right NOW--NPR----Science Friday--fossil that is RE-shapping evolution thinking.

[rodeodance]

Kenya fossil. right after the news.


there were several articles on this on DU last few days

[supernova]

1. Ha. I just posted this in the Lounge too

I love all the early man stuff. I must be a closet anthropologist. :-)

[rodeodance]

3. its such a politically charged issue. I think it belongs here (also). I love it too

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. It's not really a politically charged issue.

Especially not with this article.

[BlooInBloo]

6. It is when they sensationalize the headlines, and the audience is made up of idiots.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. If the headline's sensationalized, and the audience is idiotic...

Then the politically charged issue would be the media and the idiots.

The actual science remains thankfully outside and removed of all this political moron crap.

[BlooInBloo]

9. Not quite. You then get into issues of....

... research funding, choice of research topics, and the like.

Sure, you can stick to your guns on a very sterile "did the indicator go up, or did it go down? THAT'S not political!" level. But it boots nothing at that level of contentlessness.

It simply is the case that science - the actual human practice - can and does get politicized. IMO, this is possible only because America is largely stupid.

[supernova]

8. I would be surprised to find such idiots at DU

but then again I'm surprised that some DUers indentify as "pro-life."

[BlooInBloo]

10. DU's not much smarter than average.

[rodeodance]

2. Fossils challenge old evoluton theory

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070808/ap_on_sc/human_evolution&printer=1;_ylt=At1a3HBZDSJAwm8zHEh3hjJxieAA
Fossils challenge old evoluton theory

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer 10 minutes ago

Surprising research based on two African fossils suggests our family tree is more like a wayward bush with stubby branches, challenging what had been common thinking on how early humans evolved.

The discovery by Meave Leakey, a member of a famous family of paleontologists, shows that two species of early human ancestors lived at the same time in Kenya. That pokes holes in the chief theory of man's early evolution — that one of those species evolved from the other.

And it further discredits that iconic illustration of human evolution that begins with a knuckle-dragging ape and ends with a briefcase-carrying man.

The old theory is that the first and oldest species in our family tree, Homo habilis, evolved into Homo erectus, which then became human, Homo sapiens. But Leakey's find suggests those two earlier species lived side-by-side about 1.5 million years ago in parts of Kenya for at least half a million years. She and her research colleagues report the discovery in a paper published in Thursday's journal Nature.

[youngdem]

5. This is no revelation for anyone remotely familiar with anthropology

It has been clear for many years that as organisms evolve, several different subspecies will continue to coexist until one is pressured into extinction, by the other subspecies or by any number of wholly unrelated causes.

Humans are of course no different.

It is simple to prove this to be true. When a new subspecies emerges, first as a single organism, then as a mutt of the mutant and the dominant species at the time, it begins to introduce the mutation into a new breeding stock, creating a new subspecies. As this occurs, do the members of the new subspecies cause immediate and inevitable extinction of ALL of the rest of the Neanderthals? Of course not. How would they. They would continue to coexist until external forces or competition kills off one.

This is a 'duh' article.

[The Vinyl Ripper]

11. Homo Sapiens Sapiens

And Homo Neandthalensis