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Author Topic:   "If I descended from an ape, how come apes are still here?"
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


(1)
Message 168 of 286 (656583)
03-20-2012 10:25 AM
Reply to: Message 166 by Big_Al35
03-20-2012 8:29 AM


Now in glorious 3D!
If you want a closer look at many of these skulls then the Smithsonian has many of them available for viewing as digitised 3d models. For example skull J, the Neanderthal skull from La Ferrassie, can be found at http://humanorigins.si.edu/...lection/la-ferrassie-1-cranium .
It is pretty cool.
TTFN,
WK

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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


(2)
Message 188 of 286 (656833)
03-22-2012 11:26 AM
Reply to: Message 182 by Big_Al35
03-22-2012 10:03 AM


Is this the best 'evidence' you can find?
evidence
You keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it means, certainly not in a scientific context.
What you have provided are at best unsupported anecdotes and in many cases the anecdotes don't even seem to support your claim.
TTFN,
WK
*ABE* Damn ninja'd by Theoderic on the Princess Bride reference. That'll teach me to follow up all the links in case some of them contain actual evidence.
Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


(1)
Message 197 of 286 (656928)
03-23-2012 9:00 AM
Reply to: Message 196 by Big_Al35
03-23-2012 8:50 AM


Re: Getting Back On Topic
My point was that the evidence that RAZD provided was unacceptable.
You haven't given any coherent rationale why this should be so. I understand that you personally refuse to accept it but you haven't really provided any reason why well characterised fossils which have been studied by professional paleontologists and are part of the Smithsonian collection should be discounted as not being 'real' evidence. for a good overview of the sort of criteria that are used to identify new fossil hominin species have a look at "The hominin fossil record: taxa, grades and clades" (Wood and Lonergan, 2008)
Presumably you would accept that some of those skulls fall outside the range of modern human variation. And RAZD's entire point is that there is a gradual cline of morphological features so we would expect a number of the non modern Homo skulls to also fall within that range of variation for some features.
So what do you consider would constitute 'real' evidence? Which skulls do you think should be entirely outside the range of human variation?
TTFN,
WK
Edited by Wounded King, : Added Wood and Lonergan paper.

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Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


(1)
Message 212 of 286 (657003)
03-24-2012 2:47 PM
Reply to: Message 210 by Big_Al35
03-24-2012 2:01 PM


Re: Getting Back On Topic
Apart from some differences with the teeth I don't see the distinction you wish to draw either, perhaps if you actually told us what your reasons were rather than expecting us to guess we could address them more readily.
It is worth noting that both your image and the one in RAZD's line up of skulls are from the Dmanisi site finds, the authors of one paper (Vekua, et al. 2002) describing some of the finds (specifically the skull in RAZD's line up) make these observations in the abstract ...
Vekua, et al. 2002 writes:
Although there are certain anatomical differences among the Dmanisi specimens, the hominids do not clearly represent more than one taxon. We assign the new skull provisionally to Homo erectus (=ergaster). The Dmanisi specimens are the most primitive and small-brained fossils to be grouped with this species or any taxon linked unequivocally with genus Homo and also the ones most similar to the presumed habilis-like stem.
So we might expect to see some more primitive features in the Dmanisi skulls than in other examples of Homo erectus.
TTFN,
WK

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 Message 210 by Big_Al35, posted 03-24-2012 2:01 PM Big_Al35 has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 214 by Big_Al35, posted 03-24-2012 2:54 PM Wounded King has seen this message but not replied

  
Wounded King
Member
Posts: 4149
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Joined: 04-09-2003


(1)
Message 241 of 286 (657123)
03-26-2012 6:27 AM
Reply to: Message 240 by RAZD
03-25-2012 8:51 PM


What are the differences?
As I said before the only clear differences I can see from the pictures are in the teeth, and it wouldn't surprise me if that was principally a matter of wear on the skull prior to fossilisation. It looks like a lot of the bone surrounding the roots of the teeth has been eroded away making them look much bigger.
According to the paper on D2700 the skull has suffered some damage which may account for some of the differences Al is seeing (Vekua et al., 2002) ...
Vekua et al. writes:
The maxillae are slightly damaged anteriorly, the zygomatic arches are broken, and both mastoid processes are heavily abraded. There is damage also to the orbital walls and to the elements of the interorbital region and the nasal cavity. The condyles are missing from the mandible.
The damage to the maxilla is what I was describing as wear. There is actually a side view in the paper which makes the degree of erosion around the teeth much clearer, you can easily appreciate that a large amount of the tooth roots are exposed (That image can be found here).
To emphasise Coyote's point about multivariate analysis here are some of the measurement's the authors use to compare their new find to previously discovered specimens ...
TTFN,
WK
Edited by Wounded King, : No reason given.

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