"skeleton reverses the common wisdom of human evolution"

[Finster]

Interesting article on a find that expanded our knowledge of human evolution - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091001/ap_on_sc/us_sci_before_lucy

Wonder how long it will take for some ID proponent to use this out of context to "prove" some point - "skeleton reverses the common wisdom of human evolution, said anthropologist C. Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University"

 

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

Wonder how long it will take for some ID proponent to use this out of context to "prove" some point

As of writing this...roughly 25 minutes ago when it appeared on yahoo news.

 

[godless dave]

At least the Guardian managed to cover the same story without sensationalism or an inaccurate headline. I was pleasantly surprised.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, the way I understand it, it's not like it actually contradicts any existing finds, it just clarifies exactly what happened between two particular steps. It's interesting, but nowhere near the kind of claims the fundies will make about it. Just watch

 

[BobTheDonkey]

Rather than humans evolving from an ancient chimp-like creature, the new find provides evidence that chimps and humans evolved from some long-ago common ancestor — but each evolved and changed separately along the way.

So, this new skeleton shows that Humans evolved alongside Chimps from a common ancestor? I fail to see how this is revolutionary...we've known that for quite some time now...

 

[Hux]

All it demonstrates is a type that is maybe 1.4 to 2 million years older than Lucy. When are these people going to understand there's no such think as a missing link?

You can bet your bottom dollar the ignorant idiots will be jumping up and down with glee claiming scientists have got it wrong and had to change their minds.

First, what is wrong with changing your mind?
Second, the find actually enforces the predictions of evolution.

 

[pgwenthold]

All it demonstrates is a type that is maybe 1.4 to 2 million years older than Lucy. When are these people going to understand there's no such think as a missing link?

What do you mean there's no Missing Link? The Missing Link was cool. I loved him when he was in the WWF.

Next thing you know, you will be saying there's no such thing as George the Animal Steele, Superfly Jimmy Snuka, or Mr Wonderful Paul Orndorf.

George the Animal Steele used to eat the stuffing from the corner of the ropes.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

The missing link keeps becomes less missing and less missing. Where, oh, where could it be?

 

[The Man]

What do you mean there's no Missing Link? The Missing Link was cool. I loved him when he was in the WWF.

Next thing you know, you will be saying there's no such thing as George the Animal Steele, Superfly Jimmy Snuka, or Mr Wonderful Paul Orndorf.

George the Animal Steele used to eat the stuffing from the corner of the ropes.

The Missing Link just evolved from Gorilla Mosoon.

 

[Hux]

What do you mean there's no Missing Link? The Missing Link was cool. I loved him when he was in the WWF.

Next thing you know, you will be saying there's no such thing as George the Animal Steele, Superfly Jimmy Snuka, or Mr Wonderful Paul Orndorf.

George the Animal Steele used to eat the stuffing from the corner of the ropes.

You're not well are you?

 

[MG1962]

So, this new skeleton shows that Humans evolved alongside Chimps from a common ancestor? I fail to see how this is revolutionary...we've known that for quite some time now...

Thats what I thought....while this is a wonderful find... I suspect some of the speculation is just media whoring

 

[Whiplash]

The Missing Link just evolved from Gorilla Mosoon.

He and Bobby the Brain were the greatest commentator duo ever! Well, in the history of wrestling anyhow.

 

[Vortigern99]

I must say I've been following this stuff for years, and I'm not seeing any new information in the linked article. Ardipithecus was first discovered in 1994 and its features known and described in several articles since that time. I understand that 11 research papers have just now been published in Science, but I'm at something of a loss to comprehend why this is considered news when all the talking points have already been published.

ETA: The following is my entry on "Ardi" in my Primates! document I compiled some months ago, which I keep as a handy reference guide:

Ardipithecus ramidus (4.4 mya: Northern Africa) Size of modern chimps. Shares certain traits with Gorilla and Pan [chimps], indicating proper placement on chimp branch rather than human, but has dentition similar to Australopithecus. Lacks “canine cutting complex” which modern chimps have, a primitive trait lost during hominin evolution. Possible biped based on toe structure. Not considered hominin ancestor by scholars. Evidence of woodland, grassland and swamp habitat.

 

[gtc]

I must say I've been following this stuff for years, and I'm not seeing any new information in the linked article. Ardipithecus was first discovered in 1994 and its features known and described in several articles since that time. I understand that 11 research papers have just now been published in Science, but I'm at something of a loss to comprehend why this is considered news when all the talking points have already been published.

