Human exceptionalism received a boost today with the news that human beings apparently did not evolve from apes. From the story:
The skeleton of an early human who lived 4.4 million years ago shows that humans did not evolve from chimpanzee-like ancestors, researchers reported on Thursday. Instead, the missing link — the common ancestor of both humans and modern apes — was different from both, and apes have evolved just as much as humans have from that common ancestor, they said. The researchers stressed that “Ardi” may now be the oldest known hominid, but she was not the missing link. “At 4.4 million years ago we found something pretty close to it,” said Tim White of the University of California Berkeley, who helped lead the research team.
Here’s how the matter was put in another report about the story:
Researchers concluded that both the human branch and the ape branch of the family tree have evolved significantly from its common ancestor, and chimps can no longer be thought of as a “proxy” for that common ancestor.
I bring this up because some Darwinsists and other assorted materialists have attacked human exceptionalism on the basis that our supposed emergence from the great apes and/or our genetic closeness means that we should not think of ourselves as distinctive. I never thought that was in the least persuasive. What matters is what we are now, not what might have been millions of years ago or how we got here. But this report concludes that our common ancestry–still undiscovered–is thrown even further back–with apparently no direct lineage of human beings arising from apes.
It looks like the anti-human exceptionalists will have to go back to the drawing board.
October 1st, 2009 | 2:46 pm
[...] I reported earlier today that scientists have concluded that we did not evolve from apes. In response, a source sent me a book review that appeared in the New Scientists I had missed. It turns out that our apparent genetic closeness does not mean that we are that closely related to chimps at all–a meme used often to attack human exceptionalism. From the a review of the book Not a Chimp: Take that 98.4 per cent, an oft-repeated figure that has been used to argue that chimps deserve human rights. True, Homo sapiens and Pan troglodytes share an extraordinary amount of genetic similarity – yet humans and mice share almost as much. Complete genomes of both species are enabling researchers to map the chasm between human and chimp, which seems to deepen by the year. A good example is FOXP2, a regulatory gene linked to speech and language disorders in humans. FOXP2 in chimps has barely changed in the 130 million years since primates and mice diverged from their common ancestor. But after humans and chimps split, two key changes accumulated on the human line. [...]
October 1st, 2009 | 7:16 pm
Wes? We ARE apes. All tailless primates are classified as apes.
October 1st, 2009 | 7:51 pm
padraig: Not in the same way. We are distinct, from a moral value perspective. A fly is an animal and so are we, but we are not the same as a fly.
October 1st, 2009 | 11:34 pm
The theory that humans didn’t evolve from chimps, but that we evolved separately from a common ancestor, has been the standard theory for years. There’s nothing new about this except fossil evidence to support the conjecture.
October 2nd, 2009 | 1:23 am
Kai: I am aware of that. But that hasn’t stopped some from using the supposed closeness as an attack on human exceptionalism.
October 2nd, 2009 | 3:06 am
[...] J. Smith has written a blog on human exceptionalism at Secondhand Smoke, his blog at First Things, in light of the recent publications about “Ardi”, the [...]
October 2nd, 2009 | 9:15 am
Really, Wesley! You ought to be ashamed for resorting to such a distortion. A “chimp-like” ancestor is NOT a chimp, not to mention that the title of this article is a total misrepresentation of the facts. It has been well-known for decades that the human species did not evolve from apes, but that both apes and humans evolved from a common ancestor.
Alas, this is the kind of propaganda technique the religious right wing-nut crowd at at American Family Association, Family Research Council and LifeNews are noted for. Have you been spending so much time hanging around with them that it’s starting to rub off?
October 2nd, 2009 | 9:49 am
padraig: Not in the same way. We are distinct, from a moral value perspective. A fly is an animal and so are we, but we are not the same as a fly.
Er … but from a moral value perspective, our common ancestor would differ from us in exactly the same way as a chimp differs from us, wouldn’t it? I agree with you that the argument (against human exceptionalism) from common common ancestry is bad. But I’m not sure how it would be weakened or strengthened depending on whether the human species is a descendant or a cousin of modern apes.
Besides this, the moral value perspective argument really establish human exceptionalism, since the sort of moral theory that would support this would already presuppose man as a rational animal. And doing this would be question begging.
