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Artificially Reconstructed “Ardi” Overturns Prevailing Evolutionary Hypotheses of Human Evolution The missing link presently being touted in the media, Ardipithecus ramidus, has had more reconstructive surgery than Michael Jackson. Assuming that their "extensive digital reconstruction" of its "badly crushed and distorted bones" is accurate, what does A. ramidus (or “Ardi” as the fawning media is affectionately calling it) really show us that we didn’t already know? We already knew of upright walking / tree-climbing, small-brained hominids—that’s what Lucy, an australopithecine, was. We already knew that there were australopithecine fossils dating back to before 4 million years, and this fossil is...

Anchiornis: Foot Feathers Confuse Bird Evolution Story --snip-- This is an opportunity to compare hype with fact. The news media and the discoverers are all chirping that they have an example of bird evolution here. A transitional form between dinosaurs and birds has been found, and now the naysayers need to bow at the feet of the Charlie idol and admit they were wrong. It should be noticed that the Darwinists did not predict finding a dino-chicken with long feathers on its feet. What is this thing? Look at the predictions they had made...

The papers and news sites are full of claims about what some still think is a “new” candidate for an evolutionary ancestor of humans. Called Ardipithecus ramidus (often just “Ardi”), most of the articles actually explain that it’s really a detailed reanalysis of a fossil category that’s been around for years, but still the phones run hot with concerned creationists or gloating skeptics. Perhaps this is not surprising, given the journalistic temptation to run with headlines such as “Before Lucy came Ardi, new earliest hominid found”—even though the article itself states that the bones were first discovered in 1994!1 In...

1. Meet “Ardi”Evolutionists aren’t yet sure if they should call it a human ancestor, but one thing they do know is that “Ardi” does away with the idea of a “missing link.”Although first discovered in the early 1990s, the bones of Ardipithecus ramidus are only now being nominated for evolutionists’ fossil hall of fame—via a slew of papers in a special issue of the journal Science. In it, Ardi’s researchers describe the bones and make the case that Ardi is even more important in the history of human evolution than Lucy. Despite claims of its evolutionary significance, one of the...

The well-exposed layering of basalt flows in formations near Lake Superior is aiding scientific understanding of the geomagnetic field in ancient times. Nicholas Swanson-Hysell, a Princeton graduate student, examines the details of the top of a lava flow. (Photo: Catherine Rose) Princeton University scientists have shown that, in ancient times, the Earth's magnetic field was structured like the two-pole model of today, suggesting that the methods geoscientists use to reconstruct the geography of early land masses on the globe are accurate. The findings may lead to a better understanding of historical continental movement, which relates to changes in climate. By...

boom in affordable housing in the 1950s was helped by the invention of a distinctive multifunctional piece of equipment: the backhoe. Its strong yet relatively slender articulated arm allowed precise yet rapid placement for digging or lifting. The manipulative device is trim and fast, since hoses transfer power to it from a powerful hydraulic pump within the main chassis. The "arm" of the backhoe makes many people think the equipment design is similar to a human arm, but what makes it so versatile is that it is actually more like a giant human finger. If a valuable piece of equipment...

Bones of “Ardi,” New Human Evolution Fossil, “Crushed Nearly to Smithereens” Another new alleged missing link has been found, if you consider something discovered in the early 1990’s new. This fossil seems to have spent almost as much time under the microscope at Berkeley as it did in the ground in Ethiopia, when it was first buried about 4.4 million years ago. Why did it take over 15 years for the reports on this fossil to finally be published, besides the fact that it allowed more time for planning the now-customary PR campaign? A 2002 article in Science explains exactly...

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...

Human exceptionalism received a boost today with the news that human beings apparently did not evolve from apes...

Darwin's Dilemma Los Angeles Premiere Will Mark 150th Anniversary of Darwin's Origin of Species with Focus on Controversy over Evolution and Intelligent Design --snip-- LOS ANGELES, CA -- Highlighting the continuing controversy over the origins of life on earth, the American Freedom Alliance will premiere “Darwin’s Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Explosion” at the California Science Center in Los Angeles on Sunday October 25 at 7:00 pm. The event will feature a panel discussion with filmmakers and leading...

