Is Australopithecus Afarensis Evidence of Hominid Evolution?

Australopithecus afarensis. There is no consensus among paleoanthropologists as to whether or not A. afarensis had ability to do knuckle-walking, or even if A. afarensis was largely bipedal. There is still an on-going tug of war between 2 schools of thought as to how fossils alleged to be afarensis should be interpreted for whatever abilities/physical features are allegedly evidenced by any particular skeletal reconstruction involving certain fossils.

It is said that afarensis' femur angles in toward the knee from the hip, and that is said to be a strong indication of habitual bipedal locomotion; however, it is also said that along with humans, present day orangutans and spider monkeys possess this same feature.

Also questionable is whether Australopithecus foot bones indicate the Laetoli footprints were even made by Australopithecus. "Many scientists also doubt the suggestion of bipedalism, and argue that even if Australopithecus really did walk on two legs, it did not walk in the same way as humans . . . The shoulder joint is also oriented much more cranially (i.e. towards the skull) than that in modern humans but similar to that in the present day apes. Combined with the relatively long arms A. afarensis is thought to have had, this is thought by many to be reflective of a heightened ability to use the arm above the head in climbing behaviour. Furthermore, scans of the skulls reveal a canal and bony labyrinth morphology, which is not supportive to proper bipedal locomotion."

Also is this admission: "In particular the morphology of scapula appears to be ape-like and very different from modern humans. The curvature of the finger and toe bones (phalanges) approaches that of modern-day apes, and is suggestive of their ability to efficiently grasp branches and climb."

Also disputed is whether or not all the fossils labeled A. afarensis belong just to that one species, but that there is a mix in the Hadar site's fossils, representing more than one species.

Also, there is this as reviewed in Science 26 October 2012: "Scapular morphology is predictive of locomotor adaptations among primates, but this skeletal element is scarce in the hominin fossil record. Notably, both scapulae of the juvenile Australopithecus afarensis skeleton from Dikika, Ethiopia, have been recovered. These scapulae display several traits characteristic of suspensory apes, as do the few known fragmentary adult australopith representatives. Many of these traits change significantly throughout modern human ontogeny, but remain stable in apes. Thus, the similarity of juvenile and adult fossil morphologies implies that A. afarensis development was apelike. Additionally, changes in other scapular traits throughout African ape development are associated with shifts in locomotor behavior. This affirms the functional relevance of those characteristics, and their presence in australopith fossils supports the hypothesis that their locomotor repertoire included a substantial amount of climbing."

Also, Susman and Stern said: "She [afarensis] probably nested in the trees and lived like other monkeys."

Also, Charles Oxnard performed a multivariate analysis on afarensis and concluded that it is truly unique: "The various australopithecines are, indeed, more different from both African apes and humans in most features than these latter are from each other."

Also, about "[an] exceptionally well-preserved skeleton of an A. afarensis child from Dikika, Ethiopia, discovered in 2000 by Dr. Alemseged . . . further preparation and extensive analyses of these rare bones showed them to be quite apelike, suggesting that this species was adapted to climbing trees in addition to walking bipedally when on the ground. "The question as to whether Australopithecus afarensis was strictly bipedal or if they also climbed trees has been intensely debated for more than thirty years," said Dr. Green. These remarkable fossils provide strong evidence that these individuals were still climbing at this stage in human evolution." The new findings are published in the October 26 issue of the journal Science.

Mexican Fossilized Impressions - 20,000 Years Old; or 40,000 Years Old; or 1,300,000 Years Old?

Ancient Human Footprints Found in Mexico | Science/AAAS. Geochronological analyses assign wildly divergent dates (20 kyr-1myr) to the fossilized impression. Why? Need there be more fossilized impressions uncovered in rocky outcrops there -- undisturbed by modern-day vehicular traffic -- before science can resolve the disputed claims? Is there an even playing field for studies of the Mexican and African fossils?

