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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
 Posted - 09/20/2006 : 17:36:17
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http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/09/20/human.ancestor.ap/index.html
NEW YORK (AP) -- Scientists have discovered a remarkably complete skeleton of a 3-year-old female from the ape-man species represented by "Lucy."
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Fascinating brief read at CNN. Heard a blurb about it on NPR this afternoon.
I would have put this in a Science forum if SFN had one.
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"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2006 : 17:57:27 [Permalink]
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Wow! Very cool…
I do wish people in the media would avoid using words like “ape-man”, but oh well. What they have is an astonishingly complete Afarensis fossil of a young female child.
quote:
The fossil find includes the complete skull, including an impression of the brain and the lower jaw, all the vertebrae from the neck to just below the torso, all the ribs, both shoulder blades and both collarbones, the right elbow and part of a hand, both knees and much of both shin and thigh bones.
One foot is almost complete, providing the first time scientists have found an afarensis foot with the bones still positioned as they were in life, Spoor said.
This is the sort of thing that just makes my day…
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 09/20/2006 : 19:58:19 [Permalink]
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5363328.stm
Here's from BBC, and a movie to boot! Just frickin' wonderful, this discovery.
Dr. Dino....blow this out your asp hole!
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"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
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beskeptigal
SFN Die Hard
USA
3834 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 01:09:37 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Kil
Wow! Very cool…
I do wish people in the media would avoid using words like “ape-man”, but oh well.
The news I heard claimed they found a 3 million year old "human fossil", an equally incorrect claim.
What's also interesting is the information about how long our closely related relatives were around before evolving further. In other words it's an example of just how slow evolution is in a life form which reproduces as slowly as we do. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 02:37:50 [Permalink]
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That fossil made my day, too!
I haven't read much about it, but finding a complete foot is very exciting. Might it show a link between the grasping appendage of an ape and ours? Dunno. Yet....
I await with a certain unholy glee, the howls of denial from our friends at AiG, ICR, DI, and all of the other, usual suspects. 
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Antigone
New Member
44 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 10:53:47 [Permalink]
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| Have they said whether the skel. is of a male or female child? If its male I think they should name it "Jude" |
Mortui non dolent |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 10:56:29 [Permalink]
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It is a female, full skeleton, 3 years of age and thankfully there are no marks on it which could be interperted as Jesus or Mary silouettes.
To more gaps for the fossil record as Pleco might say.
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"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 11:09:00 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
It is a female, full skeleton, 3 years of age and thankfully there are no marks on it which could be interperted as Jesus or Mary silouettes.
To more gaps for the fossil record as Pleco might say.
Heh, they are saying that the excellent fossilazation was likely due to being caught in a flood and buried with sediments very quickly.
I wonder if the flood was Noah's and they somehow got the dates mixed up..... 
Welcome to SFN, Antigone!
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 11:33:35 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by BigPapaSmurf
It is a female, full skeleton, 3 years of age and thankfully there are no marks on it which could be interperted as Jesus or Mary silouettes.
To more gaps for the fossil record as Pleco might say.
It's gaps all the way down... |
by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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Antigone
New Member
44 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 12:35:50 [Permalink]
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Thanks for the welcome!
Can anyone think of a Beatle's song with another female name in it that they should nicname THIS fossil? If it was male Jude would have been perfect... |
Mortui non dolent |
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BigPapaSmurf
SFN Die Hard
3192 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 12:43:31 [Permalink]
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| How about Diamonds? |
"...things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say." -Lucian on his book True History
"...They accept such things on faith alone, without any evidence. So if a fraudulent and cunning person who knows how to take advantage of a situation comes among them, he can make himself rich in a short time." -Lucian critical of early Christians c.166 AD From his book, De Morte Peregrini |
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Antigone
New Member
44 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 12:53:50 [Permalink]
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Thats ... poetic
Lucy in the sky with Diamonds ...
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Mortui non dolent |
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McQ
Skeptic Friend
USA
258 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 17:04:49 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by Antigone
Thanks for the welcome!
Can anyone think of a Beatle's song with another female name in it that they should nicname THIS fossil? If it was male Jude would have been perfect...
I vote for Polythene Pam (she's so good lookin', but she looks like a man). |
Elvis didn't do no drugs!
--Penn Gillette |
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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 09/21/2006 : 17:07:51 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by McQ
I vote for Polythene Pam (she's so good lookin', but she looks like a man).
On that note, how about Lola - L O L A - Lola - la la la la Lola. |
by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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| Edited by - pleco on 09/22/2006 04:42:43 |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2006 : 01:12:22 [Permalink]
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Here and here is a little more on "Selam" as the child has been named. She is also being called: the Daughter of Lucy, although she is considerably older than that lovely lady.
And, of course, there is some early dissention. quote:
But, allow me to express some scientific doubts concerning not only the remains of the so-called human ancestors, but also about the entire evolutionary theory involved in explaining how human kind appeared.
First, I do agree that evolution is a certain and palpable fact in every domain of life, as we know it. It has rules that are beyond doubt and can even be seen in action during our life cycle.
But these rules are just so primitive to explain the complexity of the human being, as known by the same scientific community. Paleoanthropologists think that at one moment in time, apes separated from their humanoid counterparts and evolved differently.
But this raises some serious questions, among which many of you might find familiar interrogations: why apes evolved so little during the same period in which “humanoid apes” allegedly evolved so dramatically? What triggered such separation (was it the environment, the social interaction of those “special apes” or a conglomerate of factors) and are we ever going to find the famous “missing link” that united the two species?
But what about the “missing link”? Was it a single individual that has “given birth” to a whole new species, whose genome would modify repeatedly in such short time and eventually become us? According to the verified laws of genetics, modifications in a species' genome take place rather randomly and in order for these modifications to “live” a multitude of favorable factors have to occur to make that species adopt on a large scale the new features (we are talking about a certain “inertia” of a species, which protects it from potentially aberrant “evolutions”).
One key feature for a genetic modification to resist is to be adaptative. The famous missing link should have found its way better into the world and this should have been the reason for its thriving and evolution. But this also means two things: the interaction with the “former-species” should have been abruptly and bilaterally suppressed, and the ape species must have been way inferior to the apes we know today.
Pretty mild, really, and overall, not a bad rundown on the find despite the over-simplified views.
I eagerly await the frothing denials soon to be put forth by the religiously demented. I suspect that we'll be treated to long, ill-considered rants concerning Flores Man and comparisons to the same.
Whatever became of Flores, anyway. I've heard nothing but silence on that front for some time.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 09/22/2006 : 09:42:19 [Permalink]
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| One wonders how many missing links have to found before you have to admit that maybe (just maybe) we did evolve from ancestral primates. |
by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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