Posted on 02/08/2005 3:50:43 AM PST by PatrickHenry
A group of four-footed mammals that flourished worldwide for 40 million years and then died out in the ice ages is the missing link between the whale and its not-so-obvious nearest relative, the hippopotamus.
The conclusion by University of California, Berkeley, post-doctoral fellow Jean-Renaud Boisserie and his French colleagues finally puts to rest the long-standing notion that the hippo is actually related to the pig or to its close relative, the South American peccary. In doing so, the finding reconciles the fossil record with the 20-year-old claim that molecular evidence points to the whale as the closest relative of the hippo.
"The problem with hippos is, if you look at the general shape of the animal it could be related to horses, as the ancient Greeks thought, or pigs, as modern scientists thought, while molecular phylogeny shows a close relationship with whales," said Boisserie. "But cetaceans – whales, porpoises and dolphins – don't look anything like hippos. There is a 40-million-year gap between fossils of early cetaceans and early hippos."
In a paper appearing this week in the Online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Boisserie and colleagues Michel Brunet and Fabrice Lihoreau fill in this gap by proposing that whales and hippos had a common water-loving ancestor 50 to 60 million years ago that evolved and split into two groups: the early cetaceans, which eventually spurned land altogether and became totally aquatic; and a large and diverse group of four-legged beasts called anthracotheres. The pig-like anthracotheres, which blossomed over a 40-million-year period into at least 37 distinct genera on all continents except Oceania and South America, died out less than 2 and a half million years ago, leaving only one descendent: the hippopotamus.
This proposal places whales squarely within the large group of cloven-hoofed mammals (even-toed ungulates) known collectively as the Artiodactyla – the group that includes cows, pigs, sheep, antelopes, camels, giraffes and most of the large land animals. Rather than separating whales from the rest of the mammals, the new study supports a 1997 proposal to place the legless whales and dolphins together with the cloven-hoofed mammals in a group named Cetartiodactyla.
"Our study shows that these groups are not as unrelated as thought by morphologists," Boisserie said, referring to scientists who classify organisms based on their physical characteristics or morphology. "Cetaceans are artiodactyls, but very derived artiodactyls."
The origin of hippos has been debated vociferously for nearly 200 years, ever since the animals were rediscovered by pioneering French paleontologist Georges Cuvier and others. Their conclusion that hippos are closely related to pigs and peccaries was based primarily on their interpretation of the ridges on the molars of these species, Boisserie said.
"In this particular case, you can't really rely on the dentition, however," Boisserie said. "Teeth are the best preserved and most numerous fossils, and analysis of teeth is very important in paleontology, but they are subject to lots of environmental processes and can quickly adapt to the outside world. So, most characteristics are not dependable indications of relationships between major groups of mammals. Teeth are not as reliable as people thought."
As scientists found more fossils of early hippos and anthracotheres, a competing hypothesis roiled the waters: that hippos are descendents of the anthracotheres.
All this was thrown into disarray in 1985 when UC Berkeley's Vincent Sarich, a pioneer of the field of molecular evolution and now a professor emeritus of anthropology, analyzed blood proteins and saw a close relationship between hippos and whales. A subsequent analysis of mitochondrial, nuclear and ribosomal DNA only solidified this relationship.
Though most biologists now agree that whales and hippos are first cousins, they continue to clash over how whales and hippos are related, and where they belong within the even-toed ungulates, the artiodactyls. A major roadblock to linking whales with hippos was the lack of any fossils that appeared intermediate between the two. In fact, it was a bit embarrassing for paleontologists because the claimed link between the two would mean that one of the major radiations of mammals – the one that led to cetaceans, which represent the most successful re-adaptation to life in water – had an origin deeply nested within the artiodactyls, and that morphologists had failed to recognize it.
This new analysis finally brings the fossil evidence into accord with the molecular data, showing that whales and hippos indeed are one another's closest relatives.
"This work provides another important step for the reconciliation between molecular- and morphology-based phylogenies, and indicates new tracks for research on emergence of cetaceans," Boisserie said.
Boisserie became a hippo specialist while digging with Brunet for early human ancestors in the African republic of Chad. Most hominid fossils earlier than about 2 million years ago are found in association with hippo fossils, implying that they lived in the same biotopes and that hippos later became a source of food for our distant ancestors. Hippos first developed in Africa 16 million years ago and exploded in number around 8 million years ago, Boisserie said.
