GeoTheo

GeoTheo

Ok. I just read this:
<a href="http://www.nature.com/nsu/020708/020708-12.html" target="_blank">http://www.nature.com/nsu/020708/020708-12.html</a>
So their are no chimp fossils. My bad
Of course not right? This is a 'human ancestor' my bad. That makes alot of sense. We find all of these transitional Man/chimp types that existed as a brief spark, but no regular chimps. And they all look like swiss cheese.

pseudobug

GeoTheo, I don't think that anyone has necessarily said that this new fossil find was a "human ancestor"; but simply a homonid based upon certain morphological characteristics of the skull.

There is a big differnce in this distinction. It could well be that Sahelanthropus branched off from the direct lineage leading to us and other homonid predecessors--thus making the genus a "cousin".

What is important is that it pushed evidence for the divergence of hominid from apes even further. That extra time distance between the divergence of hominids and APES leaves room for the emergence of many more intermediate forms of hominid species with, potentially, more branchings and evolutionary dead ends amongst the hominids.

(damn, can't believe I said "divergence of hominids and man". )

[ July 12, 2002: Message edited by: pseudobug ]</p>

Mageth

Don't even get me started on lucy's pelvis.


Why, you got the hots for Lucy? A bit bony for my taste.

[ July 12, 2002: Message edited by: Mageth ]</p>

Mageth

In spite of GeoTheo's whinings otherwise, looking at the images leads me to believe that this is a remarkably complete, well-preserved and properly reassembled skull.

Ergaster

Some comments on some of GeoTheo's posts:

First of all, the skull was not broken up. It came out of the ground largely as you see it. It has *cracks*, but it was not broken into pieces. It has also been distorted somewhat by compression (hence the off-kilter look of the face), but since you claim to be familiar with taphonomic processes, this should not surprise you very much.

Secondly, there is far less "bias" than you think. The people who reconstruct these things are *highly* trained anatomists who have incredibly detailed knowledge of comparative morphology. To put it simply, there just aren't an infinite variety of ways that one can reconstruct a skull, and the skull itself is what directs its reconstruction. In the vast majority of cases the pieces *clearly* fit together, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and once you have certain angles and planes established, you have to follow them. You can't just decide to go off in arbitrary directions. The bones of the skull go together in only one way: you can't decide to stick the vomer here and the sphenoid over there, or shift the angle of the petrous pyramids just because you think the skull "should" look a certain way. Because primates are bilaterally symmetrical, a structure on one side can be mirror-imaged to give you the other. Plus the fact that often what look like separate pieces, are merely cracks. This is not to say that there is not some judgement involved, but it is carefully considered judgement based upon all the knowledge that the worker has. It is not, as you seem to imply, a lot of guesswork.

It strikes me as rather odd that certain people, mostly creationists, are so quick to dismiss processes and procedures they know little about. If you really think there is a problem, the onus is on you to demonstrate that these professionals do not know what they are doing.

As far as baboons...they have indeed changed over time. Baboons of the Miocene and Pliocene do not look like baboons of today. There are general similarities, of course, which is how we know they are baboons and not, say, macaques; but it is simply wrong to imply that they are unchanged, or that there are not fragmentary baboon skulls that we still know are baboons (because there are) or that there are not well-preserved hominid skulls (because there are).

In another post you wrote:

<strong>Innuendo, eh? I suppose you think the news coverage of major network media in not biased liberal.

To prove that my assertion is unfounded you must demonstrate that there is only one way to reconstruct this rather badly preserved skull, and that is in fact the way that it has been reconstructed.</strong>

Uh...GeoTheo...the onus of proof is on the person making the assertion. That is YOU. There are generally-accepted procedures for reconstructions of this type based upon training, expertise, and experience. If you think these are inadequate, it is up to YOU to show us that they are. Until you do, your assertions are meaningless.

Besides, it is irrelevant what the *news coverage* of any scientific event is. You should not learn science from the media. The papers are available *for free* right now from the Nature website.

In another post you wrote:

<strong>So what are the traits that are cosistant with a human?</strong>

First just let me clarify that in paleoanthropology, "human" does not neccesarily mean "modern Homo sapiens". They mean "anything in the human lineage" which can include australopithecines and all species in the genus Homo. I know that this is a difficult concept for ceationists to grasp, but if you can get your mind around it it will be rather easier to understand what scientists are talking about.

