61–70 of 218 posts
The last picture of with all the girl scientists makes me stupidly proud.
Why?
The last picture of with all the girl scientists makes me stupidly proud.
I wonder whether they'd like to be called "girl scientists".
The Guardian's coverage of this contains a fair amount of scepticism: Christoph Zollikofer, an anthropologist at the University of Zurich, said that many of the bone characteristics used to claim the creature as a new species are seen in more primitive animals, and by definition cannot be used to define a new species. “The few ‘unique’ features that potentially define the new species need further scrutiny, as they ma…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's stopping a future anthropologist from declaring siberians and pygmies to be different species? It's not done now for political reasons, but the future has no reason to be concerned with the past's special sensitivities. Consider that "spanish" and "italian" are officially separate languages, while the US and Scotland both officially speak "english". The terminology won't help you predict which pair has an easi…
> Consider that "spanish" and "italian" are officially separate languages, while the US and Scotland both officially speak "english". The terminology won't help you predict which pair has an easier time communicating. I'm not certain, but that doesn't sound right to me. I'm pretty sure Americans and Scots have a far easier time communicating than someone who only speaks Italian and someone who only speaks Spanish. (A…
That said, it tends to be as much a vocabulary problem as the accent itself. Lot's of colloquialisms to learn.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's stopping a future anthropologist from declaring siberians and pygmies to be different species? It's not done now for political reasons, but the future has no reason to be concerned with the past's special sensitivities. Consider that "spanish" and "italian" are officially separate languages, while the US and Scotland both officially speak "english". The terminology won't help you predict which pair has an easi…
> Consider that "spanish" and "italian" are officially separate languages, while the US and Scotland both officially speak "english". The terminology won't help you predict which pair has an easier time communicating. I'm not certain, but that doesn't sound right to me. I'm pretty sure Americans and Scots have a far easier time communicating than someone who only speaks Italian and someone who only speaks Spanish. (A…
for a minute there I thought we discovered hominids alive today. Phrasing!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What's stopping a future anthropologist from declaring siberians and pygmies to be different species? The fact that they are capable of producing fertile offspring ?
But then you have ring species such as some seaguls. The gulls in Northern Europe can interbreed with the ones in Canada, which can interbreed with the ones in Alaska, which can interbreed with the ones in Siberia, which cannot interbreed with the ones is northern Europe. So is there one species or two, and if two where do you draw the line?
No idea the academic answer though.
Something I've never understood (since highschool some 30 years ago) is; when getting partial skeletons perhaps from only a single individual, how can they claim new species? I mean what's diff with that and some hypothetical future anthropoligist looking at siberian with roundish skull thicker brow ridges and that of six foot tall masai with long face and then a sub 5 foot native peruvian and declaring them all diff…
What's stopping a future anthropologist from declaring siberians and pygmies to be different species? It's not done now for political reasons, but the future has no reason to be concerned with the past's special sensitivities. Consider that "spanish" and "italian" are officially separate languages, while the US and Scotland both officially speak "english". The terminology won't help you predict which pair has an easi…
The Guardian's coverage of this contains a fair amount of scepticism: Christoph Zollikofer, an anthropologist at the University of Zurich, said that many of the bone characteristics used to claim the creature as a new species are seen in more primitive animals, and by definition cannot be used to define a new species. “The few ‘unique’ features that potentially define the new species need further scrutiny, as they ma…
Do we still depend on bone structure to define species? DNA analysis is indisputable. Its all speculation until that is done.
The Guardian's coverage of this contains a fair amount of scepticism: Christoph Zollikofer, an anthropologist at the University of Zurich, said that many of the bone characteristics used to claim the creature as a new species are seen in more primitive animals, and by definition cannot be used to define a new species. “The few ‘unique’ features that potentially define the new species need further scrutiny, as they ma…
Do we still depend on bone structure to define species? DNA analysis is indisputable. Its all speculation until that is done.