Recent fossil find a “Cambrian explosion” for humans?

_{Denyse O'Leary

March 5, 2015

Human evolution, Intelligent Design

2}_{Categories
Human evolution
Intelligent Design}

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Further to Oldest human fossil found, 400k years “earlier than previously thought,” neuroscientist David A. DeWitt writes to say,

That is a real problem since it means that humans overlapped with australopithcines including especially sediba which is a mere 2 million years old.

Humans dated 2.8 million years ago? Sophisticated tools used by H. erectus? Neanderthal genes in modern humans? Range of variation in Dmanisi overlapping H. erectus to modern humans? A. sediba is a mixture of Homo and Australopithecine remains in South Africa?

What we essentially have is a Cambrian explosion type phenomenon for human origins.

Readers?

See also:

The ridiculous level of uncertainty in the field of human evolution DeWitt: “Look at how messed up this field is. Genetic evidence supports Neanderthals and modern humans interbred. The Dmanisi skulls show such variation as to incorporate all of the various Homo specimens.”

History of man unravels in “huge fraud”

and

Contemplating Bill Nye’s skulls slide “I can only conclude that the sole purpose of showing such a slide was to confuse and obfuscate, not educate.”

But wait! It’s not messed up as long as hundreds of pop science writers refrain from wondering.

Also: What we know (and don’t) about human evolution, s synopsis

Follow UD News at Twitter!

