Human evolution Intelligent Design

Researchers now believe skull found in 1933 belongs to “our closest relative” “species”

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Move over, Neanderthal?

Despite being nearly perfectly preserved—with square eye sockets, thick brow ridges, and large teeth—nobody could work out exactly what it was. The skull is much bigger than that of Homo sapiens and other human species—and its brain size is similar to that of our own species. Historical events left it without a secure place of origin or date, until today.

Now a team of Chinese, Australian, and British researchers has finally solved the puzzle—the skull represents a previously unknown extinct human species. The research, published as three studies in the journal Innovation, suggests this is our closest relative in the human family tree.

Anthony Sinclair, “Is Homo longi an Extinct Human Species?” at Sapiens (August 4, 2021)

Homo longi is believed to have been fifty years old when he died 146,000 years ago.

But read on. There are problems with this interpretation:

The predicted dates for the common ancestors between human lineages do not match the dates of actual discovered fossils or those predicted by the analysis of DNA.

For example, this study proposes that Homo sapiens were in Eurasia at about 400,000 years ago. But the oldest fossil for this species known outside Africa is little more than half this age. At the same time, the split between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals predicted here at more than 1 million years old does not match the prediction of nuclear DNA analysis, which suggests it happened much later. However, it can be backed up by doing DNA analysis with genetic material taken from the cell’s engine, called the mitochondria.

The older estimates presented by this study may result from the use of new techniques, called Bayesian tip dating, which aren’t normally used in evolutionary studies.

Anthony Sinclair, “Is Homo longi an Extinct Human Species?” at Sapiens (August 4, 2021)

Sinclair adds that many of these “species” interbred.

In short, the claims may rest on a flimsy foundation.

See also: Human evolution at your fingertips

9 Replies to “Researchers now believe skull found in 1933 belongs to “our closest relative” “species””

  1. 1
    Seversky says:
    August 7, 2021 at 9:07 pm

    It also underscores the difficulty of trying to map our attempts at tidy species definitions to the messy realities of life, particularly when we have just a few fragments of bone to go on. Still, you just have to do the best you can.

  2. 2
    Lieutenant Commander Data says:
    August 8, 2021 at 12:59 am

    Hey Seversky if evolution would be true that automatically means that among people there is a tree of evolution some people are closer to apes and some people are more advanced . Can you tell us which race is less evolved according evolution?

  3. 3
    bornagain77 says:
    August 8, 2021 at 4:38 am

    There is a funny thing about all these different supposed fossil ancestors to man. Nobody can seem to agree on which are the correct ancestors and which were not.

    As this fairly recent article (May 2021) from American Museum of Natural History stated, “When you look at the narrative for hominin origins, it’s just a big mess–there’s no consensus whatsoever,”,,, and “the researchers found that most stories of human origins are not compatible with the fossils that we have today.”

    Review: Most human origins stories are not compatible with known fossils – May, 6 2021
    – American Museum of Natural History
    Excerpt: “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.”,,,,
    “In The Descent of Man in 1871, Darwin speculated that humans originated in Africa from an ancestor different from any living species. However, he remained cautious given the scarcity of fossils at the time,” Almécija said. “One hundred fifty years later, possible hominins–approaching the time of the human-chimpanzee divergence–have been found in eastern and central Africa, and some claim even in Europe. In addition, more than 50 fossil ape genera are now documented across Africa and Eurasia. However, many of these fossils show mosaic combinations of features that do not match expectations for ancient representatives of the modern ape and human lineages. As a consequence, there is no scientific consensus on the evolutionary role played by these fossil apes.”
    Overall, the researchers found that most stories of human origins are not compatible with the fossils that we have today.
    https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-05/amon-rmh050521.php  

    But I thought, and/or was misled to believe, that the evidence for human evolution was suppose to be a slam dunk for Darwinists?

