
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