Bevets: I am firmly convinced that no theory of human evolution can be regarded as satisfactory unless the revelations of Piltdown are taken into account. ~ Arthur Keith

...wow, right to the wheelhouse with this one.

Sir Arthur Keith was an anthropologist and one of the strongest proponents of Piltdown Man, so much so that it's believed he was in on the hoax.

Mugato: Bevets always brings up Piltdown in these threads. You can set your...whatever to it.

And he always uses Sir Arthur Keith's quote...but that's like using a Stephen Meyer or William Dembski quote to "prove" creationism. Oh, wait, he does that, too.

Mugato: Bevets always brings up Piltdown in these threads. You can set your...whatever to it.

Well, he makes a good point - scientific fraud is possible - religious "fraud" isn't.
You can fake truth.
But you can't really effectively "fake" lies, because you can't come up with anything that's any faker than the lies are to begin with.

The fossil in the lower left looks like a profile of Gonzo the Great

Mugato: jso2897: Mugato: Bevets always brings up Piltdown in these threads. You can set your...whatever to it.

Well, he makes a good point - scientific fraud is possible - religious "fraud" isn't.
You can fake truth.
But you can't really effectively "fake" lies, because you can't come up with anything that's any faker than the lies are to begin with.

Well that's the thing though, throughout history there are countless examples of people seeing God or Jesus or angels and even providing evidence that turned out to be bullshiat. In my own town there's an office building with a silhouette of the Virgin Mary on its glass exterior. For years people came and prayed to it. Some rich religious nut bought the building so it couldn't be used. Turns out, it was a painting of Mary done years ago for Christmas and after it was washed off, after some time the silhouette of it appeared because it was oil based paint or something.

But those hoaxes or misrepresentations by themselves don't disprove religion. But by Bevets' logic, they do because Piltdown man disproves evolution.

That was a long walk to make a point, sorry.

I don't get your point. How did any of these "examples" consist any more of "bullshiat" than any other religious claim? Those painted on artifacts were as "real" as any other religious artifacts. It is impossible to "fake" that which is entirely arbitrary and invented to begin with.
Scientology and Pastafarianism are just exactly as "true" and "legitimate" as Roman Catholicism or Islam. By what possible logic could they not be?

So they found a skull, or at least skull parts. From that, the somehow observed that the skull was relatively weak chinned, so they assume it's a new hominid species?

So have these scienticians never seen a person with no chin?

Is this a new species too?

And what's with the neckbeard?

"Prehistoric Zach Galifianiakis" is redundant.

Thwack: So they found a skull, or at least skull parts. From that, the somehow observed that the skull was relatively weak chinned, so they assume it's a new hominid species?

Either that, or you read an article in the popular press that greatly simplified the discovery so that less knowledgeable readers could quickly get the gist.

Your call.

please don't feed the troll

It has thick bones, prominent brow ridges, a short flat face and lacks a typically human chin. "In short, it is anatomically unique among all members of the human evolutionary tree," says Darren Curnoe at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
Link (new window)


Human Remains from the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition of Southwest China Suggest a Complex Evolutionary History for East Asians
(new window)
Later Pleistocene human evolution in East Asia remains poorly understood owing to a scarcity of well described, reliably classified and accurately dated fossils. Southwest China has been identified from genetic research as a hotspot of human diversity, containing ancient mtDNA and Y-DNA lineages, and has yielded a number of human remains thought to derive from Pleistocene deposits. We have prepared, reconstructed, described and dated a new partial skull from a consolidated sediment block collected in 1979 from the site of Longlin Cave (Guangxi Province). We also undertook new excavations at Maludong (Yunnan Province) to clarify the stratigraphy and dating of a large sample of mostly undescribed human remains from the site.
Methodology/Principal Findings

We undertook a detailed comparison of cranial, including a virtual endocast for the Maludong calotte, mandibular and dental remains from these two localities. Both samples probably derive from the same population, exhibiting an unusual mixture of modern human traits, characters probably plesiomorphic for later Homo, and some unusual features. We dated charcoal with AMS radiocarbon dating and speleothem with the Uranium-series technique and the results show both samples to be from the Pleistocene-Holocene transition: ~14.3-11.5 ka.
Conclusions/Significance

Our analysis suggests two plausible explanations for the morphology sampled at Longlin Cave and Maludong. First, it may represent a late-surviving archaic population, perhaps paralleling the situation seen in North Africa as indicated by remains from Dar-es-Soltane and Temara, and maybe also in southern China at Zhirendong. Alternatively, East Asia may have been colonised during multiple waves during the Pleistocene, with the Longlin-Maludong morphology possibly reflecting deep population substructure in Africa prior to modern humans dispersing into Eurasia.

