http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2009968,00.html
The majority of this article discusses what the professor from IU talked to us about when he presented the slide show on Australopithecus afarensis. It goes into further detail and describes a new discovery that has been made, "Two animal bones, excavated in Dikika, Ethiopia, bear what the authors call "unambiguous stone-tool cut marks for flesh removal and percussion [i.e., smashing] for marrow access." With this discovery, researchers can conclude that the hominids of this time had a level of intelligence. It is so interesting to me how much scientists can conclude from a rock or a piece of bone. I am excited to see what new discoveries are going to be made and how they will fit into the fossil record and help further explain evolution. I just don't understand how creationists can simply dismiss all of these discoveries as nothing.
I really like this article. It is cool to read articles that come out all the time about the debate we are discussing. It shows that we really are in the middle of a current event, and we are witnessing first hand the progression of new discoveries that greatly affect the debate we study. Just throwing that out there. Like you said, I don't understand how creationists could just dismiss this evidence and deny the existance of evolution of any kind. However, it is all too predictable what a creationist would argue in response to this kind of discovery. They would say that there are too many inferences being made, and that the cut marks could be coincidence and that scientists couldn't prove intelligence of a species from fossils. This is of course all out of the paranoia of having any ancestral relation to something "lower" than the human race. However, with every new discovery made, it is harder and harder for creationists to legitimize their denial in defense of their religion. Will the denial ever end? Unlikely. Humans have a manipulating way of coming up with ways to defend what they believe and argue their point. In the end, it seems that anything can be argued.
ReplyDeleteHaving read a fair share of articles such as this about the recent anthropological and paleontological discoveries, especially when it comes to hominids, it becomes harder for me to fathom that there are still people who outright deny this. Moreover, when I consider that these are the same people who believe in the literal truth of fantastic or miraculous biblical accounts of creation, the disparity becomes even more frustrating. A denial of such an overwhelming amount of clear evidence can only be possible through a blind, unshakeable fundamentalist belief not only in the certainty of religious creationism, but in some kind of conspiracy of the entire scientific community.
ReplyDeleteBut to shift back to the main topic of fossil discoveries, I think the last paragraph was really the most eye-opening part of the article for me. I know scientists are making discoveries all the time and changing the landscape of what we thought we knew. But it fascinated me all the more how much of our knowledge about human ancestors can depend on the creatures that they lived with. In the absence of direct evidence of tools, we can still have proof not only that these pre-human ancestors used them, but how they used them as well. We all know that fossil preservation requires a set of ideal conditions, making revolutionary or sought-after discoveries few and far between. Being able to rely on the fossils of animals that coexisted with hominids opens the door to a more complete understanding of human civilization than it would be if it were based solely on the limited amount of available hominid fossils.
Kelly, I also like that we are actually discussing topics that are relevant to what is happening in today’s society. I feel like in a lot of my classes I am learning about things that happened in the past, but in this class we focus more on the present and the future. I also agree with you that people will always find ways to defend their beliefs and argue everything else. It makes me think about this whole evolution vs. creationism thing. People have their beliefs and rarely are those beliefs going to change. I think the main focus should be on reaching out to people who aren’t as educated about evolution or creationism instead of experts arguing with other experts.
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