The styloid process allows the hand to lock into the wrist bones, giving humans the ability to apply greater amounts of pressure to the hand. This allows humans to make and use tools. Courtesy of University of Missouri
Posted on 12/18/2013 10:11:55 AM PST by null and void
The styloid process allows the hand to lock into the wrist bones, giving humans the ability to apply greater amounts of pressure to the hand. This allows humans to make and use tools. Courtesy of University of Missouri
COLUMBIA, MO – Humans have a distinctive hand anatomy that allows them to make and use tools. Apes and other nonhuman primates do not have these distinctive anatomical features in their hands, and the point in time at which these features first appeared in human evolution is unknown. Now, a University of Missouri researcher and her international team of colleagues have found a new hand bone from a human ancestor who roamed the earth in East Africa approximately 1.42 million years ago. They suspect the bone belonged to the early human species, Homo erectus. The discovery of this bone is the earliest evidence of a modern human-like hand, indicating that this anatomical feature existed more than half a million years earlier than previously known.
"This bone is the third metacarpal in the hand, which connects to the middle finger. It was discovered at the 'Kaitio' site in West Turkana, Kenya," said Carol Ward, professor of pathology and anatomical sciences at MU. The discovery was made by a West Turkana Paleo Project team, led by Ward's colleague and co-author Fredrick Manthi of the National Museums of Kenya. "What makes this bone so distinct is that the presence of a styloid process, or projection of bone, at the end that connects to the wrist. Until now, this styloid process has been found only in us, Neandertals and other archaic humans."
The styloid process helps the hand bone lock into the wrist bones, allowing for greater amounts of pressure to be applied to the wrist and hand from a grasping thumb and fingers. Ward and her colleagues note that a lack of the styloid process created challenges for apes and earlier humans when they attempted to make and use tools. This lack of a styloid process may have increased the chances of having arthritis earlier, Ward said.
The bone was found near sites where the earliest Acheulian tools have appeared. Acheulian tools are ancient, shaped stone tools that include stone hand axes more than 1.6 million years old. Being able to make such precise tools indicates that these early humans were almost certainly using their hands for many other complex tasks as well, Ward said.
"The styloid process reflects an increased dexterity that allowed early human species to use powerful yet precise grips when manipulating objects. This was something that their predecessors couldn't do as well due to the lack of this styloid process and its associated anatomy," Ward said. "With this discovery, we are closing the gap on the evolutionary history of the human hand. This may not be the first appearance of the modern human hand, but we believe that it is close to the origin, given that we do not see this anatomy in any human fossils older than 1.8 million years. Our specialized, dexterous hands have been with us for most of the evolutionary history of our genus, Homo. They are – and have been for almost 1.5 million years – fundamental to our survival."
It’s a massive, huge, monumental hoax. And all you are giving me is the usual hype as to why it just HAS to be true. (I guess that’s fine, because I don’t have the time to get sucked deeper into a crevo thread. I know how they go, and I’m trying to do stuff around here).
For millennia, the fact that God created us and everything around us was accepted as fact (as it should be). Then Darwin came along, and the secular world started jumping for joy that FINALLY they had an explanation that didn’t involve God. And you want ME to prove MY point? Ridiculous.
But after all this time, and all the desperate struggle to finally prove evolution-—complete with fake fossil hoaxes-—it still hasn’t been done. But oh, it’s monumental! It’s massive! It’s hugh and series!
You say it’s hard. Well, only if you’re twisting yourself into pretzels, trying to shoehorn God’s miraculous creation into an atheistic theory. That’s why evolution is not, and never will be, proven. You’re butting your head against a stone wall.
Seeing the hand of God all around you, and in your breathtakingly complex body, is a simple, beautiful, eminently sensible thing.
“For millennia, the fact that God created us and everything around us was accepted as fact (as it should be).”
And you rejected my center of the universe, flat earth analogy? Outrage! ;)
Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh...which proves what?
Evolution and creationism are mutually exclusive. Evolution says that man is a recent arrival on the scene; countless millions of years were filled with bloodshed and death before he showed up.
On the other hand, the Bible teaches that suffering and death were introduced into humanity AFTER man’s fall. Also, Jesus Christ said that man was created “at the beginning.”
I’ll take the Lord’s word over Ann’s or Rush’s.
I know, you had a bad experience with religion. I hope you rethink that someday.
I got your bone right here....
Thanks. Condescension always works. Bless your heart.
That wasn’t condescension. I was sincere. Sorry you took it that way.
It could be both sincere and condescending. I only feel comfortable commenting on the latter.
Proves exactly what was said in their own words, instead of second & third-hand reports of what was said, that's all.
Okay, thanks.
Yup, well you’ll have to argue with the Designer about that. (Possible the original design didn’t need a dump - it came after the owner (not Designer) screwed up.)
For the second time, I'll as you which theory of evolution are you talking about?
But Adam and Eve ate before they screwed up their relationship with god, otherwise they wouldn’t have eaten the apple in the first place. Where’d it go?
Your Darwinist theory doesn’t stand up in the forum of ideas (or in court - it would soon be thrown out for lack of evidence) because 1) the sheer tonnage of evidence for intelligent design and 2) the sheer lack of evidence for transference between animal groups, absolutely essential for Darwinist evolution.
Purpose evident in intelligent design is not disproved by your conclusion that the Designer is “cruel” because of your interpretation of certain circumstances.
Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. Okay.
Neither of them said anything (in those quotes anyway) that goes against anything the theory of evolution says.
I do enjoy that they riled out the YEC though.
Yes. There's a big diffference between "intelligent design", and "Intelligent Design"
Me too! :)
I loved this sentence from a recent article, discussed elsewhere, supporting intelligent design: "There is no general agreement among advocates of intelligent design as to exactly where, when, or how design was manifested in the history of life." You'd think that with such overwhelming evidence, there'd be some modicum of agreement on those things. And people wonder why ID isn't taken seriously as a scientific theory!
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