Bevets: Scientists have published an open paper detailing the analysis of the remains of three individuals discovered at the Maludong (or Red Deer Cave), in China's Yunnan province, in 1989 and a partial skeleton found at Longlin, in neighboring Guangxi province, in 1979. They contain a curious mix of modern and archaic body types, including the frontal skull lobes found in modern humans but lacking an appreciable chin...

"The discovery of the red-deer people opens the next chapter in the human evolutionary story - the Asian chapter - and it's a story that's just beginning to be told," says Professor Curnoe.

I am firmly convinced that no theory of human evolution can be regarded as satisfactory unless the revelations of Piltdown are taken into account. ~ Arthur Keith

"You should hammer your iron when it is glowing hot."
- Publius Syrus

Baryogenesis: Bevets: Scientists have published an open paper detailing the analysis of the remains of three individuals discovered at the Maludong (or Red Deer Cave), in China's Yunnan province, in 1989 and a partial skeleton found at Longlin, in neighboring Guangxi province, in 1979. They contain a curious mix of modern and archaic body types, including the frontal skull lobes found in modern humans but lacking an appreciable chin...

"The discovery of the red-deer people opens the next chapter in the human evolutionary story - the Asian chapter - and it's a story that's just beginning to be told," says Professor Curnoe.

I am firmly convinced that no theory of human evolution can be regarded as satisfactory unless the revelations of Piltdown are taken into account. ~ Arthur Keith

"You should hammer your iron when it is glowing hot."
- Publius Syrus

"To be or not to be"
- Shakespeare

"To be is to do"
- Socrates

"To do is to be"
- Jean-Paul Sartre

"Do be do be do"
- Sinatra.

LewDux: It has thick bones, prominent brow ridges, a short flat face and lacks a typically human chin. "In short, it is anatomically unique among all members of the human evolutionary tree," says Darren Curnoe at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.
Link (new window)

Our analysis suggests two plausible explanations for the morphology sampled at Longlin Cave and Maludong. First, it may represent a late-surviving archaic population, perhaps paralleling the situation seen in North Africa as indicated by remains from Dar-es-Soltane and Temara, and maybe also in southern China at Zhirendong. Alternatively, East Asia may have been colonised during multiple waves during the Pleistocene, with the Longlin-Maludong morphology possibly reflecting deep population substructure in Africa prior to modern humans dispersing into Eurasia

For me, this has to be one of the most curious times in the evolution of H. sapiens. Back when a number of hominid species were in competition, with little in common than is seen with different species of primates today (the most well known and most recent of these situations being the cohabitation of Europe by the Neanderthals and modern humans). I am curious how the presence of multiple hominid species, all of which appear to trend towards larger brains, led to the race to develop greater social skills and intelligence, beyond competition versus predators. By all accounts, Neanderthals were bigger and stronger and could have kicked your ass outright/. I'm curious how and why hominid competition led down the path of intelligence and socialization rather than brute force.

/too much coffee

cleaned up:

LewDux: Baryogenesis: Bevets: Scientists have published an open paper detailing the analysis of the remains of three individuals discovered at the Maludong (or Red Deer Cave), in China's Yunnan province, in 1989 and a partial skeleton found at Longlin, in neighboring Guangxi province, in 1979. They contain a curious mix of modern and archaic body types, including the frontal skull lobes found in modern humans but lacking an appreciable chin...

"The discovery of the red-deer people opens the next chapter in the human evolutionary story - the Asian chapter - and it's a story that's just beginning to be told," says Professor Curnoe.

