B14-Evolve-B1
Graham L. Kendall
Modified 12/2/2007
Email grahamkendall74135@yahoo.com
I am found on IRC Efnet/Undernet as glk
Files on science and religion are found at
http://www.grahamkendall.net/
All are free to use any of this material without limit.
*******************************************************************************
==
trilobites.

They certainly share a common arthropod ancestor, but
horseshoe "crabs" are probably cousins rather than
offspring of trilobites, which have derived traits
lacking in the chelicerates, such as their remarkable,
unique crystalline eye lenses:

http://www.trilobit es.info/eyes. htm

http://www.austmus. gov.au/palaeonto logy/research/ trilobites02. htm

That trilobites are arthropods is beyond doubt, but
the exact position of Trilobita in the evolutionary
tree of the arthropods is more controversial. Early
workers took the geological antiquity of trilobites as
evidence that they were the most primitive kind of
arthropod, and may have included the ancestors of
crustaceans and chelicerates.

A single pair of antennae is likely a primitive
feature for all arthropods, and the similarity of leg
structure along the trilobite body (e.g., without the
specialised leg-derived mouthparts of crustaceans or
insects) can also be interpreted as primitive. Most
recent workers consider that, among living arthropods,
the closest relatives of trilobites are the
chelicerates. The similarity of these groups may not
be obvious when we make comparison with the
land-dwelling spiders, mites, or scorpions, but
becomes more apparent when we examine the most
primitive living chelicerates, the horseshoe crabs.

Trilobites, horseshoe crabs and sea scorpions have
similar spine rows along the inner margin of their
legs. The lamellae on the outer leg branch of
trilobites are similar (and thought to have the same
evolutionary origin) as the filaments of the book
gills of horseshoe crabs and book lungs of arachnids.

The eyes of trilobites penetrate the dorsal surface of
the head shield as in horseshoe crabs. Nonetheless,
trilobites are not the direct ancestors of horseshoe
crabs or other chelicerates. All trilobites share
certain unique features (like the calcite mineralogy
of the exoskselton and calcified eye) to indicate that
they are a separate branch of Arthropoda.
==
Felis silvestris, the ancestor of the domestic cat, is usually a tabby
because of its forested habitat.
==
http://us.f806.mail.yahoo.com/ym/ShowLetter?Search=&Idx=0&YY=86133&y5beta=yes&y5beta=yes&order=down&sort=date&pos=0   hominids
==
 "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers,
having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and
that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed
law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most
beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." 
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species 
==
*Parasites and Other Demons *
The Nature of Nature
Life is simple in it's complexity. We talk about being in charge of our
destiny, but some things are just destined; not by supernatural forces,
but by the natural consequences of biological selection for survival and
reproduction. Charles Darwin put it in terms of "modification by
descent", evolving by natural selection of mutations which provide the
best fitness. It seems mindless and in a whole lot of ways it is. It
does not take conscious determination but it does take alteration and
mutations which offer the best chances for adapting to an organism's
environment are the changes which survive - and we don't even have to
think about it because we don't have a conscience choice - anymore than
the Dicrocelium dendriticum in Dennett's Breaking the Spell. That is
destiny.
Daniel Dennett describes an ant whose brain is "commandeered by a tiny
parasite, a lancet fluke" which is programmed by thousands of years of
evolution to get inside another host in order to reproduce and uses the
ant to do it. The ant, like Sisyphus, keeps climbing to the top of the
grass so it can be eaten by a cow or a sheep. Obviously there is no
benefit to the ant's reproductive success to die by being consumed by
cows or sheep, but it has been driven to do it by the parasite which has
commandeered it's brain. And this happens throughout the animal kingdom
with fish, with mice, with other hosts driven to their death by the
parasitic organism which now inhabits it's body. It even happens to us.
And as Dennett points out it happens to Homo sapiens who are consumed by
their belief in religions, the memes which they are so convinced of,
they are willing to die for and believe they're going to heaven if they
do. Or will have their way with 72 virgins. Islam means "submission" and
indeed that is what it is.
There is another world and it lives in us. That world has caused more
death and devastation than all the wars ever fought and will bring down
on us the next plague. It is the world of viruses, bacteria, protozoa
and lancet flukes.
Bacteria of composed of loose DNA and loosely assembled proteins,
whereas protozoa are multicellular and more like us with their DNA
intact. Microbial infectious parasites are everywhere.
"Modern medical science has increasingly implicated microbes in coronary
artery disease, diabetes, autism, multiple sclerosis, chronic lung
disease, and certain types of cancer. In fact, microbial infections
account for more deaths worldwide than any other single cause, and the
cost to treat them exceeds $120 billion a year in the United States
alone." (Benjamin Reese, Your Immune System - A Defense against Hostile
Invaders from the Dana Sourcebook of Immunology)
Ticks are insects commonly found in wooded areas. Some species carry the
bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, which causes Lyme disease. Like
mosquitoes, they feed on the blood of other animals, but unlike
mosquitoes, they hook into the animal's skin for extended periods of
time. (CDC)
Plasmodium, the parasite which causes malaria is a protozoan and there
are multiple species which get into humans when musquitos (spanish for
"little flies") vampirishly suck human blood. Tsetse flies dose their
human victims with the sleeping sickness. In Europe and the Americas
bacteria and viruses have caused tuberculosis and polio. Protozoa hang
out mostly in the tropics and poor people suffer the most from
parasites. During the period of colonization a whole new field of
medicine sprang up to study these diseases, which was called tropical
medicine.
According to Laurie Garrett in The Coming Plague (1994), in the second
year of WWII, penicillin was dispersed to ARmy doctors to use for
malaria and even in the small dose which was used then it was highly
successful. Army doctors, she says, were so impressed with it that they
"collected the urine of patients who were on the drug and crystallized
excreted penicillin for reuse on other GIs." That small dose in 1993
would have been in inadequate and today the plasmodium parasite has
evolved a resistance to penicillin.
Carl Zimmer writes in Parasite, Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's
Most Dangerous Creatures (2001): "Europeans came to look upon parasites
as robbing them of native labor, of slowing down the building of their
canals and dams, of preventing the white race from living happily at the
Equator. When Napoleon took his army to Egypt, the soldiers began to
complain that they were menstruating like women. Actually they had been
infected with flukes..."
These flukes lived in snails and attracted to humans they would infect
their victims by attaching themselves to their legs and feet in the
lakes and ocean and enter their veins and stomachs, finding their way to
the bladder where they lay their eggs. Those infected would urinate blood.
"Blood flukes attacked people from the western shores of Africa to the
rivers of Japan; the slave trade even brought them to the New World,
where they thrived in Brazil and the Caribbean. The disease they caused,
known as bilharzia or schistosomiasis (mentioned a few times on Dr.
House), drained the energy of hundreds of millions of people who were
supposed to build European empires." (Zimmer)
Vaccines were not successful and other meds did little good. The better
method to control them was not to encourage their habitation at all, to
kill the cause rather than treat the symptoms.
Burma has been in the news lately for it's political unrest, but not so
much is reported about the debilitating parasite causing diseases and
death where 75% of those seeking medical health care each year in that
country alone was because of malaria and other parasites - where the
mosquito became resistant to DDT and other insecticides. And other high
death and disease causing parasitic diseases break out, such as the
filariasis, cholera and dengue hemorrhagic fever, killing thousands
throughout the region.
And these parasitic diseases are not all class based infections. Many of
them attack everyone. As pointed out by Robert Desowitz in New Guinea
Tapeworms and Jewish Grandmothers, Toxoplasma gondii (a protozoan
parasite that can cause blindness and severe neurological disease in the
newborn) infect citizens without regard to race, creed or economic class."
Parasites are becoming increasingly prevalent and problematic because
they are the result of human exploitation of resources and land,
building dams, destruction of rain forests, and what feels like
progress, but turns out to be very harmful in the long run. Life can't
be happier if you are dead.
We are in a _middle_ world and we are just discovering there is another
world out here; a very small world. The big world is also mysterious to
us; it is the world of the universe which is so huge we have difficulty
wrapping our minds around concepts like dark matter and dark energy -
and we really don't know what it is and it may have it's own natural laws.
And in the middle and small worlds anything which contains DNA has the
tools therein to replicate itself using a blueprint of some of genetic
code and some of it is essentially the same for every living thing on
the planet - or else it did not originate here on the planet - and the
earliest life did not in fact originate on this planet. The first life,
our ancestors, arrived here from somewhere out there in the universe, in
the bigger world.
But much closer to us in genetic similarity are not the single celled
molecular extremeophiles which started it all; they are the creatures
which evolved to live in us and every species on the planet. They
outnumber other species about four to one and some parasites even have
their own parasites. They are the majority of the species on this planet.
They live in other animals and in us with ease. Many of them change our
personalities, manage our immune systems, reproduce inside of us, and
sometimes they kill us, and coexist with us. Some of them castrate us
and some take over our minds.
There are snake-like roundworms "Ascaris lumbriocoides" in the
intestines of about 1.5 billion humans. And in 1.3 billion humans there
are blood-sucking Hookworms. One billion have whipworms.
Some of them cause a disease called malaria. Some of them will give you
a fever. Some will cause bloody urine. And some of them are quivering
strings of flesh looking worms which spool out of your skin and some put
you to sleep -- (for good).
There are leaf-shaped parasitic flukes that live in a person's liver and
blood. If infected, you can accumulate so many you will glitter and your
skin will appear transparent.
Some of us will have single-cells and are called trypanosomes. If bitten
by a tsetse fly - which drinking your blood as these little creatures
entering the wound where you have been bitten and there it steals oxygen
and glucose and slips into your brain, which and they call that the
"sleeping sickness." The poison to rid a person of them is so potent,
that 20% of it is arsenic and it will melt ordinary plastic IV tubes.
When it gets on your skin it will burn and cause a painful mass of
melted swollen flesh.
The Onchocerca volvulus, which enters the body from the bite of the
black fly looks liked coiled long snakes thin as threads and travels
through your skin where it often triggers a violent immune response and
causes leopard spot-like rashes on your skin. It is so itchy you may
scratch yourself to death. It causes a disease which is called river
blindness. In some places in Africa every person over forty is blind
from this unfriendly parasite.
The Guinea worms are two-foot long creatures which causes blisters on
your legs. The parasite crawls out of the blisters in a few days.
And there are filarial worms which which cause a disease you may have
heard mentioned on Dr. House. It is elephatiasis and your scrotum can
swell up so large it can fit in a wheelbarrel. And then there are the
eyeless, mouthless tapeworms, which live in our guts and can grow as
long as 60 feet.
Everything living has some parasites living inside of them. That is a
world you may be barely aware of but it is there and it is killing us.
As you get older chances are you will acquire more and more of these
creatures which are often there for more than just the ride.
As we learn more about parasites we're finding out they may be the
dominant force in evolution. We evolve defenses against them, but they
seem to be winning.
Those who caution against dire predictions of doom and gloom ignore the
reality which does demand not only our awareness, but action to prevent
it. Climate change is a procursor to more disease and so is the evolving
resistance of microbial infectious agents to antibiotics. So is the
evolution of new infections, new parasites in this battle for life on
the planet - which they are winning. There has already been five major
extinctions and there are scientists who tell us we're in the sixth
extinction level now. Sure, some will say the planet can survive this,
but what about humanity? It is with high probability that we will not
survive the onslaught and will lose this war to emerging diseases.
"Your body's first line of defense against any hostile invader is
something you probably take for granted: your skin, the body's largest
organ. Among other health-related duties, the skin protects against
biological predators in several ways. Skin has three layers, providing a
formidable physical barrier to bugs. Sweat, oils, and other skin
secretions help neutralize and wash away invaders. And our skin is
populated by harmless bacteria that consume nutrients that would
otherwise feed enemy invaders." (Benjamin Reese, Your Immune System - A
Defense against Hostile Invaders from the Dana Sourcebook of Immunology)
"But the barrier that skin provides isn't foolproof: the eyes, nose, and
mouth all provide openings where invaders can sneak in. For this reason,
your body has a second set of biological barriers, located in the mucous
membranes that line these openings. Every time you blink your eyes, for
example, your eyelids wash away microbes much the way windshield wipers
sweep away debris. Inhale something that your body knows doesn't belong,
like pollen, and you'll sneeze the invader out. Saliva and tears both
contain the enzyme lysozyme, which destroys bacteria. Any harmful
bacteria that somehow manage to sneak down your throat plunge into a
deadly acid bath in your stomach." (ibid)
"Unfortunately, wily bugs are sometimes able to breach these multiple
barriers.... ..." (ibid)
As quickly as we develop new methods of defense, ways to destroy the bad
bacteria and the protozoa and other parasites which enter our bodies as
unwelcome guests they do their dirty deed and leave us debilitated and
near death or dead.
==
Take for example, the claim that intermediate species have never been
observed, and therefore macroevolution is false. There are actually many
intermediate species, such as eohippus and mesohippus in the case of the
modern horse, and there is even more evidence of intermediate species in the
case of primitive plants and trees, since their parts fossilize more easily.
Anyone who doesn't believe this should read the great botanist, K.R. Sporne's
book on paleobotany, The Morphology of Gymnosperms, one of the very
fascinating botanical books on this subject. Because of this fact, for many
gymnosperm genera (which is the group that contains pines, firs, spruce,
larches, redwoods, sequoias, hemlock, etc.) we actually know of more extinct
species than extant ones, making the evolutionary sequence much easier to see.
In any case, even if intermediate species didn't exist, we have species whose
genes still contain intermediate developments, such as cetaceans which are
occasionally born with a leg rather than a flipper or a fin. Evolution handles
this easily, whereas the anti-evolutionary theories cannot, since cetaceans
are thought to be land mammals that returned to the sea. They didn't lose the
genes for legs and arms, however,; they were merely repressed, and sometimes
something goes wrong in the gene transcription process and a leg is produced.
This is one difficulty Creationism has never been able to overcome. 
However, this is now many centuries later, and although it took some time for
all the details of the scientific method to be fully worked out and its power
appreciated, there is no doubt at this point that science has far surpassed
philosophy and theology in demonstrable results and knowledge, both practical
and theoretical. And most of that knowledge has been gleaned in only the last
100 years. Contrast that with what has been achieved in the previous 4000
years of philosophy and theology. There's simply no comparison. 
In a word. 'creation science' is not science in any sense of the word, but
'evolution' is science. A scientific model or theory must be falsifiable,
meaning that it must be possible to prove it wrong, if it is wrong, via
repeatable identical experiments or observations made by competent skeptics (a
first requirement for a 'competent skeptic' is that she has adequate scientific
training to carry out the required experiments or observations). Until
'creation science' can produce falsifiable claims, it is not science, it is
mere ideology. Evolution, on the other hand is falsifiable: we see it at work
daily in the effects of mutations.
As for the notion of 'intelligent design', it is not needed. We understand
from physics how the universe evolved into galaxies from the rapid expansion
of a 'hot' gas of fundamental particles. We understand from physics how the
solar system formed via condensation. We understand how life evolves via DNA.
There is no need, at any point, to assume that God (if she exists, whatever
'God' might mean) intervenes at all. The notion of intervention by a god is
not a falsifiable idea, is not science. One can legitimately and intelligently
express lack of understanding about the details of how life evolved initially
from the formation of complex molecules like RNA and DNA (scientists certainly
do), but religious fundamentalism can only thrive in a society that is
scientifically ignorant.
What was there before the Big Bang? Where did the initial energy come from?
Very interesting questions, but we don't know and can't find out. We don't
even know if those questions make any sense. There is quite a lot that we
don't understand, and with good reason. Science doesn't answer all questions,
it only answers falsifiable claims. And hard questions can't simply be
answered 'on demand' but require years of smart, dedicated effort, the hardest
questions will not be answered in our lifetime or in many lifetimes. We do not
yet understand the details of fluid turbulence very well, e.g, and turbulence
is not a complex phenomenon. You can believe what you want about religion, but
unless your claims can be tested then don't try to pass them off as 'science'.
One thing is certain: where science may leave gaps in the description of
complicated details of the evolution of the universe and life, religion or
other ideology cannot provide us with any competent or reliable answers.
==
"Remnants of a human settlement in Monte Verde, Chile 
dated to 12,500 years B.P. (another layer at Monteverde 
has been tentatively dated to 33,000-35,000 years 
B.P.) suggests that southern Chile was settled by 
peoples who entered the Americas before the peoples 
associated with the Bering Strait migrations. It 
is suggested that a coastal route via canoes could 
have allowed rapid migration into the Americas."
==
This was a bug you couldn't swat and definitely couldn't step on. British
scientists have stumbled across a fossilized claw, part of an ancient sea
scorpion, that is of such large proportion it would make the entire creature
the biggest bug ever.
How big? Bigger than you, and at 8 feet long as big as some Smart cars.
The discovery in 390-million-year-old rocks suggests that spiders, insects,
crabs and similar creatures were far larger in the past than previously
thought, said Simon Braddy, a University of Bristol paleontologist and one of
the study's three authors.
"This is an amazing discovery," he said Tuesday.
"We have known for some time that the fossil record yields monster millipedes,
super-sized scorpions, colossal cockroaches, and jumbo dragonflies. But we
never realized until now just how big some of these ancient creepy-crawlies
were," he said.
The research found a type of sea scorpion that was almost half a yard longer
than previous estimates and the largest one ever to have evolved.
The study, published online Tuesday in the Royal Society's journal Biology
Letters, means that before this sea scorpion became extinct it was much longer
than today's average man is tall.
Prof. Jeorg W. Schneider, a paleontologist at Freiberg Mining Academy in
southeastern Germany, said the study provides valuable new information about
"the last of the giant scorpions."
Schneider, who was not involved in the study, said these scorpions "were
dominant for millions of years because they didn't have natural enemies.
Eventually they were wiped out by large fish with jaws and teeth."
Braddy's partner paleontologist Markus Poschmann found the claw fossil several
years ago in a quarry near Prum, Germany, that probably had once been an
ancient estuary or swamp.
"I was loosening pieces of rock with a hammer and chisel when I suddenly
realized there was a dark patch of organic matter on a freshly removed slab.
After some cleaning I could identify this as a small part of a large claw,"
said Poschmann, another author of the study.
"Although I did not know if it was more complete or not, I decided to try and
get it out. The pieces had to be cleaned separately, dried, and then glued
back together. It was then put into a white plaster jacket to stabilize it,"
he said.
Eurypterids, or ancient sea scorpions, are believed to be the extinct aquatic
ancestors of today's scorpions and possibly all arachnids, a class of
joint-legged, invertebrate animals, including spiders, scorpions, mites and
ticks.
Braddy said the fossil was from a Jaekelopterus Rhenaniae, a kind of scorpion
that lived only in Germany for about 10 million years, about 400 million years
ago.
He said some geologists believe that gigantic sea scorpions evolved due to
higher levels of oxygen in the atmosphere in the past. Others suspect they
evolved in an "arms race" alongside their likely prey, fish that had armor on
their outer bodies.
Braddy said the sea scorpions also were cannibals that fought and ate one
other, so it helped to be as big as they could be.
"The competition between this scorpion and its prey was probably like a
nuclear standoff, an effort to have the biggest weapon," he said. "Hundreds of
millions of years ago, these sea scorpions had the upper hand over vertebrates
- backboned animals like ourselves."
That competition ended long ago.
But the next time you swat a fly, or squish a spider at home, Braddy said, try
to "think about the insects that lived long ago. You wouldn't want to swat one
of those."
==
http://www.philosophyforum.net/HistTimeline_files/HistTimeline.htm
==
Difference between fish, humans defined
Oct 11 12:00 PM US/Eastern
British scientists say they have solved a century-old
evolutionary question: what makes a fish and a human embryo evolve differently?
University College London embryologists have identified a key mechanism in the
initial stages of an embryo's development that helps differentiate more
highly evolved species, including humans, from less evolved species, such as
fish.
Early during development, the mass of undifferentiated cells that make up the
embryo must take the first steps in deciding how to arrange themselves into
component layers to eventually form a fully developed body.
In higher vertebrates, such as mammals, two main layers are generated from an
axis running through the center of the embryo. However, in lower vertebrates,
such as amphibians and fish, the two layers are generated around the edge of
the embryo.
Using chicken eggs and modern imaging technology, the researchers discovered
the reason higher vertebrates form their axis at the midline of the embryo is
because during evolution they acquired a new mechanism of "cell
intercalation," which positions the axis at the midline.
They also discovered the molecules used by the embryo to control those cell
movements.
=======
Human ancestors and relatives (See Jan 2000 Scientific American)
http://www.wsu.edu:8001/vwsu/gened/learn-modules/top_longfor/
timeline/timeline.html

