New early hominid fossil...

Mallon · Oct 1, 2009

... fills morphological gap between chimps and australopithecines:

Ardipithecus: We Meet At Last | The Loom | Discover Magazine

Cool stuff!

gluadys · Oct 1, 2009

Mallon said:
... fills morphological gap between chimps and australopithecines:

Ardipithecus: We Meet At Last | The Loom | Discover Magazine

Cool stuff!

Very cool.

A couple of important points made toward the end of the article.

Chimpanzees may be our closest living relatives, but that doesnt mean that our common ancestor with them looked precisely like a chimp. In fact, a lot of what makes a chimpanzee a chimpanzee evolved after our two lineages split roughly 7 million years ago. Ardipithecus offers strong evidence for the newness of chimps.

Only after our ancestors branched off from chimpanzees, Lovejoy and his colleagues argue, did chimpanzee arms evolve the right shape for swinging through trees. Chimpanzee arms are also adapted for knuckle-walking, while Ardipithecus didnt have the right anatomy to lean comfortably on their hands. Chimpanzees also have peculiar adaptations in their feet that make them particularly adept in trees. For example, theyre missing a bone found in monkeys and humans, which helps to stiffen our feet. The lack of this bone makes chimpanzee feet even more flexible in trees, but it also makes them worse at walking on the ground. Ardipithecus had that same foot bone we have. This pattern suggests that chimpanzees lost the bone after their split with our ancestors, becoming even better at tree-climbing.

Chimpanzees do still tell us certain things about our ancestry. Our ancestors had chimp-sized brains. They were hairy like chimps and other apes. And like chimps, they didnt wear jewelry or play the trumpet.

But then again, humans turn out to be a good stand-in for the ancestors of chimpanzees in some waysnow that Ardipithecus has clambered finally into view.

Juvenissen and Mark Kennedy please take note.

laconicstudent · Oct 1, 2009

fascinating

Critias · Oct 1, 2009

that sketch says it all, I'm sold!

Mallon · Oct 1, 2009

Critias said:
that sketch says it all, I'm sold!

I would sooner you base your acceptance on a careful consideration of the fossils themselves, but whatever suits your fancy...

Critias · Oct 1, 2009

Mallon said:
I would sooner you base your acceptance on a careful consideration of the fossils themselves, but whatever suits your fancy...

No, the sketch and article meant to persuade totally sold me, like many of you.

Mallon · Oct 1, 2009

Personally, the journal article itself sold me. I don't put much trust in popular articles because they often offer a distorted perspective on science (which is partly why the public's understanding of science is so appalling), but journal articles aren't always freely available to everyone.

laconicstudent · Oct 1, 2009

Mallon said:
Personally, the journal article itself sold me. I don't put much trust in popular articles because they often offer a distorted perspective on science (which is partly why the public's understanding of science is so appalling), but journal articles aren't always freely available to everyone.

Mallon, you've read the research periodical? I imagine I'll go hunting for it in my university's library or put out an interlibrary request for it.

Mallon · Oct 1, 2009

laconicstudent said:
Mallon, you've read the research periodical? I imagine I'll go hunting for it in my university's library or put out an interlibrary request for it.

Yes, my university gets Science.

laconicstudent · Oct 1, 2009

Mallon said:
Yes, my university gets Science.

Nice, mine does too, but I guess I'm too lazy to go down there right now. Over the weekend maybe.

howlingwolf · Oct 1, 2009

laconicstudent said:
Mallon, you've read the research periodical? I imagine I'll go hunting for it in my university's library or put out an interlibrary request for it.

Science has put the entire special issue online for free (you might need to register, but it doesn't require a subscription. All the research articles are in PDF format.

The link is at www . sciencemag . org / ardipithecus

(Sorry it won't let me post the actual link, just take out the spaces to make it a link)

Howlingwolf

philadiddle · Oct 1, 2009

Critias said:
No, the sketch and article meant to persuade totally sold me, like many of you.

It's funny, cause when an article is published where biologists say "We didn't predict this" the creationists jump all over it without ever reading the in depth study behind the article. Yet when something like this is published, then they say "It's just a sketch, why do people accept this without understanding the in depth studies behind it?"

Silly double standards.

max1120 · Oct 1, 2009

I am going to suggest something some may not agree with but here goes...maybe we have not found a common ancestor because our common ancestor did not originate on earth? What if man as we know him came to this planet around 10 million years, perhaps by ship wreck or was deliberately left here to colonize the planet.

While you may disagree with me you have to admit it would answer a lot of questions.

philadiddle · Oct 1, 2009

max1120 said:
I am going to suggest something some may not agree with but here goes...maybe we have not found a common ancestor because our common ancestor did not originate on earth? What if man as we know him came to this planet around 10 million years, perhaps by ship wreck or was deliberately left here to colonize the planet.

While you may disagree with me you have to admit it would answer a lot of questions.

What questions would it answer? What it means is that we end up with more questions like, why do humans share egg laying DNA with chickens? (even though ours in inactive) Why do we share pseudo genes with many other animals on earth? Why do functional sections of DNA, such as cytocrome C, fit in a phylogenetic tree with the rest of life?

The way I see, saying we evolved from a common ancestor with the rest of life on earth is what answers a lot of questions. Saying we were left here by aliens answers no questions that I know of but creates a lot of problems that needs to be solved.

Mallon · Oct 1, 2009

max1120 said:
I am going to suggest something some may not agree with but here goes...maybe we have not found a common ancestor because our common ancestor did not originate on earth? What if man as we know him came to this planet around 10 million years, perhaps by ship wreck or was deliberately left here to colonize the planet.

While you may disagree with me you have to admit it would answer a lot of questions.

Like what? To my mind, it introduces more questions than it answers, like: If man was here 10 million years ago, why is there only evidence for his existence over the last couple million years?

sfs · Oct 1, 2009

laconicstudent said:
Nice, mine does too, but I guess I'm too lazy to go down there right now. Over the weekend maybe.

Science has a special edition on Ardipithecus, and they say they're making the contents available for free (with registration). They've even sponsored a link on Google. (I haven't looked at the issue yet -- I usually read the print edition on the bus, and I haven't gotten it yet.)

gluadys · Oct 1, 2009

max1120 said:
I am going to suggest something some may not agree with but here goes...maybe we have not found a common ancestor because our common ancestor did not originate on earth? What if man as we know him came to this planet around 10 million years, perhaps by ship wreck or was deliberately left here to colonize the planet.

While you may disagree with me you have to admit it would answer a lot of questions.

But a common ancestor would not be "man as we know him" even if it did have an extra-terrestrial origin. A common ancestor could be neither humans as we know them nor chimpanzees as we know them, but something that could in time evolve into both not to mention all the other intermediate hominid species which would also be traced back to it.

And there would still be all the other questions raised by other posters as to why it fit so neatly into the primate order and other relationships in the nested hierarchy.

Critias · Oct 2, 2009

philadiddle said:
It's funny, cause when an article is published where biologists say "We didn't predict this" the creationists jump all over it without ever reading the in depth study behind the article. Yet when something like this is published, then they say "It's just a sketch, why do people accept this without understanding the in depth studies behind it?"

Silly double standards.

I'm assuming you are replying to me, but I don't think I said what you are talking against here. I was amused by seeing a sketch and people commenting on it in amazement. It was a connection I made.

I know there is an article that is very well written and semi-convincing. However, I was commenting about the invisible connection between the sketch and comments.

Oh well, silly superfluous reply.

pgp_protector · Oct 2, 2009

howlingwolf said:
Science has put the entire special issue online for free (you might need to register, but it doesn't require a subscription. All the research articles are in PDF format.

The link is at www . sciencemag . org / ardipithecus

(Sorry it won't let me post the actual link, just take out the spaces to make it a link)

Howlingwolf

Link for ya.
Online Extras: Ardipithecus ramidus

Critias · Oct 2, 2009

pgp_protector said:
Link for ya.
Online Extras: Ardipithecus ramidus

I sir, am outraged!! Vista is a bad word! PGP and Vista in the same profile... That's like blasphemy!

New early hominid fossil...

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