I am firmly convinced that no theory of human evolution can be regarded as satisfactory unless the revelations of Piltdown are taken into account. ~ Arthur Keith

"You should hammer your iron when it is glowing hot."
- Publius Syrus

"To be or not to be"
- Shakespeare

"To be is to do"
- Socrates

"To do is to be"
- Jean-Paul Sartre

"Do be do be do"
- Sinatra.

"I fooled you, I fooled you, I got pig iron, I got pig iron, I got all pig iron."
- Lonnie Donegan, "Rock Island Line"

internut scholar: [i2.asntown.net image 443x500]

cleaned up:
[www.nypost.com image 299x300]

Without the beard:


/hotlink

born_yesterday: For me, this has to be one of the most curious times in the evolution of H. sapiens. Back when a number of hominid species were in competition, with little in common than is seen with different species of primates today (the most well known and most recent of these situations being the cohabitation of Europe by the Neanderthals and modern humans). I am curious how the presence of multiple hominid species, all of which appear to trend towards larger brains, led to the race to develop greater social skills and intelligence, beyond competition versus predators. By all accounts, Neanderthals were bigger and stronger and could have kicked your ass outright/. I'm curious how and why hominid competition led down the path of intelligence and socialization rather than brute force.

/too much coffee

I don't know a lot about the field but to me it seems obvious. Bigger and stronger is not what H. sapiens are good at. Show me any hominid that was bigger and stronger and I'll show you a top predator that was much stronger, much more deadly. It seems to me that the only thing the early hominids had going for them was social cooperation. Selective pressure is going to push them towards what they are good at. Communication, tool making, specialization, etc all seem to me to be the things that allow H. sapiens to survive and flourish in ever diverse environments. And the diverse environments and unique human attributes would produce a positive feedback that would push us to evolve not only the attributes but also the technologies that led the species to dominate almost the entire earth (oceans included).

/why does anyone respond to Bevets? It's like trying to teach calculus to the retarded kid down the street. Pointless exercise.

Baryogenesis: LewDux: Baryogenesis: Bevets: Scientists have published an open paper detailing the analysis of the remains of three individuals discovered at the Maludong (or Red Deer Cave), in China's Yunnan province, in 1989 and a partial skeleton found at Longlin, in neighboring Guangxi province, in 1979. They contain a curious mix of modern and archaic body types, including the frontal skull lobes found in modern humans but lacking an appreciable chin...

"The discovery of the red-deer people opens the next chapter in the human evolutionary story - the Asian chapter - and it's a story that's just beginning to be told," says Professor Curnoe.

I am firmly convinced that no theory of human evolution can be regarded as satisfactory unless the revelations of Piltdown are taken into account. ~ Arthur Keith

"You should hammer your iron when it is glowing hot."
- Publius Syrus

"To be or not to be"
- Shakespeare

"To be is to do"
- Socrates

"To do is to be"
- Jean-Paul Sartre

"Do be do be do"
- Sinatra.

"I fooled you, I fooled you, I got pig iron, I got pig iron, I got all pig iron."
- Lonnie Donegan, "Rock Island Line"

Lonnie Donegan? Try Leadbelly.

rwfan: born_yesterday: For me, this has to be one of the most curious times in the evolution of H. sapiens. Back when a number of hominid species were in competition, with little in common than is seen with different species of primates today (the most well known and most recent of these situations being the cohabitation of Europe by the Neanderthals and modern humans). I am curious how the presence of multiple hominid species, all of which appear to trend towards larger brains, led to the race to develop greater social skills and intelligence, beyond competition versus predators. By all accounts, Neanderthals were bigger and stronger and could have kicked your ass outright/. I'm curious how and why hominid competition led down the path of intelligence and socialization rather than brute force.

/too much coffee

I don't know a lot about the field but to me it seems obvious. Bigger and stronger is not what H. sapiens are good at. Show me any hominid that was bigger and stronger and I'll show you a top predator that was much stronger, much more deadly. It seems to me that the only thing the early hominids had going for them was social cooperation. Selective pressure is going to push them towards what they are good at. Communication, tool making, specialization, etc all seem to me to be the things that allow H. sapiens to survive and flourish in ever diverse environments. And the diverse environments and unique human attributes would produce a positive feedback that would push us to evolve not only the attributes but also the technologies that led the species to dominate almost the entire earth (oceans included).

