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“Massive” human head forcing rethink of evolution

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Found in a Chinese well, called “Dragon man,” estimated 146,000 years old:

The skull, which is 23cm long and more than 15cm wide, is substantially larger than a modern human’s and has ample room, at 1,420ml, for a modern human brain. Beneath the thick brow ridge, the face has large square eye sockets, but is delicate despite its size. “This guy had a huge head,” said Stringer.

The researchers believe the skull belonged to a male, about 50 years old, who would have been an impressive physical specimen. His wide, bulbous nose allowed him to breathe huge volumes of air, indicating a high-energy lifestyle, while sheer size would have helped him withstand the brutally cold winters in the region. “Homo longi is heavily built, very robust,” said Prof Xijun Ni, a paleoanthropologist at Hebei. “It is hard to estimate the height, but the massive head should match a height higher than the average of modern humans.”

Ian Sample, “Massive human head in Chinese well forces scientists to rethink evolution” at The Guardian (June 25, 2021)

See also: Human evolution at your fingertips

Comments
Seversky Rather than dismiss ID, prove it wrong. Explain, without ID, how the laws of physics came into existence, where math comes from, how life began from nothing.BobRyan
June 27, 2021
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And some final notes God took us from the earth and molded us like clay and then breathed the breath of life into us That’s the creation statement made in the beginning of Genesis that you referenced with grabbing dust It’s always about a matter of interpretation And whether or not someone would actually understand evolution at that stage of life But taking us from the earth and molding us like clay Sounds Like a figurative interpretation of evolution and abiogenesis I mean what’s up famous statement about how natural selection Constantly scrutinizing toils about every single detail of the organism It’s literally sculpting the organism And well it took us from the earth, abiogenesis means we came from the earth And You can easily interpret breathing the breath of life into us as God giving us our soul None of that runs contrary with evolution in fact it seems to be a figurative way of stating it And since God is all of existence that would actually fit quite nicely Of course your version of natural selection and natural causes is just the brainless version of GodAaronS1978
June 26, 2021
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Ugh Sev The appendix, junk DNA, The interconnections of wires between both hemispheres of the brain, The Interconnection between eyes and brain, The consciousness There’s a whole bunch of these and they’ve all been deemed evolutionarily Sprandel and therefore just so stories by science fueled by poorly understood evolution as the ultimate god of gaps Many of them have been proven to have function that was actually important but overlooked because “evolution makes mistakes so who cares” The difference in what you are talking about is that scientist get to write it down and put it in the book and teach it for years and it becomes official until proven otherwise by the evolving nature of science when reality it was just a damn mistaken they were too lazy to actually do real science to figure it out (wow sounds like science might be a religion now that I think about it) Many of the problems of religion aren’t even in the Bible like the whole issue of heliocentrism None of that was in the Bible and that was the interpretation of a bunch of people that didn’t want to be wrong, that had more to do with personal preference and opinion than it did with the religion that they worshipped in Lastly your blatant misinterpretation of what is supposed to be a parable of Adam and Eve is annoying In the very first parts of Genesis God created man and women alike and we will create them in our image That is the creation of men and women alike This is stated at the very beginning of Genesis and before the story of the fall of man The fall of man AKA Adam and Eve Is a parable about our weakness and defiance of God This is an in-house issue that has been debated for years and I’m sorry you take the Ken Ham interpretation of this which explains a lot how about your personal perspective You’re part of the group that thinks the Bible is 100% literal as long as you get to disprove it Even when the religion that you’re arguing with doesn’t take it literally It’s only literal if it helps you prove your atheism and makes it look stupid That’s called a strawman By the way God took the rib from Adam and created Eve from it to show that man and women are of the same flesh They are equal and are to be side-by-side And if you want to challenge me about equality in women’s rights in the Bible go ahead and I’ll beat you to the punch and we can start by bringing up Ephesians 23 (wife should be submissive to the husband) and then I will have you read 24, 25, and 26 where the husband has to sacrifice himself for the wife the same way Jesus did to the church And we know how Jesus ended up sacrificing himself for the church, he got crucified after being beaten and stabbed and had a crown of thorns put on his head The Bible is about interpretation and basic instructions before leaving earth It’s not a God of gaps argument for anything, blame the people who interpreted it that way not the religion itselfAaronS1978
June 26, 2021
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seversky just proved that materialism and evolutionism embody the hallmarks of religions. But I like seversky's strawman...ET
June 26, 2021
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EugeneS/8
