Science today
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I might eek out a tiny apology if this is a repost... But prolly not. Missing Link believed to be discovered[^] WSJ writeup[^] This 47 million year old lemur like monkey is believed to show a direct link, the proverbial missing link, between humans and all other mammals. As the press usually does, they fail to understand what they're writing about enough to accurately convey what you need to really understand the piece (read: I don't get the conclusion from what the article provides, so I blame the writer), but it sure sounds interesting. However, unfortunately, I doubt that there will ever be enough evidence to put the issue to bed for good. On a side note, am I the only one who thinks Darwin looks a lot like a monkey?
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
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I might eek out a tiny apology if this is a repost... But prolly not. Missing Link believed to be discovered[^] WSJ writeup[^] This 47 million year old lemur like monkey is believed to show a direct link, the proverbial missing link, between humans and all other mammals. As the press usually does, they fail to understand what they're writing about enough to accurately convey what you need to really understand the piece (read: I don't get the conclusion from what the article provides, so I blame the writer), but it sure sounds interesting. However, unfortunately, I doubt that there will ever be enough evidence to put the issue to bed for good. On a side note, am I the only one who thinks Darwin looks a lot like a monkey?
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
BoneSoft wrote:
However, unfortunately, I doubt that there will ever be enough evidence to put the issue to bed for good.
If at the Second Coming, Yeshua called Ilion out of line and said, 'Y'know, I caused man and all the other great apes to evolve from a common ancestor." Ilion would call him an ignorant fool and go on believing that evolution was a lie.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
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BoneSoft wrote:
However, unfortunately, I doubt that there will ever be enough evidence to put the issue to bed for good.
If at the Second Coming, Yeshua called Ilion out of line and said, 'Y'know, I caused man and all the other great apes to evolve from a common ancestor." Ilion would call him an ignorant fool and go on believing that evolution was a lie.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
:laugh: I bet he would, even if only by reflex.
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
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I might eek out a tiny apology if this is a repost... But prolly not. Missing Link believed to be discovered[^] WSJ writeup[^] This 47 million year old lemur like monkey is believed to show a direct link, the proverbial missing link, between humans and all other mammals. As the press usually does, they fail to understand what they're writing about enough to accurately convey what you need to really understand the piece (read: I don't get the conclusion from what the article provides, so I blame the writer), but it sure sounds interesting. However, unfortunately, I doubt that there will ever be enough evidence to put the issue to bed for good. On a side note, am I the only one who thinks Darwin looks a lot like a monkey?
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
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I don't get it, it looks like a monkey to me. Article said something about a missing tooth comb? Does that make it a 'wonder'? :confused:
Yeah, I don't quite get it either. Which tells me that either the scientists are smoking crack, or the journalists have no understanding of what they're trying to write about. I'm leaning toward believing the scientists. What I think they were trying to say is that there were two candidate families that we could possibly have evolved from, the tarsidae and the adapidae. I take it that adapidae specimens were scares, and that it didn't look too much like we came from tarsidae. And that now that we have a near complete specimen of an adapidae we see features that lead us to believe we were much more likely to have descended from them. I dunno, but they seem to believe they've really stumbled onto to something of import, and it's piqued my interest. But I don't know that it warrants the distinction of 8th wonder of the world...
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
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I might eek out a tiny apology if this is a repost... But prolly not. Missing Link believed to be discovered[^] WSJ writeup[^] This 47 million year old lemur like monkey is believed to show a direct link, the proverbial missing link, between humans and all other mammals. As the press usually does, they fail to understand what they're writing about enough to accurately convey what you need to really understand the piece (read: I don't get the conclusion from what the article provides, so I blame the writer), but it sure sounds interesting. However, unfortunately, I doubt that there will ever be enough evidence to put the issue to bed for good. On a side note, am I the only one who thinks Darwin looks a lot like a monkey?
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
It is an amazing fossil,no doubt. And it certainly does add powerful confirmation of Darwin's original theory. But regardless of what any one says, no fossil provides the same kind of proof as, say, observering gravitational lenses provides proof of Einsteins original theories. It is highly unlikely that the animal that left the fossil behind was an ancestor of anything alive today. It could as easily represent a line that went extinct 30 million years ago. All it proves is that there were lemurs a bit more like monkeys 47 million years ago.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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:laugh: I bet he would, even if only by reflex.
Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.
BoneSoft wrote:
I bet he would, even if only by reflex.
Then he'd run into Gabriel, Michael, Raphael and Uriel and call them "Kiddies."
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
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It is an amazing fossil,no doubt. And it certainly does add powerful confirmation of Darwin's original theory. But regardless of what any one says, no fossil provides the same kind of proof as, say, observering gravitational lenses provides proof of Einsteins original theories. It is highly unlikely that the animal that left the fossil behind was an ancestor of anything alive today. It could as easily represent a line that went extinct 30 million years ago. All it proves is that there were lemurs a bit more like monkeys 47 million years ago.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
All it proves is that there were lemurs a bit more like monkeys 47 million years ago.
How closely are the theories of a young earth and intellectual design related? If we accept the fact that this thing in 47 million years old doesn't that alone lend some weight to the theory of evolution?
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Stan Shannon wrote:
All it proves is that there were lemurs a bit more like monkeys 47 million years ago.
How closely are the theories of a young earth and intellectual design related? If we accept the fact that this thing in 47 million years old doesn't that alone lend some weight to the theory of evolution?
Josh Gray wrote:
If we accept the fact that this thing in 47 million years old doesn't that alone lend some weight to the theory of evolution?
Absolutely. But then, no one is obligated by law to accept it. At least not yet anyway.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Josh Gray wrote:
If we accept the fact that this thing in 47 million years old doesn't that alone lend some weight to the theory of evolution?
Absolutely. But then, no one is obligated by law to accept it. At least not yet anyway.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
All it proves is that there were lemurs a bit more like monkeys 47 million years ago.
How closely are the theories of a young earth and intellectual design related? If we accept the fact that this thing in 47 million years old doesn't that alone lend some weight to the theory of evolution?
Josh Gray wrote:
How closely are the theories of a young earth and intellectual design related?
Do you mean intelligent design ? Not even a little bit.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. "I am new to programming world. I have been learning c# for about past four weeks. I am quite acquainted with the fundamentals of c#. Now I have to work on a project which converts given flat files to XML using the XML serialization method" - SK64 ( but the forums have stuff like this posted every day )
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BoneSoft wrote:
I bet he would, even if only by reflex.
Then he'd run into Gabriel, Michael, Raphael and Uriel and call them "Kiddies."
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
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Josh Gray wrote:
How closely are the theories of a young earth and intellectual design related?
Do you mean intelligent design ? Not even a little bit.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. "I am new to programming world. I have been learning c# for about past four weeks. I am quite acquainted with the fundamentals of c#. Now I have to work on a project which converts given flat files to XML using the XML serialization method" - SK64 ( but the forums have stuff like this posted every day )
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Stan Shannon wrote:
But then, no one is obligated by law to accept it. At least not yet anyway.
Ah Stan, always true to form. Do you really thing that you might one day be required by law to accept such a thing?
Josh Gray wrote:
Do you really thing that you might one day be required by law to accept such a thing?
Yes
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Josh Gray wrote:
Do you really thing that you might one day be required by law to accept such a thing?
Yes
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Christian Graus wrote:
Do you mean intelligent design ?
Yep
Christian Graus wrote:
Not even a little bit.
Does Genesis not give an indication of the age of the earth?
Josh Gray wrote:
Does Genesis not give an indication of the age of the earth?
Not even remotely. It's possible to use genealogies to work out that Adam was 6,000 years ago, and if we then assume that the people created in Gen 1 were Adam and Eve, then we can assume the world is as old as Adam. However, careful reading of the Bible makes this impossible. For example, Cain dwelt outside Eden, and then went out and found himself a wife. From where, if Adam and Eve and their kids, were the only people alive ? If he married his sister, he hardly had to find her.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. "I am new to programming world. I have been learning c# for about past four weeks. I am quite acquainted with the fundamentals of c#. Now I have to work on a project which converts given flat files to XML using the XML serialization method" - SK64 ( but the forums have stuff like this posted every day )
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Stan Shannon wrote:
Josh Gray wrote: Do you really thing that you might one day be required by law to accept such a thing? Yes
Dare I ask why you would think this?
Josh Gray wrote:
Dare I ask why you would think this?
Once the Jeffersonian Revolution takes place, he and his neighbors will vote it into law. Or round-off Pi; it'll be hard for them to choose.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Both democrats and republicans are playing for the same team and it's not us. - Chris Austin
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It is an amazing fossil,no doubt. And it certainly does add powerful confirmation of Darwin's original theory. But regardless of what any one says, no fossil provides the same kind of proof as, say, observering gravitational lenses provides proof of Einsteins original theories. It is highly unlikely that the animal that left the fossil behind was an ancestor of anything alive today. It could as easily represent a line that went extinct 30 million years ago. All it proves is that there were lemurs a bit more like monkeys 47 million years ago.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
But regardless of what any one says, no fossil provides the same kind of proof as, say, observering gravitational lenses provides proof of Einsteins original theories.
Sure it does. Evolutionary theory makes a prediction, observations found in the fossil record bears it out. Einstein's theory of special relativity makes a prediction, observations of gravitational lenses bear it out. There's no goddamned difference at all except that (for some reason) we're comparing a physics theory and biology theory because, I dunno, they're both theories? Secondly, shame on you for implying that the burden of proof for evolution is placed squarely on the fossil record when, as you should bloody well know, a modern understanding of evolutionary theory is exceptionally more reliant on the modern synthesis and the advent of molecular biology, which certainly provides a wealth of objective, empiric, testable, and repeatable data.
Stan Shannon wrote:
It is highly unlikely that the animal that left the fossil behind was an ancestor of anything alive today.
Well, thank goodness you're around to offer your conclusions based on having no particular role in research paleontology and your in-depth examination of a picture of the fossil in a populist online article. I really don't quite know what we would do without it.
- F
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Stan Shannon wrote:
Josh Gray wrote: Do you really thing that you might one day be required by law to accept such a thing? Yes
Dare I ask why you would think this?
50 years ago no one thought the federal government could, or would, possibly be able to force us to accept legalized abortion. 30 years ago no one thought that there would be any possibility of forcing the American public to accept homosexuality. Both of those are pretty much done deals now. The only reason either of these are even issues has absolutely nothing to do with freedom and liberty. They are important because they remove power from the hands of people and place it into the hands of a collectivist ruling elite. There is absolutely no reason to believe that effectively outlawing freedom of thought in regards to holding or at least promoting non-scientific, more religious shaped, opinions will not, or cannot, one day be possible.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
But regardless of what any one says, no fossil provides the same kind of proof as, say, observering gravitational lenses provides proof of Einsteins original theories.
Sure it does. Evolutionary theory makes a prediction, observations found in the fossil record bears it out. Einstein's theory of special relativity makes a prediction, observations of gravitational lenses bear it out. There's no goddamned difference at all except that (for some reason) we're comparing a physics theory and biology theory because, I dunno, they're both theories? Secondly, shame on you for implying that the burden of proof for evolution is placed squarely on the fossil record when, as you should bloody well know, a modern understanding of evolutionary theory is exceptionally more reliant on the modern synthesis and the advent of molecular biology, which certainly provides a wealth of objective, empiric, testable, and repeatable data.
Stan Shannon wrote:
It is highly unlikely that the animal that left the fossil behind was an ancestor of anything alive today.
Well, thank goodness you're around to offer your conclusions based on having no particular role in research paleontology and your in-depth examination of a picture of the fossil in a populist online article. I really don't quite know what we would do without it.
- F
Fisticuffs wrote:
Secondly, shame on you for implying that the burden of proof for evolution is placed squarely on the fossil record when,
I didn't even remotely imply that.
Fisticuffs wrote:
as you should bloody well know, a modern understanding of evolutionary theory is exceptionally more reliant on the modern synthesis and the advent of molecular biology, which certainly provides a wealth of objective, empiric, testable, and repeatable data.
I agree with that completely and said nothing to suggest otherwise.
Fisticuffs wrote:
Well, thank goodness you're around to offer your conclusions based on having no particular role in research paleontology and your in-depth examination of a picture of the fossil in a populist online article. I really don't quite know what we would do without it.
The simple fact remains that there is absolutely no way to know with any certainty at all what became of the descendents of this creature. It might well have been a biological dead end. There is absolutely no way to know (unless, of course, genetic material could be extracted from it). And to suggest otherwise does, in fact, suggest that you wish to use this evidence for purposes haveing nothing at all to do with science one way or another.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.