    But alas, like everything else within Darwin’s theory, when subjected to scrutiny the fossil evidence for supposed human evolution also falls apart.

    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/re.....153202.htm?

    “Contested Bones” reviewed by Dr. Paul Giem – video playlist
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6ZOKj-YaHA&list=PLHDSWJBW3DNU_twNBjopIqyFOwo_bTkXm

    Contested Bones: Is There Any Solid Fossil Evidence for Ape-to-Man Evolution? – Dr. John Sanford and Chris Rupe
    Excerpt: We have spent four years carefully examining the scientific literature on this subject. We have discovered that within this field (paleoanthropology), virtually all the famous hominin types have either been discredited or are still being hotly contested. Within this field, not one of the hominin types have been definitively established as being in the lineage from ape to man. This includes the famous fossils that have been nicknamed Lucy, Ardi, Sediba, Habilis, Naledi, Hobbit, Erectus, and Neaderthal. Well-respected people in the field openly admit that their field is in a state of disarray. It is very clear that the general public has been deceived regarding the credibility and significance of the reputed hominin fossils.
    We will show that the actual fossil evidence is actually most consistent with the following three points. 1) The hominin bones reveal only two basic types; ape bones (Ardi and Lucy), and human bones (Naledi, Hobbit, Erectus, and Neaderthal). 2) The ape bones and the human bones have been repeatedly found together in the same strata – therefore both lived at the same basic timeframe (the humans were apparently hunting and eating the apes). 3) Because the hominin bones were often found in mixed bone beds (with bones of many animal species in the same site), numerous hominin types represent chimeras (mixtures) of ape and human bones (i.e., Sediba, Habilis).
    We will also present evidence that the anomalous hominin bones that are of the human (Homo) type most likely represent isolated human populations that experienced severe inbreeding and subsequent genetic degeneration. This best explains why these Homo bones display aberrant morphologies, reduced body size, and reduced brain volume.
    We conclude that the hominin bones do not reveal a continuous upward progression from ape to man, but rather reveal a clear separation between the human type and the ape type. The best evidence for any type of intermediate “ape-men” derived from bones collected from mixed bone beds (containing bones of both apes and men), which led to the assembly of chimeric skeletons. Therefore, the hominin fossils do not prove human evolution at all.,,,
    We suggest that the field of paleoanthropology has been seriously distorted by a very strong ideological agenda and by very ambitious personalities.
    https://ses.edu/contested-bones-is-there-any-solid-fossil-evidence-for-ape-to-man-evolution/

