New finds of human ancestor jumble evolutionary puzzle

Christian Science Monitor ^ | 10/13/5 | Peter N. Spotts

[Tulsa Ramjet]

"mini-me"

[Phantom Lord]

Estimated to stand just over three feet tall, it offered the tantalizing possibility that a new species of mini-human lived 18,000 years ago.

They range in age from 12,000 years ago to perhaps 95,000 years old.

Impossible! The fundies keep telling me the earth is only 6,000 years old.

[madison10]

Estimated to stand just over three feet tall, it offered the tantalizing possibility that a new species of mini-human lived 18,000 years ago. They range in age from 12,000 years ago to perhaps 95,000 years old.

Impossible! The fundies keep telling me the earth is only 6,000 years old.

It is only 6,000 years old. It's the time-dating method that is messed up. BTW, NO ONE likes to be called a "fundy." State your point without throwing around labels. It's sooooo Liberal-like.

[mikegi]

It also suggests that modern humans coexisted with relatives who became evolutionary dead ends more recently than previously believed.

Still do, we coexist with Muslims today...

[highlander_UW]

Pretty much all of us were 3 feet tall at one point...it was quite a few years ago for me, but not as long ago as 95,000 years.

[Pharmboy]

Just in case you're interested...

[Coyoteman]

It is only 6,000 years old. It's the time-dating method that is messed up.

Sorry, the Carbon-14 dating method, as well as several others, work just fine. Particularly useful in that time period (i.e., the last 10,000 years) is tree-ring dating. You can match individuals rings on trees of overlapping ages, and can actually count back over 11,600 years. There is no evidence of a flood in the tree rings.

The tree rings are then used to calibrate the Carbon-14 curve.

The overall conclusion from archaeology, sedimentology, geology, and several other studies is that there is no flood and the earth is far older than 6,000 years.

[SittinYonder]

Paging Mr. Frodo. We've found your ring.

[Nathan Zachary]

200 years ago hardly anyone was over 5 feet tall. At least not the Brits and French who first came here. If you go tour all these old forts which are now museums you see that there beds were only 5 feet long, things were made for much shorter people.

[PatrickHenry]

Thanks. Yes, I'm interested. But I won't ping the evolution list because we've just had a thread on this subject:
More bones of hobbit-sized humans discovered.

[SMARTY]

Ha! very good!

[Publius6961]

Impossible! The fundies keep telling me the earth is only 6,000 years old.

You know, fighting the brave battle against a trivial, minuscule number of nutcases must give you great pleasure, but is no great achievement.
I am a Christian and dismiss this group as abnormal and irrelevant. What is your obsession with them?

Could I perhaps help you find a group of truly retarded humans among which you can feel even more intellectually superior?

[Nathan Zachary]

Tree rings are NOT a reliable method for counting years. It's been shown that sometimes a tree has NO growth, while in some years they can have 2-3 growth cycles with produce multiple rings in one year. Tree growth is dependent on climate.

Carbon 14 dating is not accurate, it's been found that the rate of decay is not constant. Some sample show that helium atoms escaped completely, while some samples show that helium atoms remain while the decay is complete. This shows that decay is not constant, which in turn shows that carbon 14 dating is not accurate by any stretch of the imagination.

[mlc9852]

There is plenty of evidence of a flood but you reject that evidence just like many reject the "evidence" of we descended from apes. And don't bother asking for the evidence - there is no point and you and I both know it.

[js1138]

You will no doubt bless us with a citation.

[Right Wing Professor]

Carbon 14 dating is not accurate, it's been found that the rate of decay is not constant. Some sample show that helium atoms escaped completely, while some samples show that helium atoms remain while the decay is complete. This shows that decay is not constant, which in turn shows that carbon 14 dating is not accurate by any stretch of the imagination.

Total and complete nonsense. The rate of decay has been found to be rock steady. And the decay has nothing to do with helium atoms; your complete ignorance of physics leads you to confuse carbon-14 decay (which emits beta particles) with uranium decay (which emits alpha particles, or helium nuclei).

Pretty stupid stuff from a guy who's publicly said he agrees with Michael Moore that Americans are the dumbest people on earth. Maybe you should complete high-school before you attack the intelligence of Americans.

[metesky]

Sure, and I was wonderin' where they'd gotten to.

[highlander_UW]

Could I perhaps help you find a group of truly retarded humans among which you can feel even more intellectually superior?

Were you going to provide him with a link to DU?

[Coyoteman]

Responses to two at once:

Nathan, you keep bring up objections to tree-ring dating which simply do not hold up. Likewise for your changes in the "constant." The only people who seem to believe the way you do are young earth types; scientists are pretty firmly behind these dating methods.

mlc, you say there is evidence of a flood. In my research in archaeological sites in the western US there should be evidence of a flood in particular soil layers between 3,000 and 5,000 years of age. Instead we find continuous human occupation across that time period in many sites. We are dealing with soils, not geological layers; soils are severely disrupted by water movement, and any such movement could be readily seen in the stratigraphy.

In both cases, you and Nathan see what you want to believe in spite of the many scientists who have produced evidence to the contrary. That's fine, believe what you want.

But don't try to convince scientists, who deal directly with the evidence, the tenets of your faith-based beliefs.