Comments

Summativity- The sum of all entities at one level of organization is equal to the sum of all entities at some other level- Knox “The use of hierarchies as organizational models of systematics” Biological Journal of the Linnean Society (1998), 63:1-49, page 8 Summativity is a must-have for nested hierarchies. Cladistics do not exhibit summativity. Se, I told you Piotr was ignorant of the concept.Joe_{March 10, 2015
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Piotr:
I know you can’t and won’t get it, so just for the record (and the benefit of any interested lurkers): there are no “levels”, “ranks”, armies, regiments, companies or frickin’ platoons in modern biological taxonomy.
There are in nested hierarchies.
All taxa (clades) have the same theoretical status
Cladistics is different from nested hierarchies, Piotr.
Nevertheless, they form a nested hierarchy since every clade includes (literally consists of) all the clades descended from it.
They do so because that is how cladistics is designed, Piotr. Cladistics is a manmade endeavor. The way cladistics works is they borrow from Linnean taxonomy with the selection of shared characteristics. But as I said evolution doesn't work like that. Denton went over that in "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis".
Linnaean ranks are only of historical interest today (though for the sake of convenience we keep their names when possible).
It is the only observed nested hierarchy, Piotr. Even Talk Origins says that.
The fact that a common innovation inherited from the ancestor of a clade becomes strongly modified or reduced in some of its members cannot invalidate a clade.
Yes it can. If clades are defined by shared characteristics and some ancestor doesn't share all of them, they are out of the clade OR the objectiveness is gone. Again, Denton went over that over two decades ago. But anyway thank you for proving that you do not understand nested hierarchies.Joe_{March 10, 2015
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Joey, I know you can't and won't get it, so just for the record (and the benefit of any interested lurkers): there are no "levels", "ranks", armies, regiments, companies or frickin' platoons in modern biological taxonomy. All taxa (clades) have the same theoretical status. Nevertheless, they form a nested hierarchy since every clade includes (literally consists of) all the clades descended from it. Full stop. Linnaean ranks are only of historical interest today (though for the sake of convenience we keep their names when possible). The fact that a common innovation inherited from the ancestor of a clade becomes strongly modified or reduced in some of its members cannot invalidate a clade. For example, snakes and slowworms belong to Tetrapoda even though they have no legs. The reduction of a trait once present in ancestors is a change of a character state, not original absence of a character (by the way, some snakes still show vestigial legs).Piotr_{March 10, 2015
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The information on nested hierarchies was very helpful - thanks for posting that. We don't see a nested hierarchy (summative) in nature.Silver Asiatic_{March 10, 2015
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Yes, schooled. If you think what I posted is nonsense then you are a bigger loser than I thought. What you have said proves that you don't know jack about nested hierarchies. Your case is lost, as usual. OK so Piotr gets schooled, runs away and then comes back long enough to cry "did not, did not"Joe_{March 10, 2015
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Joe, "Schooled"? Do I have to comment on all that nonsense ad infinitum? Frankly, I'm sick of it. I have already said all I wanted to say, and can rest my case.Piotr_{March 10, 2015
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Piotr gets schooled and runs away. SweetJoe_{March 10, 2015
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and that studies showing bipedalism in australopiths were fraudulent
No one can show the studies are valid.Joe_{March 9, 2015
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bornagain77: translation Box: translation Bornagain77 claimed that there were no non-sapiens hominins, and that studies showing bipedalism in australopiths were fraudulent. When pressed, bornagain77 changed the subject.Zachriel_{March 9, 2015
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Summativity- The sum of all entities at one level of organization is equal to the sum of all entities at some other level- Knox "The use of hierarchies as organizational models of systematics" Biological Journal of the Linnean Society (1998), 63:1-49, page 8 Summativity is a must-have for nested hierarchies. For example in Linnean taxonomy*, ie a nested hierarchy, the Animal Kingdom consists of and contains all of the levels and entities below it. It is the sum of its parts. Linnean Classification:
The standard system of classification in which every organism is assigned a kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. This system groups organisms into ever smaller and smaller groups (like a series of boxes within boxes, called a nested hierarchy).
Looking closer at the nested hierarchy of living organisms we have the animal kingdom. To be placed in the animal kingdom an organism must have all of the criteria of an animal:
All members of the Animalia are multicellular (eukaryotes), and all are heterotrophs (that is, they rely directly or indirectly on other organisms for their nourishment). Most ingest food and digest it in an internal cavity. Animal cells lack the rigid cell walls that characterize plant cells. The bodies of most animals (all except sponges) are made up of cells organized into tissues, each tissue specialized to some degree to perform specific functions.
The next level (after kingdom) contain the phyla. Phyla have all the characteristics of the kingdom PLUS other criteria. For example one phylum under the Kingdom Animalia, is Chordata. Chordates have all the characteristics of the Kingdom PLUS the following:
Chordates are defined as organisms that possess a structure called a notochord, at least during some part of their development. The notochord is a rod that extends most of the length of the body when it is fully developed. Lying dorsal to the gut but ventral to the central nervous system, it stiffens the body and acts as support during locomotion. Other characteristics shared by chordates include the following (from Hickman and Roberts, 1994): bilateral symmetry segmented body, including segmented muscles three germ layers and a well-developed coelom. single, dorsal, hollow nerve cord, usually with an enlarged anterior end (brain) tail projecting beyond (posterior to) the anus at some stage of development pharyngeal pouches present at some stage of development ventral heart, with dorsal and ventral blood vessels and a closed blood system complete digestive system bony or cartilaginous endoskeleton usually present.
The next level is the class. All classes have the criteria of the kingdom, plus all the criteria of its phylum PLUS the criteria of its class. This is important because it shows there is a direction- one of additive characteristics. That is how containment is kept and summativity is met. (NOTE: evolution does NOT have a direction. Characteristics can be lost as well as gained. And characteristics can remain stable.) An Army can also be put into a nested hierarchy- with the Army example we would be classifying the US Army which is broken up into Field Armies, which contain and consist of Corps, which contain and consist of Divisions, which contain and consist of Brigades, which contain and consist of Battalions, which contain and consist of Companies, which contain and consist of Platoons, which contain and consist of Squads & Sections. Squads and sections contain and consist of soldiers. Each level, down to the soldier, has a well defined role and place in the scheme. The Army consists of and contains, soldiers- it exhibits summativity. Piotr doesn't even know what summativity is. See also the summary of the principles of hierarchy theory:
The Hierarchy theory is a dialect of general systems theory. It has emerged as part of a movement toward a general science of complexity. Rooted in the work of economist, Herbert Simon, chemist, Ilya Prigogine, and psychologist, Jean Piaget, hierarchy theory focuses upon levels of organization and issues of scale. There is significant emphasis upon the observer in the system.

Hierarchies occur in social systems, biological structures, and in the biological taxonomies. Since scholars and laypersons use hierarchy and hierarchical concepts commonly, it would seem reasonable to have a theory of hierarchies. Hierarchy theory uses a relatively small set of principles to keep track of the complex structure and a behavior of systems with multiple levels. A set of definitions and principles follows immediately:

Hierarchy: in mathematical terms, it is a partially ordered set. In less austere terms, a hierarchy is a collection of parts with ordered asymmetric relationships inside a whole. That is to say, upper levels are above lower levels, and the relationship upwards is asymmetric with the relationships downwards. Hierarchical levels: levels are populated by entities whose properties characterize the level in question. A given entity may belong to any number of levels, depending on the criteria used to link levels above and below. For example, an individual human being may be a member of the level i) human, ii) primate, iii) organism or iv) host of a parasite, depending on the relationship of the level in question to those above and below. Level of organization: this type of level fits into its hierarchy by virtue of set of definitions that lock the level in question to those above and below. For example, a biological population level is an aggregate of entities from the organism level of organization, but it is only so by definition. There is no particular scale involved in the population level of organization, in that some organisms are larger than some populations, as in the case of skin parasites. Level of observation: this type of level fits into its hierarchy by virtue of relative scaling considerations. For example, the host of a skin parasite represents the context for the population of parasites; it is a landscape, even though the host may be seen as belonging to a level of organization, organism, that is lower than the collection of parasites, a population. The criterion for observation: when a system is observed, there are two separate considerations. One is the spatiotemporal scale at which the observations are made. The other is the criterion for observation, which defines the system in the foreground away from all the rest in the background. The criterion for observation uses the types of parts and their relationships to each other to characterize the system in the foreground. If criteria for observation are linked together in an asymmetric fashion, then the criteria lead to levels of organization. Otherwise, criteria for observation merely generate isolated classes. The ordering of levels: there are several criteria whereby other levels reside above lower levels. These criteria often run in parallel, but sometimes only one or a few of them apply. Upper levels are above lower levels by virtue of: 1) being the context of, 2) offering constraint to, 3) behaving more slowly at a lower frequency than, 4) being populated by entities with greater integrity and higher bond strength than, and 5), containing and being made of - lower levels. Nested and non-nested hierarchies: nested hierarchies involve levels which consist of, and contain, lower levels. Non-nested hierarchies are more general in that the requirement of containment of lower levels is relaxed. For example, an army consists of a collection of soldiers and is made up of them. Thus an army is a nested hierarchy. On the other hand, the general at the top of a military command does not consist of his soldiers and so the military command is a non-nested hierarchy with regard to the soldiers in the army. Pecking orders and a food chains are also non-nested hierarchies.
To achieve summativity the criteria "consist of and contain" must be met. NOTE- A parent population does NOT consist of nor contain it's daughter populations. That is why any tree of life is not a nested hierarchy.Joe_{March 9, 2015
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Piotr- Your exceptional ignorance is duly noted. Piotr:
Clades are nested within clades
That is the way the (clades) are designed. However with evolution defining characteristics can be lost and that would ruin a clade. Denton goes over that in "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis". And you are ignoring Darwin, Mayr and Wagner. Why do you think your ignorance means something?
Every clade is uniquely defined by a set of synapomorphies (traits inherited by the member taxa from the most recent common ancestor, and preserved with or without further modifications). No taxon can belong to two different clades unless one of them contains the other. That’s what nested hierarchies are all about.
That does NOT support your contention that family trees are nested hierarchies. Read the following and buy a vowel: A SUMMARY OF THE PRINCIPLES OF HIERARCHY THEORY- note:
Nested and non-nested hierarchies: nested hierarchies involve levels which consist of, and contain, lower levels. Non-nested hierarchies are more general in that the requirement of containment of lower levels is relaxed. For example, an army consists of a collection of soldiers and is made up of them. Thus an army is a nested hierarchy. On the other hand, the general at the top of a military command does not consist of his soldiers and so the military command is a non-nested hierarchy with regard to the soldiers in the army. Pecking orders and a food chains are also non-nested hierarchies.
Joe_{March 9, 2015
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#102, #103 Joe, Exceptional ignorance matched only by your phenomenal cheek. I wonder what use you are to UD. Does Barry keep you as le chef de claque who can't contribute much to any topic but who is good at diversionary tricks? Clades are nested within clades. Every clade is uniquely defined by a set of synapomorphies (traits inherited by the member taxa from the most recent common ancestor, and preserved with or without further modifications). No taxon can belong to two different clades unless one of them contains the other. That's what nested hierarchies are all about.Piotr_{March 9, 2015
