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.
i believe tih postulated that here a long time ago.
Is that supposed to be an improvement?? lol
I am convinced we know nothing or next to nothing about anything =o)
ping!
Relying on deliberate misstatements and misinterpretations is never going to get the ‘thumpers far. . . unless, of course, the goal is to prove idiocy.
bookmark to read later
And then their equally convinced about that!! It’s insane.
“most important ever”
They just don’t care. As long as it’s not the Bible way, then they might have to question their own behavior, and have a population who sees God as the source of their Rights, rather than SCOTUS.
Hmmm.
This is just a theory (can I get a government grant?), but I postulate that our early ancestors, faced with a growing body of lazy, inept, whining, morons in their population (liberals), excised them from the rest of the group in order to save the remainder.
Over time, they (liberals) evolved into the hairy, orifice-scratching, sub-humans that we know as apes and monkeys.
Maybe that’s why they’re into Gaia worship - think of it as a generational retirement plan.
I’m with you. We don’t know where we are, when we are, what we are, or why we are. Other than that, we’ve got it all nailed.
LOL!
Could have been the offspring of Tarzan and Jane...
Using evidence that says we ascended from a 5 million year old species separate from apes as evidence that we are living on a 6,000 year old planet is a definite non-sequitur and an invitation for ridicule.
As I understand it, the consensus idea of evolution has for at least a century been that humans and apes are descended from a common ancestor. I don’t see how this discovery changes that in the least.
These images, provided by the journal Science, show reconstructed frontal views of "Ardi," a hominid who lived in what is now Ethiopia 4.4 million years ago.
How does that 4.4 million year figure work with the young Earth theory?
It either blows up the YEC theory or blows up the article in YEC eyes.
You can't have it both ways.
Well the question I always ask evo’s is if we evolved from apes, why did we evolve with the immediate need to clothe ourselves. Seriously, if we aren’t bundled up immediately we would die. Makes no sense. The best answer I got was basically, hairless was more sexy, and that’s why we are here. So this argument makes sense inthat respect. Still blatantly false.
You posted an actual evolutionist link to debate. Good, I have no negative comments for that. Go at it.
This is all speculation of course.
Any "scientist" who can say such a thing with a straight face is an idiot.
If humans have evolved less than chimps in a given timespan it's because humans were better suited to their environment to begin with. Or because humans soon started adapting the environment to fit themselves rather than the other way around. Which doesn't exactly sound "primitive" to me.
“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. “
GGG. You are posting another pro-evolution article! Amazing. That is two just today!
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