cherry pick evidence to back up your claim is a summary of pseudoscience. Paleontology is just like that. Can’t help wondering who buys this sort of stuff in this day and age
Just make up stories is a hallmark of religions. Have some untestable deity poof a man into existence from a handful of dust then create a woman out of one of his ribs and - bingo - the origin of humanity explained. Except, like I always used to wonder, why make Eve out of one of Adam's ribs? Why not just scoop up another handful of dust? And where did all that dust come from given the Universe had just been created? Can't help wondering who buys this sort of stuff in this day and age...Seversky
June 26, 2021
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cherry pick evidence to back up your claim is a summary of pseudoscience. Paleontology is just like that. Can't help wondering who buys this sort of stuff in this day and age...EugeneS
June 26, 2021
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and let me remind you of what was published recently BY MAINSTREAM DARWINIAN MAGAZINE, (this new China discovery was not included): ScienceDaily (MAY 2021): "When you look at the narrative for hominin origins, it's just a big mess -- there's no consensus whatsoever," said Sergio Almécija, a senior research scientist in the American Museum of Natural History's Division of Anthropology and the lead author of the review. "People are working under completely different paradigms, and that's something that I don't see happening in other fields of science." https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210506142133.htmmartin_r
June 26, 2021
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another human evolution rethink ? :)))) NO WAY! now it seems that Darwinian clowns need to rethink human evolution every other month :)))) Here is a funny article on this mess, by Gunter Bechly: "Sometimes predictions are not only fulfilled but over-fulfilled. Writing here recently at Evolution News (Bechly 2017a), I listed seven major discoveries in paleoanthropology that have made 2017 an annus horribilis for the established scientific consensus on human evolution. I ended, however, with the remark that “2017 is still not over. Maybe further surprises are ahead.” I was right – more surprises were indeed just over the horizon. A month later, alleged hominin teeth were reported from the Miocene of Germany that are older than the oldest African hominins and thus contradict the well-known “Out of Africa” scenario (Bechly 2017b). Only a few days after that, other paleontologists vehemently disputed the new findings, doubting that one of the teeth belongs to a primate at all (Greshko 2017, Hecht 2017). This, of course, was without having seen the actual fossils. Getting rid of such problematic finds would be very convenient, so doubts remain on either side of the story. Meanwhile, paleoanthropologists could barely catch their breath, as further published research casts further doubt on the conventional wisdom about human origins. Lo and behold, as New Scientist announces, “Ancient skull from China may rewrite the origins of our species” (Barras 2017). What, again?! Come on, the calls for rewriting our understanding of human evolution are coming now not just annually (Qiu 2016) but on a monthly basis. This is getting ridiculous. How often do you hear that fundamental ideas in chemistry or physics have to be “rewritten”? What does this tell us about the status of evolutionary biology? Let’s have a look at what the new discovery is all about." https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/what-another-rewrite-of-the-human-origins-story-how-about-a-rethink-instead/martin_r
June 26, 2021
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ES@4
Nobody is seriously questioning the overall dogma that it started with non-human primates and ended with humans.
Dogma it is since the fossil record shows no such thing. We have bones of apes and bones of humans and a lot of empty space in between filled with unwarranted speculation.Latemarch
June 26, 2021
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The only evolution that anybody is "rethinking" consists of rescribbling some tree charts involving the assortment of similar fossils. Nobody is seriously questioning the overall dogma that it started with non-human primates and ended with humans.EvilSnack
June 26, 2021
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With just the skull, it's impossible to know much, including the age. Someone that size would have had tremendous pressure put on the heart. Beyond that, there would have been far more calories needed to consume, which puts the age of remains into serious question. Simply put, there would not have been enough food due to the last Great Ice Age. It would be far better to admit the unknowns, rather than SWAG it as much as they did.BobRyan
June 26, 2021
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No they have figured out it’s just that they like to pick and choose what attributes to use based on the narrative they want to createAaronS1978
June 25, 2021
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1. Big nose doesn't mean more energy unless you're talking about a V8 with four carburetors. There's more to respiration than nose size. Pharynx, trachea, lungs, mobility of rib cage and diaphragm, variability of diaphragm speed. A living animal has many ways of getting more air. 2. Big skull doesn't mean more intelligence. Ask whales and dogs about that. 3. Sheer size retains heat better if you're comparing Platonic solids. Among animals, fat retains heat. Ask Eskimos about that. These criteria are valid for automobiles but not animals. Scientists still haven't figured out what life is.polistra
June 25, 2021
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