So--the characters they mean are not ones that only modern humans have, but that distinguish hominins (humans and their ancestors) from other hominids (including chimps). Basically, only members of the hominin clade have small teeth relative to their jaws, reduced canines that wear at the tip, and relatively straight, flat faces. What makes this one unusual is that its face is actually flatter than many australos. We know it is probably a hominin (or close to it) because of these traits. We cannot call it *human* in the strict sense because of all the primitive characters that it retains, such as the u-shaped dental arcade, the small cranium, saggital and nuchal cresting, petrous angle, and great postorbital constriction. Likewise, we cannot call it a chimp because of the short, flat, and narrow lower face, the very wide interorbital distance, and the flat, low-cusped and thick-enameled teeth (not to mention the small canines).

<strong>Why does it look all smashed up and glued back together with half the pieces missing like the vast majority of hominid skulls?</strong>

As discussed above, it is not. Perhaps you do not actually know how to evaluate the condition of fossils...? Besides, until you can demonstrate that the professionals do not know what they are doing, it is irrelevant.

<strong>Are you familiar with the full range of variation in both human and chimp skulls to begin with?</strong>

I would have to say...yup, pretty much. But so what? It's almost 7 million years old.

<strong>What characteristics do the share in extant specimens?</strong>

Say what? Extant specimens of what??

<strong>Is their not overlap already?</strong>

Huh?

<strong>What was the age of this organism when it died? Juvenile primates are more human like.</strong>

Good question. I don't think they gave an actual age in years, but it is definitely an adult and not a juvenile or even a youth. We know this because the third molars are fully erupted and in wear (the cusps have been flattened by usage). This is only happens in mature individuals.

<strong>Did it walk upright?</strong>

Maybe. The position of the foramen magnum is right, but nobody's betting the house on it yet.


<strong>You Guys seem pretty excited about this, but to me it doesn't look all that signifigant. Maybe I feel like you feel when you wonder why people like me get so excited about singing hymns and such.</strong>

There is probably no relevant response possible to this....

Deb

Synaesthesia

Like that guy who looks at a screen and sees squiggles. He thinks it means that he have evidence of a sustained nuclear reaction. Doesn't seem significant to ME, I mean, it's just a stupid bunch of squiggles. !

If ignorant people can't make theoretical sense of it, it isn't meaningful.

KnightWhoSaysNi

Ergaster,

Any chance are you following this ARN forum<a href="http://www.arn.org/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=14;t=000092" target="_blank"> thread?</a> on the same topic?

Some of the comments over there are just incredibly mind-numbing. Someone of your expertise can really administer a nice intellectual spanking over there.

Here's some samples:

there is no controversy in the church, we make our claims and stick by them, no wavering, etc...but just look at this article, evolutionism, especially the assumed ape like predecessor, is supposed to be a slam dunk, according the the folks on this page, and yet, how is their so much confusion? surprizingly modern features, (assumed)six million years old.????

whoa, who says this shares ape and human morphology, etc? those who assume evolutionism? this is far too early to tell, and it is either a early human, or ape, plain and simple. there are groups of people alive today who who body features, brow ridges, facial features, etc, that have less than the typical hollywood star look, and no one doubts their humanity....i see this as more of a problem for your belief system, after all, the quotes from the peepul in the article seems to show confusion and consternation etc....

im very comfortable with it, it is either an ape or human skull, and all the squirming semantics from the evolutionist daycare camp in nature magazine won't effect that one bit.

yep, from the back, it looks like a chimp and from the front, austraoleopithcenes (sp)more extinct apes....hardly a transitional, unless you need one, and evolutionists need one badly...so, i guess that is what they will call it.

first, it is a type of extinct ape, call it what you will, but something that looks like chimp from the back, and an extinct ape from the front, is not a human.

[ July 13, 2002: Message edited by: Nightshade ]</p>

scombrid

Now I know why I can't stomach arguing with cretinists anymore. With no understanding of comparitive morphology or cladistics, those people dismiss the findings of experts because the cranium "looks like an ape to me". They know nothing of the methods used and definitely couldn't understand the anatomic terminology in the paper (as if they bothered to read the paper)

Well that cuts it, JimBob Mouthbreather says that it looks like it's an ape so it is. That's the way comparitive morphology works, they just look at it. They don't take 100000000000000000 ultra tedious measurements from specific angles in order to be able to have a statistically powerful test for comparison to other specimens. Scientists just subjectively assess findings on a whim.

<img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Ergaster

I don't bother with the ARN board at all; I probably participate in too many discussion-boards as it is.

But just judging by the comments you have pasted here, I think my expertise, such as it is, would be wasted. Providing the amount of background they need in order to actually understand the context of any remarks would take until the next millenium.

Or to put it simply: I think I'd rather chew off my own foot....

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Nightshade:
<strong>

Ergaster,

Any chance are you following this ARN forum<a href="http://www.arn.org/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=14;t=000092" target="_blank"> thread?</a> on the same topic?

Some of the comments over there are just incredibly mind-numbing.(...)</strong>