Did Darwinists Jump the Gun?

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By Professor Emeritus Peter Bagnolo (about the author) Page 1 of 2 page(s)

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Did Darwinists Jump the Gun?

Homo Habilis and Homo Erectus, Found Living in Parallel Harmony, Not in Evolutionary Succession! A Blow Against Evolution?

Darwin had a brilliant idea, but was it brilliantly wrong? Homo habilis-2.4 M- 1.6 M, Homo erectus, 1.6 M-0.3 M, living unexpected parallel lives, not in evolutionary succession, Anthropologist Professor Emeritus Pete Bagnolo is on target with unorthodox prediction again, Darwin set about outlining his theory to everyone. Others ran with it. He made a great discovery and I will have more to say about the technical aspects of it later. Read it ALL, please!

In the first years after the discovery of Homo habilis, some scientists rejected its validity, feeling that all specimens should be classified either to the genus Australopithecus or to Homo erectus. Now, however, H. habilis is widely, though not unanimously, accepted as a species in its own right. From the fossil evidence, Homo habilis was active from before 2.3/2.6 million, to 1.6 million years ago, and Homo erectus, 1.8 Million years BP-.03 Million years BP. However, some persist in believing that the fossil evidence is too thinly spread and weak, too fragmented and extended over too vast a time to justify its genus classification.

Some H. habilis specimens with uncharacteristically massive features: Brows, braincases, teeth, etc. are often classified as Homo rudolfensis. The average male H. habilis is thought to have been about five feet tall and 100 pounds (females about 20% smaller). Homo habilis, (meaning "handy man") was so named because of the vast quantity of tools that have been found with its fossils. The average H. habilis braincase was considerably larger than that of Australopithecus', and its ostensive shape is more like H. Sapiens. The bulge of Broca's area (brain segment), necessary for speech, is visible in one H. habilis' brain cast, making him possibly capable of some crude form of speech.

Those questionable species from my college days, Homo habilis, and Home Erectus have come home to roost, as I predicted as a graduate student and more recently on one of my blogs, circa, 2006, (see blog at): http://bagnolosprophetics.blogspot.com/2006/10/thus-saith-lord.html
These two fossils found in Kenya have shaken the human family tree, possibly rearranging major branches thought to be in a straight ancestral, evolutionary line to Homo sapiens.

Homo erectus was palpably unlike H. habilis and all of the other Australopithecus species, in that it ranged far beyond Africa. In some cases, scientists have divided H-erectus into three species using the unearthed specimens geographic region, re: H. heidelbergensis (Europe). Homo ergaster (Africa), H. erectus (Asia) some even believe heidelbergensis specimens to be archaic H. sapiens as the gauge for divisions.

Generally, H. erectus, in comparison to Homo sapiens (us) possessed larger molars, a long, a low skull, heavy brow ridges, and a receding chin. The skeletal structure of H. erectus was heavier, more powerful/robust, than ours, so were muscle insertions. However, a few arm/leg bones of "Peking Man" indicate a shorter, stockier build, however, another specimen, "Turkana Boy" (Estimated age: 1.6 million years, date of discovery: 1984) was tall and slender, very much like modern humans from the same district. This almost Choate skeleton of a 9- to 12-year-old boy remains one of the oldest- specimens of H. erectus, yet unearthed. He was about 5 feet 3 inches tall when he died, projecting full growth, might have topped out at about 6'-1" upon maturity.

Is The Two-Disconcerting Specimen, A Contradiction of Darwin?
The two disconcerting specimen, have been analyzed, dated and defined by Scientists at: Homo habilis 1.4-million BP, and a Homo erectus at 1.5 Million years BP. The archeologist/anthropologists involved claimed that their discoveries challenge the traditional theory in which the belief was that the two species evolved in direct, evolutionary, succession, one to the other -- Homo habilis to Homo erectus. Perceivably, instead they led parallel existences for about 500,000 (H. Habilis: 2.3-1.4 Million years: H. erectus 1.8 Million years BP: 0.3 Million years BP, in eastern Africa. Such existences all but completley rule out direct evolutionary succession.

If, indeed, this theory is correct, and it appears so at this point, the genus Homo, in its early periods is proving increasingly a mystery, clouding the accepted theory of human evolution. The discovery of H. erectus and H. habilis points at the possibility that they both issued from a common ancestor simultaneous brothers, for which the paternal/maternal fossil record is non-existent-some 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 years BP. However, it is entirely possible that there are other options, however, there is probably not enough useful DNA remaining to find out.

Scientists are claiming that this discovery does not challenge the belief that Homo erectus is a direct ancestor of Homo sapiens, but the small skull size, was unexpected, and the implication is that they were that much less like Homo-sapiens than expected. However, I do and have, and still insist, that my original theories, along with in Undergraduate school and the later Computer generated, Berkley 1987 experimental "Eve" with the DNA of all of modern humankind, is not a match for either Homo-Erectus or Homo-Habilis. I still hold with Berkley that our DNA emerged between 220,000-160,000 BP. Where is my evidence? I have none, just my hunch, based on observation, experience and an unknown, (to most people), source, which have in past been found to be more accurate that what some call "Tangible evidence," but nonetheless, supported by the Berkley experiment which came somewhat less than a score of years after my graduate thesis.

Other anthropologists and archeologists, whose polestar is on anthropology, see the revelation as a powerful argument that the early transition from ape to human ancestors is becoming less clear, or is at least not at all well understood. Admitting that the origins of the genus Homo are still beyond our knowledge, the search for those origins needs to be widened, as I have stated here recently, and elsewhere long ago.

Darwin's Brilliant, Beagle trip ideation, is slowly slipping in credibility-there is a link missing in the hoped for transmigration of more than one dozen seeming attempts at something like man. Now the question is arising, were any of them successive morphs from one to the other? The strongest evidence that they did not, is the seeming out-of-nowhere, appearance of Homo sapiens, because there was not time for evolution of an organism of that size and complexity and such a massive mutation would be unseemly and with scant, if any, verifiable precedent.

Fred Spoor, Professor of Evolutionary anatomy at University College London in the Journal of Nature, stated his belief that this discovery will pose remonstration of the evolutionary linear succession of the three Homo species. Meave Leakey and daughter Louise Leakey, co-directors of the Koobi Fora Research Project, which made the discovery, appear to agree.

These two fossils with accompanying deposits of volcanic ash were unearthed just east of Lake Turkana in Kenya in the year 2000, and which dates of existence University of Utah geologists defined. It has taken several years to clean, to prepare and identify the fossils, which were caked with the tough sediment, hence the current news long delay at being made public.

Of late, some scientists not involved in the project, have speculated that, recent studies were hinting at some tighter connection between the habilis and erectus. Lacking conclusive evidence however, and with such radical possibilities, the matter was put on the proverbial back burner.

Daniel Lieberman, a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard, says, "The oldest Homo habilis we had known of was about the same age as erectus." "Now we have extended the duration of the habilis species, and there's no doubt that it overlaps considerably with erectus."

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Professor Bagnolo has majored in: Cultural Anthropology, Architectural design, painting, creative writing. As a child prodigy, abed with polio for almost two years, he was offered an opportunity to skip three grades at age 8.
Later He was a (more...)

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Book Recommendations for "Africa Anthropology Brain Evolution"

The Hunters or the Hunted?: An Introduction to African Cave Taphonomy
by Charles Kimberlin Brain

$40.00

Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr (Tx)