/why does anyone respond to Bevets? It's like trying to teach calculus to the retarded kid down the street. Pointless exercise.

Our desire to fark anything that moves gave us an advantage as well.

buck1138: Our desire to fark anything that moves gave us an advantage as well.

speak for yourself!

Piltdown man is old news. I never see anyone doing serious debunking on the early hominid fossils "Australopithecus spiff-arino" at the Smithsonian. How far science has fallen if it continues to ignore this great body of work. Just ask Harvey Rowe, the director of antiquities.

rwfan: born_yesterday: For me, this has to be one of the most curious times in the evolution of H. sapiens.

I don't know a lot about the field but to me it seems obvious. Bigger and stronger is not what H. sapiens are good at. Show me any hominid that was bigger and stronger and I'll show you a top predator that was much stronger, much more deadly. It seems to me that the only thing the early hominids had going for them was social cooperation. Selective pressure is going to push them towards what they are good at. Communication, tool making, specialization, etc all seem to me to be the things that allow H. sapiens to survive and flourish in ever diverse environments. And the diverse environments and unique human attributes would produce a positive feedback that would push us to evolve not only the attributes but also the technologies that led the species to dominate almost the entire earth (oceans included).

/why does anyone respond to Bevets? It's like trying to teach calculus to the retarded kid down the street. Pointless exercise.

Oh, I'm not arguing against your point at all. Clearly, the things you list were critical in our evolution. I guess I just find it interesting that after millions of years of dinosaurs, where investment in biomass was as advantageous, if not more so, than a larger brain (question for an expert: were Cretaceous dinosaurs smarter than Triassic/Jurassic dinos?). We took a very different evolutionary direction, and now we have computers and math and awareness of the universe and stuff. In addition, the idea that our ability to thermoregulate made us more adaptable for the Tertiary while effectively prohibiting biomass above a certain size is also pretty neat. Damn you thyroid!!!

I'm obviously not an expert, either, I just think this stuff is cool.

Note to self: nice sentence structure, asshole.

WHARGARBL!!!!! ITS TEH BEVETS!!!!

Probably the greatest bot-troll evar. You are all farking morons.

Also, that's not a prehistoric Goofigugninkus; that article made me laugh.

Mugato: jso2897: I don't get your point. How did any of these "examples" consist any more of "bullshiat" than any other religious claim? Those painted on artifacts were as "real" as any other religious artifacts. It is impossible to "fake" that which is entirely arbitrary and invented to begin with.
Scientology and Pastafarianism are just exactly as "true" and "legitimate" as Roman Catholicism or Islam. By what possible logic could they not be?

I'm saying that there just as many if not more examples of bogus claims against religion as there are against science/evolution. For one hoax relating to evolution to be used as proof that evolution is false is disingenuous.

I'm not sure what you mean, now. All I was saying is that while it is possible to create a scientific hoax - to do fake science - there is no way to commit a religious hoax, since there is no such thing as "fake" religion - at least not as it could be distinguished from "real" religion, The terms fake and real don't really apply to religion.

And why couldn't it be some deformed human? Hmmm? Science can't "prove" anything really. It's all theory.

jso2897: Mugato: jso2897: I don't get your point. How did any of these "examples" consist any more of "bullshiat" than any other religious claim? Those painted on artifacts were as "real" as any other religious artifacts. It is impossible to "fake" that which is entirely arbitrary and invented to begin with.
Scientology and Pastafarianism are just exactly as "true" and "legitimate" as Roman Catholicism or Islam. By what possible logic could they not be?

I'm saying that there just as many if not more examples of bogus claims against religion as there are against science/evolution. For one hoax relating to evolution to be used as proof that evolution is false is disingenuous.

I'm not sure what you mean, now. All I was saying is that while it is possible to create a scientific hoax - to do fake science - there is no way to commit a religious hoax, since there is no such thing as "fake" religion - at least not as it could be distinguished from "real" religion, The terms fake and real don't really apply to religion.

Scientology.