Ceprano man disappears

_{Denyse O'Leary

May 8, 2011

Human evolution}

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Turns up as Heidelberg man. At MSNBC, Jennifer Viegas reports that (5/4/2011) “Heidelberg Man links humans, Neanderthals:

Study of 400,000-year-old fossil may shed light on what species looked like”:

The determination is based on the remains of a single Heidelberg Man (Homo heidelbergensis) known as “Ceprano,” named after the town near Rome, Italy, where his fossil — a partial cranium — was found.Previously, this 400,000-year-old fossil was thought to represent a new species of human, Homo cepranensis. The latest study, however, identifies Ceprano as being an archaic member of Homo heidelbergensis.

Down one species then.

The finding may shed light on what the species that gave rise to both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens looked like.

Caution, more tangles:

Ian Tattersall, curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History, told Discovery News that he agrees Ceprano has been “appropriately assigned to the cosmopolitan species Homo heidelbergensis. But in Europe this species is contemporaneous with the lineage leading to Homo neanderthalensis.”

Some complain that it’s a bit like trying to explain the plot of a soap opera to which the “Guide to the Episodes” has been misplaced: Here, for example, at Dieneke’s Anthroplogy Blog:

The type specimen of Homo heidelbergensis is the Mauer mandible. There is considerable controversy about the validity of this taxon, with some “stretching” it to include many different fossils from Europe, Asia, and Africa, while others limiting it to the pre-Neandertal population of Europe. There are also those who want to get rid of H. h altogether. (More on Ceprano follows.)

Shriek from the other sofa: If I hafta watch this show with you, to keep you happy, all I wanna know is, who is she supposed to be with in this episode, and who is she actually with? Next episode, it’ll all be different of course. A lot depends on who’s writing the episode …

