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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
 Posted - 04/08/2010 : 12:00:31
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This just in:
New Hominid Shares Traits With Homo Species: Fossil Find Sheds Light on the Transition to Homo Genus from Earlier Hominids
The fossils are between 1.95 and 1.78 million years old, and in this week's issue of Science, the peer-reviewed journal published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society, two reports describe both the physical characteristics of this new Australopithecus species as well as the ancient environment in which it lived and died. The emerging picture is one of a hominid with a bone structure similar to the earliest Homo species, but who employed it more as an Australopithecus, like the famed "Lucy," would have.
These new fossils, however, represent a hominid that appeared approximately one million years later than Lucy, and their features imply that the transition from earlier hominids to the Homo genus occurred in very slow stages, with various Homo-like species emerging first… |
So in Australopithecus sediba we may have something that falls between Australopithecus and the first of the Homo line of species that we belong to. And that’s major!
And now the fun begins!
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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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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 04/08/2010 : 12:30:55 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Kil
This just in:
New Hominid Shares Traits With Homo Species: Fossil Find Sheds Light on the Transition to Homo Genus from Earlier Hominids
The fossils are between 1.95 and 1.78 million years old, and in this week's issue of Science, the peer-reviewed journal published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society, two reports describe both the physical characteristics of this new Australopithecus species as well as the ancient environment in which it lived and died. The emerging picture is one of a hominid with a bone structure similar to the earliest Homo species, but who employed it more as an Australopithecus, like the famed "Lucy," would have.
These new fossils, however, represent a hominid that appeared approximately one million years later than Lucy, and their features imply that the transition from earlier hominids to the Homo genus occurred in very slow stages, with various Homo-like species emerging first… |
So in Australopithecus sediba we may have something that falls between Australopithecus and the first of the Homo line of species that we belong to. And that’s major!
And now the fun begins!
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Beginning exactly now..... I scooped ya, Kil! 
But no matter, your article is much better than the one I found. Thanks for the read.
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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 - 04/08/2010 : 13:07:40 [Permalink]
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| Oh well.. Don't know how I missed your OP filthy. Anyhow, this could turn out to be a very important find. Good grief there were a lot of hominid species wandering around a couple of million years ago. I wonder how isolated they were from each other? Or what they thought of each other? |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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the_ignored
SFN Addict
2562 Posts |
Posted - 04/08/2010 : 13:13:54 [Permalink]
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They should wait until they've investigated it further before making any announcements. Though maybe they have. I'll let filthy give us the AIG take on it, which will be any day now.
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>From: enuffenuff@fastmail.fm
(excerpt follows):
> I'm looking to teach these two bastards a lesson they'll never forget.
> Personal visit by mates of mine. No violence, just a wee little chat.
>
> **** has also committed more crimes than you can count with his
> incitement of hatred against a religion. That law came in about 2007
> much to ****'s ignorance. That is fact and his writing will become well
> know as well as him becoming a publicly known icon of hatred.
>
> Good luck with that fuckwit. And Reynold, fucking run, and don't stop.
> Disappear would be best as it was you who dared to attack me on my
> illness knowing nothing of the cause. You disgust me and you are top of
> the list boy. Again, no violence. Just regular reminders of who's there
> and visits to see you are behaving. Nothing scary in reality. But I'd
> still disappear if I was you.
What brought that on? this. Original posting here.
Another example of this guy's lunacy here. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 04/08/2010 : 13:31:01 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by the_ignored
They should wait until they've investigated it further before making any announcements. Though maybe they have. I'll let filthy give us the AIG take on it, which will be any day now.
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Well, A couple of papers were just published in the journal Science, which is very much peer reviewed. What that means is they have already spent years looking at what they have to determine what it is, where it fits and so on. A press release from these guys is not something they do willy-nelly. They aren't National Geographic. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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the_ignored
SFN Addict
2562 Posts |
Posted - 04/08/2010 : 13:38:57 [Permalink]
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True, but some people still urge caution about the hype.
| Although already being cast as intermediate between australopithecines and the earliest member of our own genus, Homo habilis, this hominin is probably in the wrong place at the wrong time to be our direct ancestor, but it may help us understand human evolution during a time when there was a radiation of species across Africa. |
To me, his main point is here:
| One of the most frustrating aspects of all this, of course, is the continued use of the phrase "missing link." As I tried to explain during the hubbub over the fossil primate "Ida" last year, the concept does not reflect what we understand about evolution. The story of human evolution is not entirely confined to a single chain of ancestors linking us to our last common ancestor with chimpanzees. Instead our species is only the last surviving member of a much richer family tree, and if we only zero in on a linear series of "missing links" in our own ancestry we will have to ignore most of our relatives. The phrase fosters a false vision of what evolution is and how it works, and I would love for it to be discontinued. |
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>From: enuffenuff@fastmail.fm
(excerpt follows):
> I'm looking to teach these two bastards a lesson they'll never forget.
> Personal visit by mates of mine. No violence, just a wee little chat.
>
> **** has also committed more crimes than you can count with his
> incitement of hatred against a religion. That law came in about 2007
> much to ****'s ignorance. That is fact and his writing will become well
> know as well as him becoming a publicly known icon of hatred.
>
> Good luck with that fuckwit. And Reynold, fucking run, and don't stop.
> Disappear would be best as it was you who dared to attack me on my
> illness knowing nothing of the cause. You disgust me and you are top of
> the list boy. Again, no violence. Just regular reminders of who's there
> and visits to see you are behaving. Nothing scary in reality. But I'd
> still disappear if I was you.
What brought that on? this. Original posting here.
Another example of this guy's lunacy here. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 04/08/2010 : 13:44:13 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by the_ignored
True, but some people still urge caution about the hype.
| Although already being cast as intermediate between australopithecines and the earliest member of our own genus, Homo habilis, this hominin is probably in the wrong place at the wrong time to be our direct ancestor, but it may help us understand human evolution during a time when there was a radiation of species across Africa. |
To me, his main point is here:
| One of the most frustrating aspects of all this, of course, is the continued use of the phrase "missing link." As I tried to explain during the hubbub over the fossil primate "Ida" last year, the concept does not reflect what we understand about evolution. The story of human evolution is not entirely confined to a single chain of ancestors linking us to our last common ancestor with chimpanzees. Instead our species is only the last surviving member of a much richer family tree, and if we only zero in on a linear series of "missing links" in our own ancestry we will have to ignore most of our relatives. The phrase fosters a false vision of what evolution is and how it works, and I would love for it to be discontinued. |
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Yeah well, as for your first link, as I said, the fun begins.
And yes, no one is calling it a "missing link" but the media. That's just dumb. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Introducing Australopithecus sediba