October 2nd, 2009 | 9:51 am
The above should read
“the moral value perspective argument really cannot establish …”
October 2nd, 2009 | 12:38 pm
Of course, when it comes to moral values, many humans fail that test. Roman Polanski call your office. Or Rev. Swaggart, or Jimmy Baker.
October 2nd, 2009 | 12:42 pm
Don Meaker: Thanks for contributing. But animals do things like that all the time, and it isn’t immoral because they are amoral. WE, however, are moral beings–with perhaps the exception of Whoppi Goldberg (“it wasn’t rape-rape”)–and find such conduct abhorrent. That alone elevates us from fauna.
October 2nd, 2009 | 1:54 pm
[...] Exceptional Humans Did Not Evolve from Apes Thursday, October 1, 2009, 2:04 PM Wesley J. Smith Human exceptionalism received a boost today with the news that human beings apparently did not evolve from apes. [...]
October 2nd, 2009 | 4:04 pm
[...] Humans Did Not Evolve From Apes [...]
October 4th, 2009 | 7:51 am
I have a great idea…. Let us vote the apes into office i’m sure they will do a better jub that the so called humans there.
October 4th, 2009 | 8:02 am
The whole concept of ‘evolving’ makes no sense to begin with. I watch many shows on the ‘Animal Channel’ on Comcast. The filming of the animals in their natural habitat is very entertaining, but the commentator will always speak of these animals or fish or insects as developing a special trait to survive as if this subject animal had a degree in engineering and a laboratory to test out various defense techniques. I tell you, to be a scientist requires that one abandon all common sense and blindly make excuses for why animals have be ‘made’/'created’, just looks like guessing to me.
October 4th, 2009 | 9:07 am
Of course, we are not apes and did not descend from apes; that is all a fairy tale. It is a matter of what God has told us through the Bible. To think otherwise is to be very silly. It is simply a matter of faith and now God is revealing the foolishness of our childlike thinking; many of us already knew that we did not evolve as apes, regardless of what has been written by men in dictionaries. End of story. Monkeys are monkeys and men and men and never the twain shall meet.
October 4th, 2009 | 9:43 am
If we decended from the apes as so many claim evolution appears to have stopped for the apes and Man has raced ahead – Jesus is real he came to save Man who has a soul no other animal has a soul – only MAN – The beauty of all creation should be loved and respected not twisted and warped by so called learned men who laugh all the way to the bank – Love God Enjoy Creation Live a Good Holy Life we have only one – God bless
October 4th, 2009 | 10:50 am
Most humans are moral because of fear or threat of punishment by other humans. Remove the fear or threats and humans can be as inmoral as any animal in the forest.
Morals to one human could be a way of normal life to another – ex: Native Americans vs Europeans
October 4th, 2009 | 12:21 pm
God could have very easily used similar DNA and material to make apes and us without humans descending from apes or even a common ancestor. Has anyone thought of that? I have RH negative blood, which means I and those like me do not have the antigens that are found in the Rhesus monkey as RH positive people do. Why is that? Carl Sagan, the deceased astronomer, debunked the interterrestial theory–creatures from another planet experimenting on humans to produce those without the RH antigens, etc. There are a multitude of questions not answered about the evolution theory.
October 4th, 2009 | 2:13 pm
1). Genesis, God is talking with Christ Jesus, “Let’s make man in Our Image and Likeness. Adam happens to be thee chosen one, and who recognizes it is someone greater than he and was being created by Them via his immortal soul that everyone has.
2). IF “WE” are NOT in the actual presence of God, WHO do you think “WE” will be created in the image and likeness of????
3). Remember them pictures the Roman Catholic Church has of individuals who look hideous, horns sticking out of their heads???
They are not in the presence of God, thus they
turned and evolved into that, the consequences of being damned to hell ( the harsh truth of what the Roman Catholic Church and Christ Jesus has been teaching us the last 2000 years about sin.
4). Darwin either thru cuplable ( intentionally neglected ) or thru no fault of his own, left out the part where man is made in the image and likeness of God. Thus the thesis or what ever it is, is partially correct.
