Posted on 02/16/2005 11:01:16 AM PST by Alter Kaker
NEW YORK (AP) -- A new analysis of bones unearthed nearly 40 years ago in Ethiopia has pushed the fossil record of modern humans back to nearly 200,000 years ago -- perhaps close to the dawn of the species.
Researchers determined that the specimens are around 195,000 years old. Previously, the oldest known fossils of Homo sapiens were Ethiopian skulls dated to about 160,000 years ago.
Genetic studies estimate that Homo sapiens arose about 200,000 years ago, so the new research brings the fossil record more in line with that, said John Fleagle of Stony Brook University in New York, an author of the study.
The fossils were found in 1967 near the Omo River in southwestern Ethiopia. One location yielded Omo I, which includes part of a skull plus skeletal bones. Another site produced Omo II, which has more of a skull but no skeletal bones. Neither specimen has a complete face.
Although Omo II shows more primitive characteristics than Omo I, scientists called both specimens Homo sapiens and assigned a tentative age of 130,000 years.
Now, after visiting the discovery sites, analyzing their geology and testing rock samples with more modern dating techniques, Fleagle and colleagues report in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature that both specimens are 195,000 years old, give or take 5,000 years.
Fleagle said the more primitive traits of Omo II may mean the two specimens came from different but overlapping Homo sapiens populations, or that they just represent natural variation within a single population.
To find the age of the skulls, the researchers determined that volcanic rock lying just below the sediment that contained the fossils was about 196,000 years old. They then found evidence that the fossil-bearing sediment was deposited soon after that time.
Paul Renne, director of the Berkeley Geochronology Center, which specializes in dating rocks, said the researchers made "a reasonably good argument" to support their dating of the fossils.
"It's more likely than not," he said, calling the work "very exciting and important."
Rick Potts, director of the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, said he considered the case for the new fossil ages "very strong." The work suggests that "we're right on the cusp of where the genetic evidence says the origin of modern humans ... should be," he said.
G. Philip Rightmire, a paleoanthropologist at Binghamton University in New York, said he believes the Omo fossils show Homo sapiens plus a more primitive ancestor. The find appears to represent the aftermath of the birth of Homo sapiens, when it was still living alongside its ancestral species, he said.
Priceless.
My second kid is 5 is in Kindergarden, hasn't been tested yet, but reads at an advanced level and just accepted Jesus
First case: "utterly impossible?" Funny choice of words. Lets say some carbon based life form out west does something stupid like inject silicone into their breasts. Silicone leaks into the body, perhaps interacts with a bacteria or a virus and through a completely bizarre but not quite impossible set of circumstances creates a carbon/silicon life form.
Impossible? I'd say it's more likely than carbon based DNA forming on it's on.
Second case: A silicon bunny is found isolated in an environment thousands of feet undergound. No fossil record can be found, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, as plausible reasons are quickly developed of what might have happened to the record.
Third case: Rejected apriori, despite the acknowledgement that we might soon design such life forms ourselves.
Was that "(N-1)+2" or "(N+2)-1"?
People who assume DNA could switch to silicon not only embarrass this website, they embarrass religion.
I am serious. If a silicon DNA bunny is found, I'll get out Genesis and start reading it again. I can accept the possibility of miracles, but in my heart of hearts I believe God doesn't leave fingerprints. I think it's a fatal mistake to look for physical evidence of miracles. It leads to discouragement and disillusionment.
Interestingly, a famous 17th century cleric, almost the Archbishop of Canterbury, tried to present a rational history of the earth that conforms to the Bible. He was warned against this for the very reason I've just given. Requiring signs before you believe is building your faith on sand.
Commutitive laws be damned. Only one of those formulas can be correct.
Well intelligence is only fifty percent heritable.
So then there is no simple test that falsifies evolution, much less God.
Yeah, her mother was valedictorian of her university. So perhaps my genes are dormant.
But she looks over my shoulder. She was following the thread last night on the flood. Wanted to know what compromised meant in the context of Christianity.