http://parallel.park.org:8888/Canada/Museum/man/ *
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/tryit/evolution/ *
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/typespec.html *
http://www.cbv.ns.ca/marigold/history/evolution/evolution.html *
http://www.snowcrest.net/goehring/a2/primates/fossils.htm *
http://www.msu.edu/~heslipst/contents/ANP440/index.htm *
http://www.origins.tv/darwin/transitionals.htm *
http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/ *
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/species.html *
http://www.anthro.ucdavis.edu/faculty/mchenry/kwjhe.pdf *
http://www.accuracyingenesis.com/toumai2.html *



Order of first appearance in the fossil record:
Sahelanthropus tchadensis (320380cc)
Ardipithecus ramidus (dental and postcranial remains)
Orrorin turgenesis (postcranial)
Australopithecus anamensis (cranial capacity unknown)
A. afarensis (mean of 470cc, range 375-540cc)
A. bahrelghazali (cranial capacity unknown)
A. africanus (440-480cc)
A. garhi (c. 450cc)
A. robustus (c. 475cc)
A. boisei (c. 450cc)
A. aethiopicus (c. 410cc)
H. habilis (c. 500-800cc)
H. erectus (c. 725-1250cc)
H. heidelbergensis (c. 1300cc)
H. neanderthalensis (c. 1350-1600cc)
H. sapiens (c.1300-1500cc)

=====
Orrorin tugenensis
Ardipithecus ramidus
Australopithecus anamensis
Australopithecus afarensis
Kenyanthropus platyops
Australopithecus africanus
Australopithecus garhi
Australopithecus aethiopicus
Australopithecus robustus
Australopithecus boisei
Homo habilis
Homo georgicus
Homo erectus
Homo ergaster
Homo antecessor
Homo heidelbergensis
Homo neanderthalensis
Homo floresiensis
=========

Ancestors and close relatives.
----------
Homo sapiens sapiens: 190,000 Years ago
Homo floresiensis 13,000 years ago
Homo sapiens idaltu 160,000 years ago
Cro-Magnon 128,000 years ago
Homo georgicus, erectus
Homo sapiens neanderthalensis: 200,000-30,000 Years ago
Homo Heidelbergensis 500,000 Years ago
Homo sapiens (archaic): 200,000 to 400,000 Years ago
Homo antecessor 800,000 Years ago
Australopithecus robustus 2.3 -1.3 million years ago
( Not an ancestor of modern humans)
Homo erectus: 2 million to 400,000 Years ago

Homo ergaster 1.7 million-year ago
Homo habilis: 2.5 million to 1.8 million years
Homo rudolfensis 2 million-year ago
Australopithecus garhi 2.5 million Years ago
Australopithecus africanus 2.8 to 3 million years ago
Paranthropus aethiopicus 2.5 to 3 million years ago
(was Zinjanthropus boisei)
( Not an ancestor of modern humans)
Australopithecus aethiopicus 2.5 million years ago
Kenyanthropus platyops 3.3 Million years.
Australopithecus afarensis 4 to 2.75 years
Ardipithecus ramidus 5.3 mya.
Australopithecus anamensis 3.9 to 4.2 million years ago
A. bahrelghazali 3.5 million years ago
Ardipithecus ramidus 4.5 million years ago
Ardipithecus kadabba 5.2 to 5.7 million years old
Orrorin tugenensis 6 million years
Sahelanthropus 6-7 mya. (SA Jan 2003)
Nakalipithecus nakayamai 7-13 million years old
Kenyapithecus africanus 15 million years (not ancestor)
Kenyapithecus wickeri 15 million years (not ancestor)
Equatorius africanus 15 million years (ancestor)
Dryopithicus africanus 18 million years ago( Proconsul africanus )
Morotopithecus bishopi 21 million years ago.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070715/sc_nm/humans_walking_dc
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1541283-8,00.html
discusses human evolution in great detail
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~palanth/nate_files/young_maclatchy_2004.pdf

Dryopithecus Middle Miocene
Aegyptopitecus 30 million years
Amphipithecus mogaungensis(anc?) 40 Million years
Eosimiidae 45 Million years Middle Eocene
Carpolestes simpsoni 55 million years old
moused sized fruit eater
(March 2003 Sci. Am.)
The common ancestor of mammals and marsupials is the recently
discovered Eomaia, tiny, hairy 125-million-year-old shrewlike species that
scurried about in bushes and the low branches of trees.
Fossil evidence dates the earliest mammals to 220 million years ago.
===
Plesiadapis may not be a primate.

Plesiadapis
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Plesiadapiformes
Superfamily:	Plesiadapoidea
Family:	Plesiadapidae
Genus:	Plesiadapis
Gervais, 1877
Type species
Plesiadapis tricuspidens
Paleospecies[2][3]

Plesiadapis walbeckensis Russell, 1964
Plesiadapis remensis Lemoine, 1887
Plesiadapis tricuspidens Gervais, 1877
Plesiadapis russelli Gingerich, 1976
Plesiadapis insignis (Piton, 1940)
Plesiadapis praecursor Gingerich, 1975
Plesiadapis anceps Simpson, 1936
Plesiadapis rex (Gidley, 1923)
Plesiadapis gingerichi Rose, 1981
Plesiadapis churchilli Gingerich, 1975
Plesiadapis fodinatus Jepsen, 1930
Plesiadapis dubius (Matthew, 1915)
Plesiadapis simonsi Gingerich, 1975
Plesiadapis cookei Jepsen, 1930

Plesiadapis is one of the oldest known primate-like mammal species which
existed about 60 mya in North America and Europe.[2] It looked a little like a
squirrel. Plesiadapis still had claws and its eyes were located on each side of
the head, making them faster on the ground than on the top of the trees, but
they begin to spend long times on lower branches of trees, feeding on fruits
and leafs.
===


Ardipithecus ramidus 5.3 mya.

Sahelanthropus is dated at 6-7 mya.




