Oldest human fossil found, 400k years “earlier than previously thought”

_{Denyse O'Leary

March 4, 2015

Human evolution, News}

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2.8 million-year-old specimen is 400,000 years older than previous ones.

An ancient jawbone fragment is the oldest human fossil discovered yet, a bone potentially from a new species that reveals the human family may have arose a half million years earlier than previously thought, researchers say.

And Michael Cremo is still wrong, right?

NatGeo’s take here.

See also: The search for our earliest ancestors: signals in the noise

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Comments

Why is nobody here discussing the claim that the jaw's chin represents a transition between australopithicenes and early homo?JoeCoder_{March 5, 2015
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And Michael Cremo is still wrong, right?
No. Michael Cremo has never been even wrong.Piotr_{March 4, 2015
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Well this is exactly what Darwin predicted, I'm not sure why anyone would be surprised, shocked or in awe, Evolution works in mysterious ways, the fact that the time for 30 000 000 base pair differences to have become fixed in much less time is in complete accordance with the molecules to man theory that so many devout their time to. Those that question this are just anti-science!Andre_{March 4, 2015
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Compared to my southern accent, Casey sounds like a proper English gentleman. for instance,,, He’s so country he thinks a seven-course meal is a possum and a six-pack. http://www.texasmonthly.com/content/more-colorful-texas-sayings%E2%80%A6 He’s riding a gravy train with biscuit wheels. http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/texas-sayings :)bornagain77_{March 4, 2015
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AnimatedDust, I actually liked Casey's voice until he interviewed the silky smooth voiced VJTorley. Only then did Casey's voice grate. (Casey, if you read this disregard this. You are very inspirational. And your voice is wonderful. Really.)ppolish_{March 4, 2015
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Is it just me or is Casey Luskin fingernails on a chalkboard to listen to? Horrible diction, breathless sentence utterance and teen cadence. And I'm on his side of the debate. I wish someone else did all the DI voicing. :(AnimatedDust_{March 4, 2015
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Ah yes, goodusername, but in what direction are the finds?
The only direction they could possibly be?wd400_{March 4, 2015
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To underscore 'the image of God' postulation of Christian Theism, the three Rs, reading, writing, and arithmetic, i.e. the unique ability to process information inherent to man, are the very first things to be taught to children when they enter elementary school. And yet it is this information processing, i.e. reading, writing, and arithmetic that is found to be foundational to life:
Signature in the Cell by Stephen Meyer - video clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVkdQhNdzHU
As well, as if that was not 'spooky enough', information, not material, is found to be foundational to physical reality:
Why the Quantum? It from Bit? A Participatory Universe? Excerpt: In conclusion, it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows. Thence the question why nature appears quantized is simply a consequence of the fact that information itself is quantized by necessity. It might even be fair to observe that the concept that information is fundamental is very old knowledge of humanity, witness for example the beginning of gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word." Anton Zeilinger - a leading expert in quantum teleportation: http://www.metanexus.net/archive/ultimate_reality/zeilinger.pdf "it from bit” Every “it”— every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits. “It from bit” symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has a bottom—a very deep bottom, in most instances, an immaterial source and explanation, that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment—evoked responses, in short all matter and all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe." – Princeton University physicist John Wheeler (1911–2008) (Wheeler, John A. (1990), “Information, physics, quantum: The search for links”, in W. Zurek, Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information (Redwood City, California: Addison-Wesley)) Quantum physics just got less complicated - Dec. 19, 2014 Excerpt: Patrick Coles, Jedrzej Kaniewski, and Stephanie Wehner,,, found that 'wave-particle duality' is simply the quantum 'uncertainty principle' in disguise, reducing two mysteries to one.,,, "The connection between uncertainty and wave-particle duality comes out very naturally when you consider them as questions about what information you can gain about a system. Our result highlights the power of thinking about physics from the perspective of information,",,, http://phys.org/news/2014-12-quantum-physics-complicated.html
That life and physical reality itself are both found to be 'information theoretic' in their basis, and that man possesses the unique ability to understand and create information, is certainly strong evidence that we indeed possess 'the image of God' as the anchor of our soul, just as is postulated in Christian Theism.
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. You Won’t Let Go Share - Michael W. Smith https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRb_NIQTzyA
bornagain77_{March 4, 2015
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Of related note:
