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Fascinating

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/03/05/ethiopia.hominid.ap/

Shhhhhhhhh! Christians do not believe in fossils.

Shhhhhh. Yes we do. We just don't believe that other than you, any fossil exists to prove man and a monkey were connected........

??? Is this what most anthropologists believe? Nothing about rationality, language, fabrication, etc?

Here\'s another bipedal hominid

ivory: I believe the theory is that being upright freed our hands, which could then use tools, which provided a stimulus for our brains to evolve. What good is a larger brain, if there is nothing for it to manipulate? In survival terms it is quite costly to have a large brain. I agree the article is very poorly worded.

So which in your estimation is prior -- ideation or manipulation? The monkey might use a stick to get at ants, but that is not the same as making or really even using a tool, is it? I always thought that the first murder scene in 2001 was pretty silly, but effective for the premise.

Yhapbo, please stop trying to turn every thread into a fight. Thank you.

Ivory,
For now I meant this to be just a "FYI" article. Because the finding is so recent, there are no decent articles to find yet, only the mainstream media articles. I hope there will be some good scientific articles about it soon which give attention to things like rationality etc.

Hi Nun:

Yes, I appreciate the link. I have a particular interest in the study of neanderthals and their interactions with homo sapiens. I just thought the quote was so bizarre, and it reminded me of the two legged dog -- pretty interesting adaptation, huh?


cheers,

Steve

BTW, a dog is not a hominid. A hominid is any member of the primate family Hominidae, which includes man and his fossil ancestors in the genus Homo. Walking upright is one of the most crucial steps in the evolution from ape to human, and I think that's all they are trying to say.

Quite interesting. Thanks for posting this Nunatax.

I don't understand.

How could we have evolved from fossils?

Fossils are not even alive.

ivory - I believe that manupulation lead to bigger brain development which lead to ideation. The hands came before the brain. This is only one view in the field, I recognize. I think the main reason dolphins have not evolved further, is that they don't have hands to manipulate and create.

Wow, Nunatax, that is fascinating. Thank you.

Kenny, Kenny, Kenny.... :rolleyes:

He's a troll, pay no attention to him. On to other things...

Larry's right, I have no problems with fossils, nor does anyone else I know.

However, to chunk a bit of controversy into the mix, I would think an opposable thumb would be more important than being bipedal...

Thanks, Nun, I am well aware of the taxonomy tables. The point being the very strange way that the Latimer defined what makes us human (hominid) is "walking upright". Perhaps he was quoted out of context.

There was a "news" story on Onion.com a few years ago with the headline:

Dolphins Develop Opposable Thumb: Scientists Say "Oh Sh*t!"



Just for the sake of discussion -- how long do you think it took to go from quad to bipedal to opposable thumb to ratiocination?

Jolly: I am only an amateur early anthropology buff, but I believe the theory is that being upright allowed the opposable thumb to develop. Note: walking upright has disadvantages. We can't run as fast, we can't climb trees to get food as well. Our soft parts are more easy for an enemy to target.

Ivory - how long? Well, according to the article, about 4 million years. We really have only about a dozen skeletons complete enough to make a conjecture on. The field is still in flux.

I believe that there were many "human" or human-like offshoots, not a straight line of "decent" and that we just happened to be the most sucessful (or maybe not - we have only been around for maybe 50,000-100,000 years, let's see if our species survives the next few hundred. We can split the atom and decode our own DNA, but still fight wars.)

Trilobites (another hobby of mine) lived for about 350 million years, through 2 different mass-exctinction events that killed over 90% of the earth's living things. We are nowhere near achieving that definition of "success".

Re: Humans (homo sapiens sapiens) and the Neaderthals. The old theory is that we killed them off in a genocidal competition for resources. Homo sapiens sapiens was smarter than the Neanderthals, and came out of Africa in a conquering wave between 150,000 and 50,000 years ago. This theory is possible.

The new theory is that there were several "human" species: homo sapiens sapiens, Neaderthal, and we even found another one off New Zealand recently. There was competition, but also intermingling (there is no reason that homo sapiens sapiens and the Neaderthals might not have been mutually interfertile). Thus we today might have some Neanderthal genes in us. There was no "out of Africa" wave of expansion, but a simultaneous and multiple evolution in many different places.

I tend to believe the latter theory, but there is no definite scientific proof of either one. Someone getting a doctorate in the field might try to argue for either side with some good evidence.

Good point!

Jeffrey, I should look it back up but I believe the opposable thumb developed first. This seems logical too, since Chimpansees for instance, are not really built to walk upright but do have opposable thumbs. Also, what would the advantage be of being able to walk upright if you have no extra use for your "hands" if they can't really grab anything?