Posted on 10/02/2009 11:00:06 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Did apes descend from us?
Skeleton of Ardi, 1.2-metre, 50-kilogram female may hold the clue
Joseph Hall Science writer
It may well be the closest we will ever come to the missing link between chimps and humans and the most important anthropological find ever.
In a series of studies released today by the journal Science, researchers have revealed a creature that took the first upright steps toward human beings and fundamentally changes the way we look at our earliest evolutionary ancestors.
The research brings into question the belief that our most distant ancestors descended from apes.
What's closer to the truth is that our knuckle dragging cousins descended from us.
That's one of the shocking new theories being drawn from a series of field-altering anthropology papers published today in a special edition of the journal Science.
Meet Ardi, a 1.2 metre, 50-kilogram female that is going to cause a big fuss throughout the anthropology world.
In 11 papers and summaries unveiled by the journal, researchers have revealed the partial skeleton of a creature that undoubtedly walked upright like our "hominid" predecessors, yet had many of the distinctive hallmarks of climbing apes.
"It is probably the most important find we have had yet," says Owen Lovejoy, a biological anthropologist at Ohio's Kent State University.
"It's transformative. This is a lot closer to anything that you'd call the missing link than anything that's ever been found," says Lovejoy, one of the primary authors on the journal package.
Among other things, research on the 4.4 million year old creature suggests that humans are far more primitive in an evolutionary sense than the great apes -- like chimps and gorillas -- of today.
"In a way we're saying that the old idea that we evolved from a chimpanzee is totally incorrect," he says. "It's more proper to say that chimpanzees evolved from us."
(Could that line of thinking evoke howls of outrage is some creationist quarters? "Oh God yes," Lovejoy laughs.)
Lovejoy explains that the "hominid" lines of upright species that evolved, in fits and starts, into humans, have much more in common physiologically with Ardi than do modern chimpanzees.
Chimps, he says, experienced much more profound evolutionary changes in their backs, pelvises, limbs, hands and feet as they adapted themselves to life in the trees than we ground dwellers did.
"Hominids, it turns out to be, are pretty primitive," Lovejoy says
"We're pretty much unchanged, or let's say we're less changed since the last common ancestor with chimpanzees than are chimpanzees."
Lovejoy explains that the actual missing link -- or last common ancestor in scientific parlance -- may have first sprung up some six million years before Ardi - short for Ardipithecus ramidus.
But Ardi, while past the initial link stage, possesses enough ape and hominid traits to show what those true common ancestors would have looked like, he says.
"It's the first find that we have that is really informative about what that last common ancestor was like."
And we're much more like the Ardi creature than any of today's apes, meaning they've evolved from human-like creatures - not the other way around, he says.
http://www.halos.com/reports/index.htm
It is interesting to note that he was published in Science, and yes with some controversy. But, no actual studies to undermine the conclusions.
I can surmise, as you provided, anything I want, however, the surmising is without and contradiction provided by studies, only educated opinions.
I do see a publication or 2 that attempted an alternative explanation without directly challenging Gentry that were published in Science, however, no indication of a study.
I do see claims of Gentry disproved on the internet, but again, not without publication or another study.
There may be another individual that explored this in a study. But I haven’t found it.
However, if your asserting that someone disagreeing with Gentry is proof that he is wrong, then we that disagree with you is all that’s needed to declare you inept....but I won’t.
I honestly have to go, so maybe we can continue this later.
This conclusion published in Science?
"To the question of what mode of origin is consistent with the relatively short half-lives of the polonium isotopes (or their β-decaying precursors), I can say only that other mechanisms are under study."
The requested URL /article/1795 was not found on this server.
Hmmm....now I wonder why that is???
“Then why are the Temple of Darwin scientists saying that this “research brings into question the belief that our most distant ancestors descended from apes”?”
—I think that was a really poorly phrased way of trying to say that we changed just as much as chimps since the common ancestor. I.e. we didn’t evolve “from” apes - us and chimps changed just as much since the common ancestor, and in fact we may have change less than chimps (at in fact in total anatomy we may have even changed slightly less, at least from the neck down). The next sentence indicates what he meant - although I think it’s a dumb and confusing way of putting it.
Could this lend credence to the phrase “I’m a monkey’s uncle”?
You link to Gentry blows the ‘varible decay rate’ out of the water.
With respect to the decay rate question, Spector (31) has
argued that the differences between Henderson et al (20) halo
radii measurements and equivalent air mineral ranges present
a case for a variable 2. In the light of the above experimental
uncertainties, this conclusion is not necessarily valid. On the
other hand, Gentry (24) has shown that even exact agreement
between halo radii and corresponding CB sizes does not
necessarily imply an invariant A and in fact uncertainties in
radius measurements alone preclude establishing the stability
of it for 238U to more than 35%.
2
I’m sure there are others, those are just the most obvious ones to me. Feel free to add your favorites.
How about the Temple of Darwin human origins fairytale is a subjective mess.
You have some point other than making yourself look like a blithering idiot?
But Ardi, while past the initial link stage, possesses enough ape and hominid traits to show what those true common ancestors would have looked like, he says.
"It's the first find that we have that is really informative about what that last common ancestor was like."
Could you please be so kind as to explain how these statements from the article disprove the Evolutionary theory?
On a side note, I’m almost postive that this:
“may have first sprung up some six million years before Ardi”
- was a misquote or misspeak.
I think he meant (or actually said) that the last common ancestor was six million years ago - not six million years before Ardi (which would push it back to about 10 million years ago).
If Ardi is already essentially what we expect in a common ancestor, and is essentially a chimp/human hybrid, than pushing the actual ancestor back an additional 6 million years would make no sense.
Statements from other scientists also indicate that this was a misquote/misspeak:
“This is not that common ancestor, but it’s the closest we have ever been able to come,” said Tim White, director of the Human Evolution Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.
The lines that evolved into modern humans and living apes probably shared an ancestor 6 million to 7 million years ago, White said in a telephone interview.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_on_sc/us_sci_before_lucy
I guess the “last common ancestor first sprung up six million years before Ardi” part went right over your head?
I am not positive, but I think that statement does not support the YEC story, and does nothing to disprove the scientific theory of Evolution.
It appears to me that more humans are evolving into apes all the time.
And what empirically verified common ancestor would that be, Ira?
Nice try but I have advised you before your little games of name-calling, misconceptions, and misdirection will no longer work.
I asked you “How does that disprove the Evolutionary theory?” Now answer the question.
Actually, my reply went right over your head, or, as a typical Temple of Darwin fanatic, you are refusing to answer the question because you know the answer discredits the “scientific” status of Darwood’s evo-religious creation myth. Let me ask you again: what empirically verified common ancestor (shared between humans and apes) would that be, Ira?
I asked “Could you please be so kind as to explain how these statements from the article disprove the Evolutionary theory?
You are avoiding my question by trying to change the subject.
We are not playing the misdirection game.
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