October 4th, 2009 | 8:20 pm
Why can’t darwininian and other scientists accept their failure and the fact that they will NEVER EVER prove that mankind came from apes? Man evolving from apes is NOT THE TRUTH and it’s like trying to prove that 1 + 1 = 5. Whether one believes in God or not does not change the reality that God created man as a unique creation, like every single unique specie in the entire universe. It is comforting to understand God’s words in the Bible that says man are created in GOD’S IMAGE AND LIKENESS. In His infinite wisdom, God knows that some men will bring confusion to people and will degrade humans by saying we come from apes, that’s why He addressed this issue first and foremost, and say these words in the first book of the Bible, in Genesis. It is a great honour to know that we are created in God’s image and likeness but people will continue to dishonour our Creator God and mankind by evolution theories and other false and erroneous concepts. GLORY BE TO GOD, NOW AND FOREVER. Amen
October 4th, 2009 | 9:33 pm
Bones of “Ardi,” New Human Evolution Fossil, “Crushed Nearly to Smithereens”
Casey Luskin
Another new alleged missing link has been found, if you consider something discovered in the early 1990’s new. This fossil seems to have spent almost as much time under the microscope at Berkeley as it did in the ground in Ethiopia, when it was first buried about 4.4 million years ago.
Why did it take over 15 years for the reports on this fossil to finally be published, besides the fact that it allowed more time for planning the now-customary PR campaign? A 2002 article in Science explains exactly why: the bones were so brittle, “squished,” “chalky” and “erod[ed]” when cleaned such that many of the bone fragments had to be “reconstruct[ed]”—and that took a long time. Here’s the story from more than seven years ago:
[I]n 1992, the Middle Awash Research Team, co-led by [Tim] White, made a discovery that ended Lucy’s reign. About 75 kilometers south of Lucy’s resting place, at Aramis in the Afar depression of Ethiopia, the team found fossils of a chimp-sized ape dated to about 4.4 million years ago. … The team named this species Ardipithecus ramidus, drawing on two words from the Afar language suggesting that it was humanity’s root species. But skeptics argue that the published fossils are so chimplike that they may represent the long-lost ancestor of the chimp, not human, lineage.
The next field season, team member Yohannes Haile-Selassie found the first of more than 100 fragments that make up about half of a single skeleton of this species, including a pelvis, leg, ankle and foot bones, wrist and hand bones, a lower jaw with teeth—and a skull. But in the past 8 years no details have been published on this skeleton. Why the delay? In part because the bones are so soft and crushed that preparing them requires a Herculean effort, says White. The skull is “squished,” he says, “and the bone is so chalky that when I clean an edge it erodes, so I have to mold every one of the broken pieces to reconstruct it.” The team hopes to publish in a year or so, and White claims that the skeleton is worth the wait, calling it a “phenomenal individual” that will be the “Rosetta stone for understanding bipedalism.”
(Ann Gibbons, “In Search of the First Hominids,” Science, 295:1214-1219 (February 15, 2002).)
Of course a key feature in demonstrating that an organism was bipedal is the precise shape of its pelvis. But look at what one of the current media stories on A. ramidus is reporting about the original condition of the pelvis that was discovered:
One problem is that some portions of Ardi’s skeleton were found crushed nearly to smithereens and needed extensive digital reconstruction. “Tim [White] showed me pictures of the pelvis in the ground, and it looked like an Irish stew,” says Walker. Indeed, looking at the evidence, different paleoanthropologists may have different interpretations of how Ardi moved or what she reveals about the last common ancestor of humans and chimps.
(Michael D. Lemonick and Andrea Dorfman, “Excavating Ardi: A New Piece for the Puzzle of Human Evolution,” Time Magazine (October 1, 2009).)
The recent news report in Science recounts the same problems with the fossil:
But the team’s excitement was tempered by the skeleton’s terrible condition. The bones literally crumbled when touched. White called it road kill. And parts of the skeleton had been trampled and scattered into more than 100 fragments; the skull was crushed to 4 centimeters in height.
(Ann Gibbons, “A New Kind of Ancestor: Ardipithecus Unveiled,” Science, Vol. 326:36-40 (Oct. 2, 2009).)
National Geographic put it thus:
After Ardi died, her remains apparently were trampled down into mud by hippos and other passing herbivores. Millions of years later, erosion brought the badly crushed and distorted bones back to the surface. They were so fragile they would turn to dust at a touch.
