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Friday, April 9, 2010

On the New Hominid Species Discovered in South Africa

Posted by on Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 8:20 AM

Science News:

Nearly 2 million years ago, an adult and a child walking through the South African landscape somehow fell through openings in a partly eroded, underground cave and died. Today, that fatal plunge has led to their identification as representatives of a new hominid species — and a contentious debate among paleoanthropologists over the pair’s evolutionary relationship to modern humans.
The one thing that separates us from other centuries and societies is we live with deep space (both outward and inward) and deep time (both past and future) all around our tiny island of the now. Great amounts of time are becoming less and less strange. The otherness of deep time is fast dissolving. The six million years it took us to evolve from a common ancestor with banobos and chimps is now just a blimp, a blink of time in our mind's ever-growing understanding of the history of the sun, the slow formation of its planets, and the emergence of life on one of those planets. Indeed, the time it took for the organic to emerge from the inorganic, a window of 300 million years, is considered to be short.


It's no longer that difficult for us to accommodate the fact that a hominid 2 million years ago lived for just 12 years—barely a flicker of life; barely a boy who saw a few moons, a few bright stars, a few clouds, and nothing more. He fell into a cave and died with his mother.

 

Comments (11) RSS

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Posted by Joe Szilagyi http://www.joeszilagyi.com on April 9, 2010 at 8:33 AM
Vince 2
It amazes me how we find fossils like this. Hominids must have been relatively few, yet an unexpected accident traverses eons and finds us. And another piece of our human puzzle falls into place.
Posted by Vince on April 9, 2010 at 8:38 AM
Loveschild 3
“There’s no compelling evidence that this newly proposed species was ancestral to Homo,” remarks Bernard Wood of George Washington University in Washington, D.C."

“I don’t see anything here that tells us much about human evolution,” comments Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University in Ohio."

“These fossils won’t clear up the question of where Homo came from,” Rightmire says"


Proof.
Posted by Loveschild http://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/articles/responding_to_haiti_earthquake/ on April 9, 2010 at 9:03 AM
Joe Szilagyi 4
@3 Any proof that Jesus cowboy drove the humans out of the Garden while riding a velociraptor? ;)
Posted by Joe Szilagyi http://www.joeszilagyi.com on April 9, 2010 at 9:08 AM
laterite 5
The coolest part of this story is how Dr. Berger used Google Earth to scope out potential cave locations around Cradle of Humankind before embarking on his dig. Using technology to bridge a 2-million year gap? Awesome. NYT article here.
Posted by laterite on April 9, 2010 at 9:33 AM
laterite 6
Also, eloquent post, Charles.
Posted by laterite on April 9, 2010 at 9:48 AM
treacle 7
I'll mention quixotically that the two hominids found are evidence of our past, yet their DNA were taken out of the running to become future humans because they did not correctly identify danger and therefore died.
Us, yet not us. :D
Posted by treacle on April 9, 2010 at 10:53 AM
treacle 8
“There’s compelling evidence that Loveschild was ancestral to Homos,” remarks Bernard Shaw of George Wood University in Washington, D.C."

“I don’t see anything here that tells us much about Loveschild's evolution,” comments Owen Killjoy of Krill State University in Ohio."

“This Loveschild won’t clear up the question of where Homos came from,” Leftmire says"


Proof.
Posted by treacle on April 9, 2010 at 10:56 AM
douglas 9
#3 if you are using these quotes as a method of refuting evolutionary theories about human origins then the only thing there is proof of around here is your obvious lack of understanding about evolution.
Posted by douglas on April 9, 2010 at 11:18 AM
Posted by pasteyboy http://pjorno.com on April 9, 2010 at 12:19 PM
merry 11
"blimp"?
Posted by merry on April 9, 2010 at 1:23 PM

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