Design this, suckers
Stories like this are great. Published in Nature today, details of new fossil remains found in Ethiopia - 3.3 million year old bones that belonged to a child of the species Australopithecus afarensis, the same as Lucy, the famous adult female discovered in 1974 and believed to be a direct relative of the human genus, Homo. It has been nicknamed Selam, meaning "peace" in the local language and is a critical fossil in showing how humans first branched off the larger ape family.
There's a wonderful sense of discovery in knowing where and how humans evolved. But a discovery like this also serves another, more viscerally satisfying, purpose: it's another in the beautiful catalogue of pokes in the eye for intelligent design.
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3 comments:
Except it isn't a poke in the eye for anything. A Photoshopped mockup like what they show here is great for Reuters employees but I expect better from science publications.
Did that girl live in trees or climb them any differently than you or me? It's unknown, but maybe. This is another example of people wanting to believe rather than evidence.
I know, I know, we can't all be physicists, but this evolution versus ID stuff gets old. Neither side has sufficient evidence but they just vomit more of what they have at their fan bases.
Neither side has sufficient evidence? You're implying that ID and evolution are as flawed as each other, which is plain wrong. The weight of evidence pointing to Darwin's theory of natural selection as the explanation for evolution is huge. Whatever "evidence" there is for ID is circumstantial at best. This isn't about belief for me, I'm just looking at what's in front of me. In the same way that the original Australopithecus afarensis fossil fits into Darwin's theory, so does the new fossil. The same rules apply.
Show me something that gives a shred of evidence for ID and I'll change my mind immediately.
Alok, right, neither side has sufficient evidence. I am in the middle while you clearly believe evolution. That's your business, but it doesn't make you more right. If ID people want to convince me, a guy in a beard can show up and make stuff happen. If evolution people want to convince me, they can find a single fossil that has partially formed lungs, hearts or anything else. You know, a sign that something 'evolved.'
As of today, I see equal chances of either happening.
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