"most hominid fossils, even though they serve as basis of endless speculation and elaborate storytelling, are fragments of of jaws and scraps of skulls" Stephen Jay Gould
And what the fossil teeth have revealed thus far about supposed human evolution is not good for those who prefer the Darwinian position to be true
No Known Hominin Is Common Ancestor of Neanderthals and Modern Humans, Study Suggests - Oct. 21, 2013 Excerpt: The article, "No known hominin species matches the expected dental morphology of the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans," relies on fossils of approximately 1,200 molars and premolars from 13 species or types of hominins -- humans and human relatives and ancestors. Fossils from the well-known Atapuerca sites have a crucial role in this research, accounting for more than 15 percent of the complete studied fossil collection.,,, They conclude with high statistical confidence that none of the hominins usually proposed as a common ancestor, such as Homo heidelbergensis, H. erectus and H. antecessor, is a satisfactory match. "None of the species that have been previously suggested as the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans has a dental morphology that is fully compatible with the expected morphology of this ancestor," Gómez-Robles said. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131021153202.htm Human/Ape Common Ancestry: Following the Evidence - Casey Luskin - June 2011 Excerpt: So the researchers constructed an evolutionary tree based on 129 skull and tooth measurements for living hominoids, including gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and humans, and did the same with 62 measurements recorded on Old World monkeys, including baboons, mangabeys and macaques. They also drew upon published molecular phylogenies. At the outset, Wood and Collard assumed the molecular evidence was correct. “There were so many different lines of genetic evidence pointing in one direction,” Collard explains. But no matter how the computer analysis was run, the molecular and morphological trees could not be made to match15 (see figure, below). Collard says this casts grave doubt on the reliability of using morphological evidence to determine the fine details of evolutionary trees for higher primates. “It is saying it is positively misleading,” he says. The abstract of the pair’s paper stated provocatively that “existing phylogenetic hypotheses about human evolution are unlikely to be reliable”.[10] http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/following_the_evidence_where_i047161.html#comment-9266481 Human Origins, and the Real Reasons for Evolutionary Skepticism - Jonathan M. - December 9, 2012 Excerpt: "Cladistic analysis of cranial and dental evidence has been widely used to generate phylogenetic hypotheses about humans and their fossil relatives. However, the reliability of these hypotheses has never been subjected to external validation. To rectify this, we applied internal methods to equivalent evidence from two groups of extant higher primates for whom reliable molecular phylogenies are available, the hominoids and paionins. We found that the phylogenetic hypotheses based on the craniodental data were incompatible with the molecular phylogenies for the groups. Given the robustness of the molecular phylogenies, these results indicate that little confidence can be placed in phylogenies generated solely from higher primate craniodental evidence. The corollary of this is that existing phylogenetic hypotheses about human evolution are unlikely to be reliable." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/human_origins_a1067181.html
Of related interest, Casey Luskin, speaking at a 2014 Science and Human Origins conference, discusses why the fossil evidence falls short of supporting the Darwinian claim that humans evolved from some ape-like precursors.
2014 - podcast - Casey Luskin - On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 1 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us/ podcast - Casey Luskin - On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 2 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us-pt-2/ podcast - Casey Luskin - On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 3 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us-pt-3/ podcast - Casey Luskin - On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 4 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us-pt-4/
And lest we forget this recent paper, the 'image of God' inherent to man, (i.e. our unique ability to understand and create information), shows no signs of having gradually evolved:
Leading Evolutionary Scientists Admit We Have No Evolutionary Explanation of Human Language - December 19, 2014 Excerpt: Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,, (Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, "The mystery of language evolution," Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 5:401 (May 7, 2014).) It's difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/leading_evoluti092141.html
bornagain77_{March 4, 2015
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Ah yes, goodusername, but in what direction are the finds? We enjoy having fun with this. Come on in, the water's fine.News_{March 4, 2015
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This reduces considerably the discrepancy between prior finds and a one-billion year human history. Specifically, it eliminates 1/2000th of that discrepancy.Reciprocating Bill_{March 4, 2015
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And Michael Cremo is still wrong, right?
About what? That there have been humans on Earth for billions of years? Umm, yeah, he's probably still wrong.goodusername_{March 4, 2015
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