Paleo – Page 92

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Peking Man Ages 200,000 Years

March 16, 2009

Dates for Chinese fossils of Homo erectus have been pushed back 200,000 years to 780,000 years before the present, reported Live Science. The report is based on a paper in Nature by scientists who used cosmogenic nuclide dating methods for the first time.1 Ciochon and Bettis, in the same issue of Nature,2 said the report […]

Early Man

Gobekli Tepe: What Mean These Ancient Stones?

March 10, 2009

Imagine stone carvings and monuments whose age make the pyramids and Stonehenge look like artifacts of modern history. Such monuments exist on a hill in Turkey at a site called Gobekli Tepe. Squared-off limestone blocks stacked like the letter T, arranged in circles, with ornate animal carvings on them, have been baffling archaeologists for the […]

Fossils

Permian Extinction: The Origin of Specious Geological Events

March 9, 2009

The Permian extinction – one of the most dramatic events in the history of life on Earth, in which some 90% of species went extinct – lay people assume scientists can back up this story with evidence from geology and fossils, but where is it? Whatever happened at the prime site in South Africa, from […]

Early Man

Tracking Human Ancestors

March 2, 2009

“Earliest human footprints found,” the BBC News announced, and National Geographic echoed, “Oldest Human Footprints With Modern Anatomy Found.” Presumably these are to be distinguished as human rather than pre-human. What was discovered? A photo of a modern-looking footprint accompanies the two articles. The print was found in volcanic ash in Kenya dated […]

Early Man

Language Is Not a Simple Genetic Matter

February 18, 2009

It sounds so simple. The title on an article in PhysOrg announced, in Kipling Just-So Story Format, “How gorilla gestures point to evolution of human language.” Because gorillas have an extensive repertoire of over 100 gestures, human conversation was only a matter of evolutionary time. Is this mere storytelling, or do such explanations have scientific […]

Fossils

A Tale of Two Sites: Moby Dog and The Claw

February 6, 2009

Discoveries portrayed as major evolutionary missing links were announced this week. One is a putative transitional form from land animal to whale, and one is a Cambrian trilobite-like creature said to be evolving the first claw. Moby dog: The current evolutionary scenario for the origin of whales is that they evolved from dog-like hoofed animals […]

Early Man

What Mean These Observations?

February 5, 2009

Science news outlets report many interesting findings every week. It’s not always clear, though, whether the conclusions drawn from them are warranted by the data. Here are some recent cases: Jaws of steel: A skull labeled Australopithecus robustus was studied for the force its jaws could generate. Interpretation: “Early humans had jaws of steel.” With […]

Birds

The Early Bird Gets the Just-So Story

February 3, 2009

If a catastrophic world event wiped out the dinosaurs, why did birds survive? They’re smaller and more delicate, it seems. National Geographic published a new hypothesis: they out-thought the doomed dinosaurs. “Birds survived the global catastrophe that wiped out their dinosaur relatives due to superior brainpower, a new study suggests.” A couple of […]

Early Man

Darwinists Frustrated at Public

January 26, 2009

“The creationists got what they wanted,” moaned Barbara Forrest in Science News of the Week (23 January 2009: Vol. 323. no. 5913, p. 451, DOI: 10.1126/science.323.5913.451b). All they got was the right for teachers to use supplementary materials in Louisiana schools. This followed a “wave of so-called academic freedom bills,” complained Yudhijit Bhattacharjee in his […]

Darwin and Evolution

Exploring the Malleability of Evolutionary Explanation

January 23, 2009

Is evolutionary theory just a very malleable and ductile idea, able to adapt to changing observations, or should it be described as a strong theory, powerful in its explanatory breadth?

Birds

Feather Evolution Proved?

January 21, 2009

Another claim of feather evolution was reported in PNAS.1 Creationists have long claimed that the evolution of feathers from reptilian scales is an intractable problem for Darwinists (example: 1994 article from Creation magazine). Does the paper provide incontrovertible proof that feathers had evolved in dinosaurs before birds took flight in the air? Beipiaosaurus, […]

Fossils

Fossil Fumbles Damage Darwinism

January 19, 2009

Three recent fossil finds are rearranging Darwin’s tree of life. Pro-Darwinists will interpret this as pruning; Darwin skeptics will interpret it as uprooting. Shark heads: “The earliest known braincase of a shark-like fish has shown some assumptions about the early evolution of vertebrates are ‘completely wrong,’ experts say. That’s what National Geographic said. Read all […]

Dumb Ideas

Monkey See, Darwin Do

January 15, 2009

Science Daily thought so. In an article adorned by a picture of macaques enjoying a hot spring, the title read, “Primate Culture Is Just A Stone’s Throw Away From Human Evolution, Study Finds.” The studious studiers were researchers at the Primate Research Center in Kyoto, Japan. They discovered what children already know: monkey […]

Darwin and Evolution

Darwin in the Air

January 11, 2009

Darwin Day euphoria must be in the air. There have been several news stories with Darwin or Evolution in the title, but little to his credit in the substance of the article. Evolution inaction: The human immune system is, by any account, Science Daily, however not only called it a case of “Evolution in Action,” […]

Birds

Nature Struts Darwin Gems

January 2, 2009

Like a showcase of pearl-handled revolvers, an armory of evidences Nature calls “Darwin’s Gems” have been exhibited to warn creationists that Darwin Day will be defended next month with a show of force. The authors, Henry Gee (former editor of Nature), Rory Howlett and Philip Campbell have made their 15 Evolutionary Gems freely available “and […]

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