“Chalky”? “Squished”? “Badly crushed and distorted”? “Needed extensive digital reconstruction”? After all the media hype and overblown claims about importance of Ida, forgive me for having an initial reaction of skepticism. How far would you trust a “Rosetta stone” that was initially “crushed to smithereens” and “would turn to dust at a touch”?
Claims of bipedalism often depend upon precise measurements of the angles of key bones such as the pelvis, femur, and knee-bones. But if these bones were discovered in such a crushed, squished, etc. form, determining the precise contours of these bones might become a highly subjective exercise. I’m sure they spent a lot of time on their reconstructions (and it certainly sounds like they did) but at the end of the day, it’s difficult to make solid claims about extremely unsolid bones.
Anyone for some Irish stew?
link to the original article at my website
(below)
http://www.evolutionnews.org/
October 4th, 2009 | 9:35 pm
Artificially Reconstructed “Ardi” Overturns Prevailing Evolutionary Hypotheses of Human Evolution
Casey Luskin
The missing link presently being touted in the media, Ardipithecus ramidus, has had more reconstructive surgery than Michael Jackson. Assuming that their “extensive digital reconstruction” of its “badly crushed and distorted bones” is accurate, what does A. ramidus (or “Ardi” as the fawning media is affectionately calling it) really show us that we didn’t already know? We already knew of upright walking / tree-climbing, small-brained hominids—that’s what Lucy, an australopithecine, was. We already knew that there were australopithecine fossils dating back to before 4 million years, and this fossil is only a little bit older. So what does this fossil teach us? Assuming all the reconstructions of Ardi’s crushed bones are objective and accurate, this fossil teaches us at least one very important thing: prevailing evolutionary explanations about how upright walking supposedly evolved in humans, confidently taught in countless college-level anthropology classes, were basically wrong.
In particular, A. ramidus casts doubt on the long-repeated hypothesis that humans evolved upright walking on the African Savannah where taller creatures had an advantage to see over tall grass by walking upright. A. ramidus walked upright in a “grassy woodland with patches of denser forest.” Time magazine’s article on A. ramidus explains the implications:
This tableau demolishes one aspect of what had been conventional evolutionary wisdom. Paleoanthropologists once thought that what got our ancestors walking on two legs in the first place was a change in climate that transformed African forest into savanna. In such an environment, goes the reasoning, upright-standing primates would have had the advantage over knuckle walkers because they could see over tall grasses to find food and avoid predators. The fact that Lucy’s species sometimes lived in a more wooded environment began to undermine that theory. The fact that Ardi walked upright in a similar environment many hundreds of thousands of years earlier makes it clear that there must have been another reason.
(Michael D. Lemonick and Andrea Dorfman, “Excavating Ardi: A New Piece for the Puzzle of Human Evolution,” Time Magazine (October 1, 2009).)
In fact, this is an old argument. It’s rarely discussed, but there are a number of upright-walking, forest-dwelling ape-like species known from prior to 10 million years ago that are thought to be far removed from human ancestors. This implies that bipedalism in a hominoid does not necessarily qualify an individual as a human ancestor, and it also casts doubt on classical explanations for the evolution of bipedalism.
There is one other option: A. ramidus wasn’t bipedal. In fact, one Science article is reporting some serious scientific skepticism about A. ramidus being bipedal:
However, several researchers aren’t so sure about these inferences. Some are skeptical that the crushed pelvis really shows the anatomical details needed to demonstrate bipedality. The pelvis is “suggestive” of bipedality but not conclusive, says paleoanthropologist Carol Ward of the University of Missouri, Columbia. Also, Ar. ramidus “does not appear to have had its knee placed over the ankle, which means that when walking bipedally, it would have had to shift its weight to the side,” she says. Paleoanthropologist William Jungers of Stony Brook University in New York state is also not sure that the skeleton was bipedal. “Believe me, it’s a unique form of bipedalism,” he says. “The postcranium alone would not unequivocally signal hominin status, in my opinion.” Paleoanthropologist Bernard Wood of George Washington University in Washington, D.C., agrees. Looking at the skeleton as a whole, he says, “I think the head is consistent with it being a hominin, … but the rest of the body is much more questionable.”