5.0 4.0 3.0 2.0 1.0 .0
|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|
| | | | | |
| | A.robustus ****** | |
| | A.boisei ***********| |
| A.aethiopicus **** | | |
| | | | | |
A.ramidus * | | | | |
A.anamensis **** | | | |
A.afarensis ********** | | |
| A.africanus *********** | |
| | | | | |
| | H.habilis ********** | |
| | | H.erectus **************** |
| | | archaic H.sapiens *****|
| | | | Neandertals **|
| | | | modern H.sapiens **
| | | | | |
|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19990827/sc/science_ancestor_3.html
----
Before 8 my ago our closest relatives seem to have
lived in Eurasia (Dryopithecus, Ourano-, Ankarapith...).
-------------------------
**************************************************************Tarsiers
|
| ****************************Old World Monkeys
| |
| | *************************Gibbons
| | |
| | | ****************Orangutans
**********************************************| |
| | | | |**************Humans
| | | | |
| | *******************African Apes
| |
| ***********************************New World Monkeys
|
| ******************************Lemurs
| |
******************************************************************Lorises

==


Why Darwin Matters

The Facts of Evolution

"Can it, then, be thought improbable, seeing that
variations useful to man have undoubtedly
occurred, that other variations useful in some
way to each being in the great and complex battle
of life, should sometimes occur in the course of
thousands of generations? If such do occur, can
we doubt (remembering that many more individuals
are born than can possibly survive) that
individuals having any advantage, however slight,
over others, would have the best chance of
surviving and of procreating their kind?"--Origin of Species, Ch. 4.

It's such a simple idea. It's so small and
innocuous. Why are people afraid of it? Things
change. Duh. Things adapt to their environment
slowly over time. That's a good thing. If
evolution didn't exist there would be nothing
live on earth. The earth is not heaven. It's not
a static place that is always kind to us
struggling organisms. Things change so we must
change. The earth warms. The earth cools.
Continents-- like South America and Africa--drift
apart, sometimes--like India and Asia--they smash
together. Often these changes happen too rapidly
for evolution to meet the challenge. There are
estimates that 99.9% of species that ever lived
are now extinct. Sometimes when the changes
happen suddenly organisms can evolve rapidly.

Due to poaching, about 10% of Chinese
elephants are now born without tusks. Normally
the percentage is about 2%. The gene pool is
changing. This represents extremely rapid
evolution and it may save the Asian elephant from extinction.

So all this is good stuff. Why don't people
embrace it gladly? Why does it matter so much? I
plan to talk about that in a bit, but first I'd
like to talk a little more about what evolution is.

I know to some extent I'm preaching to the
choir here. Even those of you who don't have a
deep understanding of evolution accept that it
took place. When people ask me what's the most
important evidence for evolution and I have to
get it out in one sentence, I usually say "You're
a mammal." If the person is a woman I say "You
are a mammal and if you don't believe me, look
down." If I have a little more time I say that
and then I say "Look at your hand." First of all,
you have fingers. We are tetrapods because we
have four limbs. There's a 360 million year old
fossil fish called A-can-tho-stega that has four
legs and fingers on each hand. It's one of those
transitional fossils the creationists say don't exist.

Almost all tetrapods have five fingers. Why
five? Why not six? Why not three fingers and a
thumb? It works well for Disney characters! Six,
five, or four would all work about the same, so
the number of fingers is invisible to natural
selection--most of the time. Bats, horses and a
few other tetrapods have fewer, but they develop
five fingers as embryos and then absorb the ones
they won't need before they are born. So why do
we have five? Because our common ancestor had
five. And we've got the DNA and the fossils to prove it.

Ok, now take a look at your fingernails.
They are flat. All tetrapods have fingernails of some kind, many of
them have
claws. Only we have flat fingernails. By "we" I
mean all hominids--monkeys, apes and humans.

I could take up the entire talk with the
evidence for evolution. It's a vast topic. It
would take more than your lifetime to examine all
the evidence in detail and I've only got twenty minutes.

So Why People Do Not Accept Evolution?

Adam Sedgwick was a very good friend of Darwin's.
The passage I'm about to read you is frequently
quoted by creationists. Like a lot of creationist
quotes it's out of context. If you read the
entire letter, you can see Sedgwick isn't
attacking Darwin, but is a good friend pointing
out what he thinks is a problem with the theory:

Sedgwick writes: "There is a moral or
metaphysical part of nature as well as a
physical. A man who denies this is deep in the
mire of folly . . . You have ignored this link;
&, if I do not mistake your meaning, you have
done your best in one or two . . . cases to break
it. Were it possible (which thank God it is not)
to break it, humanity in my mind, would suffer a
damage that might brutalize it-& sink the human
race into a lower grade of degradation than any
into which it has fallen since its written records tell us of its
history."

In his book "Why Darwin Matters" Michael
Shermer builds the case for why people object to
evolution. Sedgwick's quote is a pretty good
representation of the entire problem. Shermer puts it this way:

"The syllogistic reasoning behind the general
fear of evolution is as follows: Evolution
implies that there is no God, therefore Belief
in the theory of evolution leads to atheism,
therefore Without a belief in God there can be
no morality or meaning, therefore Without
morality and meaning there is no basis for a
civil society, therefore Without a civil
society we will be reduced to living like brute animals."

Shermer goes on to say: "What people want to know
is this: If my kids learn about evolution in
school are they going to become atheists? Will we
lose all meaning and morality? Will society go to
hell in an immoral handbasket?"

The answer is, of course, "no." Countries which
teach evolution more aggressively than the US and
where evolution is more widely accepted, in
general have a lower crime rate, a lower infant
death rate, a lower out of wedlock birth rate and
a generally higher standard of living. Now I know
there are a lot of cultural and other reasons why
Germany and Sweden, for example, are better than
we are at some things. But broad acceptance of
evolution has clearly not made them less peaceful, cooperative or
law abiding.

Knowledge of the animal origins of human beings
does not make us less human. Nor does such
knowledge make us less moral. I would like to
briefly touch on the idea that "Without a belief
in God there can be no morality." I have also
heard it expressed as "if we are mere animals
what is the point of morality?" That is such a
rich topic I will probably base a future sermon
on it. However, I'd like to say now that the
point of morality is to live a happy life. A
happy life is not possible without morality. If
you behave in a moral way only because you
believe God will punish you--or even for the sole
reason that you wish to please God--I contend
that you do not have a personal morality at all.
You have borrowed moral principles which you
acknowledge are foreign to you. You are following
God's laws, for whatever reason, not your own moral principles.

In addition to the fear about a belief in
evolution causing moral decay, there is also a
fear that science is a threat to specific
religious tenets. Of course, that depends.
Evolution contradicts a literal reading of
Genesis--sort of. But I could make a case that
Genesis makes constant veiled references to evolution and
abiogenesis.

This is the first book of Genesis, verses 1-4,
from the King James Version of the Bible:
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and
void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and
there was light." Is this a metaphor for the Big Bang?

Here's Genesis 6-7:
"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the
midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters
from the waters. 7 And God made the firmament,
and divided the waters which were under the
firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it
was so."
The early Mesopotamians believed there was water
above the sky. Nobody, not even Pat Robertson,
believes that now, but otherwise doesn't this sound like stellar
evolution?

How about this: Genesis 9:
"And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be
gathered together unto one place, and let the dry
land appear: and it was so" Plate tectonics anyone?

What about abiogenesis? First life? Here is Genesis 2 verse 7:
"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life; and man became a living soul." There is
not a single molecule of our bodies that is not
also some constituent of the earth. We are
literally and truly formed out of the dust of the ground.

So what's the problem? Well, there's the thing
about original sin. If there was no original
sin--the fall of man in the garden of Eden, then
there was no point to the sacrifice of Jesus. I
could talk about the abysmally bad morality of
substitutionary atonement--that would fall on
deaf ears, I assure you. But that's okay, no
creationist that I know of has embraced my
interpretation of scripture either. It's their
problem and I'll have to let them work it out.

Meanwhile it's not just evolution in particular
that is under attack but science in general. The
current pack of creationists- -the Intelligent
Design proponents-- have tried to redefine science
so that it would cover whatever it is they are
trying to do. In fact I had a creationist
complain to me--and this was in person to my
face--that scientists were "trying to define
Intelligent Design out of existence." Frankly,
since science is an investigation of only the
natural world ID lost the race before it left the
starting gate. But the attempt to redefine
science to include supernatural intervention is
an attack on all science everywhere.

This is from the Wedge Strategy, an intelligent
design manifesto believed to have been written by
Phillip Johnson, author of Darwin on Trial:
"Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of
Science and Culture seeks nothing less than the
overthrow of materialism and its cultural
legacies. Bringing together leading scholars from
the natural sciences and those from the
humanities and social sciences, the Center
explores how new developments in biology, physics
and cognitive science raise serious doubts about
scientific materialism and have re-opened the
case for a broadly theistic understanding of nature."

The Wedge Strategy clearly contradicts the idea
that Intelligent Design is science and makes it
clear that the entire thing is a religious
enterprise. In the lexicon of Intelligent Design
"materialism" and "Darwinism" are both code words
for "atheism." Therefore it is not just evolution
that must be eliminated but all of
"materialistic" (that is, "atheistic") science.
Creationists are horrified when you point that
out to them. They enjoy the medical advances, the
technological toys and the wealth that science
brings them. They don't want to believe they are
sawing off the limb upon which they sit. They
hotly insist that they are not doing that. But
the sound of the saw is very chilling to the rest of us.

Why Science Matters.

"What science tells us is that we are but one
among hundreds of millions of species that
evolved over the course of three and a half
billion years on one tiny planet among many,
orbiting an ordinary star, itself one of the
possibly billions of solar systems in an ordinary
galaxy that contains hundreds of billions of
stars, itself located in a cluster of galaxies
not so different from millions of other galaxy
clusters, themselves whirling away from one
another in an expanding cosmic bubble universe
that very possibly is only one among a near
infinite number of bubble universes. Is it really
possible that this entire cosmological multiverse
was designed and exists for one tiny subgroup of
a single species on one planet in a lone galaxy
in that solitary bubble universe? It seems unlikely.

". . . If religion and spirituality are supposed
to generate awe and humility in the fact of the
creator, what could be more awesome and humbling
than the deep space discovered by Hubble and the
cosmologists and the deep time discovered by Darwin and the
evolutionists?

"Darwin matters because evolution matters.
Evolution matters because science matters.
Science matters because it is the preeminent
story of our age, an epic saga about who we are,
where we came from, and where we are going."
==
Pressured By Predators, Lizards See Rapid Shift In Natural Selection
Countering the widespread view of evolution as a process played out over the
course of eons, evolutionary biologists have shown that natural selection can
turn on a dime -- within months -- as a population's needs change. In a study
of island lizards exposed to a new predator, the scientists found that natural
selection dramatically changed direction over a very short time, within a
single generation, favoring first longer and then shorter hind legs.
The predator lizard Leiocephalus carinatus.
The findings, by Jonathan B. Losos of Harvard University and colleagues, are
detailed this week in the journal Science. Losos did much of the work before
joining Harvard earlier this year from Washington University in St. Louis.
"Because of its epochal scope, evolutionary biology is often caricatured as
incompatible with controlled experimentation, " says Losos, professor of
organismic and evolutionary biology in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences
and curator in herpetology at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology.
"Recent work has shown, however, that evolutionary biology can be studied on
short time scales and that predictions about it can be tested experimentally.
We predicted, and then demonstrated, a reversal in the direction of natural
selection acting on limb length in a population of lizards."
Losos and colleagues studied populations of the lizard Anolis sagrei on
minuscule islands, or cays, in the Bahamas. They introduced to six of these
cays a larger, predatory lizard (Leiocephalus carinatus) commonly found on
nearby islands and known as a natural colonizer of small cays. The scientists
kept six other control cays predator-free and exhaustively counted, marked,
and measured lizards on all 12 isles.
Anolis sagrei spends much of its time on the ground, but previous research has
shown that when a terrestrial predator is introduced, these lizards take to
trees and shrubs, becoming increasingly arboreal over time. Losos and his
colleagues hypothesized that immediately following a predator's arrival,
longer-legged -- and hence faster-running -- Anolis lizards would be favored
to elude capture. However, as the lizards grew ever more arboreal in habitat,
the scientists projected that natural selection would begin to favor shorter
limbs, which are better suited to navigating narrow branches and twigs.
Their hypothesis was borne out. Six months after the introduction of the
predator, Losos found that the Anolis population had dropped by half or more
on the islands with the predators, and in comparison to the lizards on the
predator-free islands, long legs were more strongly favored: Survivors had
longer legs relative to non-survivors. After another six months, during which
time the Anolis lizards grew increasingly arboreal, selective pressures were
exactly the opposite: Survivors were now characterized by having shorter legs
on the experimental islands as compared to the control islands.
The behavioral shift from the ground to higher perches apparently caused this
remarkable reversal, Losos says, adding that behavioral flexibility may often
drive extremely rapid shifts in evolution.
"Evolutinary biology is by its nature an historical science, but the
combination of microevolutionary experimentation and macroevolutionary
historical analysis can provide a rich understanding about the genesis of
biological diversity," the researchers write.
==
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives /2006/11/ denton_vs_ squid.html# more

Denton vs Squid; the eye as suboptimal design.

