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Author Topic:   New Species of Homo Discovered: Homo naledi
dwise1
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(4)
Message 151 of 163 (769362)
09-20-2015 2:16 AM
Reply to: Message 150 by Coyote
09-20-2015 12:36 AM


I started studying "creation science" circa 1981/1982. In the late 1980's on CompuServe, I was actively discussing and contributing.
Circa 1990, there was that most rare of rarities: an honest creationist. Merle Hertzler was a dedicated creationist, but he was an honest one. Most creationists have been converted, so they are aware of the inherent problems of their position. IOW, most creationists know full well where their weaknesses lie and to keep well away from them.
Instead, Merle would fearlessly research all leads. Which lead to this (http://www.oocities.org/questioningpage/Evolve2.html):
quote:
An evolutionist disagreed with me. He told me that in the past there had been many intermediates. He said that there were animals that, for instance, had jaw and ear bones that were intermediate between reptiles and mammals. How did he know this? He gave a reference to an essay in Stephen Gould's Ten Little Piggies . I wrote back that since the local library had a large collection of children's book, I should be able to find that book. (I thought I was so funny). I borrowed the book, and found an interesting account of how bones in the reptile jaw evolved and changed through millions of years to become the mammals' ear. That sounded like such a clever tale. How could Gould believe it? Perhaps he made it up. But there was one little footnote, a footnote that would change my life. It said simply, "Allin, E. F. 1975. Evolution of the Mammalian Middle Ear. Journal of Morphology 147:403-38." That's it. That's all it said. But it was soon to have a huge impact on me. You see, I had developed this habit of looking things up, and had been making regular trips to the University of Pennsylvania library. I was getting involved in some serious discussions on the Internet, and was finding the scientific journals to be a reliable source of information. Well, I couldn't believe that a real scientific journal would take such a tale seriously, but, before I would declare victory, I needed to check it out.
On my next trip to the university, I found my way to the biomedical library and located the journal archives. I retrieved the specified journal, and started to read. I could not believe my eyes. There were detailed descriptions of many intermediate fossils. The article described in detail how the bones evolved from reptiles to mammals through a long series of mammal-like reptiles. I paged through the volume in my hand. There were hundreds of pages, all loaded with information. I looked at other journals. I found page after page describing transitional fossils. More significantly, there were all of those troublesome dates. If one arranged the fossils according to date, he could see how the bones changed with time. Each fossil species was dated at a specific time range. It all fit together. I didn't know what to think. Could all of these fossil drawings be fakes? Could all of these dates be pulled out of a hat? Did these articles consist of thousands of lies? All seemed to indicate that life evolved over many millions of years. Were all of these thousands of "facts" actually guesses? I looked around me. The room was filled with many bookshelves; each was filled with hundreds of bound journals. Were all of these journals drenched with lies? Several medical students were doing research there. Perhaps some day they would need to operate on my heart or fight some disease. Was I to believe that these medical students were in this room filled with misinformation, and that they were diligentl
Within a year, Merle Hertzler was a dedicated opponent of "creation science." Strictly from the evidence.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 152 by Faith, posted 09-20-2015 6:18 AM dwise1 has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 152 of 163 (769364)
09-20-2015 6:18 AM
Reply to: Message 151 by dwise1
09-20-2015 2:16 AM


there's just something funny about the transitionals idea
MOVED THIS POST TO THE OTHER THREAD AS PER RAZD'S REQUEST. Hid this one.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 151 by dwise1, posted 09-20-2015 2:16 AM dwise1 has replied

Replies to this message:
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Message 153 of 163 (769365)
09-20-2015 7:13 AM
Reply to: Message 147 by Faith
09-19-2015 8:41 PM


Re: ooops
Faith writes:
Thanks.
And thank you!

--Percy
EvC Forum Director

This message is a reply to:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 154 of 163 (769367)
09-20-2015 7:28 AM
Reply to: Message 152 by Faith
09-20-2015 6:18 AM


Let's try to keep the focus on Homo naledi
Let's ALL try to keep the focus on Homo naledi, and perhaps take the discussion of other fossils to the Evolution. We Have The Fossils. We Win. thread.
For instance
... How did we get this neat progression of types of middle ear bones as described by Mr. Hertzler, in what sounds like a similarly smooth gradation from one type to another, each perfectly fitted to its reptilian or reptilian-mammalian or mammalian host? ...
See Message 113 on the Evolution. We Have The Fossils. We Win. thread.
Enjoy