(Ann Gibbons, “A New Kind of Ancestor: Ardipithecus Unveiled,” Science, Vol. 326:36-40 (Oct. 2, 2009).)
Likewise the Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting:
Mr. Johanson, founding director of the university’s Institute of Human Origins … said, he expected the team’s initial interpretations “will undoubtedly generate widespread debate,” perhaps even including the question of whether Ardi is actually a human ancestor. Mr. Johanson said he was not among those who would raise that question. But, he said, “there must have been very rapid evolutionary change” for the human form to transform so quickly from Ardi to Lucy.
Of course, virtually none of this serious scientific skepticism about bipedality or ancestral status in A. ramidus is being reported in the mainstream popular media, where the species is essentially being universally reported as an upright-walking hominid ancestor of modern humans. Ardi thus leaves us with 2 options: either he wasn’t an ancient upright walking hominid and isn’t anything close to a human ancestor, or our previous—and confidently touted—theories about how bipedality evolved in humans were wrong. Take your pick.
So what do we have with “Ardi”? We have an extremely crushed “Irish stew” fossil that has undergone extensive reconstruction in order to become part of a PR campaign to make bold claims of ancestral status to the human line, even though at base its qualities are very similar to previously known fossils, and there’s a lot of skepticism about the claims being made. In other words, we have the typical media circus that we find every time a new “missing link” is found.
Posted by Casey Luskin on October 2, 2009 8:35 AM
link to original article ( below ) :
http://www.evolutionnews.org/
October 4th, 2009 | 10:41 pm
“Get your paws off me you damn dirty ape!”
- Charleton Heston from The Planet of the Apes
October 4th, 2009 | 11:00 pm
Diane said: God could have very easily used similar DNA and material to make apes and us without humans descending from apes or even a common ancestor. Has anyone thought of that? I have RH negative blood, which means I and those like me do not have the antigens that are found in the Rhesus monkey as RH positive people do. Why is that? Carl Sagan, the deceased astronomer, debunked the interterrestial theory–creatures from another planet experimenting on humans to produce those without the RH antigens, etc. There are a multitude of questions not answered about the evolution theory.
“”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”"”
I have thought about it this way Diane and I agree with you. I liken it to a big lake, where different things grow at different sections depending on what is occurring in the immediate environment. In one area may grow lily pads and another algae. Both vegetation but two different distinct kind. Neither came from the same cell and neither thrived in the same location with the same nutrients to sustain them at the different regions they grew. Why could this not apply to mammals or reptiles or any variety of living creature in a primordial lake? And how many varieties of homo-sapien-sapien existed? We are told that at some point Neanderthal co-existed with our ancestors. Quite possibly some cross mating may have occurred too. What of the other type of humans that may have existed that we haven’t found their bones or relics yet? How many varieties of apes do we have? How many varieties of humans do we have? Then there is the issue of the soul….so many questions….
October 5th, 2009 | 2:30 am
We were created!!! Both man and woman in his own like Image. No Argument !!! We will all see the truth someday.
October 5th, 2009 | 8:39 am
Just because God made humans from early humans or pre-humans that existed millions of years ago just means that is how he chose to make them. He could have done it in an instant or in 7 days like in the Bible, but He chose to do it over the process of millions of years. But a day is like a million years to God as he is outside of time. Time is something humans have invented. However God made Adam and Eve different from the other animals, He set them apart by giving them a soul. Humans are the only animals that wonder about their existence. All other animals live by instinct alone. Humans have the choice to choose God and live with him for eternity or reject Him and live without him for eternity.
October 5th, 2009 | 9:57 am
Evolution: A fairy tale for grown ups. I am sorry, but man is so proud that he still will not submit to God and in that sense, nothing has changed since the time of Cain and Abel. The fossil record ALONE cries out Evolution never happened. Missing Link? You are missing about 10 million links!!! It is an insult to our faith to keep thinking we came from some primitive animal. The ONLY way evolution could ever have occurred is three things must be in place: 1) Only by the hand of God 2) He did a masterful job of hiding all the fossil evidence for it, and 3) He stopped the process altogether since man has been around to observe. 100 million animals around and none of them are in between becoming another species altogether, which had to have occurred billions of times if evolution were true. What a coinicidence it’s not happening now that man is here to confirm it. The main reason God created apes is to make monkeys out of proud humans who demand they know we evolved.
