Skip to comments.Did apes descend from us? (first evos say we descended from apes, now say other way around...LOL!!!)
Posted on 10/02/2009 11:00:06 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Did apes descend from us?
Skeleton of Ardi, 1.2-metre, 50-kilogram female may hold the clue
Joseph Hall Science writer
It may well be the closest we will ever come to the missing link between chimps and humans and the most important anthropological find ever.
In a series of studies released today by the journal Science, researchers have revealed a creature that took the first upright steps toward human beings and fundamentally changes the way we look at our earliest evolutionary ancestors.
The research brings into question the belief that our most distant ancestors descended from apes.
What's closer to the truth is that our knuckle dragging cousins descended from us.
That's one of the shocking new theories being drawn from a series of field-altering anthropology papers published today in a special edition of the journal Science.
Meet Ardi, a 1.2 metre, 50-kilogram female that is going to cause a big fuss throughout the anthropology world.
In 11 papers and summaries unveiled by the journal, researchers have revealed the partial skeleton of a creature that undoubtedly walked upright like our "hominid" predecessors, yet had many of the distinctive hallmarks of climbing apes.
"It is probably the most important find we have had yet," says Owen Lovejoy, a biological anthropologist at Ohio's Kent State University.
"It's transformative. This is a lot closer to anything that you'd call the missing link than anything that's ever been found," says Lovejoy, one of the primary authors on the journal package.
Among other things, research on the 4.4 million year old creature suggests that humans are far more primitive in an evolutionary sense than the great apes -- like chimps and gorillas -- of today.
"In a way we're saying that the old idea that we evolved from a chimpanzee is totally incorrect," he says. "It's more proper to say that chimpanzees evolved from us."
(Could that line of thinking evoke howls of outrage is some creationist quarters? "Oh God yes," Lovejoy laughs.)
Lovejoy explains that the "hominid" lines of upright species that evolved, in fits and starts, into humans, have much more in common physiologically with Ardi than do modern chimpanzees.
Chimps, he says, experienced much more profound evolutionary changes in their backs, pelvises, limbs, hands and feet as they adapted themselves to life in the trees than we ground dwellers did.
"Hominids, it turns out to be, are pretty primitive," Lovejoy says
"We're pretty much unchanged, or let's say we're less changed since the last common ancestor with chimpanzees than are chimpanzees."
Lovejoy explains that the actual missing link -- or last common ancestor in scientific parlance -- may have first sprung up some six million years before Ardi - short for Ardipithecus ramidus.
But Ardi, while past the initial link stage, possesses enough ape and hominid traits to show what those true common ancestors would have looked like, he says.
"It's the first find that we have that is really informative about what that last common ancestor was like."
And we're much more like the Ardi creature than any of today's apes, meaning they've evolved from human-like creatures - not the other way around, he says.
i believe tih postulated that here a long time ago.
Is that supposed to be an improvement?? lol
I am convinced we know nothing or next to nothing about anything =o)
Relying on deliberate misstatements and misinterpretations is never going to get the ‘thumpers far. . . unless, of course, the goal is to prove idiocy.
bookmark to read later
And then their equally convinced about that!! It’s insane.
“most important ever”
They just don’t care. As long as it’s not the Bible way, then they might have to question their own behavior, and have a population who sees God as the source of their Rights, rather than SCOTUS.
This is just a theory (can I get a government grant?), but I postulate that our early ancestors, faced with a growing body of lazy, inept, whining, morons in their population (liberals), excised them from the rest of the group in order to save the remainder.
Over time, they (liberals) evolved into the hairy, orifice-scratching, sub-humans that we know as apes and monkeys.
Maybe that’s why they’re into Gaia worship - think of it as a generational retirement plan.
I’m with you. We don’t know where we are, when we are, what we are, or why we are. Other than that, we’ve got it all nailed.
Could have been the offspring of Tarzan and Jane...
Using evidence that says we ascended from a 5 million year old species separate from apes as evidence that we are living on a 6,000 year old planet is a definite non-sequitur and an invitation for ridicule.
As I understand it, the consensus idea of evolution has for at least a century been that humans and apes are descended from a common ancestor. I don’t see how this discovery changes that in the least.
These images, provided by the journal Science, show reconstructed frontal views of "Ardi," a hominid who lived in what is now Ethiopia 4.4 million years ago.
How does that 4.4 million year figure work with the young Earth theory?
It either blows up the YEC theory or blows up the article in YEC eyes.
You can't have it both ways.
Well the question I always ask evo’s is if we evolved from apes, why did we evolve with the immediate need to clothe ourselves. Seriously, if we aren’t bundled up immediately we would die. Makes no sense. The best answer I got was basically, hairless was more sexy, and that’s why we are here. So this argument makes sense inthat respect. Still blatantly false.
You posted an actual evolutionist link to debate. Good, I have no negative comments for that. Go at it.
This is all speculation of course.
Any "scientist" who can say such a thing with a straight face is an idiot.
If humans have evolved less than chimps in a given timespan it's because humans were better suited to their environment to begin with. Or because humans soon started adapting the environment to fit themselves rather than the other way around. Which doesn't exactly sound "primitive" to me.
“Among other things, research on the 4.4 million year old creature suggests that humans are far more primitive in an evolutionary sense than the great apes — like chimps and gorillas — of today. “
GGG. You are posting another pro-evolution article! Amazing. That is two just today!
The sheer babbling idiocy the Temple of Darwin has been reduced to speaks for itself ;o)
How would that work, exactly? I mean, the hippies tried this in the ‘60s, but most of them can still talk. Sort of.