Comments

bornagain77 at 1 gripes, "So what is a guy who is not interested in soap operas in the least to do???" How about: 1. Grab remote. 2. Turn off idjit box. 3. Go hiking. Unless she's really, really worth it, then just 1. Stay confused. It will never get any better. 2. Hope she'll lose her taste for that sort of thing and join you in a hike through scenic parks. ;)O'Leary_{May 8, 2011
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I'm still trying to figure out the soap opera of the 'genetic mixing' evidence; The following is a fairly comprehensive analysis of many different studies of genetic evidence which separate us from Neanderthals: Descent of Mankind Theory: Disproved by Molecular Biology - Richard Deem PhD. Excerpt: Therefore, the most accurate date for the origin of modern humans indicate that the last common ancestor to modern humans must have existed less than 50,000 years ago.,,, The final blow to the idea that humans and Neanderthals interbred was found in a genetic analysis of their chromosomal DNA, published in 2006-2007. These results showed that none of the typical SNPs found in modern humans was present in Neanderthal Y-chromosome DNA. http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/descent.html#note Then again, this following recent study (May 2010) seemingly overturned the mtDNA evidence and thus some of the genetic evidence could now be interpreted to support the special creationist viewpoint that Neanderthals were actually just a sub-species of humans once again: Humans and Neanderthals Are One - May 2010 Excerpt: In short, the evidence has brought humans and Neanderthals together as mere varieties of the same species, while simultaneously increasing the genetic distance between humans and the great apes. http://www.creationsafaris.com/crev201005.htm#20100508a Study: There's at least some Neanderthal in many of us - May 2010 Excerpt: Humans trace their origins out of Africa into the Middle East and then on to other parts of the world. The genetic relationship with Neanderthals was found in people from Europe, China and Papua-New Guinea, but not people from Africa. http://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/online/article_6a8597a4-59c1-11df-9488-001cc4c03286.html Yet then again the soap opera turns and we find there is much disagreement within the scientific community from those who question just how much weight should be given to this new 'genetic mixture' evidence that was gathered in a fairly complex way. A complex way that appears to be ripe for error and misinterpretation: Q&A: Who is H. sapiens really, and how do we know? - March 2011 Excerpt: If the error structures of the archaic DNA and one of the modern human DNA samples are similar to each other for one of many reasons, the ABBA-BABA test could report admixture when it did not in fact occur. Even a very small proportion of shared errors could cause a strong effect on the ABBA-BABA statistic. For example, small effects that we typically tend to ignore, such as shared contamination of reagents between the samples, could cause artifactual evidence of admixture. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/9/20 Signs of Neanderthals Mating With Humans - May 2010 Excerpt: "But the new analysis, which is based solely on genetics and statistical calculations, is more difficult to match with the archaeological record. There is much less archaeological evidence for an overlap between modern humans and Neanderthals at this time and place.,, Geneticists have been making increasingly valuable contributions to human prehistory, but their work depends heavily on complex mathematical statistics that make their arguments hard to follow. And the statistical insights, however informative, do not have the solidity of an archaeological fact." They are basically saying, ‘Here are our data, you have to accept it.’ But the little part I can judge seems to me to be problematic, so I have to worry about the rest,” he said. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/science/07neanderthal.html So what is a guy who is not interested in soap operas in the least to do??? notes: Evolution of the Genus Homo - Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences - Tattersall, Schwartz, May 2009 Excerpt: "although Homo neanderthalensis had a large brain, it left no unequivocal evidence of the symbolic consciousness that makes our species unique." -- "Unusual though Homo sapiens may be morphologically, it is undoubtedly our remarkable cognitive qualities that most strikingly demarcate us from all other extant species. They are certainly what give us our strong subjective sense of being qualitatively different. And they are all ultimately traceable to our symbolic capacity. Human beings alone, it seems, mentally dissect the world into a multitude of discrete symbols, and combine and recombine those symbols in their minds to produce hypotheses of alternative possibilities. When exactly Homo sapiens acquired this unusual ability is the subject of debate." http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202 further note: Evolution of the Genus Homo - Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences - Tattersall, Schwartz, May 2009 Excerpt: "Definition of the genus Homo is almost as fraught as the definition of Homo sapiens. We look at the evidence for “early Homo,” finding little morphological basis for extending our genus to any of the 2.5–1.6-myr-old fossil forms assigned to “early Homo” or Homo habilis/rudolfensis." http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202 A 2004 book by leading evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr stated that "The earliest fossils of Homo, Homo rudolfensis and Homo erectus, are separated from Australopithecus (Lucy) by a large, unbridged gap. How can we explain this seeming saltation? Not having any fossils that can serve as missing links, we have to fall back on the time-honored method of historical science, the construction of a historical narrative.” Misrepresentations of the Evidence for Human Evolutionary Origins: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/04/texas_hold_em_part_ii_calling_1.html#more Hominids, Homonyms, and Homo sapiens - 05/27/2009 - Creation Safaris: Excerpt: Homo erectus is particularly controversial, because it is such a broad classification. Tattersall and Schwartz find no clear connection between the Asian, European and African specimens lumped into this class. “In his 1950 review, Ernst Mayr placed all of these forms firmly within the species Homo erectus,” they explained. “Subsequently, Homo erectus became the standard-issue ‘hominid in the middle,’ expanding to include not only the fossils just mentioned, but others of the same general period....”. They discussed the arbitrariness of this classification: "Put together, all these fossils (which span almost 2 myr) make a very heterogeneous assortment indeed; and placing them all together in the same species only makes any conceivable sense in the context of the ecumenical view of Homo erectus as the middle stage of the single hypervariable hominid lineage envisioned by Mayr (on the basis of a much slenderer record). Viewed from the morphological angle, however, the practice of cramming all of this material into a single Old World-wide species is highly questionable. Indeed, the stuffing process has only been rendered possible by a sort of ratchet effect, in which fossils allocated to Homo erectus almost regardless of their morphology have subsequently been cited as proof of just how variable the species can be." By “ratchet effect,” they appear to mean something like a self-fulfilling prophecy: i.e., “Let’s put everything from this 2-million-year period into one class that we will call Homo erectus.” Someone complains, “But this fossil from Singapore is very different from the others.” The first responds, “That just shows how variable the species Homo erectus can be.” When we consider the remote past, before the origin of the actual species Homo sapiens, we are faced with a fragmentary and disconnected fossil record. Despite the excited and optimistic claims that have been made by some paleontologists, no fossil hominid species can be established as our direct ancestor. Richard Lewontin - Harvard Zoologist Man is indeed as unique, as different from all other animals, as had been traditionally claimed by theologians and philosophers. Evolutionist Ernst Mayr Icon Of Evolution - Ape To Man - The Ultimate Deception - Jonathan Wells - video http://vimeo.com/19080087bornagain77_{May 8, 2011