Trackback URL: http://degas. fdisk.net/ cgi-bin/mt/ mt-tb.fcgi/ 2712
In a recent article in Touchstone Magazine, Jonathan Witt, fellow for the
Discovery Institutes Center for the renewal of science and culture, has
written a review of Francis Collins book The Language of God: A Scientist
Presents Evidence for Belief. Amongst other things in this review he claims
that Michael Denton has demonstrated that the backwards wiring of the
mammalian retina improves oxygen flow and is good design.
Denton of course, has done no such thing. Since I am on a role with things
visual, I am reposting an updated version of an earlier article on this topic.

Just to recap, vertebrates (like ourselves), and the invertebrates Squid and
Octopi have camera eyes. They differ in how the photoreceptors in the retina,
the part of the eye that receives the image, is wired up to the brain. The
vertebrate wiring system is often cited as an example of bad, or at least
quirky, design that is explainable by evolution.
The vertebrate retina is wired backwards. That is the photoreceptors point to
back of the retina, away from incoming light, and the nerves and blood vessels
are on the side of the incoming light, this means that any image formed on the
vertebrate retina has to pass though layers of blood vessels and ganglion
cells, absorbing and distorting the image.
To get decent visual acuity, vertebrates must focus light on a small patch of
retina where the blood vessels and nerves have been pushed aside, the fovea.
This patch must be small because of the nutrient requirements of the retina.
Also, the construction of the vertebrate retina means that blood vessels and
nerves must pass through the retina, creating a blind spot, where no image is
formed. Finally, the backwards retina means that vertebrates have a high risk
of retinal detachment. Altogether this shows that having the nerves and blood
vessels in front of the photoreceptors is less than optimal design.
Imagine taking a pane of glass, then smearing it thickly with vaseline, then
wiping a tiny hole in the vaseline. That is what the vertebrate retina is like.
Now consider the eye of squids, cuttlefish and octopi. Their retinas are
rightway round, that is the photoreceptors face the light, and the wiring and
the blood vessels facing the back (1). Squid and octopi have no blind spot;
they can also have high visual acuity. The octopus also has a fovea-equivalent
structure, which it makes by packing more (or longer) photoreceptors into a
given area (1). Because it doesnt have to create a hole in the supporting
tissue it can have arbitrarily large fovea, and greater visual acuity.
Cuttlefish have better visual acuity than cats (2) and because of their
rightway round retinas; this level of acuity covers nearly the entire retina
(1,2) unlike vertebrates where it is confined to the small spot of the fovea.
The vertebrate retina is a prime example of historically quirky design. The
vertebrate retina is backwards because the development of the retina was first
elaborated in rather small chordates, where issues of acuity and blind spots
were non-existent; all subsequent vertebrates got stuck with this design.
Vertebrates do very well with the limitations of the design of the eye, but it
is clear that this is no system a competent designer would make. Naturally,
this annoys the proponents of an Intelligent Designer, and they have been
looking for ways to put a better spin on the kludged design of the vertebrate
eye.
ID advocates have a hard time dealing with the quirky design of the eye, both
Witt and Behe have used the better blood flow argument in order to show the
backwards retina really is good design.
This invokes an argument that has been doing the rounds of creationists for a
while. The True.Origins site (which is a rip-off of Talk.Origins) has a page
that claims that the backwards retina improves the blood supply. It is
probably the canonical page where these claims come from. Dentons argument is
slightly different, but follows on from the canonical creationist argument, so
I will deal with the creationist argument first.
In vertebrates, underneath the photoreceptors is a layer of pigment and
pigment cells called the choroid (the squid, cuttlefish and octopus have
similar arrangements - more on this later), this layer of pigment absorbs
stray light that is not caught by the photoreceptors, which might reflect back
and fuzz up the image.
In terrestrial vertebrates, the amount of light landing on the retina produces
a significant amount of heat, enough to damage the retina itself (3,4). The
True.Origins page gives the impression that it is light focused on the retina
that produces the heat. The article implies that by having the most thermally
sensitive bit of the photoreceptor bang up against a heat sink (the blood
vessels of the choroid, whose rapid blood flow removes the heat, see below),
vertebrates can tolerate light intensities that right way round retinas could
not.
However, when one reads the paper they reference (3), a completely different
picture emerges.
It is the choroid itself that generates the heat that threatens the retina! As
noted above, the pigments in the choroid absorb light that is missed by the
photoreceptors. This light is re-radiated as heat. 25-30% of the light falling
on the retina ends up being absorbed by the choroid and re-radiated as heat
(3,4). So we have the most thermally sensitive part of the photoreceptors bang
up against the bit that generates the most heat. Good design? I think not.
To cool down the choroid, very fast blood flow through the tissues below and
in the pigment layer is needed (3,4). But lets be clear about this, the
Creationists have it back to front. The backwards arrangement of the
vertebrate retina does not make possible fast blood flow, it requires fast
blood flow to cool the tissue down. This is yet another area where vertebrate
design is flawed, with the fragile photoreceptors hard up against the source
of the damaging heat.
Of course, the question of why fish, which have more species than all
terrestrial vertebrates combined, must suffer with a backwards retina so that
terrestrial vertebrates can have high blood flows to an area that wouldnt need
them if the system was designed correctly in the first place, is never
addressed. The other question is why terrestrial gastropods which have camera
eyes have a right way round retina if invert retinas are important for
terrestrial vision? Their camera eyes are relatively small compared to
terrestrial vertebrates, and so should loose heat readily. However, arthropod
eyes of this size are subject to light-induced retinal damage. See the
references in this paper.
In squid, octopi, cuttlefish and terrestrial gastropods, the pigment layer is
below the photoreceptors, in an area of dense blood vessels (1). This
arrangement blocks stray light and provides sufficient blood flow to cool the
tissue and provide nutrients without the added layers of ganglion cells over
the top of the photoreceptors that distort and absorb the image. Even better,
squid, octopi and cuttlefish do not have the most thermally sensitive part of
the retina next to the source of waste heat, as it is in vertebrate eyes,
needing an outrageous amount of blood flow to cool the system.
The vertebrate eye does very well indeed, but it is a kludge. The fovea is a
cute trick to squeeze greater acuity out of a flawed design, but octopi and
squid do it better. The cooling blood flow to the choroid is needed as the
pigments of the choroid generate waste heat, but this is irrelevant to whether
the photoreceptors are forward or reverse facing. The arrangement of the
vertebrate eye does not improve the blood supply, and it looks like the
vertebrate eye has to kludge up a high blood flow to the choroid because the
vertebrate inverted retina is poorly designed to get blood to where it is
needed.
This brings us to Dentons argument. This is that the blood flow through the
choroid needs to be high for the metabolic requirements of the retina. This is
a variant of the cooling bath concept, and has exactly the same problems. The
retina is an energy hungry system, but it doesnt need to be inverted to get a
high blood flow. In fact, the way the vertebrates do it is just plain silly.
Molecules used for providing the energy to run light detection are formed in
the mitochondria in the cell body from blood born nutrients, then passed along
to the photoreceptors in the modified cilia projecting from the cell body (see
diagrams in links above). As the retina is invert, the cell bodies are further
away from the choroid, with the light harvesting disks between them and the
choroid. Consequently, all blood born nutrients delivered by the choroid in
vertebrates must diffuse from the choroid, through the pigmented epithelium,
then past all the photoreceptor disks to the mitochondria in the cell body to
be used (and all waste diffused in the reverse direction). Delivery from the
cell body end would result in a shorter diffusion distance through less
restricted space; ie, more efficient delivery. This point is born out by the
fact that choroid oxygen tension drops by only 3% from artery to vein. In
consequence, the retinal artery, though it only carries 5% of the blood
supplied to the retina, carries 40% of the oxygen used by the retina.
Denton says
Blood absorbs light strongly, . From this we can immediately discount one
possible way of supplying the photoreceptors in a non-inverted retina where
the photoreceptor would form the inner layerpointing directly towards the
light, i.e., by placing a choriocapillaris- type system of blood vessels in
front of the photoreceptor cells, i.e., between the photoreceptors and the
light. While such an arrangement might well deliver sufficient quantities of
oxygen to the photoreceptors, the sensitivity and acuity of any such
hypothetical eye would be greatly diminished by the highly absorbent complex
of blood vessels positioned between the light and the photoreceptor layer

This is pretty silly, with the current arrangement, the photoreceptors have a
range of ganglion cells, supporting cells, nerve cells and blood vessels
already piled thickly on top of it (when you look into the eye with and
ophthalmoscope, you can see the superficial blood vessels on top of the
retina, there are also capillaries that dive deep into the cell layer as well.
The retina already has a mass of blood, and lots of other things, getting in
its way. Of course there is a better way to do it, the way cephalopods do it.
In cephalopods the blood vessels are right next to the terminal parts of the
photoreceptor process, the photoreceptor cell bodies and the pigment cells
where it is needed. You can see the blood vessels and pigments in this paper
on the octopus retina. It is far more efficient than the vertebrate system for
both cooling and nutrient delivery. No wonder cephalopods require a much
smaller blood supply to the eye.
Both the cooling bath and the nutrient/oxygen delivery arguments actually
reveal that the vertebrate eye is a kludge. The high flow rates are required
because the quirky design means more efficient methods cant be used.
Denton brings in other arguments for the superiority of the vertebrate
back-to-front retina, but they are irrelevant. Fore example, vertebrate
photoreceptors can detect a single photon as he claims, great, but so can
cephalopod photoreceptors, and they are not covered with gunk that absorbs or
scatters the incoming photons. Cephalopods occupy many niches, from shallow
water tidal zones with high light intensities to the abyssal depths where
every photon counts, some are ambush predators, and some are active hunting
predators. Some see in black and white, some see in colour, some see polarized
light (which vertebrates cant). Many have visual acuity equivalent to many
vertebrates; cuttlefish have equivalent visual acuity to cats as befits their
status as active hunters. All this without an invert retina. When Denton says
that in redesigning from first principles an eye capable of the highest
possible resolution (within the constraints imposed by the wavelength of
light16) and of the highest possible sensitivity (capable of detecting an
individual photon of light) we would end up recreating the vertebrate eye

he is just plain wrong.
The pre-adaptation concept Denton prattles on about is nonsense. We are to
expect that an intelligent designer will give the marine vertebrates, which
are significantly more numerous in species and population than the terrestrial
vertebrates, a poorly designed retina so that a very few percent of all
terrestrial vertebrates can have supposedly superior vision? This is a
definition of good design of which I was not previously aware. And again,
cephalopods do it better.
Lets be clear, the vertebrate eye works, and works rather well given its
limitations (one merely has to contemplate the visual acuity of the eagle to
see that the design works well). But it is a suboptimal Heath Robinson design
where the limitations of the original invert retina setup (which were
irrelevant to amphioxus and the small chordates in which the vertebrate eye
evolved) are worked around by kludges. It is like claiming that the misground
Hubble mirror with its correcting lenses is the best possible design because
it gives clear pictures.
Once again, the vertebrate eye fails as Intelligent Design. ID proponents
loudly proclaim they are not creationists and one is left to wonder why they
have appropriated a bad Creationist argument.
(1) Matsui S et al., Adaptation of a deep-sea cephalopod to the photic
environment. Evidence for three visual pigments. J Gen Physiol. 1988
Jul;92(1):55- 66
(2) Schaeffel F, Murphy CJ, Howland HC Accommodation in the cuttlefish (Sepia
officinalis) . J Exp Biol. 1999 Nov;202 Pt 22:3127-34.
(3) Parver LM. Auker CR. Carpenter DO. The stabilizing effect of the choroidal
circulation on the temperature environment of the macula. Retina. 1982,
2(2):117-20.
(4) Parver LM. Temperature modulating action of choroidal blood flow. Eye.
1991;5 ( Pt2):181-5.
(5) Denton, M The Inverted Retina: Maladaptation or Pre-adaptation? Origins &
Design 19:2

Its worth noting that certain aspects of cephalopod eyes are a bit of a kludge
as well. Most cephs have holes in the middle of their lens. Why? Because they
evolved from primitive pinhole eyes as found in modern Nautilus. Its a really
stupid system that just happens to work better than no lens at all.
But if you could combine a vertebrate lens and iris with the cephalopod retina
and related structures, you might actually get an eye that could seem
intelligently designed.
Seem being the key word, but its irrelevant because we still dont have any
eyes remotely like that. We just have really stupid ones.
==
If two species branched from a Toumai-like ancestor 6.3 MYA, neither was a
chimp and neither was a human. I
==
Scruffy little weed shows Darwin was right as evolution moves on

