Three Way News

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Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Fossils

New fossil finds and a computer skull reconstruction bolster the case that an ancient creature that grabbed headlines in 2002 really is the earliest known ancestor of modern humans, researchers say.

In that year, scientists announced finding jaw fragments, some isolated teeth and a skull of a creature nicknamed "Toumai" in Chad. At some 6 million to 7 million years old, the fossils came from around the time of a major split in the evolutionary tree, with one branch leading eventually to humans and the other branch leading to chimps.

The researchers argued that the creature, which they dubbed Sahelanthropus tchadensis, belongs on the human branch and so is the oldest known hominid. Some others disagreed. In any case, the skull provided a puzzling combination of human and chimp traits and raised what one expert called "a wheelbarrow full of questions" about evolution at that time.

Of course, this isn't true, because a) the planet is only 6,000 years old and b) human beings were placed by God on this Earth in their present form, where they had to fight dinosaurs on their way out of the Garden of Eden. Come on, Hollywood! Has there ever been a better time to combine the Bert I Gordon oeuvre, the post-Gibson fundamentalist cache, and the Pixar panache? It's gold, baby, gold! A digitally enhanced Adam and Eve -- scantily clad, to be Biblically true -- fighting dinosaurs on their way to Nod in a desperate attempt to save their son!.

Besides, the movie would give free thinkers like Pharyngula, who blogs from the University of Minnesota -- Morris a chance to engage in informed complaint. (I found the blog via Minnesota Politics, which doesn't link here, but really should.)