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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
 Posted - 11/03/2009 : 13:38:36
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There is a three part series that premier’s on Nova tonight on human origins.
Nova: Becoming Human Part 1
Program Description
Where did we come from? What makes us human? An explosion of recent discoveries sheds light on these questions, and NOVA's comprehensive, three-part special, "Becoming Human," examines what the latest scientific research reveals about our hominid relatives.
Part 1, "First Steps," examines the factors that caused us to split from the other great apes. The program explores the fossil of "Selam," also known as "Lucy's Child." Paleoanthropologist Zeray Alemseged spent five years carefully excavating the sandstone-embedded fossil. NOVA's cameras are there to capture the unveiling of the face, spine, and shoulder blades of this 3.3 million-year-old fossil child. And NOVA takes viewers "inside the skull" to show how our ancestors' brains had begun to change from those of the apes.
Why did leaps in human evolution take place? "First Steps" explores a provocative "big idea" that sharp swings of climate were a key factor.
The other programs in the "Becoming Human" series are Part 2: "Birth of Humanity," which profiles the earliest species of humans, and Part 3: "Last Human Standing," which examines why, of various human species that once shared the planet, only our kind remains. |
Check your local PBS listing for this show.
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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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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 11/03/2009 : 14:24:37 [Permalink]
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Brian Switek of Laelaps has been blogging about the episodes as they air. Here are his reviews of part 1 and part 2.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular
USA
1191 Posts |
 Posted - 11/03/2009 : 14:25:19 [Permalink]
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| Got the DVR programmed! |
The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley
The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 11/04/2009 : 11:37:24 [Permalink]
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I really enjoyed the first episode, which I would not have known to record had it not been for Kil's notice.
The science itself seems first-rate, as does the hypothesis that the evolution of human intelligence was kick-started by the need to adapt to the wildly fluctuating environment of the Rift Valley at the very time when our ancestors' brain size at last began to grow larger than chimp size after a long plateau with little change.
What griped me were repeated errors in the narrative. Phrases like "the first human ancestor" were said again and again, when the meaning was "last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees." It's a shame that such sloppiness was allowed by the producers to slip in at a late stage in post-production. "Missing link" was overused, too.
The 3D animation sequences were uniformly also dismal. Never is a human ancestor shown moving in anything like a realistic manner. The result simply screams "fake!"
Still, this is great stuff, despite my quibbles. Science's understanding of the human story has been changing rapidly in recent years. It behooves us all to regularly review this story, and learn the latest synthesis of knowledge about our ancestry. |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 11/04/2009 11:38:10 |
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Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 11/10/2009 : 12:33:55 [Permalink]
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| Just a message bump. Part II of Becoming Human is tonight on PBS TV. |
"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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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 11/10/2009 : 13:17:42 [Permalink]
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I can't get PBS due to my primitive antenna set-up. I plan to buy the DVDs. Hi-def sucks! 
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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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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 11/10/2009 : 18:42:30 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by filthy
I can't get PBS due to my primitive antenna set-up. I plan to buy the DVDs. Hi-def sucks!
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You can see all of part one, online, here:
NOVA: Becoming Human Part 1
Part two will be up by tomorrow, probably. |
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 - 11/10/2009 : 18:52:28 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
Originally posted by filthy
I can't get PBS due to my primitive antenna set-up. I plan to buy the DVDs. Hi-def sucks!
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You can see all of part one, online, here:
NOVA: Becoming Human Part 1
Part two will be up by tomorrow, probably.
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What the hell did we do in the olden days? I'll never take this WWW for granted!
And....what would we do without PBS NOVA?! |
"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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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 11/11/2009 : 04:51:23 [Permalink]
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Thanks for the link, Kil; I'll check it out today!
Now for an expert's review from one of the world's most dedicated scientific organizations:
In a web article we posted a few days ago, Answers in Genesis reviewed a new TV documentary on human origins and mentioned that we would be commenting further on this NOVA series from the Public Broadcasting System (PBS TV). Becoming Human is a three-part documentary that attempts to make a case for an ape-like ancestry of humans and to explain how that transition purportedly happened. The high-production quality of the series (including its computer animation) makes what ultimately is highly speculative seem quite conclusive.
Now that we have viewed part one, there is not too much to add to our Tuesday posting (or to our News to Note comment over the weekend). What was shown on TV last week was largely a summary of man’s supposed evolutionary ancestry that is already found in textbooks, science museums, and recent TV documentaries (and which we have analyzed often on this site). We will point out once more that, with this program, the majority of the ape-man fossils that are showcased are very similar to the apes of today—and not to people.
The NOVA series begins with the statement: “Humans. Without a doubt, the smartest animal on earth. Yet we’re unmistakably tied to our ape origins.” In the segment, entitled “First Steps,” NOVA looked at the supposed evolutionary split of humans from apes, including the rise of bipedalism and the differences in brain capacity (which are not new themes in evolution studies).
Regarding how humans started to walk upright, the program stated that bipedalism permitted ape-men to “see over tall grass” and “pick fruit off of the low branches of trees.” But the researchers who are interviewed do not offer an explanation as to how the genetic information to walk upright (including a change in the skeletons of ape-men) could have been placed in the DNA of these creatures. It’s not surprising that the narrator asks—but never really answers—the question: “What powered our evolution?
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Yeah, yeah I know; pretty freakin' lame, but this is Mark Looy of AiG we're dealing with here. He doesn't have a lot to work with, does Mark, but then, neither does his target audience so it's ok. The lamer the better, lets-all-wave-hands -- HUZZAH! 
I was planning to sit down this morning and take this apart like like a Tinker Toy, but it scarcely seems worth the effort. We've seen every bit of it before, almost word for word, and I woke up lazy. So, I'll only comment that AiG is to be admired in that they never science get in the way of a good fiction. I love good fiction and greatly enjoy reading much of theirs.
What it is, I think, is that they are frightened and confused by uncertainty. They must have everything handed to them on a on a platter, and if it's garnished with fractured fantasia, all the better. The Bible fills this need nicely; nothing more is required nor desired, and hence, all research that doesn't quote Genesis is useless.
That's what fundamentalist Christian apologia is all about; the replacement of uncertainty with something that can/must be taken on blind faith and therefore cannot be questioned. To do so, you are trying to disprove a negative, even if that negative is something as silly and easily debunked as Noah's Flood. Remember; we are not their target audience -- Pavlovian semi-zombies are. The problem is that Pavlov infections are contagious among those who need someone or something to relieve them of the burden of thought. Sadly, there's a lot of those out there.
And now, we have another reason to look forward to Parts II and III. 
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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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Nova: Becoming Human