There is dispute not only as to the age of the impressions, but also as to whether or not the fossilized impressions are even human footprints. What are alleged to be human footprints occur in what appears to be a pattern for bipedal locomotion, and occur among a plethora of other animal footprints. The dates assigned the fossilized footprints range from 20,000 years old to 1,300,000 years old ! Tim White, who has used the Berkeley lab for dating African fossils, has no doubt that the Berkeley lab has given correct date of about 1.3 million years old; accordingly, he must dispute the human identification that other scientists give the maker of the fossilized impressions. See
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2005/11/30_fp.shtml

François Sarre Asks, 'Will an Exemplar of Obligate Bipedalism in Those Hominoids That Bequeathed It Only to Hominid Species Stand Up . . . Please? Where Is Bigfoot Hiding Himself Out?'

http://www.bigfootencounters.com/biology/desarre.htm

François Sarre is no shrinking violet when it comes to his acceptance of hominid evolution; he accepts the theory. His little pictograph (see below) humorously sums up his belief about what the major fossil specimens salient to the paleoanthropologists' theories of hominid evolution -- as the fossil specimens relate to what he alleges was retention of obligate bipedalism only in the hominid species --, would teach us, if we would but view those fossils specimens as he views them. He uses a pictograph that begins with an upright, obligate bipedal (human) that seemingly descends into creatures that have lost obligate bipedalism. It is a simplistic pictograph, because it does not represent in him a belief that chimpanzees and the great apes are descended from humans, but rather that those species are our cousin descendants, descended from certain hominoids whereby 'in that descent of our cousin species from bipedal hominoids there gradually became the loss of obligate bipedalism -- though it was once present in certain hominoid ancestors (and may yet be represented by certain of those species that have survived into historical times here on earth, and maybe still do).' The theory here has it that there was an ancestor common to humans and the great apes who was an obligate bipedal creature, but that in the lines that branched off from him, 'the obligate bipedalism he owned came to be lost in some branches of his descendants, it being retained, in fact, only in the branch that became, in time, according to François de Sarre's theory, homo sapiens.'

It's a wild, wild West out there when it comes to paleoanthropologists' theories. Who among them wields the fastest spade for remarkably finding and digging out other fossil specimens just right for added support of some alternative theory he trumpets?




© François de Sarre
Published in Animals & Men, Issue Six

 

Distance-responsive genes found in dancing honey bees

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1601-183X.2010.00622.x/full

Distance-responsive genes found in dancing honey bees

The link above is to an article that its authors would hardly acknowledge does the following thing in their discussion of the honey bee genome: in effect, the article shows that there is descriptive modeling of genetically programmed honey bee behaviors that are mathematically sensible/presentable, but the authors apparently do not agree that we may argue that the modeling they present shows forth God's wisdom. The concluding paragraph states, "Results indicate that the responsiveness of the genome to social information extends to inputs that require the formation of quantitative representations in the brain . . . One challenge in [deterministic] behavioral genomics is to elucidate how brain genomic responses lead to adaptive behavior. Distance measurement joins a growing number of naturally occurring and experimentally accessible traits [-- well, after all, probably all are agreed that the traits are not traits 'acquired through "dint of free will" intrinsic to honey bee Mind (self awareness-driven mentational properties in honey bees)' --] that will help us to solve this important problem." (Emphases are mine, Al Kidd's.)

Ah, Yes! "Important problem" indeed! for the evolutionists' theory that these behaviors in honey bees are result of something other than the ordaining will and creative power belonging to the owner of a Mind pre-existing the honey bee's existence itself ought to be seen by materialists as a theory fatally driven through by Karl Popper's "sword" (i.e., evolution is not a falsifiable theory), but is a theory shot through with incredible naiveté as we can see evidenced when evolutionists assert that the honey bee's behavioral genomics is not evidence of intelligent design, but that the challenge for them "is to elucidate how brain genomic responses [can blindly pursue and successfully] lead to adaptive behavior." Their naiveté is borne of their wish to resist the logical implication of the necessity of Mind (the Creator, God) reflected in creation.

The introductory and, again, the concluding paragraphs are presented below without my commentary.

"We report that regions of the honey bee brain involved in visual processing and learning and memory show a specific genomic response to distance information. These results were obtained with an established method that separates effects of perceived distance from effects of actual distance flown. Individuals forced to shift from a short to perceived long distance to reach a feeding site showed gene expression differences in the optic lobes and mushroom bodies relative to individuals that continued to perceive a short distance, even though they all flew the same distance. Bioinformatic analyses suggest that the genomic response to distance information involves learning and memory systems associated with well-known signaling pathways, synaptic remodeling, transcription factors and protein metabolism. By showing distance-sensitive brain gene expression, our findings also significantly extend the emerging paradigm of the genome as a dynamic regulator of behavior, that is particularly responsive to stimuli important in social life....

"Our results indicate that the responsiveness of the genome to social information extends to inputs that require the formation of quantitative representations in the brain . . . One challenge in behavioral genomics is to elucidate how brain genomic responses lead to adaptive behavior. Distance measurement joins a growing number of naturally occurring and experimentally accessible behavioral traits that will help us solve this important problem."