Evolution being questioned?

Question

What are your thoughts on this new finding:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070808/sc_livescience/fossilscouldforcerethinkofhumanevolution;_ylt=AuoucrRUAfMdF08GyYhVZXd7hMgF

I believe in evolution. I'm just asking what others think of this. I mean, is it possible if they are very slowly finding more new information, do you think one day evolution could scientifically be viewed as never occuring?

johnmcn, what are you talking about???

johnmcn, i meant i believe evolution occured. get your head out your ***. i did not ask to raise an arugment. there always has to be a moron that takes offense and make something out of nothing.

Answer 1

My thoughts are as follows...

I have seen this link in a question from someone trying to call into question the validity of the theory of evolution so many times now that I have begun to weep for humanity, and I plan to make as large a donation as possible to whatever charity is responsible for helping the general creationist public learn how to read.

Answer 2

It's an interesting new bit of data which sheds new light on two early primate species. One more piece of the puzzle. That's how science works. No, evolution will never be viewed as not having occurred. It is confirmed and reconfirmed by many scientific finds every year. There is no question of whether evolution occurs. We are simply learning more and more about just how it occurs.

Answer 3

Evolution is a theory so it's constantly going to be questioned as they did in your article and just like the information in your article, they will find reasonable explanations for it. At this point, evolution is the best we've got in my opinion. It'll be tweaked here and there, maybe some of the concepts will be changed, but I think the part about species of organisms evolving into ones that are more adept to the environment around them will never change.

Answer 4

That article and others like it hype the results to make the research seem more ground breaking than it is. We already knew that evolution is more of a bush than a ladder. See for example this Y!A question and the best answer from 3 months ago:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AkLSwBM7izPiZRXkngKw7LojzKIX?qid=20070508185620AACjJoR

The interesting thing from this study is that it may change the best understanding of the sequence of species that resulted in homo sapiens (all of us). But it in no way disproves any of the Theory of Evolution.

See also the links below.

Answer 5

My thoughts? I believe that we may not know all of the details, but there is no doubt that evolution is real, happened/happens, and resulted in modern man. I am a pretty open minded person, but I just cannot understand how some people/intensely religious people deny the existence of evolution. I mean, I will not ostracize you, people can believe what you want, but I have a very hard time seeing those people's point of view.

Answer 6

I wish that people would read the entire article before posting it. The discovery in no way throws evolution into question, just some of the details. It's not the first time scientists have adjusted some of their assumptions based on new discoveries and it won't be the last. Anthropology is no different than any other scientific discipline in that regard.

Answer 7

Evolution is not being questioned.

The article simply states that H. habilis may have been around at the same time as H. erectus and that they may have shared a common ancestor.

Evolution can never be debunked. It is a fact. It is simply the mechanisms of evolution about which we have a lot to learn.

Answer 8

Evolution is always being questioned, challenged, revisited and explored - that is the way science works. It is faith that is in fear of being shattered - testing there means endurance or failure. With science, testing means increased knowledge and understanding. That is why only the idiots claim that their crackpot theory is correct and scientists are locked into a belief structure and won't pay attention to his ....

Answer 9

The findings described in the article have no impact whatsoever on the 'Theory of Evolution'... what it does is IMPROVES our understanding of the particular evolutionary pathways that culminated in humanity. This is a GOOD thing.

Here are a few things that it is important to understand...

* DNA DOES NOT evolve... it experiences mutations.

* Organisms DO NOT evolve. Organisms are essentially the 'proxies' for altered DNA, playing out the 'game' of survival/procreation in 'meat space'. DNA whose proxy organisms manage to procreate get to move on to the next round... kind of like Jeopardy.

* It is the genetic makeup of POPULATIONS of organisms (the 'gene pool') that 'evolves' (changes, over time).

In science, 'theories' occupy a higher level of importance than mere 'facts'... theories EXPLAIN facts. The 'Theory of Evolution' provides an explanatory framework for the OBSERVED FACT that the genetic makeup of populations of organisms changes over time (evolves). The theory identifies two (2) mechanisms which account for such changes:

** Genetic drift... statistical variations in allele frequency within a local population, over time.

** Natural selection... the non-random replication of randomly varying replicators.

There may be OTHER mechanisms in play which have not yet been identified and accounted for, and various scientists continue to quibble about that... but NONE of what I have described above is in dispute within the scientific community. Claims to the contrary by creationists are nothing more than a red herring, designed to bamboozle their scientifically-ignorant constituency... the 'comic book' version of science and evolution.

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back." ~ Carl Sagan (regarding religion)

For those that say that evolution does not account for new species... nonsense. Examples abound, both in the 'world' and in the laboratory. One of the most interesting examples, and the most enlightening, has to do with a kind of bird (plovers, if my memory is correct) that occupies adjacent habitats all the way from Siberia to Britain. Because of environmental differences in these adjacent habitats (topology, food availability, competitor species, predators, vegetation), natural selection has produced genetic differences between the populations in these adjacent habitats. Birds in adjacent habitats can still mate with each other, and produce offspring... the genetic differences are small. However, the birds from the Eastern-most reaches of Siberia CAN NOT produce offspring with those from Britain. Over the reach of MANY habitats, the accumulation of genetic differences makes them a DIFFERENT SPECIES... much to the consternation of biologists who are involved with trying to classify the danged critters.

.

Answer 10

All is says is that there are more branches on the human being past life tree than we thought...

And proves that our ancestors came in a variety of sizes and shapes.

Evolution is being added on to, not questioned.