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Author Topic:   A good summary of so called human evolution.
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1025 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


(2)
Message 27 of 184 (797357)
01-18-2017 1:32 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by Tangle
01-17-2017 8:18 PM


Re: feed the trolls
You being right is not irrelevant to him. He has a different agenda to you. You make yourself look silly by not accepting and recognising that.
From my perspective, this site never looks sillier than when some nonsense or other elicits a stream of responses questioning the integrity and intentions of the poster. Seems like it would be much easier just to ignore them if you think the nonsense not worth engaging with.

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 Message 23 by Tangle, posted 01-17-2017 8:18 PM Tangle has not replied

  
caffeine
Member (Idle past 1025 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


(7)
Message 36 of 184 (797413)
01-20-2017 8:29 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by mike the wiz
01-15-2017 3:59 PM


The habiline problem
Homo habilis - there is a growing consensus amongst most paleoanthropologists that this category actually includes bits and pieces of various other types - such as Australopithecus and Homo erectus. It is therefore an 'invalid taxon'. That is, it never existed as such.
When you think about, this particular case is actually rather good evidence for evolution.
There is by no means yet a consensus that H. habilis should be thrown out, though it is a viewpoint increasing in popularity. Does this mean, as the OP implies, that habilines do not belong in the human evolutionary story. Not at all, there is still a consensus that some of these fossils are either on, or very close to, our ancestral line.
What's happened is that our fossil collections have grown. When you have very few fossils to work with; it's relatively easy to divide them typologically. This is an australopithecine, this is H. habilis; this is H. erectus. As we uncover and study more and more fossils, however, we fill in the gaps and our picture becomes more fine-grained. This has the obvious result of blurring the lines between taxonomic units. We realise that early H. erectus specimens have considerable overlap with habilines; just as habilines have considerable overlap with australopithecines. Some researchers start to notice that there are no features diagnostic of Homo habilis[/i]; and thus question whether it's a meaningful taxon.
This is an issue for taxonomists, but not for human evolution. Doing away with the clear lines of distinction between fossil hominins is a sign that we're filling in the missing links and completing the picture. It's not a sign that there's something wrong with the story.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by mike the wiz, posted 01-15-2017 3:59 PM mike the wiz has replied

Replies to this message:
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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1025 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


Message 121 of 184 (809171)
05-16-2017 4:05 PM
Reply to: Message 116 by Davidjay
05-16-2017 12:50 PM


Re: And all our ancestors are now extinct
And all our ancestors are now extinct... how convenient..
Not quite all. I, personally, have four living ancestors. None of them are shared with you though (unless of course you happen to be the spawn of granddad's youthful indiscretion).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 116 by Davidjay, posted 05-16-2017 12:50 PM Davidjay has not replied

  
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