Now a post-doctoral fellow in the Human Evolution Research Center run by integrative biology professor Tim White at UC Berkeley, Boisserie decided to attempt a resolution of the conflict between the molecular data and the fossil record. New whale fossils discovered in Pakistan in 2001, some of which have limb characteristics similar to artiodactyls, drew a more certain link between whales and artiodactyls. Boisserie and his colleagues conducted a phylogenetic analysis of new and previous hippo, whale and anthracothere fossils and were able to argue persuasively that anthracotheres are the missing link between hippos and cetaceans.
While the common ancestor of cetaceans and anthracotheres probably wasn't fully aquatic, it likely lived around water, he said. And while many anthracotheres appear to have been adapted to life in water, all of the youngest fossils of anthracotheres, hippos and cetaceans are aquatic or semi-aquatic.
"Our study is the most complete to date, including lots of different taxa and a lot of new characteristics," Boisserie said. "Our results are very robust and a good alternative to our findings is still to be formulated."
Brunet is associated with the Laboratoire de Géobiologie, Biochronologie et Paléontologie Humaine at the Université de Poitiers and with the Collège de France in Paris. Lihoreau is a post-doctoral fellow in the Département de Paléontologie of the Université de N'Djaména in Chad.
The work was supported in part by the Mission Paléoanthropologique Franco-Tchadienne, which is co-directed by Brunet and Patrick Vignaud of the Université de Poitiers, and in part by funds to Boisserie from the Fondation Fyssen, the French Ministère des Affaires Etrangères and the National Science Foundation's Revealing Hominid Origins Initiative, which is co-directed by Tim White and Clark Howell of UC Berkeley.
I was wrong. The editor was not fired. He is claiming to have been harassed after publishing the paper. Now how was the peer-review process violated?
Wish I had that kind of clout. My proposals have never filled a gap of more than 40 days, let alone 40 million years. Come to think of it, how does a proposal fill a gap? Must take some imagination. But, by God, this is cold, hard, science at work. Yes indeedie.
haim ata mehavine oti
correction- typo
should be
haim ata mevine oti
Holy cow. What is the White pooch? The ears and face look like an Ibizan Hound.
Actually, no, this is the closest it came::
Three other remarkable features in the first chapters of Genesis deserve a brief reference.
The first is the assertion of the original unity of the language of the human race. (Gen. 11:1.) Max Muller, a foremost ethnologist and philologist, declares that all our languages, in spite of their diversities, must have originated in one common source. (See Saphir, "Divine Unity," p. 206; Dawson, "Origin of the World," p. 286; Guinness, "Divine Programme," p. 75.)
The second is that miracle of ethnological prophecy by Noah in Gen. 9:26, 27, in which we have foretold in v sublime epitome the three great divisions of the human race, and their ultimate historic destinies. The three great divisions, Hamitic, Shemitic, and Japhetic, are the three ethnic groups into which modern science has divided the human race. The facts of history have fulfilled what was foretold in Genesis four thousand years ago. The Hamitic nations, including the Chaldean, Babylonic, and Egyptian, have been degraded, profane, and sensual. The Shemitic have been the religious with the line of the coming Messiah. The japhetic have been the enlarging, and the dominant races, including all the great world monarchies, both of the ancient and modern times, the Grecian, Roman, Gothic, Celtic, Teutonic, British and American, and by recent investigation and discovery, the races of India, China, and Japan. Thus I-lam lost all empire centuries ago; Shem and his race acquired it ethically and spiritually through the Prophet, Priest and King, the Messiah; while Japheth, in world-embracing enlargement and imperial supremacy, has stood for industrial, commercial, and political dominion.
You need to think of that one for a while, it has to do with the origin of races so to speak, where people came from
it involves geneologies, time lines, lines of kings and kingdoms
It also has to do with the life spans of those kings
MEANING, since we can trace back lineage 4000 years to Noah, thatr means NOAH is true, that means Genesis is true, that means Creation is true.
See it yet?
