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Early Man

Were Hobbits Pygmies?
March 11, 2008
More miniature human skeletons have been discovered in Micronesia.  These ones, found at Palau and reported in PLoS One,1 are unquestionably modern human, but small in stature – less than four feet tall.  They are also recent.  Radiocarbon dates on the bones yielded dates between 1400 and 3000 years old.  The find was reported by […]
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Early Man

Paleofantasy: Brain Evolution Is Mere Storytelling
February 22, 2008
When it comes to explaining the brain, evolutionists are completely in the dark.  That was the surprising message in a presentation to the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science by Harvard evolutionist Richard Lewontin.  James Randerson blogged the presentation in the UK Guardian, beginning, “We know nothing about brain evolution.  […]
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Early Man

Evolutionary Theory Can’t Handle Language
February 21, 2008
Did a gene turn on speech?  Five years ago, evolutionary geneticists were claiming that mutations in a gene called Foxp2 were the key to human language (see 08/15/2002, 05/26/2004).  This was based on two observations: chimps do not have these mutations, and people with alterations to Foxp2 have language impediments.  This idea is very unlikely […]
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Astronomy

Zatta Fact?  “Scientific Facts” Evolve
January 14, 2008
Every once in awhile it is good to be reminded that “scientific facts” are in a constant state of revision.  Here are some recent examples of scientists with surprised looks on their faces: Cholesterol for health:  Surprise, says EurekAlert: cholesterol may actually pose health benefits.  “… don’t push aside bacon and eggs just yet,” it […]
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Early Man

Laetoli Prints Eroding Fast
January 13, 2008
Can footprints said to be 3.7 million years old be so fragile as to disappear in 30 years?  News@Nature reported that the famed Laetoli footprints, said to be those of Lucy’s vintage, are in danger of being destroyed by weathering, erosion, vegetation, cattle and humans.     Though located several hours’ drive in Ngorongoro National […]
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Dumb Ideas

Walking Tall: Earth Pushed Hominids Out of Africa
December 19, 2007
Why did humans evolve from stoop-shouldered apemen into tall, proud, big-brained Europeans?  Africa pushed them out.  That seems to be the idea behind a story spreading throughout the popular science media, such as on Science Daily, entitled, “Geologists Say ‘Wall Of Africa’ Allowed Humanity To Emerge.”  The idea is based on circumstantial evidence that, according […]
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Dumb Ideas

Walking Upright Is Not Just for Pregnant Females
December 13, 2007
Pregnant women have enhanced curvature of the lower spine, which helps them support their babies during pregnancy.  Obviously, this must have evolved that way because emerging apes rising to their feet had different physiological needs.  Most science news reports are echoing this theme from a paper in Nature1 without any qualms about the Lamarckism or […]
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Early Man

How Early Man Got High on Generosity
November 19, 2007
Are you generous because of a chemical?  That seems to be the claim of researchers from UCLA, Chapman and Claremont.  They did a double-blind test with students where they played computer games that required them to make decisions about how to split up a sum of money.  The ones who got a whiff of oxytocin […]
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Dumb Ideas

Machiavellian Monkeys Made Us Compassionate
October 28, 2007
Love, loyalty, patriotism – all the qualities that imbue a romantic novel with soul – came from Rhesus monkeys acting badly.  This is the belief of Dario Maestripieri, a primatologist and Associate Professor in Comparative Human Development and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago, according to an article in Science Daily.     Dr. […]
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Early Man

Neanderthals Have Become Like Us
October 25, 2007
The change in attitude about Neanderthals is almost complete.  The formerly brutish missing links were pretty modern after all.  DNA sequencing of Neanderthal remains, along with new fossil discoveries, have made this subgroup of Homo sapiens for all intents and purposes the equivalents of us.  For example: Talk to me bro:  Neanderthals probably spoke languages […]
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Early Man

Prominent Biologist Espouses Darwinian Racist Views
October 17, 2007
The history of evolutionary thought includes many aspects modern evolutionists would rather forget, such as racism and eugenics.  Old ideas that blacks are evolutionarily inferior have cropped up again, though, not from some redneck schoolhouse but from the co-discoverer of the DNA structure.  James Watson, outspoken secular humanist, let loose with some comments about racial […]
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Dumb Ideas

Walking Upright Was a Birth Defect
October 14, 2007
What’s so big about walking upright?  A single birth defect in a human ancestor 21 million years ago could have made it all possible, according to Dr. Aaron Filler (Cedars Sinai Medical Center), a specialist in the spine.     According to EurekAlert, he proposes that in the “hominiform hominoid” Morotopithecus, a sibling was born […]
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Dumb Ideas

Did Evolution Hardwire Our Instincts?
September 25, 2007
Jeanna Brynner in Live Science is claiming that evolution hard-wired our brains to pay attention to people and animals more than to inanimate threats.  This is based on a paper by evolutionary psychologists at UC Santa Barbara. The researchers say the finding supports the idea that natural selection molded mechanisms into our ancestors’ brains that […]
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Early Man

Geological Dates Adjust Catastrophically to Evolutionary Assumptions
September 19, 2007
Pick a date for the rise of a land mass: 3 million years or 30 million years.  Either one will work, depending on the current evolutionary assumptions, if one is to follow the logic of an article on the Discovery Channel website.  Here’s how it began: The geologic rise of the Ethiopian Plateau may have […]
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Dumb Ideas

Potatoes: Brain Food for Evolutionary Health
September 11, 2007
A claim that eating starchy foods, like potatoes, made men out of monkeys made it all the way to the BBC News.  “Man’s ability to digest starchy foods like the potato may explain our success on the planet, genetic work suggests,” the subtitle read.  Not only that, it claimed “these extra calories may have been […]
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