IT STARTED with a biologist sitting on a grassy river bank in York, eating a
sandwich. It ended in the discovery of a scruffy little weed with no
distinguishing features that is the first new species to have been naturally
created in Britain for more than 50 years.
The discovery of the York groundsel shows that species are created as well as
made extinct, and that Charles Darwin was right and the Creationists are
wrong. But the fragile existence of the species could soon be ended by the
weedkillers of York City Councils gardeners.
Richard Abbott, a plant evolutionary biologist from St Andrews University, has
discovered evolution in action after noticing the lone, strange-looking and
uncatalogued plant in wasteland next to the York railway station car park in
1979. He did not realise its significance and paid little attention. But in
1991 he returned to York, ate his sandwich and noticed that the plant had
spread.
Yesterday, Dr Abbott published extensive research proving with DNA analysis
that it is the first new species to have evolved naturally in Britain in the
past 50 years.
Ive been a plant evolutionary biologist all my life, but you dont think youll
come across the origin of a new species in your lifetime. Weve caught the
species as it has originated it is very satisfying, he told the Times. At a
time in Earths history when animal and plant species are becoming extinct at
an alarming rate, the discovery of the origin of a new plant species in
Britain calls for a celebration.
The creation of new species can takes thousands of years, making it too slow
for science to detect. But the York groundsel is a natural hybrid between the
common groundsel and the Oxford ragwort, which was introduced to Britain from
Sicily 300 years ago. Hybrids are normally sterile, and cannot breed and die
out.
But Dr Abbotts research, published in the journal of the Botanical Society of
the British Isles, shows that the York Groundsel is a genetic mutant that can
breed, but not with any other species, including its parent species. It thus
fits the scientific definition of a separate species.
It is a very rare event it is only known to have happened five times in the
last hundred years Dr Abbott said. It has happened twice before in the UK the
Spartina anglica was discovered in Southampton 100 years ago, and the Welsh
groundsel, discovered in 1948.
The weed sets seed three months after germinating and has little yellow
flowers. The species, which came into existance about 30 years ago, has been
called Senecio eboracensis, after Eboracum, the Roman name for York. According
to the research, it has now spread to spread to several sites around York, but
only ever as a weed on disturbed ground.
However, more than 90 per cent of species that have lived subsequently become
extinct, and its future is by no means certain.
It is important for it to build up its numbers rapidly, or it could get rubbed
out which would be sad. The biggest threat to the new species is the
weedkillers from the council, Dr Abbott said.
===
Bacteria, by and large, don't have sex. They do, however, have
genetic transfer. Bacteria will pick up stray bits of DNA floating
in the environment, incorporating it into their own genome. This
accelerates evolution and allows them to adapt to changing
conditions faster than they would otherwise.
Some bacteria take this a step further. They take advantage of
other bacteria picking up stray DNA and incorporating it by
injecting other bacteria with their own DNA! This bit of bacterial
rape spreads the genes of the rapist bacteria, a clearly successful
example of Dawkin's selfish gene concept. It is probably from a
system like this that sex proper evolved.
It's important to note that, for bacteria, sex (gene transfer) and
reproduction aren't related concepts. They remain separate into the
single-celled protists, but by this point at least the sex is
usually formalized into systems. Paramecium, for example, swap
genetic material between them. You can easily see how this could
have evolved from the bacterial rape scenario simply by having a
species where each bacteria sent genetic material to the other at
the same time (double rape, as it were).
This simple exchange of genes works well for a single-celled
organism, but it gets trickier with colonial forms. Some
filamentatious algae get by just by being a long chain of single-
cells, all of which can mate with another long chain of single-
cells. More complex structures require more complex solutions.
Consider Volvox. Volvox is a motile green algae where the colonies
form hollow, spherical balls. It would be extremely difficult for
two spherical Volvox colonies to meet and swap genes across their
entire surface. Of course, the Volvox colony is formed from an
individual cell, so all of it's members, baring any mutations or
mating that might occur, are genetically identical. So, in a sense,
mating at any point of connection becomes just as good as all of
them mating, it's the same amount of genetic recombination.
Volvox have mastered another important genetic trick, which they do
poorly but which would become extremely important in the development
of life: Cellular specialization. In an algae, like Spyrogyra, all
the cells are identical in any one filament. In Volvox, while the
cells are genetically identical, their _expression of those genes is
not. Some cells are better at moving the colony around. Some have
more chloroplasts. And some are specialized for reproducing. Mix
the specialized reproducers with the possibility of mating with
another colony (and only the reproducing cells make any sense for
mating at this point) and for the first time, sex and reproduction
finally become linked.
It's important to note that this didn't have to happen all at once.
Volvox aren't very specialized at all. Some may be better at
moving, but all retain flagella and contribute to moving. Some may
be specialized for reproducing new colonies, but all of them are
capable of it, they just do it less. Nothing demands absolute
matching at this point. This will change.
The simplest animals keep most of the Volvox system intact. (Not
that we're evolved from Volvox, I'm just using them as an example of
a stage.) Sponges have a difficulty that Volvox do not, however:
They aren't motile. Primitive animals had already solved that
problem, however, by further specializing the reproductive cells
into break-away, motile organisms that could swim out and find
another, similar colony of cells. In other words, sperm. Sponges
shed sperm into the water. These sperm swim until they run into
another sponge of the same species, whereupon they combine with a
cell in that sponge to produce a new genotype, which is then shed
into the water. Other sponges shed both sperm and egg cells (or
clusters of same) into the water for the same ends. No great
specialization required yet.
Motile animals, however, can afford a slightly more complex system.
Shedding eggs and sperm into the water works well for most of them,
though, it requires massive production of gametes, which is somewhat
wasteful. Some, however, pick up on a new trick: Proximity based
sexual release. Rather than just dumping gametes into the water
randomly and hoping they meet, or doing it in response to some
global timer (many corals release on a schedule timed by full
moons), releasing when one is near a member of one's own species is
far less wasteful. And, again, it doesn't even require both members
of the species develop the proximity response at the same time,
since it's the delay portion of the response that's beneficial. A
proximity response worm will still mate successfully with
a constant release worm, but waste less material!
Once the proximity response is established in a species, further
specialization becomes possible. A mating ritual can develop to
signal if the organism is ready for mating and prevent even more
waste.
Still, shedding sperm and eggs into the environment entails quite a
bit of waste, even if you're in sight of another member of your
species. The closer you get to the other, however, the less waste
there is. In fact, if you're in contact with the other member,
you'll have very little waste indeed. Sexual pleasure develops
simply as hormones encouraging shedding-gamete-type animals to be as
close to each other as possible when shedding gametes into the
environment.
This is about the level of development you'll find in the average
fish or amphibian, with one other change: Males and females tend to
be separate. How did that come up?
Consider a hermaphroditic organism. It has organs we consider male
and female in the same animal (like earthworms do). It has a sexual
response and needs not only the presence of another earthworm, but
an actual sexual ritual. One worms sperm meets the other's eggs and
vice versa. The fertilized eggs are then shed into the environment
and the worm isn't suitable for mating until it can develop new eggs.
But making eggs takes a lot longer than making sperm. It's also
more expensive in terms of energy and material costs. If an
organism could get away with just donating the sperm half of
reproducing, it could reproduce more often and with less expense to
itself! These are called Parasite males because they operate at a
cost to the species as a whole, but to the benefit of the success of
their own genes.
Once the parasite male genes have become established in the
population, the pure hermaphrodites in the population find
themselves in a position of wasting energy and materials making
sperm. If most of your matings take place with organisms that
aren't producing eggs, there's no point in making sperm. As a
result, the male-aspects will tend to fade from the animals without
the parasitic male genes.
In other words, the genders separate.
This catches us up to most fish and amphibians.
When you mate in the water, this mode of reproduction is good enough
(though some fish have gone on to do better). The male frog clasps
the female, their cloacal vents are brought near each other, and
then sperm and eggs are shed into the environment. The very close
proximity prevents a lot of waste.
But the move onto land made the system a bit taxing, since it
required return to the water. When the early amphibians developed
hard-shelled eggs for defense from predators, they also opened up
the possibility of moving onto land full time, but in order to do
so, they had to get rid of the last need for water in reproduction,
facilitating egg and sperm meeting. Well, that's easy enough, just
change the male's cloacal vent so that it has a short tube. Now it
can get REALLY close to the females vent...
And there you have it. Human style reproduction in a number of easy
steps, all beneficial to someone and none of them requiring any
great coincidence of parallel mutations, and each step occurring in
living creatures we can see today.
==
Most Neandertals lived to about 35. 40 was an old man. The broken, half
blind, crippled and arthritic old man of Chapelle aux Saints, obviously
taken care of and supported by the "clan," was about 40.
==
Best current evidence suggests that Ramapithecus was not in the
hominid lineage, and is a likely a junior synonym of Sivapithecus,
which may have been early in the orang lineage (although
Gigantopithecus is an alternative possibility for the orangs), after
their split from the African apes. Equatorius is more likely the
ape/OWM MRCA, and Dryopithecus and Ouranopithecus are currently
equally likely Hominoid MRCAs.

http://talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/mar02.html#run has a list of
likely candidates for the various MRCAs of the various living primate
==
The Skull of Australopithecus Afarensis (Series in Human Evolution) by
William H. Kimbel, Yoel Rak, Donald C. Johanson, Ralph L. Holloway,
Michael S. Yuan
ISBN: 0195157060
(Published by Oxford University Press, USA, April 2004) 272 pages
==
A monkey is any haplorhine primate not belonging to the family
Tarsiidae, Hylobatidae, Pongidae, or Hominidae. This does not
correspond to any taxon; it is divided into Old World monkeys
(Cercopithecidae) and New World monkeys (Callitrichidae and Cebidae),
but the catarrhines include the apes as well as the Old World monkeys.
==
Fossils suggest that lemurs, bush babies, lorises, aye-ayes, and their
relatives
(the prosimians) spilt off from the ancestors of monkeys and apes around 55
million years ago. Therefore studying the brainpower of these seemingly
primitive
animals might offer insights into the earliest primates' mental abilities.
Scientists have discovered what they believe is the oldest known lemur fossils
in the Bugti Hills of central Pakistan. The finding is controversial because
the new evidence suggests that lemurs originated in Asia, not in Africa as
commonly believed.
The fossil remains consist of a collection of tiny teeth that resemble the
teeth
of Madagascar's modern dwarf lemur, Cheirogaleus. The 30-million-year-old
fossils
predate all lemur fossils found in Africa. Lead scientist Laurent Mariveux, of
Universite Montpellier, in France, said the find was "totally unexpected."
The team dubbed the new lemur Bugtilemur mathisoni. The findings are published
in the October 19 issue of the journal Science.
Today lemurs live primarily in Madagascar and some nearby islandsit is thought
that they may have migrated to the islands on floating vegetation. The question
now is where did the migration begin?
Geological evidence shows that Madagascar separated from India about 88 million
years ago, long before the origin of lemurs about 62 million years ago, making
Asia an unlikely point of origin.
The trademark feature of a lemura tooth "comb", which juts out on the lower
jawwas not among the fossils discovered by the team.
A more likely explanation, says paleontologist Richard Kay, also of Duke
University, is that the fossil teeth belong to a family of Eurasian
primatessivaladapisthat are now extinct. The sivaladapis family of primates
which lived in India about 13 million years ago have similar teeth to lorises,
a close relative of the lemur, but the two are unrelated.
Lemurs are found only on the large island of Madagascar off the southeastern
coast of Africa and on the small neighboring Comoro Islands.
Lemurs, like apes, monkeys, and humans, belong to the primate order.
Because of their isolation, lemurs have little competition for their food and
only a few enemies. Today the large-eyed animals remain relatively unchanged
from their ancestors.
Lemurs move about in the trees by leaping and climbing. They use their hands
and feet to grip the branches.
There are many species of lemurs and they vary greatly in size. The mouse
lemur, one of the smallest of the primates, measures only 5 inches (13
centimeters) long, not including its tail. The indri is the largest lemur. Its
body measures more than two feet (61 centimeters) long.
Mouse and dwarf lemurs usually feed alone and scurry along tree branches at
night. Their big ears help them search for food and hear such enemies as
catlike fossas. All lemurs eat plants, but mouse and dwarf lemurs also feed on
insects.
Typical lemurs usually grow as big as house cats. Nearly all typical lemurs
live in groups.
Lemurs may live up to 40 years in captivity. They usually produce one to three
young.
About two thirds of the 30 species of lemur are threatened or endangered.
There are two main branches in the primate tree. Anthropoids include
monkeys, humans, apes, and others. The other branch is the Prosimians and
that's where lemurs fall. Currently there are over 60 recognized species,
and more than half of those are endangered. They are endemic to Madagascar
and found really only on Madagascar, though one population was introduced
elsewhere.
The largest of the lemurs are the first to go extinct and 15 species have
become extinct since humans arrived on the island. One of them we know from
the fossil record was the size of a gorilla. They've been gone for a long
timebut those early explorerswhat a sight.
==
The family Hominidae.
Current evidence implies that humans share a common, extinct,
ancestor with the chimpanzee/bonobo line, from which we separated
more recently than the gorilla line. All living members of the
Hylobatidae and Hominidae are tailless, and humans can therefore
accurately be referred to as bipedal apes. However there are also
primates in other families that lack tails.
==
In the late Cretaceous and early Palaeocene had some
proto-primate dentition but true card carrying primates
emerged in the late Paleocene around 60mya. It is the Eocene (56-35 mya)
where we see increased adaptive radiation of placental mammals including
adapid and omomyid pro-simians. The Oligocene (34.4-23.3 MYA) saw the first
anthropoids and monkeys appear to have overcrowded the pro-simians. This is
when Aegyptopithecus rose up. Now comes the Miocene (23-5 MYA)
when apes and our ancestors, the Dryopithecines, appear in
evolution. It is toward the end of this era that humans and chimps split
from a common ancestor to go each others separate ways. The Pliocene and
Pleistocene, of course, you know about with the Australopithecines and
emergence of Homo.
==
Frayer, D. 1997. Perspectives on Neanderthals as Ancestors. In Clark, G.A.
& Willermet, C.M. (eds.) Conceptual Issues in Modern Human Origins
Research. New York: Aldine de Gruyter
==
Testing of mitocondrial DNA indicates that 95% of all Europeans descend
from 7 women who lived between 10,000 and 45,000 years ago.
==
The last common ancestor of great apes IS a human
ancestor: the human clade is within the ape clade. Indeed
humans are the closest living relatives of the chimp/bonobo clade
followed by gorilla clade. This is why zoologists put the
apes into the human family.

