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Anthropology, Evolution and Science
Afarensis is a 3.5-2.8 million year old hominin from the Kada Hadar member of the Hadar formation in the Middle Awash, Ethiopia. He is approximately 41 inches tall, weighs approximately 60 pounds and has a cranial capacity of a whopping 410 cc (approximately). Afarensis is currently considered to be transitional between apes and humans and displays some traits of both. Since he spends a lot of time on the couch watching monster movies, some observers question whether he is an obligate biped (although no one has observed him climbing a tree). He also has a blog called Transitions:The Evolution of Life His previous blog can be found here.
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"Loyalty to petrified opinion never broke a chain or freed a human soul..."
Mark Twain
"Ideology is a poor substitute for rational thought..."
Afarensis
"It isn't faith that makes good science...it's curiosity"
Prof. Jacob Barnhardt, The Day the Earth Stood Still
"This man wishes to be accorded the same privilege as a sponge. He wishes to think!"
Clarence Darrow, Inherit the Wind
"...I become fearful when I see people substituting fear for reason..."
Klaatu, The Day the Earth Stood Still
"I want you to grab life by its little bunny ears and get in its face..."
The Simpsons
"This is between me and the vegetable..."
Seymour Krelborn, The Little Shop of Horrors
"There are bad laws and cruel laws and the people who enforce them are both bad and cruel..."
Thea, Isle of the Dead
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." Jean- Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation
"But the limit of tolerance for these human foibles is obtained when the proponent of a questionable scientific doctrine endeavors to maintain it against all possible odds by misrepresentation, misinformation and suppression of contradictory data, and by insinuating unfairness in opponents of his views."
Franz Weidenreich, Morphology of Solo Man
"Man stands alone in the universe, a unique product of a long, unconcious, impersonal material process with unique understanding and potentialities. These he owes to no one but himself, and it is to himself that he is responsible. He is not the creature of uncontrollable and undeterminable forces, but his own master. He can and must decide and manage his own destiny."
George Gaylord Simpson, Life of the Past
Yeah he's the Dick to the Dawk to the phd,
he's smarter than you he's got a science degree!
Yeah he's the Dick to the Dawk to the phd,
he's smarter than you he's got a science degree!
Unknown
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
Frederich Nietzsche
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
The Declaration of Independence
Category: Sticklebacks
A number of people have emailed me a link to this story about "reverse evolution" in sticklebacks residing in Lake Washington. The basic story is that as Lake Washington was cleaned of its pollution sticklebacks went from being low plated...
Posted by afarensis, FCD at 12:09 AM • 9 Comments •
Category: Anthropology
The other day when I said blogging would be light I had the best of intentions, but like when Bill Dembski shouts"Waterloo" reality has conspired against me. The intertubewebnet thingy has thrown some interesting stories up into the cybersphere....
Posted by afarensis, FCD at 10:47 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: Science in the Media
Kambiz mentions a new archaeology show on the Discovery Channel. The show is called The Bone Detectives and is scheduled to start airing on January 14th. The Discovery Channel has been airing "sneak peaks" and the episode I caught concerns...
Posted by afarensis, FCD at 10:24 AM • 2 Comments •
Category: Paleoanthropology
As I mentioned here various and sundry media organizations are having a field day with the recently announced discovery of some fossil teeth belonging to a new species of Miocene ape. The find in itself is quite interesting, but:...
Posted by afarensis, FCD at 9:30 AM • •
Category: Paleoanthropology
According to both National Georgraphic and the BBC new fossils - this time of some molars and a canine - are being announced in the journal Nature (I'm in the process of tracking the article down and will say more...
Posted by afarensis, FCD at 8:32 PM • 9 Comments •
Category: Science in the Media
ABC News has in interesting article on the finding of two new species of plesiosaur in Australia. Overall, the article isn't bad, but there are a few problems with it....
Posted by afarensis, FCD at 12:26 PM • 6 Comments •