This evolution stuff is still happening. I have this brother-in-law . . .
But the evolution of you into a pro-evolutionist has to be an example of macro-evolution!
If you look into the evo-religious assumptions that go into Temple of Darwin dating methods, you will find that they are just as subjective as their human evolution fairytale.
One massive slapdown was not enough for you today?
The more educated one is, especially in science, the less likely they are to be a Creationist.
It is obvious that Creationist sources know this and thus play to their audience.
What can I say, it’s hard to resist smacking the Temple of Darwin down when they make it so easy...LOL!
I take it you have made yourself an expert on this. Please enlighten the readers.
If that is really what you think you did, that you have far bigger problems in your life than just being a “YEC”
These “scientists” survive on grant money, which doesn’t come in when or if a large amount of time and sum of money invested doesn’t result in a “break-through”. Ergo, Ardi is a scientific break-through. It will be interesting to see the paleo-anthropoligist community respond to this over the next few months. These guys/gals have tremendous egos and hate to see their current and prevailing theories edged out.
Don't hold your breath waiting for GGG to answer that. He refuses to do so.
“the offspring of Tarzan and Jane”
Tarzan, Cheetah the chimp and a fast spotted cat had
contest to determine who would be king of the jungle.
Tarzan would swing from vines, the chimp, from branch to branch and the chee-
That’s because biblical creation is not a problem, except, of course, to rabid Temple of Darwin fanatics such as yourself :o(
What do Zera and Cornelius have to say about this?
There are approx. 120,000 ‘temples’ on planet earth, not a single one has “Darwin” posted over the door.
When you find one... let me know, otherwise, keep your pitiful insults to yourself.
No creation.....but, all this matter from an infinitesimally small point that was held together by gravity, the weak force for crying out loud, when a disturbance unleash in a big bang and viola’....here we are.
And they think we are silly in our faith in a God that created everything........BAWHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
God is not mocked, he will take the crafty in their own craftiness.
Time will end, and the truth of God will prevail.
But the time of God is infinite, and the mind of man is small, as you just proved so beautifully.
The Y-5 pattern in dentition surely seems “human” from Australopithicus on. I think the key was human’s eventual ability to abstract information from their environment, such as Neanderthals placment of flowers in the “graves” of their deceased thus recognizing “something” beyond themselves.
All seems of God to me.
“Maybe our subjugation of the human race was justified after all.”
Hey GodGunsGuts - we’re all talking about Obama’s Epic Fail in Copenhagen. Why don’t you come out of your one-subject hole for a while and participate in the bigger world that exists?
“Being that we are the image and likeness, we should expect to see traces of this in both our objective (i.e., bodily) and subjective (i.e., mental) states. Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that other animals shouldn’t share traces of this absoluteness, only in lesser forms, as they are “descended” from man, rather then vice versa.
“In other words, in relative, horizontal, and Darwinian terms, we may be “descended” from animals (or ascended, really), but in absolute and vertical terms the reverse is true. An ape is a partial manifestation of man; man is not a “perfect ape,” although Keith Olbermann comes close. ~ G.B.
“Also, a key point is that the lower animals are vertically descended from man, whereas horizontally speaking it is the reverse. Thus we see “traces of humanness” in the lower animals, and traces of animality in man.” ~ G. B.
“Yes, to say that Adam “names the animals” is to say that man knows their vertical essences.” ~ Petey
Then why are the Temple of Darwin scientists saying that this “research brings into question the belief that our most distant ancestors descended from apes”?
>> These scientists survive on grant money, which doesnt come in when or if a large amount of time and sum of money invested doesnt result in a break-through. Ergo, Ardi is a scientific break-through. It will be interesting to see the paleo-anthropoligist community respond to this over the next few months. These guys/gals have tremendous egos and hate to see their current and prevailing theories edged out. <<
There is a lot of Ego in Science, I am a bit ashamed in that they are still dismissive of the “Aquatic Hominid” theory which has a lot of laudable observations on where we came from and why. Also a lot better hypothesis on some of the traits that separate us from the apes.
I miss the pure scientists of the 1900’s through 1950’s who slaved away in labs making the world a better place through science. Now days we get people who claim they are scientists but take the facts of the world around them and abuse them by bending them in to fit their agendas either the Global Warming crowd, or the YEC crowd.
Science is the not the belief in Science as a replacement for God, but Science is the applied practice of skepticism and methodical experimentation as a tool to understand the world in which we live in.
We're built for running around central Africa in the heat of the day when any sane animal is looking for shade. Very few other animals have sweat glands over their entire bodies to dump as much heat as we can. Get outside of the 90° weather and we start shivering.
“It is an unsolved mystery to evolutionists as to why coal has 14C in
it,23 or wood supposedly many millions of years old still has 14C present,
but it makes perfect sense in a creationist worldview.”
Ha Ha Ha. You above link was written to mislead the ignorant and lazy.
Radioisotope evidence presents significant problems for the young earth position. Baumgardner and the
RATE team are to be commended for tackling the subject, but their intrinsic radiocarbon explanation does
not work. The previously published radiocarbon AMS measurements can generally be explained by
contamination, mostly due to sample chemistry. The RATE coal samples were probably contaminated in
situ. RATEs processed diamond samples were probably contaminated in the sample chemistry. The
unprocessed diamond samples probably reflect instrument background. Coal and diamond samples have
been measured by others down to instrument background levels, giving no evidence for intrinsic
The webpage cannot be found
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