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Why isn't a family tree a nested hierarchy? For one members of one family tree are also members of other family trees. With a nested hierarchy a member belongs to one and only one family. Next all family members have the same defining characteristics so you wouldn't be able to sort them into different sets and levels using defining characteristics.Joe_{March 9, 2015
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Piotr:
Of course every family tree (like any other tree graph) is a nested hierarchy.
No, Piotr, family trees are not nested hierarchies. Even Zachriel understands that and Zachriel even knows why. You don't have any idea what a nested hierarchy is nor what it entails.Joe_{March 9, 2015
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“Changing the subject is not a persuasive argument” translation:
Well, I'm here debating with you but you cannot take anything I say serious because "my reason" is produced by blind irrational processes, which obviously don't give a hoot about truth or anything. Moreover "I" hold that "I" don't exist, the only things that do exist are particles in motion, which trick "me" into believing that "I" exist'.
Box_{March 8, 2015
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"Changing the subject is not a persuasive argument" translation: "I have no real time empirical evidence that unguided material processes can actually produce brains that are far more complex than the entire internet combined'. Man someone really needs to invent a Darwin-speak translator: The Manslater: (Woman Language Translator) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezVib_giTFobornagain77_{March 8, 2015
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bornagain77: When I ask for real time empirical evidence, I am not asking for a skull ... The question first concerned the existence of non-sapiens Hominins, and then bipedalism in Australopithecus. Changing the subject is not a persuasive argumentZachriel_{March 8, 2015
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Zach "lay that real time empirical evidence" AHHH finally to the point of your confusion. You have no idea what real time empirical evidence actually is! When I ask for real time empirical evidence, I am not asking for a skull that was dug up from the ground and 'reconstructed' to fit into a preconceived Darwinian conclusion. NO! When I ask for real time empirical evidence that unguided material processes can produce brains that are far more complex than the entire internet combined, I am asking you to actually DEMONSTRATE, for all the world to see, that unguided material processes can actually produce brains that are far more complex than the entire internet combined.i.e. I just don't want you to claim that it can be done. I want you to SHOW ME it can be done. I have been waiting. I'm still waiting, and I will be waiting for such a real time demonstration for a long, long, time: "The likelihood of developing two binding sites in a protein complex would be the square of the probability of developing one: a double CCC (chloroquine complexity cluster), 10^20 times 10^20, which is 10^40. There have likely been fewer than 10^40 cells in the entire world in the past 4 billion years, so the odds are against a single event of this variety (just 2 binding sites being generated by accident) in the history of life. It is biologically unreasonable." Michael J. Behe PhD. (from page 146 of his book "Edge of Evolution") When Theory and Experiment Collide — April 16th, 2011 by Douglas Axe Excerpt: Based on our experimental observations and on calculations we made using a published population model [3], we estimated that Darwin’s mechanism would need a truly staggering amount of time—a trillion trillion years or more—to accomplish the seemingly subtle change in enzyme function that we studied. http://www.biologicinstitute.org/post/18022460402/when-theory-and-experiment-collide "Shared Evolutionary History or Shared Design?" - Ann Gauger - January 1, 2015 Excerpt: The waiting time required to achieve four mutations is 10^15 years. That's longer than the age of the universe. The real waiting time is likely to be much greater, since the two most likely candidate enzymes failed to be coopted by double mutations. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/01/happy_new_year092291.html THE ROLLING STONES - Time is on my side (1964) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHzcHK3uV-Ybornagain77_{March 8, 2015
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bornagain77: lay that real time empirical evidence We already did. See Kimbel & Rak, The cranial base of Australopithecus afarensis: new insights from the female skull, Philosophical Transactions B 2010. Your previous cut-and-paste on Kimbel & Rak is just handwaving with no independent data or analysis. From A.L. 822-1 they estimated the position of the foramen within a couple of millimeters.Zachriel_{March 8, 2015
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Zach,,, "Good." Okie dokie, lay that real time empirical evidence out for me baby??? I'm waiting, and have been waiting a very long time: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Cfv3-gD2P4k/TSrFGa0n8OI/AAAAAAAAClc/BwUS82UdRtU/s1600/waiting.gifbornagain77_{March 8, 2015