May
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I'm still trying to figure out the soap opera of the 'genetic mixing' evidence; The following is a fairly comprehensive analysis of many different studies of genetic evidence which separate us from Neanderthals: Descent of Mankind Theory: Disproved by Molecular Biology - Richard Deem PhD. Excerpt: Therefore, the most accurate date for the origin of modern humans indicate that the last common ancestor to modern humans must have existed less than 50,000 years ago.,,, The final blow to the idea that humans and Neanderthals interbred was found in a genetic analysis of their chromosomal DNA, published in 2006-2007. These results showed that none of the typical SNPs found in modern humans was present in Neanderthal Y-chromosome DNA. http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/descent.html#note Then again, this following recent study (May 2010) seemingly overturned the mtDNA evidence and thus some of the genetic evidence could now be interpreted to support the special creationist viewpoint that Neanderthals were actually just a sub-species of humans once again: Humans and Neanderthals Are One - May 2010 Excerpt: In short, the evidence has brought humans and Neanderthals together as mere varieties of the same species, while simultaneously increasing the genetic distance between humans and the great apes. http://www.creationsafaris.com/crev201005.htm#20100508a Study: There's at least some Neanderthal in many of us - May 2010 Excerpt: Humans trace their origins out of Africa into the Middle East and then on to other parts of the world. The genetic relationship with Neanderthals was found in people from Europe, China and Papua-New Guinea, but not people from Africa. http://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/online/article_6a8597a4-59c1-11df-9488-001cc4c03286.html Yet then again the soap opera turns and we find there is much disagreement within the scientific community from those who question just how much weight should be given to this new 'genetic mixture' evidence that was gathered in a fairly complex way. A complex way that appears to be ripe for error and misinterpretation: Q&A: Who is H. sapiens really, and how do we know? - March 2011 Excerpt: If the error structures of the archaic DNA and one of the modern human DNA samples are similar to each other for one of many reasons, the ABBA-BABA test could report admixture when it did not in fact occur. Even a very small proportion of shared errors could cause a strong effect on the ABBA-BABA statistic. For example, small effects that we typically tend to ignore, such as shared contamination of reagents between the samples, could cause artifactual evidence of admixture. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7007/9/20 Signs of Neanderthals Mating With Humans - May 2010 Excerpt: "But the new analysis, which is based solely on genetics and statistical calculations, is more difficult to match with the archaeological record. There is much less archaeological evidence for an overlap between modern humans and Neanderthals at this time and place.,, Geneticists have been making increasingly valuable contributions to human prehistory, but their work depends heavily on complex mathematical statistics that make their arguments hard to follow. And the statistical insights, however informative, do not have the solidity of an archaeological fact." They are basically saying, ‘Here are our data, you have to accept it.’ But the little part I can judge seems to me to be problematic, so I have to worry about the rest,” he said. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/science/07neanderthal.html So what is a guy who is not interested in soap operas in the least to do??? notes: Evolution of the Genus Homo - Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences - Tattersall, Schwartz, May 2009 Excerpt: "although Homo neanderthalensis had a large brain, it left no unequivocal evidence of the symbolic consciousness that makes our species unique." -- "Unusual though Homo sapiens may be morphologically, it is undoubtedly our remarkable cognitive qualities that most strikingly demarcate us from all other extant species. They are certainly what give us our strong subjective sense of being qualitatively different. And they are all ultimately traceable to our symbolic capacity. Human beings alone, it seems, mentally dissect the world into a multitude of discrete symbols, and combine and recombine those symbols in their minds to produce hypotheses of alternative possibilities. When exactly Homo sapiens acquired this unusual ability is the subject of debate." http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202 further note: Evolution of the Genus Homo - Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences - Tattersall, Schwartz, May 2009 Excerpt: "Definition of the genus Homo is almost as fraught as the definition of Homo sapiens. We look at the evidence for “early Homo,” finding little morphological basis for extending our genus to any of the 2.5–1.6-myr-old fossil forms assigned to “early Homo” or Homo habilis/rudolfensis." http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202 A 2004 book by leading evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr stated that "The earliest fossils of Homo, Homo rudolfensis and Homo erectus, are separated from Australopithecus (Lucy) by a large, unbridged gap. How can we explain this seeming saltation? Not having any fossils that can serve as missing links, we have to fall back on the time-honored method of historical science, the construction of a historical narrative.” Misrepresentations of the Evidence for Human Evolutionary Origins: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/04/texas_hold_em_part_ii_calling_1.html#more Hominids, Homonyms, and Homo sapiens - 05/27/2009 - Creation Safaris: Excerpt: Homo erectus is particularly controversial, because it is such a broad classification. Tattersall and Schwartz find no clear connection between the Asian, European and African specimens lumped into this class. “In his 1950 review, Ernst Mayr placed all of these forms firmly within the species Homo erectus,” they explained. “Subsequently, Homo erectus became the standard-issue ‘hominid in the middle,’ expanding to include not only the fossils just mentioned, but others of the same general period....”. They discussed the arbitrariness of this classification: "Put together, all these fossils (which span almost 2 myr) make a very heterogeneous assortment indeed; and placing them all together in the same species only makes any conceivable sense in the context of the ecumenical view of Homo erectus as the middle stage of the single hypervariable hominid lineage envisioned by Mayr (on the basis of a much slenderer record). Viewed from the morphological angle, however, the practice of cramming all of this material into a single Old World-wide species is highly questionable. Indeed, the stuffing process has only been rendered possible by a sort of ratchet effect, in which fossils allocated to Homo erectus almost regardless of their morphology have subsequently been cited as proof of just how variable the species can be." By “ratchet effect,” they appear to mean something like a self-fulfilling prophecy: i.e., “Let’s put everything from this 2-million-year period into one class that we will call Homo erectus.” Someone complains, “But this fossil from Singapore is very different from the others.” The first responds, “That just shows how variable the species Homo erectus can be.” http://creationsafaris.com/crev200905.htm#20090527a When we consider the remote past, before the origin of the actual species Homo sapiens, we are faced with a fragmentary and disconnected fossil record. Despite the excited and optimistic claims that have been made by some paleontologists, no fossil hominid species can be established as our direct ancestor. Richard Lewontin - Harvard Zoologist http://www.discovery.org/a/9961 Man is indeed as unique, as different from all other animals, as had been traditionally claimed by theologians and philosophers. Evolutionist Ernst Mayr http://www.y-origins.com/index.php?p=home_more4 Icon Of Evolution - Ape To Man - The Ultimate Deception - Jonathan Wells - video http://vimeo.com/19080087bornagain77_{May 8, 2011
May
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08
2011
12:27 PM
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PST}

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