    Neo-Darwinism and the Big Bang of Man’s Origin – Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig – February 25, 2020
    Excerpt: “There is a popular image of human evolution that you’ll find all over the place, from the backs of cereal packets to the advertisement for expensive scientific equipment. On the left of the picture there’s an ape — …. On the right, a man … Between the two is a succession of figures that become ever more like humans … Our progress from ape to human looks so smooth, so tidy. It’s such a beguiling image that even the experts are loath to let it go. But it is an illusion.”
    – Bernard Wood, Bernard Wood, Professor of Human Origins at George Washington University,
    “Who are we?” New Scientist 176 2366: 44-47. 26 October 2002:,,,
    A Big Bang at Man’s Origin?
    To repeat the key points quoted above (from Darwinists themselves), we may emphasize that
    1. “differences exist on an unusual scale”
    2. “Homo sapiens appears […] distinctive and unprecedented”
    3. “There is certainly no evidence to support the notion that we gradually became what we inherently are over an extended period, in either the physical or the intellectual sense.”
    4. “…we evidently came by our unusual anatomical structure and capacities very recently.”
    5. “…a convincing hypothesis for the origin of Homo remains elusive”
    6. “[W]e should not expect to find a series of intermediate fossil forms with decreasingly divergent big toes and, at the same time, a decreasing number of apelike features and an increasing number of modern human features.”
    7. “No gradual series of changes in earlier australopithecine populations clearly leads to the new species [Homo sapiens], and no australopithecine species is obviously transitional.”
    8. “…early H. sapiens was significantly and dramatically different from earlier and penecontemporary [as well as coexisting] australopithecines in virtually every element of its skeleton and every remnant of its behavior.”
    9. “Our interpretation is that the changes are sudden and interrelated,” “a genetic revolution.”,,,
    “…a rather minor structural innovation at the DNA level” appears to be, for all that can be known at present, a rather unsatisfactory proposal for a comparable origin of some 696 new features (out of 1065) which distinguish man from chimpanzees, 711 from orang, 680 from gorilla, 948 from Gibbon (Hylobathes), presupposing a similar magnitude of different anatomical and other features (“distinctive and unprecedented”) from his supposed animal ancestor, “our closest extinct kin,” not to speak of 15.6% differences on the DNA level between man and his alleged closest cousin, the chimpanzee, which means, in actual numbers, more than 450 million bp differences of the some 3 billion bp constituting the genomes overall.28,,,
    Almost any larger science museum around the globe presents a series of connecting links between extinct apes and humans such as Homo erectus, Homo habilis, Australopithecus afarensis (“Lucy”), Ardipithecus ramidus, Orrorin tugensis and others. For a brief overview on such assumed links see Lönnig (2019).38 I include there a series of references to papers and books that do not simply presuppose evolution and neo-Darwinism as the final truth on the origin of species without any scientific alternative (as is common practice nowadays). Instead, these works critically discuss the relevant details, showing in depth the untenability of the evolutionary scenarios usually given to these would-be links generally put forward as indisputable scientific facts….
    98.5 Percent Human/Chimp DNA Identity?
    Although long disproved, the assertion that human and chimp DNA display approximately 98.5 percent identity is still forwarded in many papers and books. The present state of the art has been clearly articulated by Richard Buggs, Professor of Evolutionary Genomics at Queen Mary University of London. He asks, “What does the data say today in 2018, and how can it be described to the public in an adequate manner?” Key answer: “The total percentage of the human genome that I can know for sure has one-to-one orthology with the chimp genome is 84.4 percent” (“our minimum lower bound”)39, i.e., more than 450 million differences (15 percent of 3 billion bp = 450 million).
    https://evolutionnews.org/2020/02/neo-darwinism-and-the-big-bang-of-mans-origin/
    Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, (retired) Senior Scientist (Biology), Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Emeritus, Cologne, Germany.

    Apes As Ancestors: Examining the Claims of Human Evolution – 2021
    – Jerry Bergman, Peter Line, Jeffrey Tomkins, Daniel Biddle
    Description: They describe the fossils, where they found them, what others have to say about them, and what can be realistically and reliably determined from the fossils. They focus on the evidence – what does it actually tell us? The results may surprise you.
    https://creationsuperstore.com/product/apes-as-ancestors-examining-the-claims-about-human-evolution-book-by-dr-jerry-bergman-peter-line-jeffrey-tomkins-and-daniel-biddle/

    Years ago, Phillip Johnson made this astute observation about all these various, conflicting, and overinflated claims for human evolution from Darwinists when compared to other fossil evidence from the fossil record.