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


(1)
Message 155 of 163 (769368)
09-20-2015 7:55 AM
Reply to: Message 152 by Faith
09-20-2015 6:18 AM


Head Games
The part I put in small type, about the medical students who might operate on him is just irrelevant emotional puff. Knowledge of human anatomy they certainly need, but there's no way reptile-mammal evolution could help them in the slightest to operate on a human being.
The point, Faith, was that IF the information in the journals was all made up arbitrary evolutionist nonsense, then those students were studying arbitrary evolutionist nonsense.
Anyway, I find myself having the same sorts of questions I had about Dr. A's skulls. The supposed evolutionary sequence is just too pat, too "just so" to be realistic. Where are the "errors," or at least the deviations from the too-too perfect path from the reptilian to the mammalian adaptation? Doesn't evolution ever make mistakes? But of course you'll say it does, all the time, and yet this sort of perfect sequence is what you give for evidence. How did we get this neat progression of skulls from small cranial capacity to large human cranial capacity with such plausible morphological gradations from one to another of the skulls?
No Faith, evolution does not make errors -- it is not a person.
The reason we find such a neat pattern is because it is the history of evolution as it occurred, a little change here, a little change there, and over time creating the path from early hominid to modern man.
This path has many side branches, cousins, like the Neanderthals.
But the main point is that IF you have an actual evolutionary lineage, THEN there will be intermediate stages from one point to another in the fossil record. Finding intermediates confirms this.
Homo naledi is the latest find in a field with increasing numbers of intermediates between a common ancestor with Chimpanzees and modern humans. It fits neatly into the sequence shown.
The similarities between (A) and (B,C) point to that common ancestor.
Here is one image of possible lineage from 1998 with skull images:
Fossil Skulls!
quote:
Below are 12 fossil skulls that represent more than 3.5 million years of human evolution. Click on any of them to find out more. This exhibit is enhanced with the Shockwave plug-in, which you can download for free from Macromedia.
American Museum of Natural History
Note that this is interactive on the referenced page so that you can pick a skull and get further information on it.
Another version of such a tree can be seen at
The human story: We’re still here!
quote:
In Fossils: The Key to the Past (2009), British palaeontologist Richard Fortey points out, Not many years ago, there were very few named species of Homo — now there are a whole clutch of them. The original idea of ‘links in a chain’ leading to modern humankind has been replaced by a view recognising a number of branches that did not give rise to any survivors, and a rather special lineage that led to the whole panoply of the human race in all its diversity of colour, language and creed: that is to say, Homo sapiens.

You can check these against the Talk Origins skulls picture that DrA posted:
29 Evidences for Macroevolution: Part 1
You can also note that the new find, Homo naledi fits into these diagrams, as does a previous find by Lee Berger of Australopithicus sediba
quote:
Australopithecus sediba
The fossil skeletons of Au. sediba from Malapa cave are so complete that scientists can see what entire skeletons looked like near the time when Homo evolved. Details of the teeth, the length of the arms and legs, and the narrow upper chest resemble earlier Australopithecus, while other tooth traits and the broad lower chest resemble humans. These links indicate that Au. sediba may reveal information about the origins and ancestor of the genus Homo. Functional changes in the pelvis of Au. sediba point to the evolution of upright walking, while other parts of the skeleton retain features found in other australopithecines. ...
MH1
quote:
MH1 is a juvenile australopithecine, about 12-13 years old. It was the first specimen of Au. sediba found at Malapa Cave. Both cranial and postcranial remains have been recovered from this individual. The mixture of primitive and derived traits may help link the genus Australopithecus with the genus Homo.

Arranged by time the evolutionary trends appear.
Enjoy
Edited by RAZD, : added

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


(1)
Message 156 of 163 (769372)
09-20-2015 9:08 AM
Reply to: Message 131 by RAZD
09-17-2015 12:12 PM