___________________________ Gibbon
|
---| ________________________ Orangutan
|__|
| _____________________ Gorilla
|__|
| _________________ Human
|___|
| _________ Bonobo
|_______|_
|
|_______ Chimp

====
"I demand of you, and of the whole world, that you show me a generic
character ... by which to distinguish between Man and Ape. I myself
most assuredly know of none. I wish somebody would indicate one to me.
But, if I had called man an ape, or vice versa, I would have fallen
under the ban of all ecclesiastics. It may be that as a naturalist I
ought to have done so."
--Carolus Linnaeus,
Letter to J. G. Gmelin, February 14, 1747
==
Modern scientific usage includes as apes the families Hylobatidae (6 species
of gibbons and the siamang), which are known as lesser apes, and the family
Pongidae or great apes, consisting of Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla),
Chimpanzees (common chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes and bonobos, Pan paniscus),
humans (Homo sapiens), and Orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus). Chimpanzees,
gorillas, humans and orangutans are all more closely related to one another
than any of these four genera are to the gibbons and siamangs. On cladistic
grounds it is correct to include humans in the Pongidae, and most scientists
now do this - the family would otherwise be paraphyletic. Some authors adopt
the alternative of including the great apes in the family Hominidae, which
is the grouping for humans and their extinct ape-like ancestors, while
others use a subfamily to separate the hominids from the extant non-human
apes. Current evidence implies that humans share a common, extinct, ancestor
with the chimpanzee/bonobo line, from which we separated more recently than
the gorilla line. All living members of the Hylobatidae and
Pongidae/Humanidae are tailless, and humans can therefore accurately be
referred to as bipedal apes. However there are also primates in other
families that lack tails.
The apes are a group within the infra-order Catarrhini that also includes
the Old World monkeys of Africa and Eurasia. Apes can be distinguished from
monkeys by the number of cusps on their molars (apes have five - the \Y-5\
molar pattern, monkeys have only four in a \bilophodont\ pattern). Apes have
more mobile shoulder joints and arms, ribcages that are flatter
front-to-back, and a shorter, less mobile spine compared to monkeys. These
are all anatomical adaptations to vertical hanging and swinging locomotion
(brachiation) in the apes.
The original usage of \ape\ in English may have referred to the baboon, an
African monkey. Two tailless species of macaque are commonly named as apes,
the Barbary Ape of North Africa (introduced into Gibraltar), Macaca
sylvanus, and the Sulawesi black ape or Sulawesi crested macaque, M. niger.
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ape
==
Some 23 million years ago, there was the split between New World monkeys
and the Old World monkeys and apes
==
Here is an outline of the hominid fossil record:
Sahelanthropus tchadensis (320-380cc), ca. 6-7mya.
Ardipithecus ramidus (dental and postcranial remains), ca. 5-6 mya.
Orrorin turgenesis (postcranial), ca. 5mya.
Australopithecus anamensis (cranial capacity unknown), ca. 4.9-5.2 mya.
A. afarensis (mean of 470cc, range 375-540cc), ca. 3.8-2.8 mya.
A. bahrelghazali (cranial capacity unknown), ca. 2.8-3.2 mya.
A. africanus (440-480cc), ca. 2.2-2.6 mya.
A. garhi (c. 450cc), ca. 2.3-2.6 mya.
A. robustus (c. 475cc), ca. 1.4-1.8 mya.
A. boisei (c. 450cc), ca. 1.2-1.8 mya.
A. aethiopicus (c. 410cc), ca. 2-2.4mya.
H. habilis (c. 500-800cc), ca. 1.8-2.1 mya.
H. ergaster (c. 1100-1434), ca. 1.3-1.8 mya.
H. erectus (c. 725-1250cc), ca.250kya. - 1.3 mya.
H. heidelbergensis (c. 1300cc), ca. 300-170 kya
H. neanderthalensis (c. 1350-1600cc), ca. 200-35 kya.
H. sapiens (c.1300-1500cc), ca. 170 kya-present

==
Tiny genetic changes add up to huge differences when
human DNA is compared to that of chimpanzees, researchers said on Wednesday
in a report that explains how people and apes can be so close, yet so far
apart.
Genetically, chimpanzees are 98.5 percent identical to humans. But the
differences between the species are clearly profound and geneticists have been
laboring to find out how such subtle variations in DNA can be so important.
"Clearly, the genomic differences between humans and chimps are much more
complicated than conventional wisdom has portrayed," Asao Fujiyama of the RIKEN
Genomic Sciences Center in Yokohama, Japan, and colleagues in Japan, Taiwan and
China wrote in their report, published in this week's issue of the journal
Nature.
Fujiyama's team compared chromosome 22 on three different chimpanzees to its
counterpart in humans, chromosome 21.
They looked for differences that would help separate the human sequence from
the
chimp sequence.
Fujiyama's team found just 1.44 percent of the DNA was different at the level
of single letters of genetic code.
Fujiyama's team found differences that may be more important than the
single-letter changes.
"There is also an impressive number (68,000) of small to large stretches of DNA
that have been either gained or lost (these are called 'insertions or
deletions',
'indels' for short) in one species or the other," the researchers wrote.
"These differences are sufficient to generate changes in most of the proteins:
indeed, 83 percent of the 231 coding sequences, including functionally
important genes, show differences at the amino-acid sequence level,"
they added.
"Our data suggest that indels within coding regions (genes) represent one of
the major mechanisms generating protein diversity and shaping higher primate
species."
In other words, while the genes and other DNA may look the same in chimpanzees
and humans, the proteins they eventually code for can be very different.
The researchers tried to calculate what the genetic code of the original
ancestor of both looked like, 6 million to 7 million years ago.
It looked to them as if the original ancestor of human chimps had a larger
genome, and each species pared it down differently as they evolved.
Some of the genetic differences they found may have direct implications for
disease. They found differences between chimp and human immune system genes,
for instance, and molecules involved in early brain development.
==
The Lucy bones were discovered in 1974 in the Afar region of Ethiopia by
Donald Johanson. Johanson's team named her after the Beatles song Lucy in
the Sky with Diamonds.
Ethiopians refer to Lucy as Denkenesh or Dinqnesh. Her official designation is
Australopithecus afarensis, Southern ape of the Afar.
Johanson's team found about 40 percent of Lucy's bones. When casts are put on
display, mirror images of the bones are created to show about 70 percent of her
skeleton.
Lucy's skeleton is believed to be 3.2 million years old. Her bones indicate she
walked upright, making her the oldest known hominid to do so. Lucy stood about
3-foot-8 and weighed about 60 pounds, about the same as a modern chimpanzee.
While scientists do not classify her as human, many believe she may be
humanity's earliest ancestor.
Since the discovery of Lucy, though, scientists have found a skull
in Kenya that may be an even older hominid species known as Kenyanthropus
platyops.
===
Subject: New oldest humans in Europe?
Human fossils set European record
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3129654.stm
Fossils picked up in a Romanian bear cave are the oldest specimens yet
found of modern humans in Europe, scientists say.
One of the items - a male, adult jawbone - has been dated to be between
34,000 and 36,000 years old.
The discoverers argue that they may be Us/Neandertal hybrids
==
Nakatsukasa, Masato (2004) Acquisition of bipedalism: the Miocene hominoid
record and modern analogues for bipedal protohominids.
Journal of Anatomy 204 (5), 385-402.

Abstract
The well-known fossil hominoid Proconsul from the Early Miocene of Kenya
was a non-specialized arboreal quadruped with strong pollicial/hallucial
assisted grasping capability. It lacked most of the suspensory
specializations acquired in living hominoids. Nacholapithecus, however,
from the Middle Miocene of Kenya, although in part sharing with Proconsul
the common primitive anatomical body design, was more specialized for
orthograde climbing, 'hoisting' and bridging, with the glenoid fossae of
the scapula probably being cranially orientated, the forelimbs
proportionally large, and very long toes. Its tail loss suggests
relatively slow movement, although tail loss may already have occurred in
Proconsul. Nacholapithecus-like positional behaviour might thus have been
a basis for development of more suspensory specialized positional
behaviour in later hominoids. Unfortunately, after 13 Ma, there is a gap
in the hominoid postcranial record in Africa until 6 Ma. Due to this gap,
a scenario for later locomotor evolution prior to the divergence of Homo
and Pan cannot be determined with certainty. The time gap also causes
difficulties when we seek to determine polarities of morphological traits
in very early hominids. Interpretation of the form-function relationships
of postcranial features in incipient hominids will be difficult because
it is predicted that they had incorporated bipedalism only moderately
into their total positional repertoires. However, Japanese macaques,
which are trained in traditional bipedal performance, may provide useful
hints about bipedal adaptation in the protohominids. Kinematic analyses
revealed that these macaques walked bipedally with a longer stride and
lower stride frequency than used by ordinary macaques, owing to a more
extended posture of the hindlimb joints. The body centre of gravity rises
during the single-support phase of stance. Energetic studies of
locomotion in these bipedal macaques revealed that energetic expenditure
was 20-30% higher in bipedalism than in quadrupedalism, regardless of
walking velocity.
==
What sorts of structures might evolve by mutation and natural
selection, but I suppose that in the foreseeable future they would be
very simple structures in a limited number of cases. Besides, surely the
question is not, what will natural selection produce in the future, but
could it produce, in the past, what we see around us today? The mechanisms
of the modern synthesis could be falsified if the construction of any actual
structure could be shown to require a type of mutation that could not occur
(e.g. if gene duplications did not occur, any evolutionary sequence that
required an increase in the number of genes would be impossible for known
mechanisms). If all mutations in fact were harmful, that would falsify the
mechanism. If genetic variations did not correlate with reproductive
success, that would falsify the mechanism.
All life forms have limited evolutionary potential. Given the biochemical
and morphological structures with which one starts, and the constraints of
any plausible environment, there are evolutionary directions one simply
can't take. That does not imply that progress in all directions is equally
constrained.
Again, you seem to be assuming that if something can't be shown to evolve
before the grant money runs out, ther is some intrinsic barrier to it
evolving at all, no matter how much time is available.
I *think* what you're saying here is that natural selection can't select a
mutation on the grounds that, while it's useless here and now, when some
other mutation (to the same or a different gene) is added to it, the
combination will be useful. This is correct, as I understand it. Is it
relevant? Are there any actual biochemical systems for which you can
demonstrate that something like this would have to happen?
You seem to be working under a model by which living organisms construct new
proteins _de novo_, by randomly stringing together amino acids to construct
new proteins (if that's *not* the model you're suggesting, then I can't
figure out what you *are* suggesting). This is not, of course, a
"Darwinian" model at all; once life actually gets started, virtually all new
proteins originate as modifications of older proteins (actually, the only
alternative that springs to mind is frame-shift mutations; that some of
these have been beneficial, or at least harmless, suggests that the ratio of
useful proteins to useless ones may be larger than you suspect).
For what it's worth, proteins tend to have some sections that are chemically
active, in which modifications tend to have significant effect on their
function, and other sections (like the handle of a tool) that can vary much
more with slight effects on function. Note, also, that many genes and
proteins are recognizably similar in humans and bacteria. It isn't a matter
of \randomly walking\ across huge stretches of genetic space. The genes
simply don't seem to have changed that much.
We observe living things grow. They have parents. They have
lineages. They spontaneouly mutate and pass on the changes
to children. The changes can be adaptive; they can *fix* an
organism to be better suited to its environment. This all goes
on, before our eyes, right now. As well, the geological signs
are unambigous that life has existed continuously on Earth
for hundreds of millions of years; billions, in fact. It is
seen to have existed in many forms that vary from era to era
but retain clear relationships with each other.
None of this is even remotely like any designed artifact.
Well, that's your null hypothesis, and it has been soundly and
thoroughly rejected for a long time now. Indeed, what functional
complexity can't be adequately explained as the product of mindless
processes? Don't forget that scientists already spent centuries trying
to fit a creator into their observations. In the end, it just didn't work.
Of course, evolution could be disproved without question as soon as your
Intelligent Designer stood up and testified as to his whereabouts on the
morning of October 28, 4004 BC.
There is no reliable test for design when faced with unknown objects.
==
Arthur Holme's 'Principles of
Physical Geology'
==
People are using "intelligent" cause as a pure _virtus dormitiva_, a set of
words waved like a magic wand and treated like an "explanation" when it's
really just "unknown cause" under a new name.
==
Australopiths have the foramen
magnum (the hole through which the spinal cord
enters the skull) at the bottom of the skull, as in
humans, not at the back of the skull, as in chimps. In
bipeds like humans and australopiths, the skull is
perched right on top of the spinal ciolumn, so the
spinal cord enters the skull from directly beneat. In
quadrupeds like chimps, the skull is perched at an
angle to the spinal column, so the quadruped can
see in the forward direction when the spine is held
straight. That means the spinal column enters at the
very back of the skull.
Chimps also have a sagittal crest for attachment of
the jaw muscles --- australopiths (and humans)
don't.
Chimps have a lower jaw which is broad at the chin
and parallel at the sides, to make a U shape.
Humans (and australopiths) have lower jaws which
are narrow at the front and diverge away from each
other towards the back, to form a parabolic shape
like a non-pointy V.
==
If they weren't fully complete animals, they would have been instantly
extinct and not transitions at all. A transitional is something that has
most all of the derived characteristics of a precursor along with at
least some of those of its successor(s).
For example, australopithecus afarensis has many chimplike features,
especially in the upper body and head, though the arms are a tad shorter
and the head a tad larger. But the pelvis and limbs are adapted for
walking erect, something chimpanzees do only with difficulty. Thus we
find reason to term afaransis \transitional\ between chimps and later
hominids even though we know that it's not the common ancestor and not
the ancestor of any chimp.
Homo habilis is MUCH more clearly a transitional between gracile
australopithecines like afarensis and the earliest homo erectus
(ergaster) specimens (I'm a lumper, not a splitter, when it comes to
chronospecies). The braincase is now much larger than any non-human ape,
the arms much shorter than in apes, though the skull shape and dentition
are still somewhat ape-like.
And this sequence goes on, through erectus to sapiens, with a branchoff
into neandertalis.
Can we ever prove conclusively that fossil A is ancestral to species B?
Not really. Only we CAN show that it has a larger or smaller number of
features that we would expect in such an ancestor (or its immediate
evolutionary sibling branches).
===
http://www.whozoo.org/mammals/Primates/primatephylogeny.htm primate family tree
http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/a_tree.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional/part2a.html#primate

