Owen Lovejoy has some theories which he is using to process the data from the spate of Ardipithecus ramidus papers. When it comes to the argument about social structure based on the anatomy of the extant remains I'm skeptical. I just recorded a diavlog with John Hawks which is 2/3 devoted to Ardi-issues (should be up Saturday), and he pointed out that Lovejoy has been laying out the case for a monogamous social structure for early hominins for years. This is why I'm not that surprised that some of the numbers he cites from the literature are off. He's probably quoting older values, and hasn't been tracking updates or revisions.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
What a day to be stuck in airplanes for hours on end; I had to slurp in a bunch of files on my iPhone and then look at them on that itty-bitty screen, just to catch up on the story of Ardipithecus. Fortunately, you can just read Carl Zimmer's excellent summary to find out what's cool about it.
For…
From The Top American Science Questions: 2012. Which starts with:
"Whenever the people are well-informed," Thomas Jefferson wrote, "they can be trusted with their own government."
Well, that's you yanks totally f*ck*d then, ha ha. Not that we're any better off. still, at least we manage to believe…
On October 1, 2009 paleontologists announced the discovery of the oldest known primitive hominid fossil, Ardipithecus ramidus dubbed "Ardi," after 17 years of quietly studying its significance. Nearly a month after its grand unveiling to the media, biologists, paleontologists, and evolutionary…
One of the big stories in genre Internet news was Seanan McGuire's post last week, about reactions to the early release of some copies of her book, and the hateful garbage thrown her way by people outraged that the ebook didn't slip out early as well. And let me state right up front that the people…
Seems there are some errors in Ryan's calculations in his attempt to point our error's in Lovejoy's calculations (and Ryan has graciously acknowledged this and updated his post accordingly)
Ayn Rand challenges a creationist who thinks Ardipithecus disproves evolution.
http://02e56fa.netsolhost.com/blog1/index.php/2009/10/01/ayn-rand-refut…-