Re: Getting ahead? (pt 3)
So now we come to the reconstructed skull of Homo naledi:
quote:
Homo naledi, a new species of the genus Homo from the Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa
The endocranial volume of all H. naledi specimens is clearly small compared to most known examples of Homo. We combined information from the most complete cranial vault specimens to arrive at an estimate of endocranial volume for both larger (presumably male) and smaller (presumably female) individuals (larger composite depicted in Figure 11). The resulting estimates of approximately 560cc and 465cc, respectively, overlap entirely with the range of endocranial volumes known for australopiths. Within the genus Homo, only the smallest specimens of H. habilis, one single H. erectus specimen, and H. floresiensis overlap with these values.
Figure 11. Virtual reconstruction of the endocranium of the larger composite cranium from DH1 and DH2 overlaid with the ectocranial surfaces.
(A) Lateral view. (B) Superior view. The resulting estimate of endocranial volume is 560cc. Scale bar = 10 cm.
Despite its small vault size, the cranium of H. naledi is structurally similar to those of early Homo. ...
Again there is a lot of detailed information that follows this, discussing the differences and similarities to other skulls.
Enjoy

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 131 by RAZD, posted 09-17-2015 12:12 PM RAZD has replied

Replies to this message:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 157 of 163 (769380)
09-20-2015 1:10 PM
Reply to: Message 152 by Faith
09-20-2015 6:18 AM


Re: there's just something funny about the transitionals idea
The point of my Message 151 was two-fold:
  1. I am in general agreement with Coyote regarding creationist dishonesty. In fact, I'm dealing with a local creationist, Bill Morgan, whom I can only describe as a pathological liar. However, there are some honest creationists, such as Merle Hertzler was and Dr. Kurt Wise was (and might still be). The problem for honest creationists is that, since they will seek the truth and research claims, they don't usually remain creationists for long. Sorry, but that's just the nature of the beast.
  2. What Merle discovered is highly pertinent to this discussion: all that information is out there and is readily accessible by anyone who can enter a library.
And I would recommend to anyone wanting to respond to what Merle wrote that they please follow that link and read the entire page in order to get the full context.

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Omnivorous
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Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


(7)
Message 158 of 163 (769446)
09-20-2015 10:20 PM
Reply to: Message 156 by RAZD
09-20-2015 9:08 AM


Re: Getting ahead? (pt 3)
As you know, RAZD, a major obstacle to understanding evolution is the profound difficulty of apprehending deep (geologic) time. We are such transient creatures, and at our native temporal scale it is difficult to understand the enormity of deep time. Of course, for a young earth creationist, that understanding is blocked completely.
Your posts in this thread put me in mind of a similar block to understanding the nature of science itself: you could call it deep thought, for the enormous number of work/years spent quantifying and analyzing a find of this caliber; the scale must enlarge to encompass the years required just to educate and train the scientists involved, and inflate again to accommodate the millennia of training and work/years by generations of previous scientists. It has been a Herculean labor.
The effort and rigor demanded by such a volume of data amaze me, especially when directed at better understanding our origins for the sake of understanding, a search for self-understanding that in other contexts would be thought spiritual. Yet this dig is just one bead on a long string of projects stretching back centuries.
It is the grandest of adventures, bridging time and space to see just what we are. The time scale is merely human, but the project is gloriously human. Communicating that to an inattentive public is an essential challenge. I remember when there was a popular sense of involvement with this intellectual adventure. I hope we can see that again; spreading the word about the amazing effort, and the accessibility of the knowledge, may help.
Thanks for doing the yeoman's work in hauling all that data here and contributing explications and connections. I find it inspiring, and I'll be studying it for some time--which is what I've done today between other posts.

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.
-Terence

This message is a reply to:
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caffeine
Member (Idle past 1024 days)
Posts: 1800
From: Prague, Czech Republic
Joined: 10-22-2008


(2)
Message 159 of 163 (769570)
09-22-2015 1:14 PM
Reply to: Message 123 by RAZD
09-14-2015 12:39 PM


Re: Yes, that's the hand difference, now let's look at the foot?
It would appear that the naledi foot is also very similar to modern human, maybe even more similar than the hand.
'naledi' is remarkably similar to the Czech for 'on ice'. So we have a creature dubbed 'man on ice' with feet very similar to our own. Only one reasonable conclusion:

This message is a reply to:
 Message 123 by RAZD, posted 09-14-2015 12:39 PM RAZD has replied

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


(1)
Message 160 of 163 (769579)
09-22-2015 2:05 PM
Reply to: Message 159 by caffeine
09-22-2015 1:14 PM


Re: Yes, that's the hand difference, now let's look at the foot?
'naledi' is remarkably similar to the Czech for 'on ice'. So we have a creature dubbed 'man on ice' with feet very similar to our own. Only one reasonable conclusion:
My Canadian side likes that ... although that may be evidence of a more primitive human behavioral system, rather than a derived one ... maybe the small brain fits in there too ...
In my own reading I first read it as "nailed it" ... ie got it right the first time.
Enjoy
Edited by RAZD, : .