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/pelvis.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/jaws.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/crania.html
==
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mutations.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/fitness.html
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoHumBenMutations.html

==
Evolutionary Anthropology journal
==
Dinosaurs lived through the Mesozoic era, 225 million to 65 million years ago.
By the time that era ended, the dinosaurs were gone.
==
Last week population geneticists set dates on two important changes in the
human form.
Dr. Alan R. Rogers of the University of Utah figured out that the ancestral
human population had acquired black skin, as a protection against the sun, at
least 1.2 million years ago, and therefore that it must have shed its fur some
time before this date.
Clothing came long after we were naked. Dr. Mark Stoneking, of the Institute
for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, managed to address this question by
calculating when the human body louse (which lives only in clothing, not hair)
evolved from the human head louse. That proud event in human history dates to
between 72,000 and 42,000 years ago, Dr. Stoneking reported
Considering that the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees lived only 5 to
6 million years ago, human evolution seems to have been quite rapid. The chimp,
our closest living relative, is still a standard ape, whereas we have become a
truly weird one. And our evolution put on an extra spurt just 50,000 years ago,
the date when we may have perfected language, made our first objets d'art and
dispersed from our ancestral homeland some place in northeast Africa.
Despite the medical advances and creature comforts that shelter people in rich
countries, natural selection is still hard at work. Microbes and parasites
still nip at our heels, forcing the human genome to stay in constant motion. It
is clearly in the throes of adapting to malaria, a disease that seems to have
struck only in the last 8,000 years, and the protective gene that has sickle
cell anemia as a side effect is a sign of a hasty patch.
Though features like the peacock's tail are chosen for aesthetic, or arbitrary,
reasons, they often seem to be correlated with health, and indeed their owners
are chosen as mates because these features subliminally advertise a good immune
system or freedom from parasites. So if sexual selection in people becomes more
intense as people have a wider choice of mates, that suggests a terribly
Panglossian forecast: we will become more healthy and ever more beautiful.
==
Stratification level is not that much of an assumption. The
stratigraphy was well worked out by creationist geologists before
Darwin's time. When an accurate date is required, a number of
methods will usually be applied, depending on just how old (or not
old) the remains are. The more difficult period to date, at least
until recently is the period from about 100kya back to about 1mya.
That gap has recently been bridged by methods based on
electroluminescence, uranium uptake by teeth and uranium-thorium
decay. The older remains can often be dated by fairly reliable,
consistent means like Ar-Ar, sometimes corroborated by K-Ca.
==
Sarich, V. M., and A. C. Wilson. 1967. Rates of albumin evolution in
primates. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 58:142-148.
Felsenstein, J. 1987. Estimation of hominoid phylogeny from a DNA
hybridization data set. J. Mol. Evol. 26:123-131.
Hayasaka, K., T. Gojobori, and S. Horai. 1988. Molecular phylogeny and
evolution of primate mitochondrial DNA. Mol. Biol. Evol. 5:626-644.
==
Evolution is defined as the heritable genetic change in a reproducing
population over time. That this happens is a fact.
I can point to thousands of \transitional\ species between
us and the first multicellular lifeform, but all of those are species in
their own right. Nothing exists solely to be a transition. It's an
evergoing, ever continuing process. You can't think of it as stages or
links in a chain. It's continuous.
I oppose that term transitional species. There are no organisms in
intermediate stages of development. There are just organisms, period.
By looking at the fossil record we can trace entire lineages of
where species smoothly and gradually changed into those that came after.
==
Biological classification of humans
Eukaryota; Metazoa; Chordata; Craniata; Vertebrata; Mammalia;
Eutheria; Primates; Catarrhini; Hominidae; Homo, sapiens, sapiens
==
National Graphic Oct 1988
Great issue on human evolution and culture
==
early hominids (such as Australopithecus and
Paranthropus), were rapid and correlated with shifts
between wetter and drier conditions.
=====
"Origin of hominid bipedalism", Nature 325:305-306, 1987:
==
Stephen J. Gould's famous remark on the lack of transitional fossils referred
to interspecies transitionals within genera. In contrast, whales with legs,
birds with teeth and theropod skeletons, hominids with a mix of human and
ape-like features, would certainly seem to be transitionals
==
During the 90's the were a few Homo erectus crania found...many
were from Dmanisi.
The Ceprano cranium was found by an Italian road crew.
There was a cranium found in a bone store in New York,
There are a few more from Africa.
==
Scientists like Gould have said that evolution can be called a fact,
not because they were being dogmatic, but because the evidence so
overwhelmingly supports evolution that it just wasn't productive to
challenge it any more. The current debate among scientists is how it
happened, not whether it happened.
==
A BRAIN FOR ALL SEASONS: HUMAN EVOLUTION AND ABRUPT
CLIMATE CHANGE
By William H. Calvin
==
Hall of human Ancestors.
http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/ances_start.html
==
Lucy is 40% complete (allowing for symmetry, 60% complete).
Australopithecus afarensis
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/lucy.html
==
By zoological nomenclature, hominids are members of the family
hominidae. Traditionally, the great apes had their own family.
But since it started to become clear just how closely humans
and the great apes are and that humans are NOT a seperate clade
from the apes. Thus many started classifying the great apes
as members of hominidae. Thus the great apes are now technically
hominids. This has lead to using the terms hominin or hominine as
a replacement term for hominid.
==
See what the basic make-up of Homo sapiens are, aside from the bulk being
water.
C - Carbon
H - Hydrogen
O - Oxygen
P - Phosphorus
K - Potassium
I - Iodine
N - Nitrogen
S - Sulphur
Ca - Calcium
Fe - Iron
Na - Sodium
Cl - Chlorine
Mg - Magnesium
Mn - Manganese
Zn - Zinc
Others -Trace amounts of Selenium (Se), Cobalt (Co), Chromium (Cr), Copper
(Cu) and probably some others.
Nucleic Acids (DNA and RNA) are composed of carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen
(O), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P).
Bone is made of calcium (Ca), phosphorus (P), oxygen (O), and hydrogen (H).
The other elements are used by protein \enzymes\ to run most of the body's
chemical reactions: magnesium (Mg) and manganese (Mn) are important for DNA
synthesis; Iron (Fe) is required for carrying oxygen in the blood and using
it in the cell; many proteins need calcium (Ca) and zinc (Zn) to stay \
folded
properly for them to work; and iodine (I) and the trace elements have more
specific jobs in making hormones and coordinating other reactions.
as these are the things that make up a human being,
==
In a recent interview, Urey said he had expected it to take days, even weeks
to show any signs of chemicals, and he expected mere traces at that.
He was very surprised to see the clear mixture he had started with was dark
by the next day.
==
The common ancestor is the Anthropoidea, or "pre-monkey" sometime around the
Eocene. Supposedly during the Oligocene epoch, our ancestors diverged fron the
"New World Monkeys", to form the "Old World Monkeys", apes and, humans. Then,
during the Miocene, one group of apes, the Ramapithecinae or "great ape"
diverged from the rest of the apes to evolve into Humans.

From a genetics point of view, we are only a tiny bit different from
chimpanzees - less than 1% at the level of DNA. The difference is mainly in the
timing and expression of genes. We are a "distinct" species as humans in that
we have one LESS chromosome than the chimpanzees and other "great apes" - this
is because two of their smaller chromosomes have fused together to form a
larger chromosome. This would mean that humans could no longer produce fertile
offspring with other members of chimpanzee family, thus creating reproductive
isolation. This is exactly the type of thing predicted and expected from
evolution.
====
'To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for
adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different
amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic
aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I
freely confess, absurd in the highest degree. When it was first said
that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common
sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of
Vox populi, vox Dei, as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted
in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple
and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist,
each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certainly the case; if
further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is
likewise certainly the case and if such variations should be useful to
any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of
believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural
selection, though insuperable by our imagination, should not be
considered as subversive of the theory. How a nerve comes to be
sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself
originated; but I may remark that, as some of the lowest organisms, in
which nerves cannot be detected, are capable of perceiving light, it
does not seem impossible that certain sensitive elements in their
sarcode should become aggregated and developed into nerves,
endowed with this special sensibility.'
[Darwin, 1859, _The Origin of Species_]
==
Stephen J. Gould, who did a lot to popularize evolution and intermediates,
himself described the transitional series between two
species of the snail genus _Cerion_ -- there are intermediate forms
that don't clearly belong to either species. There are other examples
in the fossil record, especially among the single-celled foraminifera.
And there are cases of living \ring species\ in which two distinct
species exist at the ends of a chain of intermediate forms, with no
point (except the ends of the ring) where one species is replaced by a
clearly different one.
To some extent, the \lack\ of transitional forms is a result of the
rules of taxonomy. Every organism *must*, under the rules for
classifying living things, belong to one and only one species. No
matter how transitional it might be, you can't stick in a slot
\transitional between species X and Y.\ It has to be put in either X
or Y, one or the other. But that is a fact about classification more
than about the things classified.
Note that species are \fully-formed\ only in the sense of being able
to make a living in their environment. The wings, beak, and other
features (other than the flight feathers) of _Archaeopteryx_ were
hardly \fully-formed\ by comparison with modern birds (indeed, the
skeleton of _Archaeopteryx_ is pure theropod dinosaur). The skeleton
of _Australopithecus afarensis_ is chimp-like in many respects, but
the pelvis, spine, and legs are as adapted for erect walking as ours.
Later species of hominins are more and more like modern humans in the
shape of their skulls, the form of their teeth, and brain size; each
is \fully-formed\ in the sense of being some distinct species, but
ONLY in that sense. None are \fully-formed\ apes, if you take chimps
or gorillas as your model, and none before _Homo sapiens_ are exactly
like us.
==
For decades paleontologists have been searching for vital clues in Africa --the
remains of creatures nearest to the event that changed the world, the split
between man and ape.
In November 2000, Martin Pickford and Brigitte Senut from the College de France
and a team from the Community Museums of Kenya make a remarkable discovery. In
the Tugen Hills of Kenya they unearthed a group of fossils they believe sheds
light on the origins of humankind. The team called their find Orrorin
Tugenensis. It seemed like the discovery of a lifetime.
The bones are older than any hominid bones found before. They are a staggering
six million years old.
Today, Orrorin is unleashing one of the greatest controversies the study of
human origins has ever seen. But is it really a hominid?
The defining feature of the human race is the ability to walk upright. So this
is what paleoanthropologists look for. They search for fossilized clues that
can tell them whether the creature spent most of the time walking on two legs
rather than four.
If Martin and Brigitte find these clues and Orrorin was, indeed, walking on two
legs six million years ago, scientists will have to rethink their ideas about
how we split from the apes. The standard theories on how, when, and why we
learned to walk on two legs would have to be reexamined.
Martin and Brigitte also make a claim about one of the most famous
discoveriesof all time: "Lucy," a hominid from just over 3 million years ago in
Ethiopia.Donald Johanson, who discovered her in 1974, claimed her to be our
directancestor.
Fossilized bones belonging to Orrorin tugenensis The fossils from Orrorin have
led Martin and Brigitte to the revolutionary conclusion that Lucy and her t
branch that became extinct.
Orrorin has created incredible debate, but what else could we expect from a
candidate for our earliest ancestor, the first human?
==
Note that some of the irrelevant genes are activated. For example,
the chimp hair growth stimulator gene that gives them such nice
furry coats exists in us in a mutated form. That gene is activated
regularly in your body. However, thanks to the mutation, the
resulting protein is only a few amino acids long, far to short to
actually do anything. In computer terms, a stop instruction has been
inserted early, so that the processor (RNA in this case) doesn't go
any further and process the rest of the gene. The result, you're
making rather large numbers of tiny proteins of no value in an effort
to grow a coat of fur.