Yes, an observation that falsifies a basic component of evolution such as a life form without polynucleotides as a genetic material would do it (despite your protests to the contrary). My point was that falsifications of details of a theory don't necessarily lead to a falsification of the whole theory. Hence, a falsification of the idea that mammals and birds evolved separately from reptiles would only falsify our modern theory of evolution. It would not lead to a rejection of the basic idea that all life evolved from a common ancestor. Given enough falsifications of the details, however, and the basic idea would be called into question. I have maintained that to acheive scientific status, ID simply must make some falsifiable prediction which limits the range of possible observations. An ID theory that states that the designer could not possibly have designed organisms with eyes that have a blind spot, for example, is a falsifiable hypothesis, even though falsifying this hypothesis wouldn't falsify the idea of ID. I am still waiting for you or any other ID'er to provide even ONE such observation that wouldn't be possible given some specific hypothesis. I think it's that ID'ers fear that too many of their branches will be cut off and that they'll never gain any credibility. So long as they keep it unfalsifiable, they can fool the nonscientific population into thinking that they actually have some scientific merit. If they're actually falsified enough, they'll lose credibility even among the nonscientific population. They've already lost credibility in the mainstream scientific community for going this long without any testable hypotheses.
Nice of you to voice your opinion. Likewise, I was stating only my opinion, not scientists.
BTW, what makes you think that even if evolution were to be completely and irrefutably debunked that you would like the new theory any better? HINT: Science is unable to consider any explanations that involve anything other than natural mechanisms. Creationism might very well be correct, but science will never hold creationism as its theory of the diversity of life.
The funny thing is, if I admit that all you say about appearances of the age the earth is true, and if I retain my faith that the Bible is perfectly accurate, I find the claim that God created the sedimentary rocks complete with fossils to be rather satisfactory.
It is true that the claim is meaningless from a "scientific viewpoint", but that is because the "scientific viewpoint" MUST look at the world as if it was uncreated. To publish a paper, you need to explain something, and saying "God did it" is no scientific explanation.
But it is a philosophical/metaphysical explanation, and it therefor has a place in our thinking at the same level as science, but not as science. I'm sure you doubt that God would create fossils, but I think He might.
God said, "Let the earth bring forth..." the animals. When I imagine this, I imagine all over and throughout the sediments of the earth substances pulling together into shapes, fragments, shells, and bones, some of which are nearly exposed. The Wind of God blows across the few perfect specimens, clearing away the dust for the flesh which will form on them. And thus they walk the earth. And if some of the shapes, shells and fragments are of things that never lived and breathed, it is because God is an artist. He could concieve of so many other shapes and possibilities besides the ones He chose, that perhaps, in His generosity, He decided to share some of those other possibilities with us in the form of fossils.
In this way I can see how the world might make sense, and that is a very important thing.
I think it creates at least 4 new transitionals.
Because eventually we hear that transitional B is not really ancestral to A, but that there is another imagined life form iC for which no fossil has been found that both must have evolved from. And since imagined life form iD was previously considered ancestral to A, there's a missing link between the two imagined life forms iD and iC.
Thus you have missing iC, Missing iC to A, Missing iC to B and Missing iD to iB.
A compromised Christian is one who bears false witness.
There it is!!!! No matter what the evidence, "science will NEVER".
Do you realize how insane that is. No matter what the evidence, we are going to make something up no matter how implausible because we cannot consider Intelligent Design.
Why would God waste his time forming mostly imperfect specimens. It does not pass the logic test.
And often that occurs because one rejected the truth of scripture.
We consider ID, just not as science. And cut the cr@p. Everyone knows that "ID" is just a ruse to destroy evolutionary theory. The ID gurus say this. They say that the YEC'ers must team up with them to destroy evolutionary theory. Your argument is a false one.
Most often it occurs when one considers himself a soldier of God and believes that sinning is acceptable in the name of God.
I didn't say that science can't consider ID. It can if ID would say something about what couldn't be observed. It can't consider God since it's impossible to say that observation X implies that God doesn't exist, no matter what observation X is. That is, unless you believe that God isn't really omnipotent. If he is, then He certainly could have made a world that allows any observation He wants it to. Therefore, the idea that God created each life form separately has no possible contradictory evidence and is not scientific. Science will never have creationism as its theory of diversity of life for the same reason that mathematics will never have creationism as part of the proof of the Pythagorean theorem. God is simply outside the scope of science. Curiously, you seem to be arguing earlier in this thread and on others that the evidence doesn't support evolution. Implicit in this is the assumption that it's actually possible for the evidence to not support evolution. Hence evolution is in fact falsifiable. That's not the case for creationism, as I have just shown. It is not possible that the evidence will not support creationism.
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