Replies

Vade,

Its been too long. Glad that the war is over and we can get back to our crevo wars! I will be able to savour them more after next Sunday- got a big job due.

I must admit, if the find holds it is a strong point for your position. My guess is that the dating method used was luminescent dating. That can only give MAXIMUM ages. I would need to see some more data on that, as I am sure you can understand.

I would also like to see the pics, I mean large enough to tell something, of the actual finds. Evidence from a partial skull shattered into 200 pieces is too susceptable to wishful reconstruction. Still, I am worried. IF this all pans out you are only missing an incontrevertable find or two from the 65-95K gap for checkmate.

I want to know more as well. The article is all we have right now. I appreciate your waiting for more data rather than discarding up front. That's very healthy.

The idea that holes in the data are holes in the historical process itself has been getting holes shot in it since Darwin's day. There were some big holes back then. It doesn't seem to bother most of the creationists that the gaps have shrunk--in size if not number, given that every new find makes two new smaller gaps--and the "links" have grown and grown. A lot of fulfilled predictions there.

Actually, this other article describes the dates as "tightly defined" to 160,000 - 154,000 years ago, best yet for a really early H. sapiens. (But it doesn't say how the dating was done.)