==
16 May, 2001 Gene data underline primate link
The Chimp: Our closest genetic relative
Humans and chimpanzees are more closely related than we thought.
Scientists made the reassessment after studying 53 stretches of DNA scattered
throughout the human genome, and comparing them with similar stretches in the
genetic codes of a chimp, a gorilla and an orang-utan.
The research also suggests that the human line diverged from the chimp
evolutionary line between 4.6 and 6.2 million years ago.
The team looked at DNA from an Asian male that was not associated with active
genes. After finding the equivalent sequences in other primates, the scientists
looked for differences in the two codes.
The researchers discovered that human and chimp DNA differs by just 1.24%, half
a per cent less than had been thought. Humans differ from gorillas by 1.62% and
from orang-utans by 1.63%, again less than had been believed.
The genetic differences studied by the researchers arise through mutation -
they are errors that creep into the code as it is copied. Because these errors
occur, on average, at a steady rate, they can be used to "look back" in genetic
history and provide an estimate of how long ago the primates diverged into
separate species.
Orang-utans were the first to separate, between 12 and 16 million years ago;
gorillas between 6.2 and 8.4 million years ago and finally humans and chimps
went their different ways between 4.6 and 6.2 million years ago.
Our closest relatives are already beginning to show some fairly impressive
intellectual and rational abilities. Chimps are capable of at least some sort
of limited symbolic communication. They can use tools. They show
self-awareness. Who is to say, with the right conditions, that chimps might
not themselves in the next million years evolve some sort of higher
intelligence?
==
Fossil Teeth Reveal How Modern Humans' Growth Patterns Differ from Other
Primates'
It's often said that teenagers today just can't wait to grow up. But humans'
long period of growth and development18 years or moreis one of the things
that sets us apart from great apes such as chimpanzees and gorillas, which
mature in only 11 or 12 years. Now new research, published in this week's issue
of Nature, suggests that our long period of development arose quite late in our
evolutionary history.
Christopher Dean/Pennsylvania State UniversityChristopher Dean of University
College, London and colleagues examined 13 fossil tooth fragments from
specimens dating between four million and 120, 000 years ago. "Dental
development is a good measure of overall growth and development," co-author
Alan Walker of Pennsylvania State University explains. "Teeth grow in an
incremental manner like trees or shells, preserving a record of their growth
with daily marks along the prisms that make up the enamel." By examining
patterns (see image) within the enamel of both the fossil and modern teeth, the
scientists calculated and compared rates of growth.
The first dental evidence for a modern human-like growth period, the
scientists
discovered, was in a Neanderthal fossil from around 120,000 years ago. What's
more, the researchers found that Homo erectus, despite its complement of many
modern human characteristics such as body proportions, weight and small teeth
and jaws, did not exhibit a slow growth period. They suggest this finding may
be linked to the fact that, compared to modern humans, Homo erectus still had
a small brain, which would not require as much time to grow and learn. "It
seems our prolonged period of growth and development may be a more recent
evolutionary acquisition that arose in step with our comparatively recent
development of a larger, modern, human-sized brain," Walker says.
In an accompanying commentary in the same issue, Jocopo Moggi-Cecchi of the
University of Florence writes, "it is becoming increasingly clear that many
features thought to be typical of modern humans may have evolved more than
once." The present study he adds, "raises new challenges in the search for
fossil evidence of those characteristics that define both our genus and our
species.
Humans have a shorter period of reproduction than other primates.
==
There are instances of mice, frogs and plants that have double the number of
chromosomes than their ancestors.
==
What evidence refutes the claim of Design in nature?
Different structures in different
organisms? Designed that way. Same structures in different organisms?
Designed that way. It makes no falsification possible.
Common descent, on the other hand predicts that closely related organisms
will have common structures, and distantly related organisms will have
less commonality. This is confirmed by analysis of organisms, and makes
some discoveries that are counter-intuitive at first glance.
No, that is a measured time frame.
Actually, we do have fossils of the miacids. We also have a nice
progression of fossils indicating the relationships between the miacids,
canids, felines, vivverids, and ursids. These relationships have been
largely confirmed by analysis of related proteins and DNA segments.
The data is the data. The conclusions are reached by analyzing the data
==
One of the human chromosomes looks like two chimp chromosomes that have fused
together. How does creationism explain that?
==
A New Human Ancestor?
Researchers working in Kenya have unearthed fossils that could upset a
long-held view of human origins. According to a report published today in the
journal Nature, the remains represent a previously unknown hominid genus and
species from which modern humans may have descended. For decades that
distinction belonged to Australopithecus afarensisa species typified by the
famous 3.2-million-year-old Lucy skeleton. But the new discovery, dubbed
Kenyanthropus platyops, comes from roughly the same time interval and thus
renders Lucy's ancestral status far less certain.
Meave Leakey of the National Museums of Kenya and her colleagues recovered the
Kenyanthropus remainswhich include jaws, teeth and a skull dated to between
3.2 and 3.5 million years oldfrom mudstone sediments in northern Kenyas
Turkana basin. (The skull is apparently the oldest almost complete early human
cranium known.) Subsequent analysis revealed a creature rather different from
Lucy and her kin. In particular, Kenyanthropus has a far flatter face and
smaller molar teethfeeding-related differences that suggest the two groups
could have coexisted without competing for food resources.
"Now that we have a new form of early hominid from the same time period that is
quite distinct from afarensis, the anthropologists will have to decide which of
these forms of early human actually lies in our ancestral tree," University of
Utah geologist Frank Brown, who dated the fossil, remarks. "It cannot be both."
==
"Who Were the Neandertals?" by Kate Wong (Scientific American, April 2000)
==
chimp bonobo human gorilla orang gibbons
\\ / / / / /
genus PAN / / / /
\\ / / / /
\\/ / / /
\\ / / /
\\/ / /
\\ / /
family HOMINIDAE /
\\ /
superfamily HOMINOIDEA
\\
[Compare this with the similar part of
http://www.skarstein.no/frode/phyl.html ]
In the more difficult style of those litoptern links the same
simple tree will look something like:

<==o HOMINOIDEA
|-- gibbons [family Hylobatidae]
o HOMINIDAE
`--+-- orangutan
`--o [AFRICAN GREAT APES GROUP]
|-- gorilla
`--+-- human
`--o PAN
|-- chimp
==
Anthropologists debunk another myth of evolutionary progress
Science has, over the centuries, humbled humans, gradually forcing us to
abandon the illusion that our species represents the ultimate end of creation.
Copernicus and Galileo displaced Earth from the center of the universe; Darwin
dashed the conceit that humans originated in a special way, distinct from all
other species. Now a group of researchers--Christopher B. Ruff of Johns Hopkins
University, Erik Trinkaus of the University of New Mexico and Trenton W.
Holliday at the College of William and Mary--throw cold water even on the
notion of steady "improvement" within the human line.
In their recent study, Ruff and his colleagues thoroughly analyzed the fossil
record to determine the evolving body mass and brain size of the Homo species
leading up to us. The results, published in the May 8 issue of Nature, show
just how far from the truth is the stereotypical image of a straight
progression from small, pea-brained ancestors to the technologically adept
egghead Homo sapiens who inhabit the world today. The truth is quite a bit
more complicated.

NEANDERTHAL SKULL housed a brain larger than that of a modern human,
representing a kind of peak in homonid evolution.
Hominid brains appear to have remained fairly constant in size for a very long
stretch from 1.8 million years ago until about 600,000 years ago--a "period of
stasis" whose reality has long been debated by scientists. An abrupt break
occurred during the Middle Pleistocene epoch (from 600,000 to 150,000 years
before the present), when fossils show that the cranial capacity of our
ancestors skyrocketed. This trend peaked roughly 75,000 years ago, when
archaic Homo sapiens fossils (a category that includes the well-known
Neanderthals) indicate a brain mass of about 1,440 grams. Since then, brain
mass has actually drifted downward to the 1,300 grams that is typical today.
Brain size alone does not tell the whole story, of course. Intelligence seems
to have less to do with brain size per se than with the brain's proportion to
the body it must care for and control (and even that link is rather tenuous).
Here, too, the results of the Nature paper are telling. Over the nearly
two-million-year span that Ruff and his co-authors examined, ancient hominids
were on average about 10 percent more massive than modern humans. Body size
peaked about 50,000 years ago: Neanderthals were muscular brutes who weighed
upwards of a quarter more than modern humans. Since that time, humans have been
marching steadily downhill in both stature and cranial capacity (with the
exception of some recent gains due to improved nutrition and reduced disease).
The good news is that the steeper decline in body mass over the past 50,000
years has raised our ratio of brain to body above Neanderthal levels, even
though total brain mass has dipped.
Calculating the size of our progenitors' brains and bodies from a few
scattered bones is a tricky process. Many of the bones vary too much from one
individual to another to use for such estimation. Teeth wear differently
depending on diet, for example.
Eye sockets have changed in proportion over the years, and
skulls have grown thinner. Past estimates of the body masses of human ancestors
have sometimes disagreed by as much as 50 percent. These disparities made it
difficult to assess the changing nature of the human line. But in their
methodical survey, Ruff, Trinkaus and Holliday found two variables that appear
closely tied to body size in even the most ancient humans: the width of the
ball joint on the top of the thighbone (which bears much of our weight when we
stand) and the breadth of the pelvis. Measuring these dimensions for 163
fossilized hominids, the scientists were able to plot our genus's changes in
brain and brawn.
JOHN KAPPELMAN of the University of Texas ponders why our bodies are so small
rather than why our brains are so large.
These improved data are already prompting anthropologists to re-evaluate their
assessment of the environmental and cultural transformations that shaped human
evolution. In an accompanying commentary in Nature, John Kappelman of the
University of Texas at Austin offers some intriguing speculations along these
lines. The long, dry spell of constant brain size suggests to him that among
our ancestors, as in modern apes, competition among males for access to females
may have created an evolutionary pressure favoring continued large bodies.
Behavior that was "more dependent on brawn than brains," Kappleman writes,
evidently was successful enough that there was little evolutionary pressure
toward a bigger cranium.
In considering the new reconstructions of Homo over the past 90,000 years,
Kappelman is struck less by the roughly constant brain size than by the rapid
decrease in body size, which runs quite counter to the earlier steady or upward
trends. He suggests that this decrease in overall bulk was favored "by a social
structure that relied on more cooperative foraging and better communication
skills." At the same time, a better and more reliable food supply could support
the metabolic demands of a large brain. "The increase in relative brain size of
modern humans may then be, in part, an effect of selection for smaller body
mass," Kappelman rather ignominiously concludes.
So this is what it has come to.
==
Homo erectus
This was an extinct hominid living between 1.6 million and 250,000 years ago.
Homo erectus is thought to have evolved in Africa from H. habilis, the first
member of the genus Homo. Anatomically and physiologically, H. erectus
resembles contemporary humans except for a stouter bone structure. The size of
its braincase (8501000 cc), approaches that of H. sapiens, but the cranial
bones are more massive than either those of H. habilis or modern humans.
The material culture of H. erectus was significantly more complex than that of
its predecessors, including Achuelian stone tools (see Paleolithic), a variety
of tools fashioned from wood and other perishable materials, the use of fire,
and seasonally occupied, oval-shaped huts. Evidence of extensive cooperative
behavior is abundant in a number of European habitation and hunting sites,
including Terra Amata, France, and Terralba and Ambrona, Spain. H. erectus
populations occupied these sites seasonally, while pursuing an annual
subsistence cycle based on a combination of big-game hunting and the gathering
of shellfish and plant foods.
H. erectus dispersed into Asia by at least one million years ago, and into
Europe by at least 400,000 years ago. Fossils of this species were first
discovered in 1891 by French anatomist Eugene Dubois in Java. The specimen,
which came to be known as Java man, was at first classified as
Pithecanthropus erectus. H. erectus remains, originally dubbed Peking man
(Sinanthropus pekinensis), were also found in China at the Zhoukoudian cave
near Beijing in the late 1920s. Some scientists classify Heidelberg man
(500,000-year-old remains found near Heidelberg, Germany, in 1907) as H.
erectus, but others place it with archaic H. sapiens.

See also human evolution.
See B. A. Sigmon and J. S. Cybulski, Homo erectus (1981); N. Eldredge and
I. Tattersall, The Myths of Human Evolution (1982); M. H. Day, Guide to Fossil
Man (4th ed. 1984); G. P. Rightmire, The Evolution of Homo Erectus (1990);
D. Johanson, L. Johanson, and B. Edgar, Ancestors (1994).

A BRAIN FOR ALL SEASONS: HUMAN EVOLUTION AND ABRUPT
CLIMATE CHANGE By William H. Calvin
==
Modern humans more likely evolved from Homo erectus via archaic sapiens
and there are plenty of candidate fossils for this process: Swanscombe,
Arago, Petralona, Kabwe, Mauer, Bodo, LH 18, Florisbad and Steinheim.
==
Kenyanthropus platyops (the flat faced man of Kenya) was discovered on the
western shore of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya. The strata from which the
fossil skull has been removed are dated to between 3.5 and 3.2 million years
old. It is claimed that Kenyanthropus platyops represents a completely new
branch of the family tree.
==
Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a
Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking
nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such
an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a
Christian and laugh it to scorn.\
-- Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis
==
Ethiopian Fossil Discovery Prunes Human Family Tree
Scholars of human evolution have long debated just how many branches and twigs
make up the human family tree. Some place the known human fossils into numerous
genera and species, creating a bushy tree. Others tend to see more similarities
between fossils and opt for trees with fewer offshoots. Now newly described
fossils from Ethiopia indicate that for at least one part of the human
pedigree, less is more.
Announcing their findings today in the journal Nature, a team of researchers
led by Ethiopian paleoanthropologist Berhane Asfaw reports that the
million-year-old fossils, which belong to Homo erectus, lay to rest the idea
that that species should be split in two. Some experts have argued that earlier
African representatives of the group, which dates