    “What I saw about the fossil record again,, was that Gould and Eldridge were experts in the area where the animal fossil record is most complete. That is marine invertebrates.,, And the reason for this is that when,, a bird, or a human, or an ape, or a wolf, or whatever, dies,, normally it does not get fossilized. It decays in the open, or is eaten by scavengers. Things get fossilized when they get covered over quickly with sediments so that they are protected from this natural destructive process. So if you want to be a fossil, the way to go about it is to live in the shallow seas, where you get covered over by sediments when you die,,. Most of the animal fossils are of that kind and it is in that area where the fossil record is most complete. That there is a consistent pattern.,, I mean there is evolution in the sense of variation, just like the peppered moth example. Things do vary, but they vary within the type. The new types appear suddenly, fully formed, without an evolutionary history and then they stay fundamentally stable with (cyclical) variation after their sudden appearance, and stasis (according) to the empirical observations made by Gould and Eldridge. Well now you see, I was aware of a number of examples of where evolutionary intermediates were cited. This was brought up as soon as people began to make the connection and question the (Darwinian) profession about their theory in light of the controversy. But the examples of claimed evolutionary transitionals, oddly enough, come from the area of the fossil record where fossilization is rarest. Where it is least likely to happen.,,,
    One of things that amused me is that there are so many fossil candidates for human ancestorship, and so very few fossils that are candidates for the great apes.,, There should be just as many. But why not? Any economist can give you the answer to that. Human ancestors have a great American value and so they are produced at a much greater rate.,,
    These also were grounds to be suspicious of what was going on,,,
    ,,,if the problem is the greatest where the fossil record is most complete and if the confirming examples are found where fossils are rarest, that doesn’t sound like it could be the explanation.”
    – Phillip Johnson – April 2012 – audio/video 15:05 minute mark to 19:15 minute mark
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....age#t=903s

  4. 4
    Seversky says:
    August 8, 2021 at 6:13 am

    Lieutenant Commander Data/2

    Hey Seversky if evolution would be true that automatically means that among people there is a tree of evolution some people are closer to apes and some people are more advanced . Can you tell us which race is less evolved according evolution

    “Advanced” by what measure? “Evolved” by what measure?

  5. 5
    Seversky says:
    August 8, 2021 at 6:49 am

    Bornagain77/3

    There is a funny thing about all these different supposed fossil ancestors to man. Nobody can seem to agree on which are the correct ancestors and which were not.

    Why would it be “funny” that there are differences of opinion about the exact path of human ancestry given the very limited and fragmentary nature of the evidence?

    As this fairly recent article (May 2021) from American Museum of Natural History stated, “When you look at the narrative for hominin origins, it’s just a big mess–there’s no consensus whatsoever,”,,, and “the researchers found that most stories of human origins are not compatible with the fossils that we have today.”

    That’s an honest individual assessment of the current situation in anthropology. You’re the one implying that science should have a clear and complete picture by now, not the actual researchers in the field,

    But I thought, and/or was misled to believe, that the evidence for human evolution was suppose to be a slam dunk for Darwinists?

    If I thought you had actually made a good faith attempt to understand the current position in the field of human origins research I might have been concerned but since this is clearly about creating strawmen to beat up, I’m not.

    But alas, like everything else within Darwin’s theory, when subjected to scrutiny the fossil evidence for supposed human evolution also falls apart.

    So, as evidence, you cite a paper about dental morphology which concludes “that none of the hominins usually proposed as a common ancestor, such as Homo heidelbergensis, H. erectus and H. antecessor, is a satisfactory match” to what they predict should be dental morphology they would expect to find in the common ancestor to modern humans and Neanderthals. And that undermines evolution exactly how? All it says is the fragmentary evidence we have is inconclusive. Who has suggested otherwise?

    Years ago, Phillip Johnson made this astute observation about all these various, conflicting, and overinflated claims for human evolution from Darwinists when compared to other fossil evidence from the fossil record.

    This being the same Phillip Johnson, father of the intelligent design movement, who wrote:

    Now, the way that I see the logic of our movement going is like this. The first thing you understand is that the Darwinian theory isn’t true. It’s falsified by all of the evidence, and the logic is terrible. When you realize that, the next question that occurs to you is, “Well, where might you get truth?” When I preach from the Bible, as I often do at churches and on Sundays, I don’t start with Genesis. I start with John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word.” In the beginning was intelligence, purpose, and wisdom. The Bible had that right and the materialist scientists are deluding themselves.