October 5th, 2009 | 10:52 am
Please. Like begets like. Period. No amount of time will turn frogs into monkeys and monkeys into men.
The fossil record is full of individual species that are distinct. No one has shown me yet a tyrannosaur that has forearms a little longer, a little longer, and a little longer. No, tyrannosaurs are simply tyrannosaurs.
Darwin can go swing from a tree.
October 5th, 2009 | 11:27 am
[...] HERE for an interesting piece on this [...]
October 5th, 2009 | 3:33 pm
Hi Wes,
My comment is..if we “evolved” from apes, why are there still apes?
We didn’t.
What other animal changed to a higher species?
None.
Do people know Darwin was laughed out of the auditorium the day he proposed his theory?
He was and yet there are some that believe he was right.
October 5th, 2009 | 5:06 pm
So are most of you commenters saying that humans were created like only 10,000 years ago? And that we have no link what so ever to any of the fossils that have been found?
October 6th, 2009 | 12:42 pm
Tom Kaminski, I would not say what you are implying. As far as I know, most creationist are not “young earth proponents” they just say God created the animals, no mouse ever turned into a horse or a Swede. I do not rely on Scripture to make my case for creationism, I rely on the lack of evidence, and the enormous gaps of missing data, fossils, and reason in their theory. I don’t care if it happened or not, either way proves there has to be a God — (I am now addressing only those who apply reason and have no axe to grind.)
Scripture does speak of a time well before Adam, meaning there could have been humans of sorts roaming this earth. It does speak of demons coming to earth and mating with females creating a horrific race of people. It does speak of God wiping out bad blood, even globally and starting the race all over again, perhaps more than once
So if there were human kind before Adam I can accept that, but Adam is the beginning of the entire human race on this planet. What the science people still have to explain is why there are virtually no intermediate fossils connecting all these species that they insist evolved from one to the next. That is the silver bullet as far as I am concerned.
October 10th, 2009 | 1:02 pm
It is true that the idea of common descent has been normative in NeoDarwinian thought…but ask the man in the street what he thinks or has thought about this. Most will tell you, I guarantee, that man evolved “from the apes”, not a common ancestor. Just as most will tell you that evolution “proves” that God doesn’t exist…one results from a very superficial understanding and the other is simply an unscientific leap into the realm of philosophy/theology. Atheists’ “beliefs” are as unscientific as creationists’. What is true, however, is independent of whether or not one believes or who is doing the believing!
October 14th, 2009 | 4:00 pm
Ardi does not prove at all that humans didn’t evolve from apes, like the first sentence of this article states. Most scientists thought humans evolved from a chimp like creature. Ardi shows the common ancestor of chimps and humans looked less chimp like then originally believed. Whatever this common ancestor is, is still most defiantly an ape. Just like we humans are. Look up the definition of an ape… We fit EVERY criteria.
Some of you say there is no proof of evolution. There are no transitional species. Well look in the mirror. You ARE an ape, and our species IS in transition. Every species is in transition… Ever hear of vestigial structures? Look it up if you haven’t. Why do we have wisdom teeth, and appendix, plica semilunaris (remnants of a nictitating membrane), or a tailbone? Because god said, “Let’s give them these mostly useless structures for fun”? No! They are structures and organs our ancestors, not humans, needed to survive. Many many creatures have vestigial structures.
The bible is not proof of anything. It is a select group of stories about a mythological Jesus that was selected by a group of men per Emperor Constantine orders. Meaning there were many sects of Christianity, all with different beliefs and stories. A group of men argued about, and voted on which stories to include and exclude in their official recounting of Jesus. This is when beliefs you consider facts, like the virgin birth and the trinity, were vehemently argued about and voted on. These stories are mostly hand-me-downs from older religions, often changed to fit that particular authors motives. These stories are most defiantly not eye witness accounts and are not authored by the people they are attributed to.
Evolution is fact. It has been observed. We came from apes and still are apes. We may be human, but we are still animals ;) Try to open your minded and think about it. This is coming from a former alter boy, lector, and whose mother taught Sunday school for several years.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact