Ancestor Worship

Or you could read Genesis, heathen.

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>>1680286
Without the context of the rest of scripture, it is useless.

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Anyone else?

>>1680276
>how much bickering there is among paleoanthropologists over which hominids are more related to us than others
Most of that bickering is just about exactly how to classify the species that we've found. It's a lumper vs. splitter disagreement. The more general things (the ones that actually matter) are pretty much agreed and there's no controversy, except when something new and radical gets found, or when someone wants to claims something crazy for publicity.

>>1683251
It's also worth stating the amount of bickering is greatly overstated by people like creationists who are trying to discredit researchers. In general, there really isn't much of it outside of normal academic discourse.

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>>1683258
I was just wondering since John Hawks and others suggest that Ardi, a find that could rival Lucy, is nothing more than an "ape."

>>1683538
First, all hominins are apes. Someone saying that a find in paleoanthropology is an ape isn't bickering, it's using an accurate term.

I think you're misunderstanding what the discussion about ardi is about. Bear in mind that ardi is millions of years older than Lucy is. It's a find with the same level of importance, but one that's relevant to a completely different time in human evolution. Ardi is a really, really old bipedal ape, and it says a lot about bipedalism in early hominids. The debate is over its exact significance and where it fits in according to the minutiae that some like to use to categorize finds like this (again, back to the lumpers vs. splitters thing). As far as I know, no credible scientist have disputed what the find means or its significance, it's mostly just discussion about tiny details that don't have a lot of significance to ardi's overall meaning.

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>>1683559
Notice how I put it in quotations. John Hawks has been a long-time critic of the "humans are apes" statement, as well as out taxonomic description as "hominins." His words, not mine.
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/fossils/ardipithecus/sarmiento-white-pelvis-exchange-2010.html

>>1683576
Just from scanning that article, it seems like it's mostly a matter of semantics. The term that seems to be in dispute is hominin, which usually means a bipedal ape (and because of its association with humans, there's some baggage with using that term). Hawks is saying that he doesn't see ardi as a true hominin because of some more primitive features in its skeleton than most hominins have. Basically, he's arguing about when/how bipedalism developed, and what it means for other species.

He's not saying that ardi isn't an old bipedal ape that teaches us a lot about the development of bipedalism, he's being critical of exactly what it tells us, and what terminology he wants to use in that discussion. Again, it's minutiae that don't really affect the larger details of the discussion. It's not like he's saying it's just a weird-looking chimp that says nothing about human evolution; he's mostly just questioning the specifics of where it fits into the discussion about bipedal evolution. And without being too familiar with his work (I'm an archaeologist, so I have a functional knowledge of this stuff, but it's not my specialty), it seems like he's mostly hung up on the semantics (ie, he wants to call it "just an ape" because it doesn't seem advanced enough to be a "real" hominin).

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>>1683609
I think he's a supporter of the savanna hypothesis rather than that it was an arboreal trait. In other words, "it can't be a direct ancestor, because that would most likely resemble a chimpanzee."

>>1683625
Yeah, that would make sense. It did seem like he was implying ardi was related more to arboreal apes than to us. But either way, it doesn't change the overall discussion. Bipedalism happened somehow, he's just arguing about why and where. In the grand scheme of things (especially in a world where people are saying that evolution didn't happen, that aliens made it happen, and other crazy shit), those aren't important distinctions (again, it's just academic discussion, not anything invalidating), and it shouldn't affect what you think about paleoanthropology and whether its findings can be trusted.

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>>1683645
I was just wondering if his argument held any real value. I'm actually a big supporter of Orrorin, minus the bold claim that its discoverers are trying to push.