"There is no purpose to life, but it's not an accident." -- Richard Dawkins CLICK THE ABOVE LINK TO WATCH THE VIDEO. Stephen Colbert uses his comedic talents to question Richard Dawkins on his latest book --- THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH.

After 15 years of rumors, researchers made public fossils from a 4.4 million-year-old human forebear they say reveals that our ancestors were more modern than scholars had assumed, widening the evolutionary gulf separating humankind from apes and chimpanzees. The highlight of the extensive fossil trove was a female skeleton a million years older than the iconic bones of Lucy, the primitive female figure that has long symbolized humankind's beginnings. An international research team led by paleoanthropologist Tim White at the University of California, Berkeley, unveiled on Thursday remains from 36 males, females and young of an ancient prehuman species called...

A recent report of an ancient textile facility, of sorts, is turning heads.[1] Sifting through the debris on a cave floor in the Republic of Georgia, scientists recently discovered evidence that the early cave dwellers processed textiles in the cave. While searching for ancient pollen grains, they found tiny flax fibers in the dirt. Some of these fibers were woven, some were cut, and some were dyed black, gray, turquoise, or pink. They also discovered evidence that these people were processing fur (for clothing) and animal hides. What is surprising about the find is that this was supposedly happening 30,000...

An Open Letter to Karl Giberson --snip-- Unfortunately the claim that evolution is a fact, as much as is gravity or heliocentrism, has always been motivated by metaphysical assumptions. These assumptions trace back to the Enlightenment, and Darwin and Wallace built upon them. The conclusion ever since was that evolution had to be true, not because of the empirical science but because of the metaphysical mandate...

The world's oldest and most complete skeleton of a potential human ancestor -- named "Ardi," short for Ardipithecus ramidus -- has been unveiled by an international team of 47 researchers. Their unprecedented, 17-year investigation of Ardi is detailed in a special issue of the journal Science.

Dinosaurs are a popular topic of study, whether in the public imagination or in scientific research. The scientific community, however, has a dirty little secret regarding the manner in which that research is handled. If dinosaur DNA doesn't "look like chicken" (or a crocodile), it will most likely be discarded as "unreliable data" prior to publication--and thus be effectively censored from public access. Why? Because evolutionary scientists are committed to only publish dinosaur DNA data that match their naturalistic tale of origins. Despite the amazing discoveries of soft tissue from dinosaur bones,[1] dinosaur DNA research results (and other dinosaur "connective...

Palynomorphs from sediment core give proof to sudden warming in mid-Miocene eraBATON ROUGE – For Sophie Warny, LSU assistant professor of geology and geophysics and curator at the LSU Museum of Natural Science, years of patience in analyzing Antarctic samples with low fossil recovery finally led to a scientific breakthrough. She and colleagues from around the world now have proof of a sudden, remarkably warm period in Antarctica that occurred about 15.7 million years ago and lasted for a few thousand years. Last year, as Warny was studying samples sent to her from the latest Antarctic Geologic Drilling Program, or...

The Anti-Defamation League, the country's leading group dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism, is rightly sensitive to the offense of trivializing the Holocaust. Why, then, has the ADL said nothing in protest against the Darwinian biologist and bestselling atheist author Richard Dawkins and his comparison of Darwin doubters to Holocaust deniers?...

It is interesting to see how evolutionists respond to failures of their theory. For all their talk of following the evidence and adjusting to new data, evolutionists find all kinds of ways to resist learning from their failures. Consider one of the major failures of evolution, its view of the very nature of biological change. Twentieth century evolutionary theory held that biological change is a rather simple process that is blind to the needs of the organism. As Julian Huxley, grandson of Darwin confidant T. H. Huxley, put it, mutations “occur without reference to their possible consequences or biological uses.”...

While the horrors of Germany’s Nazi past are well known, it is a well-kept secret that similar programs were also prevalent in some Allied countries. The award-winning investigative journalist Edwin Black has documented America’s huge selective breeding and forced sterilization program in his book War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race...