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Author Topic:   Possible Human Ancestor in the News (Ardipithecus ramidus)
Granny Magda
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Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 1 of 8 (527800)
10-02-2009 4:49 PM


On the front of The Indie today;
Meet the human ancestor who walked Earth 4 million years ago
Bones found in East Africa add a new chapter to the story of man's evolution, says Steve Connor
She stood 4ft tall but she was no lightweight — her muscular body weighed nearly eight stone. She could climb trees easily with the help of long arms, huge hands and grasping toes, but "Ardi" could also walk fully upright on two legs — the first known human ancestor with a bipedal gait.
With a hairy body and snout-like face, Ardi must have looked more ape than human when she roamed her woodland habitat in East Africa some 4.4 million years ago — except for her bipedalism. But Ardi's uncertain role in the story of human origins has now become clearer following an exhaustive investigation into the 110 fragments of fossilised bones belonging to her species.
It is now clear that Ardipithecus ramidus is the earliest unequivocal member of the long lineage extending to anatomically-modern humans, Homo sapiens, from the last common ancestral species we shared with chimpanzees, our closest living relatives whose DNA is 99 per cent similar to our own.
Much older than Lucy, this is a very interesting fossil. She was bipedal, but still had the opposable toes that Lucy and later hominids lacked. There are various other ways in which she was intermediate between hominids and more chimp-like apes.
Meet the human ancestor who walked Earth 4 million years ago | The Independent | The Independent
Interesting stuff.
Mutate and Survive
Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Add the "(Ardipithecus ramidus)" to the topic title.

"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

Replies to this message:
 Message 2 by RAZD, posted 10-02-2009 7:32 PM Granny Magda has replied
 Message 3 by Lithodid-Man, posted 10-02-2009 7:38 PM Granny Magda has not replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 2 of 8 (527836)
10-02-2009 7:32 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Granny Magda
10-02-2009 4:49 PM


Thanks Granny Magda
Here's another link to the story (I had trouble with your link):
ABC News article
and
http://www.sciencemag.org/ardipithecus/
and if you register (free) or are registered:
Just a moment...
4.4 million years ago
Woodland ecology
Bipedal gait
Blows the "Savannah theory" out the door.
With a hairy body and snout-like face, ...
Curious how your news source knows about the "hairy body" -- it's not discussed in the Science article (do we want to monkey with another piece of evidence for evolutionist fraud?)
quote:
It was the find of a lifetime. But the team’s excitement was tempered by the skeleton’s terrible condition. The bones literally crumbled when touched. White called it road kill. And parts of the skeleton had been trampled and scattered into more than 100 fragments; the skull was crushed to 4 centimeters in height. The researchers decided to remove entire blocks of sediment, covering the blocks in plaster and moving them to the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa to finish excavating the fossils.
It took three field seasons to uncover and extract the skeleton, repeatedly crawling the site to gather 100% of the fossils present. At last count, the team had cataloged more than 110 specimens of Ar. ramidus, not to mention 150,000 specimens of fossil plants and animals. "This team seems to suck fossils out of the earth," says anatomist C. Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University in Ohio, who analyzed the postcranial bones but didn’t work in the field. In the lab, he gently unveils a cast of a tiny, pea-sized sesamoid bone for effect. "Their obsessiveness gives youthis!"
...
This new evidence overwhelmingly refutes the once-favored but now moribund hypothesis that upright-walking hominins arose in open grasslands. "There’s so much good data here that people aren't going to be able to question whether early hominins were living in woodlands," says paleoanthropologist Andrew Hill of Yale University. "Savannas had nothing to do with upright walking."
Enjoy.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


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This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Granny Magda, posted 10-02-2009 4:49 PM Granny Magda has replied

Replies to this message:
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Lithodid-Man
Member (Idle past 2931 days)
Posts: 504
From: Juneau, Alaska, USA
Joined: 03-22-2004


Message 3 of 8 (527838)
10-02-2009 7:38 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Granny Magda
10-02-2009 4:49 PM


Free issue
Just a followup on this - If you go to Science | AAAS and register you can download full texts of the articles in their special Ardipithecus issue. I got the whole lot to read at my leisure, some really good stuff (and not so good, would be a great discussion topic!)
ABE - I see RAZD already mentioned this! Oh well
Edited by Lithodid-Man, : Added the ABE part

Doctor Bashir: "Of all the stories you told me, which were true and which weren't?"
Elim Garak: "My dear Doctor, they're all true"
Doctor Bashir: "Even the lies?"
Elim Garak: "Especially the lies"

This message is a reply to:
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Granny Magda
Member
Posts: 2462
From: UK
Joined: 11-12-2007
Member Rating: 4.0


Message 4 of 8 (527840)
10-02-2009 7:43 PM
Reply to: Message 2 by RAZD
10-02-2009 7:32 PM


Ardipithecus at Pharyngula
Hi RAZD,
Funny, the link still works for me. It may be a UK only thing.
Here is another page on A. ramidus;
Page not found | ScienceBlogs
Mutate and Survive

"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod

This message is a reply to:
 Message 2 by RAZD, posted 10-02-2009 7:32 PM RAZD has seen this message but not replied

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Kitsune
Member (Idle past 4300 days)
Posts: 788
From: Leicester, UK
Joined: 09-16-2007


Message 5 of 8 (528041)
10-04-2009 3:52 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by Granny Magda
10-02-2009 7:43 PM


Re: Ardipithecus at Pharyngula
One of the comments on the article Granny linked to gives this link to a YEC response (it's a very, very scary place):
No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.rr-bb.com/showthread.php?t=110943
Mind you, there's one person there who's actually questioning some of that stupidity. Maybe they'll eventually find their way to a forum like this.
Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.
Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

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Replies to this message:
 Message 6 by bluescat48, posted 10-04-2009 11:31 AM Kitsune has replied
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bluescat48
Member (Idle past 4189 days)
Posts: 2347
From: United States
Joined: 10-06-2007


Message 6 of 8 (528077)
10-04-2009 11:31 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by Kitsune
10-04-2009 3:52 AM


Re: Ardipithecus at Pharyngula
Just checked out the site you listed. No webpage found at provided URL: http;//www.rr-bb.com/showthread.php?t=110943
It amazes me that people today still seem like it is still the middle ages. What next, try scientists as witches?

There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002
Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969
Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by Kitsune, posted 10-04-2009 3:52 AM Kitsune has replied

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Kitsune
Member (Idle past 4300 days)
Posts: 788
From: Leicester, UK
Joined: 09-16-2007


Message 7 of 8 (528079)
10-04-2009 11:40 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by bluescat48
10-04-2009 11:31 AM


Re: Ardipithecus at Pharyngula
I thought this was the most heinous post among some pretty stiff competition -- how many times have creationists been told here and elsewhere why this is utter, insane bullshit?
quote:
Maybe the problem your having is that you're trying to fit God into what you know about "science". Maybe that's the wrong way. Maybe instead you should try to fit science into what you know about God.
Don't start from the proposition that everything you learned in science class was correct, and then try to make God fit into that picture. Instead, start from the position that everything in the bible is true, and then try to see how science fits in with that. If it doesn't fit, it's the current world's view that's wrong, not the bible.
I read more posts there out of morbid fascination, followed some links, and then decided I'd wasted a part of my life with this and turned part of my brain to jelly.
Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

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cavediver
Member (Idle past 3643 days)
Posts: 4129
From: UK
Joined: 06-16-2005


Message 8 of 8 (528093)
10-04-2009 1:05 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by Kitsune
10-04-2009 3:52 AM


Re: Ardipithecus at Pharyngula
One of the comments on the article Granny linked to gives this link to a YEC response (it's a very, very scary place):
This is typical modern evangelical Christianity. When I was still attending my last church, I'd hear discussions like this at just about every meeting. AiG, ICR, Ken, et al provide the reassurance that YEC Christians need today, and because they are Christian organisations, what they say is obviously true and reliable. The idea that a Christian organisation could put out something that is not true is unthinkable.

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