    The next question is: Why do so many brilliant, well-informed, intelligent people fool themselves for so long with such bad thinking and bad evidence? Where are you going to go for the answer to that? Romans 1:20-23, which tells us that God’s eternal power and glory were always evident in the things that were created. Even Richard Dawkins, the arch atheist, arch materialist, high priest of Darwinism in England begins his major book on this subject by saying that biology is the study of extremely complicated things that look as if they were designed by a Creator for a purpose-and the job of science is to show that they weren’t. So it isn’t as if the truth wasn’t made evident to him. He turned away from it. That’s explained in Romans 1, and that brings us into the sin question and, eventually, to a point where we can ask people the great question Jesus posed to His disciples. “Who do men say that I am? And who do you say that I am?” Unless you’ve prepared the way, that’s a meaningless question. “Why should I care” would be the answer you would expect until you get people to the place where that makes some sense.

    Clearly all about the science, then.

  6. 6
    bornagain77 says:
    August 8, 2021 at 7:42 am

    Seversky, as usual, makes flimsy apologies for why the evidence for evolution, human evolution in this case, is not nearly as slam dunk as Darwinists continually mislead people to believe. ,,, and all I am reminded of during his disingenuous ‘apologies for Darwin’ tour is this question from Colin Paterson, “Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing,,,, that is true?”

    Colin Patterson: Can You Tell Me Anything About Evolution That Is True? – May 12, 2019 (with audio links to Patterson’s speech)
    Excerpt: One or the reasons I started taking this anti-evolutionary view, or let’s call it non-evolutionary, was last year I had a sudden realization that for over twenty years I had thought that I was working on evolution in some way. Then one morning I woke up, and something had happened in the night, and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for twenty years, and there was not one thing I knew about it. That’s quite a shock, to learn that one can be so misled for so long.
    So either there was something wrong with me, or there was something wrong with evolutionary theory. Naturally, I know there is nothing wrong with me, so for the last few weeks, I’ve tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people.
    The question is: Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing that is true? I tried that question on the geology staff in the Field Museum of Natural History, and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar at the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time, and then eventually one person said, “Yes, I do know one thing. It ought not to be taught in high school.”
    – Colin Patterson (1933–1998), was a British palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in London from 1962 to his official retirement in 1993
    https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/colin-patterson-can-you-tell-me-anything-about-evolution-that-is-true/
    also see many more quotes along the same line, from leading experts, here
    https://gerdapeacheysviews.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/can-you-tell-me-anything-you-know-about-evolution-any-one-thing-that-is-true-colin-patterson/

  7. 7
    Lieutenant Commander Data says:
    August 8, 2021 at 10:05 am

    Seversky

    Lieutenant Commander Data
    Hey Seversky if evolution would be true that automatically means that among people there is a tree of evolution some people are closer to apes and some people are more advanced . Can you tell us which race is less evolved according evolution

    “Advanced” by what measure? “Evolved” by what measure?

    Seversky if you believe in darwinism you are a racist but you already knew that ,right?
    It’s puzzling that a racist talk despiteful about “white supremacists”. Look in the mirror.

  8. 8
    ET says:
    August 8, 2021 at 3:04 pm

    seversky, it can’t be all about the science because if it were then your side lost as it didn’t ever have any scientific support. Some unknown naturalistic processes did something unknown that we can’t repeat or test, doesn’t have the makings of a scientific concept.

  9. 9
    tjguy says:
    August 8, 2021 at 9:20 pm

    “Sinclair adds that many of these “species” interbred. In short, the claims may rest on a flimsy foundation.”

    No doubt!

    Here is another recent quote in regards to the human ape evolutionary story:
    “When you look at the narrative for hominin [bi-pedal apes including modern humans] 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. (Quote from: Review: Studying Fossil Apes Key to Human Evolution Research. American Museum of Natural History press release. Posted on amnh.org May 6, 2021, accessed June 4, 2021.)

    I think this guy has it right! It’s a story that is imposed on the data as opposed to a story that the data supports.

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