That's not the worst case scenario, since the age of the Earth is geology which is not taught in High School
The worst case scenario is they teach that evolution is not the underpinning of biology, so we never get good biologists anymore and we end up with incompetent doctors, no medical research that means anything and a bunch of dead people.
It wasn't a science paper. It was just the same old sophist argument with no new science or any basis in science.
"in which we have foretold in v sublime epitome the three great divisions of the human race, and their ultimate historic destinies. The three great divisions, Hamitic, Shemitic, and Japhetic,"
How do you get three races out of one couple?
My claim is correct. Except that I did not say "The CHURCH." I don't know what you mean by that. (Please don't answer by spamming in a full article!) There are and were lots of churches. I was talking about educated and theologically conservative Christians. To repeat, virtually none of them in that time period positively affirmed a young earth, and most were adherents -- even enthusiastic ones -- of conventional geology. Indeed a number were important geologists (e.g. James Dwight Dana, Benjamin Silliman, etc, and earlier many of the founders of geology like Robert Murchison, Adam Sedgewick, etc).
and even evolution,
Well, there have always (since Darwin) been conservative Christians who accept evolution, but I didn't happen to make that claim. Certainly I don't claim that acceptance of evolution was nearly as universal as acceptance of an ancient earth. To repeat, until fairly recently (the 1960's) the vast majority/near totality of educated conservative Christians were old-earthers whether they were evolutionists or antievolutionists.
I know this history fairly well, and I'm simply correct about this. I wish I could dig out my copy of Henry Morris' History of Modern Creationism. Maybe he would convince you. He says (although bemoaning the fact) pretty much the same thing.
you claimed that Creationism is a new thing.
No I didn't. I claimed that young earth creationism, in it's modern form based on flood geology, is a new thing: devised by Seventh Day Adventists in the 1910's-20's, but not successfully popularized among fundamentalists and evangelicals generally until the 1960's and following.
Are my claims clear now?
This article proves that is not true.
Again, the article you posted does not promulgate, promote or even address a young earth doctrine or view.
Since you reject any real scientists opinion, I doubt you will understand why this is not science.
Pasteur and Mendel didn't believe in evolution and they were contemporaries of Darwin.
Okaaaay. Now, let's return to my question. How was the peer-review process violated?
Don't forget that you have to guess *WHICH* god!
My money's on 2nd-Son-of-Cthulhu or bust.
Uh, no. I read the whole article carefully, including that passage. I don't see it because it's not there. You're reading things into it because (frankly it's obvious) you don't know squat about the history of these debates, either within science or among conservative Christians.
All this passage suggests is that the history of humans, or even more specifically of Adam on his descendants, did not extend greatly beyond the range of known or conventional history. This is not at all the same as affirming likewise about either the earth or about non-human creatures.
It was standard fare at the time to make this distinction, to argue that the earth was ancient, and life was ancient, but that humans (or "adamic" humans) were not. Very few ancient human fossils had been found by that time. Also none of these creationists were flood geologists. So they were looking at a geological record where human remains were found only in very recent deposits, underlain by vast depths of sediments containing no humans at all, and filled with strange and extinct forms.
You're reading this passage through your modern "scientific creationism" lenses, believing that most of these sediments were all plopped down in a year by Noah's flood. None of these guys writing in The Fundamentals believed such nonsense, or if they did they never said so.
Peer review is supposed to check the science. There wasn't any. It should never have been published.
What is difficult to understand about that?
Mendel didn't know about evolution, for pete's sake.
I don't know about Pasteur. But today genetics is all driven by understanding evolution. It is genetics and related fields that are driving medical progress.
What I'm coming to understand is that you can't explain the peer-review process. What is the standard peer-review process?
Do you really meant that? Are you a fixed species creationist? If so, do you also take the story of Noah and the ark seriously? How did Noah get several million species on the ark?
IOW, I'm not sure if you realize, but no modern "professional" creationists hold to a fixed species view. In fact most would be insulted by the assumption that they did. In fact the most conservative creationists ironically invoke the most prodigious and rapid evolution, because they need, in a young earth time frame, to get the millions of species alive today from the ten or twenty thousand "created kinds" that they manage to hypothetically cram into Noah's ark.
If you read it but it's not there...
Then you must need some glasses, because that is exactly what it implies, and now that I showed it to you, you need ot reconsider.
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