Fossil may be ancestor of humans, apes?

[cool_chick]

CNN) -- Scientists in Spain announced Thursday that they've unearthed a 13 million-year-old fossilized skeleton of an ape that is possibly a common ancestor of humans and great apes, including orangutans, bonobos, chimps and gorillas.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/11/18/great.apes/index.html

[dhoward]

Great CC, now all the jesus guys will be in here...

[cool_chick]

(shameless bump)

C'mon!!!! I thought this was sooo interesting.

[Superman]

Yeah, you could say He was deported. But He says He has property here, and that he'll be back.

Anthropologists are no different from any other scientists. Even subatomic physicists re-draw the universe each time they find a surprize. Every science seems to be that way (although the physicists say they are close to a complete understanding of the universe...yeah, right). My observation is that synthesizing a story from an incomplete view of the facts is "interesting" for many folks. Watching this synthesis and noticing the disagreements and revisions, is "amusing."

[dhoward]

What's truly interesting is the fact that there have been many new discoveries in the past 20 years or so, and that historical knowlege of both the universe in general and here on earth is being gained at what appears to be an accelerated rate.
Isn't technology grand?
(Althogh buldozers have been around for quite some time....)

[Moses]

Man, I love this stuff. What really fascinates me is that studies of mitochondrial DNA indicate that ALL humanity is related genetically to a woman who left Africa only 150,000 years ago! Even more amazing is that analysis of stable population mutations indicates that the migration out of Africa likely took a southern route with Europe being populated very late, after India and Australia.

http://amonhotep.com/2002/realeve.html

[Superman]

Eve. I agree that stuff is interesting.

I'd also agree that technology is increasing at an exponential rate. No society in human history has had to be more adaptive than ours. No generation has seen this degree of change. Some would say that things are coming to a Head.

[Moses]

Originally posted by Superman
Some would say that things are coming to a Head.

Yeah, the planet will shake us off like fleas on a dog. Just a matter of time, IMO.

[dhoward]

Originally posted by Superman
Eve. I agree that stuff is interesting.

I'd also agree that technology is increasing at an exponential rate. No society in human history has had to be more adaptive than ours. No generation has seen this degree of change. Some would say that things are coming to a Head.

Although that can be said for every preceeding generation. Exponential. Just like the price of Fuchs when 'Car-reras' gets ahold of them...

[RickM]

Hey, I know this guy!

[RickM]

In case anyone here missed this related thread Drawf Human Species discovered....

All this is very interesting.

[john70t]

(yawn) Everyone knows carbon dating past 6,000 years is scientificly inacurate. The Bush administration should be doing a better job with "advising" those scientists.

That stuff about finding residual cocaine and nicotine(both from South America) in Egyptian mummies and Cheng Ho's supersized fleet is probably wrong too. Worldwide trade just didn't exist back then.

[dhoward]

Doh!

[Z-man]

Pierolapithecus catalaunicus is what they are calling this new find.

From the CNN report
The importance of this new fossil is that for the first time all the key areas that define modern great apes are well-preserved...

If this fossil is so similar to modern great apes, then couldn't it just be the bones of a modern great ape? (That lived 13 million years ago?)

And you're telling me that one single fossil will enable scientists to add a whole new species to the 'evolutionary tree' and fill in a missing link? Even if this fossil is unique, could it possibly be that the fossil is one of a deformed animal - perhaps one that had suffered from arthritis or a degenerative bone disease?

IMHO, the 'implications' scientists seem to draw from these 'new discoveries' can be far fetched. It's not always an exact science, now is it?

-Z-man, one of them 'Jesus guys.'

[dhoward]

Originally posted by Z-man


IMHO, the 'implications' scientists seem to draw from these 'new discoveries' can be far fetched. It's not always an exact science, now is it?

-Z-man, one of them 'Jesus guys.'

I told you it wouldn't be long!
Think about it this way, they discovered something they think is new so they blab all of the wonderful possibilities and take a bunch of credit. When it's discovered that you, z-man, were correct all along, it'll get a 4th page retraction...

[cool_chick]

I wonder if this discovery was touted to be a piece of Noah's ark, conveniently all testing would be accurate and everyone would be arguing that it's FACT. Remember the shroud of turin?

Seems so many immediately discount any scientific discovery but embrace any "religious" discovery as fact/the real thing, with little or no proof.

[trj911]

I wonder if it will prove to be like the "Nebraska-man" tooth found in 1922? That tooth was connected to an hypothetical jawbone and then to an hypothetical skull and then given a face and features and even fur and by the time it hit the papers there was even a "Nebraska mom. All that from a single solitary tooth. Sometime after the discovery an identical tooth was found by geologist Harold Cook. Only this time the tooth was connected to an actual skull, and the skull was attached to the skeleton, that of a wild pig.

Similar can be said of the science behind "Java man" on the East Indian island of Java in 1891.

One that is different is "Piltdown man" in 1912. That one was a complete fraud. The jaw of an ape was stained and reshaped to make it appear to match a human jaw and The teeth were filed down and misalligned. Esteemed scientists of the day, Sir Arthur Keith and A. S. Woodward affirmed the bones varacity. It wasn't until 1953 after the Nature Conservancy has spent a lot of money to designate the Piltdown site as a national monument that Piltdown man was declared a fake.

Remember Peking man? 1927, China, one lone tooth and 14 monkey skulls.

Time will tell if the latest discovery has any truth to it.

[dhoward]

Mmmmm.......
Cold fusion......

[cool_chick]

I wonder if this discovery is in fact real. Wouldn't that be cool.

A handful of inaccurate cases (in the wake of many many valid discoveries) yet every single discovery is now labeled "fake."

haha too funny.

[dhoward]

Don't see it as necessarily fake, but I think the 'pressure' to be first may sometimes take precedence over scientific technique.
Possible?