Comments on: New Mystery Ape Fossil ~ Updated

By: CryptidHuntr

CryptidHuntr — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:22:33 +0000

Okay. It’s a partial jaw. Loren,WOULD YOU GET A PICTURE!!!!! I wanna picture. Before i admit its from bigfoot,i wanna PICTURE

By: dogu4

dogu4 — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:33:17 +0000

Thanks for the kindwords, DWA. My compliments to you, and the others here who find a deep examination of natural history at least as interesting and fascinating as any more fancifull explanations, though even those sometimes bring out aspects that our own internalized orthodoxy dictates and needs to have questioned. Cheers.

By: DWA

DWA — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:40:11 +0000

dogu4: thanks.

In another thread (and on many on this site) I mention the folks that strike me as having the most enlightened skeptical attitudes. I really should mention you more often. You’re one of the “purest” (hate that word but I hope folks will understand) cryptos here, with an attitude grounded in the real but questing beyond what’s known.

Not only should crypto be like that; no science worth its salt can afford NOT to be. Particularly here; Ciochon’s at the boundary of hard science and crypto here, and he probably knows that.

And of course, as I noted, my post just stood on your post’s shoulders.

I think Ciochon is doing no more and no less than what science should do here – pointing out how our picture seems to have changed a bit, and where we might focus further to be sure. (As sure, noted, as we can ever get.)

By: dogu4

dogu4 — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:41:12 +0000

That’s an enlightened perspecitve, DWA. Thanks for that. I agree fully and look forward to more and deeper understanding that comes from a number of areas: more fossils(and a renewed interest in the quantitative and qualitiative analysis, a better read on junk dna and chromosomes in the modern sense (the recent suggestion that the simple varying of chromosomal numbers are not as critical to speciation as might have been thought…this regarding specifically North American and Eurasian Moose populations), and paleobiogeography which never fails to fascinate me personally. Cheers.

By: DWA

DWA — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:20:58 +0000

dogu4: as you note, scientists can draw much from what seems insignificant.

What they draw isn’t incontrovertible fact; it’s an inference, based on models built from intelligent speculation on previous finds. A “missing link” could be an evolutionary dead end; it’s just that, if some traits of a more primitive and some of a more advanced form occur in the same find, that’s not the way the evidence and the models built upon that evidence tell a scientist to bet.

The partial jaw here is recognized as an anomaly because it simply doesn’t fit with others found. The teeth seem to argue against the orginal thesis for that jaw based on similarities discovered after that thesis was propounded.

Shoot, it is anybody’s guess what that jaw came from. But for scientists, an educated guess is better than any old guess. And I’d have to go with the bet placed here. Realizing that a bet is all it can ever be.

By: dogu4

dogu4 — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 15:29:23 +0000

Bigfootsdad, I wouldn’t disparage the findings based on there being what to you seems like an insignificant fragment. People sometime as “how could they determine all that from just one tooth or even a piece of tooth, or jawbone?” and when someone who knows tries to explain, the layman’s eye’s just glaze over and accuse the scientist of just spouting what seems to the uninformed to be just jargon, jibberish and wild speculation, but if you were to go read a few books on paleoanthropology dating from before the introduction of molecular biology and DNA studies, you would see that there are some very special features that can be determined from the dentition and jaws of animals, primates especially and address the human relatedness in particular. Teeth and jaws are viewed as not being subject to the same kinds of selective pressures that some other more superficial and recognizable morphological features do, like hair patterns, or size…which to the layman is most often the traits that give species their “essentialness”, though they may be of little importance to some populations…take dogs for example. Who’d a thunk that based on looks they’re all one species, but see a dogs jaw or tooth and a canine anatomist can tell some remarkable things others would not notice or even imagine. Bear in mind also that some of the statements are intended to be addressing hypotheticals and not meant as statements of fact or of hard evidence though for editorial succinctness the articles in the popular press don’t delve into that aspect and, never the less, they are not just wild speculation by mere enthusiasts but are backed by meticulous study, measurement and quantitative analysis.
Cheers.

By: DWA

DWA — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 14:55:15 +0000

Well, bigfootsdad, scientists do have a strong tendency to make grand pronouncements on very little evidence.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

You can’t change the scientific model unless there’s a model to change, I guess. So they’re postulating a model for this find based on evidence in hand. I’m OK with it, just so long as the model changes when it has to. Providing a touchstone for future research is what this is about. I mean, if you needed absolute knowledge before making a pronouncement, we’d still be waiting for the first pronouncements from the fossil record.

Oh.

Happy belated Father’s Day.

By: bigfootsdad

bigfootsdad — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 23:50:13 +0000

A partial jaw?! That’s all they have and they are saying what?!

By: dogu4

dogu4 — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 05:29:42 +0000

Is it coincidence alone or is there some speculation out in the broader paleoanthropological world regarding the mysterious and contradictory evidence on the ancestral red apes of asia and its seemingly DNA defying relationship to our own?
Seeing a skull would be nice, particularly if it provides for a comparison of the dental features. Once upon a time those were considered important regarding evolutionary relationships. Who knows, maybe they will once again and the orthodox logic of DNA will be reformed to accomodate new understanding. Cheers.

By: cryptidsrus

cryptidsrus — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 20:07:05 +0000

Very, very interesting story and data there, Loren.

The Lord knows what new “theories” about our “origins” will be seeing the light of day a decade or so from now. I can’t wait, personally.

And CryptoHuntr:
I also want a picture of the skull.