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.
Hear, hear!
Already given you a response blowing them out of the water on coal and diamonds. It is obvious that they are not about presenting the ‘rest of the story’ but are truncating it in the expectation that the lazy and ignorant will accept their words without challenge.
Why only those two choices?
If you insist on hanging your stuff out in public, be prepared to be told it’s not as large as you think it is.
I was calling my dog????
I don’t know, xcamel, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’ve been hitting the bottle again.
Explain to me “Radio-Halo’s”?
How do some radio-isotopes with half-lives in the range of 2-3 minutes manage to leave spherical radio-halo’s in rocks of molten nature?
Most curious.
Money quote of the day!
Regardless of all the gotcha, the Ardi skeleton is fascinating. The researchers painstakingly combed the discovery site for 15 years to get the complete skeletal remains. That’s a huge leap beyond the incomplete Lucy. I don’t particularly care for the artist conception in Science Mag - they made too many assumptions without adhering to the muscle mass ratios based on limb length and thickness. I’d like to see a clay model rather than pencil. The clay applied on the replica skeleton will give you a fairly precise reconstruction. Hairy or non- well... that’s the artists guess.
For someone who tries to make the connection of believing in evolution and racism, you really are not helping yourself by adding “Obama” keywords to a story about monkeys- Knock it off! Racism, even veiled isn’t tolerated her.
...and you ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie!
I assume you are referring to Gentry's work ....
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/po-halos/gentry.html
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Gentry's polonium halo hypothesis for a young Earth fails, or is inconclusive for, all tests. Gentry's entire thesis is built on a compounded set of assumptions. He is unable to demonstrate that concentric haloes in mica are caused uniquely by alpha particles resulting from the decay of polonium isotopes. His samples are not from "primordial" pieces of the Earth's original crust, but from rocks which have been extensively reworked. Finally, his hypothesis cannot accommodate the many alternative lines of evidence that demonstrate a great age for the Earth. Gentry rationalizes any evidence which contradicts his hypothesis by proposing three "singularities" - one time divine interventions - over the past 6000 years. Of course, supernatural events and processes fall outside the realm of scientific investigations to address. As with the idea of variable radioactive decay rates, once Gentry moves beyond the realm of physical laws, his arguments fail to have any scientific usefulness. If divine action is necessary to fit the halo hypothesis into some consistent model of Earth history, why waste all that time trying to argue about the origins of the haloes based on current scientific theory? This is where most Creationist arguments break down when they try to adopt the language and trappings of science. Trying to prove a religious premise is itself an act of faith, not science.
“The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it. - H. L. Mencken”
Inane.....I imagine that if I had no ability to discern between a salvation that was based in the Truth of God the Creator that requires faith, and not of your own, but given of God himself, lest you boast.....and a salvation that is based in faith in the “Creature more than the Creator”, ergo, “Man is the destroyer and Savior of this World”.
You will eventually believe in Gore and AWG and the kindly demise of the elderly to make way to the youth....etc., eventually.
Ted Talks has a great video on the Aquatic Ape theory.
After a closer examination of the skeleton (via the line drawing) the limb length, forward inclined appendicular girdle and narrow pelvic illiac seems to accommodate a frequent quadruped. I’d say it looks more like a browser than a climber that could walk in erect posture - but I’d err here on the long fingered lady being crouched more often than upright.
Yet, if you google (for example) Radioactive ‘dating’ failure: Recent New Zealand lava flows yield ‘ages’ of millions of years, you get 974 hits. You should get something from that, even if it's simply a boatload of quarrels you can pick with GGG.
Thanks for the ping!
“generally” “probably” “mostly” LOL!
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