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Yet another afareneis skull fossil of potential value in this discussion, A.L. 822-1, was found more recently. Kimbel and Rak, the authors of the book about A.L. 444-2, published a review of A.L. 822-1’s reconstruction in 2010. That specimen was rebuilt from over 200 fragments. It contains only one small portion of the foramen’s margin on a fragment from the right side and another tiny piece (14 mm long) from somewhere near the foramen’s margin but without a direct connection. They did include a photo of the cranial base (see photo) in their paper. Calculating the foramen’s position using the same jaw-ignoring alternate method they used with A.L. 444-2, they obtained similar results. Overall the authors thought A.L. 822-1 was more similar to apes than other skulls, and they speculated this more “primitive morphology” was a result of the fact it was probably female.19 Marked skeletal differences between males and females is typical of gorillas. Thus it may well be that the paleontologists’ bias, reflected in their judgment of where to place the foramen magnum in their reconstruction, has actually introduced inconsistencies with the remainder of the their reconstruction. The angle of the opening remains clearly in the “ape” category. The possibility of error in their bipedally-favorable anterior position for the foramen magnum must be considered. We would submit that the “anterior migration” of the afarensis foramen magnum occurred not deep in the evolutionary history of humanity but quite possibly sometime after 1992 in the laboratory.bornagain77_{March 8, 2015
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bornagain77: I think we are finally getting somewhere Good. Then perhaps you will stop quoting scientists out of context, so that when we check the actual research it says something entirely different from what the quote-mine suggests.Zachriel_{March 8, 2015
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as to: "bunch of quote-mines from scientists mixed with creationist rhetoric." by golly I think we are finally getting somewhere Zach. I hate rhetoric too!!!! Now can you please show me some REAL SCIENCE instead of atheistic rhetoric? You know, something like a real time demonstration of unguided material processes producing brains that greatly exceed the complexity of the entire internet combined? Too tough? How about a single neuron? Still too tough? OK how about a single molecular machine? Still no go? Well if your god of Darwinism can't even do that, just what can the god of unguided material processes do?,,, except decay your temporal body into dust once the your soul leaves it and it dies? (the god of unguided material processes does that very well!,,, I can even demonstrate it in real time for you) Rabbit decomposition time-lapse (higher resolution) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6sFP_7Vezg "What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer?" picture http://cdn-4.spiritscienceandmetaphysics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/harvardd-2.jpg The Unbearable Wholeness of Beings - Stephen L. Talbott Excerpt: Virtually the same collection of molecules exists in the canine cells during the moments immediately before and after death. But after the fateful transition no one will any longer think of genes as being regulated, nor will anyone refer to normal or proper chromosome functioning. No molecules will be said to guide other molecules to specific targets, and no molecules will be carrying signals, which is just as well because there will be no structures recognizing signals. Code, information, and communication, in their biological sense, will have disappeared from the scientist’s vocabulary. ,,, the question, rather, is why things don’t fall completely apart — as they do, in fact, at the moment of death. What power holds off that moment — precisely for a lifetime, and not a moment longer? Despite the countless processes going on in the cell, and despite the fact that each process might be expected to “go its own way” according to the myriad factors impinging on it from all directions, the actual result is quite different. Rather than becoming progressively disordered in their mutual relations (as indeed happens after death, when the whole dissolves into separate fragments), the processes hold together in a larger unity. http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-unbearable-wholeness-of-beings Oingo Boingo - Weird Science - music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm-upHSP9KUbornagain77_{March 8, 2015
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bornagain77: and yet your ‘confirming evidence’ is, once again, found to be nothing but imagination and fraud "new specimens confirm that in small-brained, bipedal Australopithecus the foramen magnum and occipital condyles were anteriorly sited, as in humans, but without the foramen's forward inclination." See Kimbel & Rak, The cranial base of Australopithecus afarensis: new insights from the female skull, Philosophical Transactions B 2010.Zachriel_{March 8, 2015
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Zach as to:
"The position of the foramen magnum is sufficient evidence on its own of bipedalism, however, hip and knee provide confirming evidence"
and yet your 'confirming evidence' is, once again, found to be nothing but imagination and fraud
Lucy, the Knuckle-walking “abomination”? by Dr. David Menton and Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell on October 24, 2012 Excerpt: The foramen magnum is the big hole at the base of the skull through which the brain is connected to the spinal cord. Bipedality works best when the skull sits on top of the spinal column, so the optimal bipedal position for the foramen magnum is at the front of the skull’s base. Modern apes typically have the opening positioned farther back on the skull and at an angle suitable for walking on all fours. The blogger maintains that Au. afarensis’s foramen magnum is positioned closer to “the human location” than to an ape’s. He admits it is not truly at the bottom like a human’s and is actually angled like an ape’s. He thus concludes, “It’s almost like Au. afarensis is some half ape/half man form. Like she’s some kind of . . . intermediate, transitional stage.” Comparative anatomy involves comparison of the anatomy of various animals and humans. It requires observations, measurements, and so forth to collect data. In the case of afarensis skulls, of course, it also involves a fair amount