ETA: The following is my entry on "Ardi" in my Primates! document I compiled some months ago, which I keep as a handy reference guide:

Ardipithecus ramidus (4.4 mya: Northern Africa) Size of modern chimps. Shares certain traits with Gorilla and Pan [chimps], indicating proper placement on chimp branch rather than human, but has dentition similar to Australopithecus. Lacks “canine cutting complex” which modern chimps have, a primitive trait lost during hominin evolution. Possible biped based on toe structure. Not considered hominin ancestor by scholars. Evidence of woodland, grassland and swamp habitat.

If I read what you wrote correctly, you think it evolved after the human ancestor split from the chimpanzee ancestor and not on the human line?

The article in the op seems to suggest that it evolved before the split.

Have I got this right?

 

[GreNME]

I must say I've been following this stuff for years, and I'm not seeing any new information in the linked article. Ardipithecus was first discovered in 1994 and its features known and described in several articles since that time. I understand that 11 research papers have just now been published in Science, but I'm at something of a loss to comprehend why this is considered news when all the talking points have already been published.

It's news because it was given a press release. There's evidence of an even older hominid that's been found, and we're likely going to see a paper or two over the next couple of years and then the typical news release.

 

[Delvo]

If I read what you wrote correctly, you think it evolved after the human ancestor split from the chimpanzee ancestor and not on the human line?

The article in the op seems to suggest that it evolved before the split.

Have I got this right?

Yes, that's one of several problems with the way this thing's been reported. It lived and died after the split, but articles about it keep claiming that it's ancestral to humans and implies things that an ancestor of humans could only imply if it lived before the split. They also claim it was bipedal but its limb lengths and foot form are clearly those of only a part-time biped. They also claim that it implies that certain human traits (namely bipedalism) are the original ones from which the traits of other living apes are derived, which is obviously falsified by the fact that all other apes (and mammals, and vertebrates, for that matter) from the most ancient to the present don't and didn't have those human traits.

 

[Hux]

I think as well that a lot of people were under the impression that Lucy was the first fully formed Hominid. Ardi really shows us (for those that didn't know already) that there were hominids before Lucy. The thing is about the human continuum as with any animal continuum, is that wherever an animal diverges, you simply could not, as an outside observer, tell the difference. Indeed, as far as I am aware, the genetic coding suggests that after the 'split' ancestral chimps were mating with ancestral hominids, such was the similarity (and capability to still produce offspring).

The media is to blame for this. Not, I think for trying to explain it but for sensationalising it. Ardi takes us nearer to the supposed divergence but they never ever say that the lineage that diverted wer no more like modern chimps than the then hominids looked human. Ardi (and Australopithecus ) looked more like apes than humans -but they were semi bipedal and bi pedal in turn. But this crap about 'rethinking' evolution and scientists having to reconsider this event is total rubbish. Darwinian evolution predicts we should find, in the layers, animals on that continuum. I very much doubt we will ever recognise a common ancestor being almost identical to the convergent specimens and that's what we need to get over to those who are hard of thinking. We are not going to dind a human Crocoduck.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You really have to wonder what reversed common wisdom Lovejoy is talking about:

This older skeleton reverses the common wisdom of human evolution, said anthropologist C. Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University.

Rather than humans evolving from an ancient chimp-like creature, the new find provides evidence that chimps and humans evolved from some long-ago common ancestor — but each evolved and changed separately along the way.

"This is not that common ancestor, but it's the closest we have ever been able to come," said Tim White, director of the Human Evolution Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

The lines that evolved into modern humans and living apes probably shared an ancestor 6 million to 7 million years ago, White said in a telephone interview.

But Ardi has many traits that do not appear in modern-day African apes, leading to the conclusion that the apes evolved extensively since we shared that last common ancestor.

Because for at least a year the Tree of Life Web Project has had the following entry:

The earliest known primates date to 70 million years ago. The great apes, including the chimpanzee and humans, spilt off from the lesser apes about 20 million years ago (All About Chimps, 2008).

Humans and chimpanzees diverged approximately 6 million years ago,

There was another discovery about a year ago IIRC that was of an animal that represented the primate split from the more lemur like mammals. Perhaps someone has a better recall of that discovery. It had to do with refining where these primate branches split.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Shouldn't it say human ancestors and chimp ancestors diverged 6 million years ago? It wasn't like there were homo sapiens and chimps on the planet back then.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, while the "reverses common wisdom" spin is bull, having RTFA their spin is rather a more mundane "we didn't expect it to look like that." (Not an exact quote, but a summary of the idea.)