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 161 of 163 (769585)
09-22-2015 3:52 PM
Reply to: Message 126 by RAZD
09-14-2015 6:51 PM


Re: Another source of information from NCSE
Here are the other two parts:
Homo nalediAnother Awesome Twig on the Human Family Tree, Part 2
With this sketch of the cave chamber:
and
Homo nalediAnother Awesome Twig on the Human Family Tree, Part 3
With this picture of the assembled skull:
Homo naledi assembled skull (Berger et al. 2015
http://elifesciences.org/lookup/doi/10.7554/eLife.09560.019.
Licensed under CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)
and this comment:
quote:
... if you can’t pinpoint the age of a fossil find it’s a big problem. Age gives context and you can’t draw firm evolutionary conclusions without context. Geologists infer that Rising Star cave where H. naledi was found is less than 3 million years old, so there seems to be a firm oldest possible date, but that doesn’t help a whole lot. Does H. naledi represent a root of the Homo genus? Or is it something younger, representing an as-of-yet unknown twig of the hominin tree? We don’t know. Paleoanthropologist William Jungers said it well: Without a date, these fossils are more curiosities than game-changersWhere they fit in the family tree will be influenced by their age[right now] they are a twig, looking for a trunk.
As mentioned before, it is the spacial\temporal matrix that is important to determining the evolutionary trends of fossils.
AND there is a link to some interview videos with Berger made during the dig. Lots of information there.
Enjoy

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


(1)
Message 162 of 163 (769586)
09-22-2015 4:03 PM
Reply to: Message 156 by RAZD
09-20-2015 9:08 AM


Re: Getting ahead? (pt 3)
So we now have the modeled skull:
quote:

And the assembled head of Dinaledi Hominin 1 (DH1) from the NSCS part 3 article:
Homo naledi assembled skull (Berger et al. 2015
http://elifesciences.org/lookup/doi/10.7554/eLife.09560.019.
Licensed under CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons)
and I would expect a more complete model of the complete skull using scaled elements from DH2 and DH3 could be produced, but I have not yet found a picture of this. I have seen glimpses of a model skull using DH1 but can't tell from it what else is included. Has anyone else seen this?[abe] I found these from Huffington Post:
Looking at wikipedia there is also this picture showing something like a reconstruction of H. naledi:
I don't think these are to scale (no info on that) ...
All we need is a frontal and we can add it to the picture that Dr A has posted.
Enjoy
Edited by RAZD, : added wiki profiles
Edited by RAZD, : add skull
Edited by Admin, : Reduce image width.
Edited by Admin, : Rerender for mobile usability.

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This message is a reply to:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 163 of 163 (769927)
09-26-2015 5:40 PM
Reply to: Message 162 by RAZD
09-22-2015 4:03 PM


Getting Dates for the Homo naledi is hard ...
and it's not just because they are socially backwards and a little mixed up ...
quote:
Homo naledi: determining the age of fossils is not an exact science
The skull of Homo naledi is built like those
of early Homo species but its brain was just
more than half the size of the average
ancestor from 2 million years ago.
Age is nothing but a number when it comes to unravelling the relationships of species from our past. We do not know the actual geological age of the Dinaledi fossils, the single largest fossil hominin find in Africa, but the discovery of Homo naledi still provides insight into how our ancestors evolved.
The bottom line is that, for now, we have little idea how old the fossils may be.
But how old is it?
Our lack of a geological age for the fossils caught some other experts by surprise. ...
Indeed, so-called relic species can be among the most important indicators of biological relationships, survivors that carry anatomical features from deep time. The coelacanth is much more than a curiosity: its anatomy provides vital clues that helped scientists understand how early land creatures could evolve from lobe-finned fish ancestors.
How our ancestors evolved
No matter its geological age, Homo naledi may provide vital clues about the way our ancestors stepped along a humanlike evolutionary path. This is where the real mystery comes in.
More at link.
What we see from the fossils is a lot of mix and match with other hominids, a fact which speaks to not just a mosaic of developments, but a braided past of possible hominid interbreeding, similar to the way we know Cro Magnon and Neander interbred, leaving us with hybrid traits?
And the question remains: where do they fit in the natural history of hominids.
Enjoy

we are limited in our ability to understand
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