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The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull and a bitter feud over humanity's origins

theguardian.com

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Re: The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull and a bitter feud over humanity's origins

#31

Post by arp242 »

profsummergig wrote: post #5

This image of the femur, can anyone shed light on why there are notches carved on the side? https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b6b6509049556deef91d0459df864... Also, regarding "There is no technology, extant or imaginable, that could extract that marvellous secret from her bones", I put those under the "famous last words" category. We cannot predict today what we may discover about bones in the future. There could be som…

While we don't really know how many biological processes work, we have a pretty good idea how the basic mechanics of life work. The discovery of "something akin to DNA fingerprinting that lets people discover ancestry" would be the type of major discovery that would completely upset our understanding of things. Such a discovery would have to be consistent with all the evidence we already have (and is explained by our current understanding) while simultaneously introducing entire new concepts.

Not strictly impossible of course, but very few things are impossible in the strictest sense. For all practical purposes, given our understanding of the world, "there is no imaginable technology that could do this" is correct.

Re: The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull and a bitter feud over humanity's origins

#32

Post by IAmBroom »

theoreticalmal wrote: post #17
w10-1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "There is no technology, extant or imaginable, that could extract that marvellous secret from her bones" It's because the inference depends on having data from a very large sample of other finds. It wouldn't matter if there were a single Eve and we found her entire skeleton and extracted the DNA perfectly. We couldn't prove it was Eve without all the other samples, and it's beyond unlikely they'll just show up. I'm…

“It belongs in a museum!” -Indy

... the Graverobber

Re: The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull and a bitter feud over humanity's origins

#33

Post by IAmBroom »

sashank_1509 wrote: post #25

One of the best recent articles I’ve read, a vivid picture of paleontology research. Science needs more big personalities and disputes, in its mysterious way it actually advances science

I know someone who worked for the archaeologist who uncovered the then-oldest human tools in the Americas (the first pre-Clovis finds, IIRC).

He was ... unusual. My friend once spent an entire day hiding in their car at the worksite, because he was onsite that day, and they forgot to bring duct tape to cover their shoes. Shoes had to be fresh-wrapped in duct tape to prevent anything modern from dropping out of the treads onto the excavation floor.

You can ask lots of logical questions... "Why didn't they just...?" Answer: because the famous archaeologist was a nutbag, and controlled the worksite as his own personal absolute fiefdom. OTOH, if someone ever found a miniscule piece of glass at the 15,000YA level in that dig (as an example), his reputation would strengthen the dating.

That being said... his success was undeniable. Could he have done it, AND been less of a nutbag? Probably. But we don't live in Dr. Strange's multiverse.

Re: The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull and a bitter feud over humanity's origins

#34

Post by profsummergig »

arp242 wrote: post #31
profsummergig wrote: post #5

This image of the femur, can anyone shed light on why there are notches carved on the side? https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b6b6509049556deef91d0459df864... Also, regarding "There is no technology, extant or imaginable, that could extract that marvellous secret from her bones", I put those under the "famous last words" category. We cannot predict today what we may discover about bones in the future. There could be som…

While we don't really know how many biological processes work, we have a pretty good idea how the basic mechanics of life work. The discovery of "something akin to DNA fingerprinting that lets people discover ancestry" would be the type of major discovery that would completely upset our understanding of things. Such a discovery would have to be consistent with all the evidence we already have (and is explained by our…

"major discovery that would completely upset our understanding of things"

- such things happen regularly.

'"there is no imaginable technology that could do this" is correct.'

- i'm so glad i don't have this mindset.

Re: The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull and a bitter feud over humanity's origins

#35

Post by arp242 »

profsummergig wrote: post #34
arp242 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While we don't really know how many biological processes work, we have a pretty good idea how the basic mechanics of life work. The discovery of "something akin to DNA fingerprinting that lets people discover ancestry" would be the type of major discovery that would completely upset our understanding of things. Such a discovery would have to be consistent with all the evidence we already have (and is explained by our…

"major discovery that would completely upset our understanding of things" - such things happen regularly. '"there is no imaginable technology that could do this" is correct.' - i'm so glad i don't have this mindset.

> such things happen regularly

They do not. The type of foundational discovery that would be required is quite rare. It would equal to the discovery of germs, or DNA.

Re: The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull and a bitter feud over humanity's origins

#36

Post by profsummergig »

arp242 wrote: post #35
profsummergig wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"major discovery that would completely upset our understanding of things" - such things happen regularly. '"there is no imaginable technology that could do this" is correct.' - i'm so glad i don't have this mindset.

> such things happen regularly They do not. The type of foundational discovery that would be required is quite rare. It would equal to the discovery of germs, or DNA.

> They do not.

They do.

Re: The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull and a bitter feud over humanity's origins

#37

Post by teleforce »

arp242 wrote: post #31
profsummergig wrote: post #5

This image of the femur, can anyone shed light on why there are notches carved on the side? https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/b6b6509049556deef91d0459df864... Also, regarding "There is no technology, extant or imaginable, that could extract that marvellous secret from her bones", I put those under the "famous last words" category. We cannot predict today what we may discover about bones in the future. There could be som…

While we don't really know how many biological processes work, we have a pretty good idea how the basic mechanics of life work. The discovery of "something akin to DNA fingerprinting that lets people discover ancestry" would be the type of major discovery that would completely upset our understanding of things. Such a discovery would have to be consistent with all the evidence we already have (and is explained by our…

>The discovery of "something akin to DNA fingerprinting that lets people discover ancestry" would be the type of major discovery that would completely upset our understanding of things.

It's already available, and ever heard about Mitochondrial Eve? [1]

But this narrative somehow does not fit the non-intelligent design believer thus is not made popular and well-known to the rest of the world.

What we have now is the illogical conjecture that human ancestry is originated from monkey while Darwin himself did not condone it. His actual conjecture is that man and monkey probably has the same ancestry.

Ironically it's reported in one of the major holy books that some people were turned into monkey because of working during their God's assigned holidays (read holy days) thus braking their covenant and got transformed into monkey [2].

[1] Mitochondrial Eve:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

[2] The Jews breach the Sanctity of the Sabbath:

https://quran.com/al-baqarah/65/tafsirs

Re: The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull and a bitter feud over humanity's origins

#38

Post by bean_canister »

teleforce wrote: post #37
arp242 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While we don't really know how many biological processes work, we have a pretty good idea how the basic mechanics of life work. The discovery of "something akin to DNA fingerprinting that lets people discover ancestry" would be the type of major discovery that would completely upset our understanding of things. Such a discovery would have to be consistent with all the evidence we already have (and is explained by our…

>The discovery of "something akin to DNA fingerprinting that lets people discover ancestry" would be the type of major discovery that would completely upset our understanding of things. It's already available, and ever heard about Mitochondrial Eve? [1] But this narrative somehow does not fit the non-intelligent design believer thus is not made popular and well-known to the rest of the world. What we have now is the…

The concept of Mitochondrial eve IS still based on DNA, it's not a separate method of determining ancestry...

How is mitochondrial eve disproving evolution or pointing towards intelligent design?

Nobody thinks man evolved from monkey, that is a straw man.

Monkeys and humans are physiologically similar, it's not surprising at all that a culture would develop mythology involving man -> monkey transformations. And I'm sure that exists outside of abrahamic mythology as well

Re: The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull and a bitter feud over humanity's origins

#39

Post by AlexeyBelov »

profsummergig wrote: post #36
arp242 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> such things happen regularly They do not. The type of foundational discovery that would be required is quite rare. It would equal to the discovery of germs, or DNA.

> They do not. They do.

Example?
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