of creativity, as even the most “complete” afarensis skull, A.L. 444-2, was reconstructed from over 50 severely deformed fragments of the crushed, skewed specimen. (Lucy happens not to have a foramen magnum at all, as he says, that part of her skull being completely missing. A.L. 444-2, thought to be male, was found in 1992.) A.L. 444-2 is exhaustively described in the book The Skull of Australopithecus afarensis.12 William Kimbel, Yoel Rak, and Donald Johanson spend about 250 pages describing the details of their reconstruction. Though they claim that the foramen magnum has migrated—in the evolutionary sense—to a more anterior position, the actual specimen is extremely fragmentary and incomplete. A.L 444-2’s foramen magnum consists of only small portions of the occipital bones, which border the foramen magnum posteriorly. However, the opisthion (which is the most posterior point of the foramen magnum), the entire front portion of the foramen, and the remaining cranial base in which the foramen magnum is situated are all missing. The authors reconstructed the central cranial base by extrapolating from the reassembled fragments far distant from it.13 The drawings of the A.L. 444-2 (shown here) indicate that the cranial base of the reconstruction, including most of the foramen magnum and the landmarks to which it is compared, are simulated using wax because they are missing. The authors explain that the difference between the foramen magnum’s position in apes and A.L. 444-2 (which they consider to be a hominin) is “due to the posterior position of the apes’ foramen magnum (i.e., opisthion).”15 Yet in AL 444-2 the position of the missing opisthion can only be guessed, and the placement of the foramen margins that do exist are vulnerable to bias.16 Furthermore, the authors note that the usual way of indexing to describe the foramen magnum’s position is affected by how much the jaw juts forward. Therefore, they used an alternate approach ignoring the ape-like jut of the jaw for reporting their numbers.17 And they further note that the anteriorly “migrated” foramen magnum “crowds” other structures on the base of the skull in the reconstruction.18 Yet another afareneis skull fossil of potential value in this discussion, A.L. 822-1, was found more recently. Kimbel and Rak, the authors of the book about A.L. 444-2, published a review of A.L. 822-1’s reconstruction in 2010. That specimen was rebuilt from over 200 fragments. It contains only one small portion of the foramen’s margin on a fragment from the right side and another tiny piece (14 mm long) from somewhere near the foramen’s margin but without a direct connection. They did include a photo of the cranial base (see photo) in their paper. Calculating the foramen’s position using the same jaw-ignoring alternate method they used with A.L. 444-2, they obtained similar results. Overall the authors thought A.L. 822-1 was more similar to apes than other skulls, and they speculated this more “primitive morphology” was a result of the fact it was probably female.19 Marked skeletal differences between males and females is typical of gorillas. Thus it may well be that the paleontologists’ bias, reflected in their judgment of where to place the foramen magnum in their reconstruction, has actually introduced inconsistencies with the remainder of the their reconstruction. The angle of the opening remains clearly in the “ape” category. The possibility of error in their bipedally-favorable anterior position for the foramen magnum must be considered. We would submit that the “anterior migration” of the afarensis foramen magnum occurred not deep in the evolutionary history of humanity but quite possibly sometime after 1992 in the laboratory. https://answersingenesis.org/human-evolution/lucy/lucy-the-knuckle-walking-abomination/
as to the hip:
There has been a good deal of creative analysis by many in an effort to accurately reconstruct the afarensis pelvis. Evolutionists—Stern and Susman in 198335 as well as Russell Tuttle36—have noted that Lucy’s iliac bones were oriented as a chimpanzee’s. We discuss Owen Lovejoy’s and Christine Berge’s reconstructions of the afarensis pelvis in our article “A Look at Lucy’s Legacy.”37 Technology required to arrive at various conclusions has ranged from Dremel tools to sophisticated imaging techniques. Ultimately, Berge distinguishes a sort of “australopithecine bipedalism” distinct from the truly efficient bipedal gait of humans. Berge’s reconstruction also demands Lucy’s gluteal muscles be arranged like an ape’s. This arrangement, while enabling an australopithecine to move its legs in unique ways, would still be too unstable for sustained bipedal locomotion. The orientation of the iliac blades on the pelvis is a key skeletal requirement for bipedality. Notice this in the photograph of our holographic representation of Lucy and compare to those of a chimpanzee, a gorilla, and a human. The orientation of the iliac wings on the human pelvis allows the human to use gluteal muscles to counterbalance the lifting of the opposite leg during bipedal walking. This stabilizes our hips and keeps us from falling over sideways with each step. The differing orientation of ape iliac bones prevents this use of the gluteal muscles and forces apes to shift and sway from side to side when they occasionally walk upright, rendering an efficient bipedal gait skeletally impossible. https://answersingenesis.org/human-evolution/lucy/lucy-the-knuckle-walking-abomination/
as to the knee:
A Look at Lucy’s Legacy by Dr. David Menton and Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell on June 6, 2012 Excerpt: Lucy was discovered in the Hadar area of Ethiopia’s Afar Depression, the northernmost part of the Great Rift Valley, in 1974. A year earlier, at a site 1 ½ miles (2 ½ kilometers) away and 230 feet (70 meters) deeper in the geologic strata, Donald Johanson had found pieces of a tibia (shinbone) and femur (thighbone) and judged them to meet at an angle consistent with the knee of a bipedal creature. Although Lucy’s 47 discovered bones do not include a knee joint, Johanson believes they are from the same species as the 1973 “knee.” And despite criticism from other evolutionary paleontologists asserting “that it was nothing more than a monkey knee,” as Johanson writes in Lucy’s Legacy, “I never veered from my original assertion that the knee belonged to a biped.”7,,,, The first bit of evidence that convinced Johanson he had found a Hadar hominid back in 1973, the valgus (slightly knock-kneed) angle of the knee, is actually present in some apes, notably the orangutan and the spider monkey. Therefore, the angle of the knee is not diagnostic of bipedality, despite Johanson’s confidence that he had found a new hominid. https://answersingenesis.org/human-evolution/lucy/a-look-at-lucys-legacy/
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Box: IOW these specimens were also in need of powersaw reconstruction? The position of the foramen magnum is sufficient evidence on its own of bipedalism, however, hip and knee provide confirming evidence. There are several different known species of Australopithecus. bornagain77: As to habilis We checked out your first link, and it starts out with a bunch of quote-mines from scientists mixed with creationist rhetoric. Here's the first:
In the words of Ian Tattersall, an anthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History, the species is "a wastebasket taxon, little more than a convenient recipient for a motley assortment of hominin fossils."
Does Tattersall calling into question whether these fossil represent non-sapiens hominins? No. Absolutely not. Rather, consistent with most other vertebrate evolution, he contends that there was multiple branchings and extinctions. When the very first quote in the very first link is a quote-mine, it calls into question the entire thrust of your unending string of references.Zachriel_{March 8, 2015
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BA77 do you ever have anything of your own to contribute? I mean you could've at least made a video about Lucy and uploaded it ;)CHartsil_{March 8, 2015
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Lucy - a correct 'reconstruction' - picture https://cdn-assets.answersingenesis.org/img/articles/campaigns/lucy-exhibit.jpg A Look at Lucy’s Legacy by Dr. David Menton and Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell on June 6, 2012 Excerpt: Owen Lovejoy, who worked with Johanson analyzing the Lucy fossils and the casts made from them, believed the first reconstruction of Lucy’s pelvis to be in error and, in a much-publicized video shown on public television,23 demonstrated how casts of the bone fragments could be rearranged to produce a more human-like pelvis suitable for bipedal locomotion. Lovejoy believes his pelvic reconstruction demonstrates the pelvic muscles stabilized Lucy’s pelvis as they do in humans, giving her a gait like a human, “fully bipedal and adapted to life on the forest floor.”24 Other analyses taking advantage of modern technology, such as those by Christine Berge published in 199425 and 201026 in the Journal of Human Evolution, offer a different reconstruction allowing for a unique sort of locomotion. Berge writes, “The results clearly indicate that australopithecine bipedalism differs from that of humans. (1) The extended lower limb of australopithecines would have lacked stabilization during walking; and (2) the lower limb would have shown greater freedom for motion, which can be interpreted as the retention of a partly arboreal behavior.”27 What Berge calls “australopithecine bipedalism” is not at all the bipedalism associated with humans. Her reconstruction of Lucy’s pelvis demands the gluteal muscles be arranged like an ape’s. This arrangement, while enabling an australopithecine to move its legs in unique ways, would still be too unstable for truly bipedal locomotion. Furthermore, Berge maintains the pelvic anatomy was still adapted for arboreal life. Berge believes evolving australopithecines retained ape-like anatomy while acquiring bipedality. Does this support the evolutionists’ original contention? Did a series of missing links make gradually more upright alterations in their gait until they were able to free their hands to use tools and concentrate on evolving bigger brains? Handy anatomy The bipedal question, of course, is not whether proposed hominid ancestors were able to walk upright—any chimp today can do that after a fashion for brief periods—but whether bipedal locomotion was the normal and efficient way of getting around. From the evolutionary point of view, evolving hominids needed to free their hands for other uses. A hominid that spent a good deal of time knuckle-walking would therefore fail as a convincing candidate for human ancestor. Oddly enough, though, some of the most convincing evidence against Lucy’s proposed bipedalism comes not from her lower extremities but from her wrists. Evolutionists Brian Richmond and David Strait compared the skeletal morphology of living knuckle-walking primates to the bones of Australopithecus afarensis. Lucy’s bones show the features used to lock the wrist for secure knuckle-walking seen in modern knuckle-walkers. https://answersingenesis.org/human-evolution/lucy/a-look-at-lucys-legacy/bornagain77_{March 8, 2015
