Posted on 04/13/2006 12:18:35 PM PDT by Senator Bedfellow
When the famous skeleton of an early human ancestor known as Lucy was discovered in Africa in the 1970s, scientists asked: Where did she come from?
Now, fossils found in the same region are providing solid answers, researchers have announced.
Lucy is a 3.5-foot-tall (1.1-meter-tall) adult skeleton that belongs to an early human ancestor, or hominid, known as Australopithecus afarensis.
The species lived between 3 million and 3.6 million years ago and is widely considered an ancestor of modern humans.
The new fossils are from the most primitive species of Australopithecus, known as Australopithecus anamensis. The remains date to about 4.1 million years ago, according to Tim White, a biologist at the University of California, Berkeley.
White co-directed the team that discovered the new fossils in Ethiopia (map) in a region of the Afar desert known as the Middle Awash.
The team says the newly discovered fossils are a no-longer-missing link between early and later forms of Australopithecus and to a more primitive hominid known as Ardipithecus.
"What the new discovery does is very nicely fill this gap between the earliest of the Lucy species at 3.6 million years and the older [human ancestor] Ardipithecus ramidus, which is dated at 4.4 million years," White said.
The new fossil find consists mainly of jawbone fragments, upper and lower teeth, and a thigh bone.
The fossils are described in today's issue of the journal Nature.
Found Links
According to White, the discovery supports the hypothesis that Lucy was a direct descendent of Australopithecus anamensis.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
Have you been to Ethiopia?
Theories don't graduate to laws. I am surprised, to say the least, that you don't know this, given the background you claim to have.
evidence from the fossil record is very weak and no matter how many “missing links” you come up with you can never prove the Theory of Evolution because you 1) were not there to observe the process and 2) cannot reproduce it. (I am not talking about and we should make a clear difference between the Theory of Evolution and Natural Selection. Natural Selection can be observed directly in nature and actually can be reproduced. Natural Selection can be observed directly in nature and actually can be reproduced. Natural Selection does not prove the Theory of Evolution. Just because I can change one species of fruit fly into another one in the lab does not mean I can change a frog into a dog no matter how much time is given to me.
Hoo boy. I suspect you skipped a couple of classes along the way.
Theories aren't "proven." And your references to "nobody was there to see it" and to changing "a frog into a dog" suggests that you acquired your scientific education from a creationist website, not a university.
Inferences from circumstantial evidence are both necessary and credible in scientific research and inquiry (which, given your "doctorate in Medicine", you should be well aware of). And Evolution is not biological alchemy.
I don't know what you mean by "DNA's missing link," but there is lots of available evidence for the evolution of cognition. Read up, for example, on evolving tool industries across species, from the oldest (Oldowan, Clactonian) to the Acheulean to Levallois, etc.
Paranthropus bosei, 1.4 million years ago was already crafting its own tools.
Prepare for personal attacks by the zealots.
Bravo 'atlaw' for your post #83, in response to ejroths post...I was thinking much the same as you...tho, I am sure you said it better than I could have...
Well, if you preface your statements with an elaborate claim of scientific expertise, and then proceed to make statements demonstrating a lack of even rudimentary scientific literacy, you are likely to be called on it.
I have another question. it's probably a silly one. On the chart, some skulls have two branches off of them. Of those, generally one of the skulls keeps branching, and the other doesn't. Does this indicate an extinction of that line?
Thanks again.
The answer is no, but a lot can be determined from the specimen.
From the abstract:
They include diagnostic craniodental remains, the largest hominid canine yet recovered, and the earliest Australopithecus femur.
The femur alone can indicate how tall the species was, whether it was relatively bipedal, how long its forearms likely were (more or less -- there's a ratio). Craniodental remains tell us what it ate, can indicate if it was bipedal, degree of prognathis and general cranial morphology and place it pretty firmly in relation to other species on the timeline. Just from those, we can get a pretty good sense, though obviously not complete, of what it looked like.
I shouldn’t be surprised – an ad hominem attack.
If you don’t like something someone says then attack their education and credentials.
Why is it so hard for some people to believe that there are people with strong scientific backgrounds that simply do not buy the Theory of Evolution?
"Inferences from circumstantial evidence are both necessary and credible in scientific research and inquiry"
That’s my point – its all speculation!
You have to have as much or more “faith” to believe that the Theory of evolution is fact than I do that God created it all.
The bones were on display at the museum of naatural history in New York
See my comment #91, but just from a leg bone (the femur) we can get a good sense of height, but also of whether it walked upright or not (as opposed to walking on knuckles, swinging on trees, etc.), arm length and I'm sure plenty of other traits. Diet can be determined by look at teeth and enamel. You can make a guess at gender by looking at the robustness (thickness) of certain bones like the femur, but to be sure you have to look at a pelvis.
What kind of medicine do you practice?
Um, you're the one who put "education and credentials" front and center. And you obviously did that in order to "argue from authority." It is hardly ad hominem to address precisely what you intentionally advertised.
That’s my point – its all speculation!
Yikes. Now would be a good time to quit.
How many frames do you think it takes?
24 frames per second makes a pretty convincing movie. We have more frames than you imagine representing evolution.
But the most damning thing about your position is that you have no basis for interpolating frames, and biologists do. So every intermediate frame that pops up is a new creation to you, a lost frame to evolution.
Naw,,,I don't have that much interest...
But hey, there's about 50 predictions in the bible that for tell the major points of Jesus' life, death and resurrection...They 'bout all come true...
Some mathematician determined the odds of that happening were something like 1 in 10 to the 137th power...And it happened...That's a number with a lot of zeros behind it...
I'd say the odds that the bible account is true is pretty overwhelming...
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