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"Several different specimens have been found confirming the reconstruction and bipedalism." Really??? You really need to stop reading those 'bedtime stories': As to habilis: A Big Bang Theory of Homo - Casey Luskin - August 2012 Excerpt: To the contrary, she explains, habilis "displays much stronger similarities to African ape limb proportions" than even Lucy. She called these results "unexpected in view of previous accounts of Homo habilis as a link between australopithecines and humans." Without habilis as an intermediate, it is difficult to find fossil hominins to serve as direct transitional forms between the australopithecines and Homo. Rather, the fossil record shows dramatic and abrupt changes that correspond to the appearance of Homo. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/08/a_big_bang_theo063141.html Homo Habilis Excerpt: This species was initially considered to be a direct ancestor of modern humans but fossil discoveries in the mid-1980s showed that Homo habilis had rather ape-like limb proportions. This evidence led to a reassessment of Homo habilis and its relationship to modern humans. Many scientists no-longer regard this species as one of our direct ancestors and instead have moved it onto a side branch of our family tree. http://australianmuseum.net.au/Homo-habilis/ The changing face of genus Homo - Wood; Collard Excerpt: the current criteria for identifying species of Homo are difficult, if not impossible, to operate using paleoanthropological evidence. We discuss alternative, verifiable, criteria, and show that when these new criteria are applied to Homo, two species, Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis, fail to meet them. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/68503570/abstract Human evolution? Excerpt: Some scientists have proposed moving this species (habilis) out of Homo and into Australopithecus (ape) due to the morphology of its skeleton being more adapted to living on trees rather than to moving on two legs like H. sapiens. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution#Genus_Homo Who Was Homo habilis—And Was It Really Homo? - Ann Gibbons - June 2011 Abstract: In the past decade, Homo habilis's status as the first member of our genus has been undermined. Newer analytical methods suggested that H. habilis matured and moved less like a human and more like an australopithecine, such as the famous partial skeleton of Lucy. Now, a report in press in the Journal of Human Evolution finds that H. habilis's dietary range was also more like Lucy's than that of H. erectus, which many consider the first fully human species to walk the earth. That suggests the handyman had yet to make the key adaptations associated with our genus, such as the ability to exploit a variety of foods in many environments, the authors say. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6036/1370.summar as to bipedalism in general, Darwinists have been proven false in their proposed mechanism: Energy Efficiency Doesn’t Explain Human Walking? Sept. 17, 2012 Excerpt: Why hominids evolved upright walking is one of the biggest questions in human evolution. One school of thought suggests that bipedalism was the most energetically efficient way for our ancestors to travel as grasslands expanded and forests shrank across Africa some five million to seven million years ago. A new study in the Journal of Human Evolution challenges that claim, concluding that the efficiency of human walking and running is not so different from other mammals. Physiologists Lewis Halsey of the University of Roehampton in England and Craig White of the University of Queensland in Australia compared the efficiency of human locomotion to that of 80 species of mammals, including monkeys, rodents, horses, bears and elephants.,,, To evaluate whether energy efficiency played a role in the evolution of upright walking, Halsey and White note that hominids should be compared to their closest relatives. For example, if human walking is more efficient than chimpanzee walking than you would expect based on chance alone, then it lends support to the energy-efficiency explanation. But that’s not what the researchers found. In fact, the energetic differences between humans and chimpanzees are smaller than the differences between very closely related species that share the same type of locomotion, such as red deer versus reindeer or African dogs versus Arctic foxes. In some cases, even different species within the same genus, such as different types of chipmunks, have greater variation in their walking efficiencies than humans and chimps do. http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/hominids/2012/09/energy-efficiency-doesnt-explain-human-walking/ Another Difficulty with Darwinian Accounts of How Human Bipedalism Developed - David Klinghoffer - February 21, 2013 Excerpt: A Darwinian evolutionary bedtime story tells of how proto-man achieved his upright walking status when the forests of his native East Africa turned to savannas. That was 4 to 6 million years ago, and the theory was that our ancestors stood up in order to be able to look around themselves over the sea of grasslands, which would have been irrelevant in the forests of old. A team of researchers led by USC's Sarah J. Feakins, writing in the journal Geology, detonate that tidy explanation with their finding that the savannas, going back 12 million years, had already been there more than 6 million years when the wonderful transition to bipedalism took place ("Northeast African vegetation change over 12 m.y."). http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/02/another_difficu069411.html So, Zach do you have any real time empirical evidence that human brains, which far exceed the entire internet combined, can come about by unguided Darwinian processes or is imagination and fraud all you got to work with?bornagain77_{March 8, 2015
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Zachriel: Several different specimens have been found confirming the reconstruction and bipedalism.
IOW these specimens were also in need of powersaw reconstruction?Box_{March 8, 2015
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