Could evolutionary theory be upended with this discovery?
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All it would lead to is more argument…....
An ingrained belief is hard to dislodge,
No. Evolutionary theory states that organisms evolve over time to better suit their environment
The assertion that humans “started” in Africa and migrated through the continent is made by anthropologists studying artifacts and making correlations, it is not factual.
The article said the findings are very tentative and that the teeth may be from Neanderthals, which would be consistent with current findings. I am skeptical that the remains are from modern man. There is just too much evidence supporting the African origin theory. In any event, it is not evolution that would be overturned. The evidence in favor of evolution is overwhelming. The only thing that would have to be revised is the African origin theory.
The next thing we’ll learn is that the bones belonged to a specifically Judeo Homo Sapien group.
Teeth are not good indicators of age or origin. Let’s wait to turn current scientific theory on its head until there are bones.
Besides, all it could mean is that there are as yet undiscovered older remains to be found in Africa. When you are dealing with times this old, and spotty remains, it is like looking through a tine hole into the past.
What is outside your field of vision could completely change the whole picture..
Way too many “maybes” and “further testing needed” in the article to really get too excited yet.
I think anything that causes us to question science is good, it will just help science to rework and correct itself. I don’t think this will in anyway disprove evolution.
@marinelife I’m not being argumentative, just trying to learn. I thought dental development and growth patterns in fossil teeth was an indicator in the human lineage, brain size, age, height and a whole suite of growth patterns in evolution theory.
Didn’t the Russians find a definitive skeleton in the 1950s that all live was centered in the Ural mountains.
The fact that more testing is required leads to . . . not a conclusion but more data and that may not be supportive of the theory .
A “conclusion” without full supportive data is just jumping to a conclusion.
As the story says, rightly, the discovery “could upset theories of the origin of humans”. That doesn’t mean that it’s going to demolish theories of evolution itself.
Scientists are not the least adverse to revising theories according to new evidence. It’s not like evolution is a “belief” that can never be changed or modified.
It wouldn’t alter the theory of evolution, but it would alter the current beliefs of the age of humans.
@cockswain Lot’s of things have altered the theory of evolution. I haven’t read the link, so I don’t know of this could be one of them, but theories are never static.
I don’t disagree with that at all, and what both of us are saying are roughly the same. The age of humans could be altered to be 400,000 years instead of the current belief of ~100,000 years. However, the link looks more interested in garnering attention than actually asserting the teeth are necessarily human. If the headline read “Homo ergaster teeth found in Israel”, not as many would read it.
It is quite possible that human history extends well before our current 10,000 years of history. It is also possible that there were other civilizations before the current one. After-all, the earth is about 4 billion years old. There is plenty of times for evolution to create multiple branches and for civilizations to rise and fall and be forever lost.
This discovery says more about our possible history than it does about evolution. In fact, it says nothing about evolution.
If you look at the mountains of evidence supporting evolution, it is pretty silly to consider that one tentative finding could “overturn” that “belief”. To overturn evolution, one would need evidence as convincing in opposition as the current evidence is conclusive.
Also, never put much stock into anything scientific coming from HuffPo. The only national source with a worse scientific record is Oprah…
I agree with @crazyivan the current evolution theory cant be overturn by a single tooth. If that was a real human tooth that was found in Israel do you think that could have been a Netherlander?
1. Israel isn’t exactly across the world from Africa. Early humans were known to be migratory.
2. It’s a tooth. Our teeth, neandertal teeth, and other primate teeth are all quite similar to begin with.
3. Why on earth would this upend “evolutionary theory”? If this “upends” anything, it will be a very specific idea about the geographical origin of one specific species (humans). This story doesn’t even involve questioning the theory of evolution, it involves questioning an idea about archaeology.
@bkcunningham, it might be helpful if you explain to us what you understand “evolutionary theory” to mean.
@Qingu the way I understand biological evolutionary theory, as explained to me by some evolutionist on this site, is decent with modification. All life shares a common ancestor. Through descent with modification, this common ancestor gave the earth the diversity of species we have now.
Over millions of years organisms mutated at various base mutation rates that is now traceable through any given gamete. For instance, the average mammalian genome mutation rate is 2.2×10–9 per base pair per year. Enviornment may make a few of these mutations in our genome do nothing, but environment of an organism sometimes makes these mutations benefitcial.
Please, correct me where I am wrong in this.
@bkcunningham You’re correct enough in your understanding. I think you phrased the question in such a way that you were suggesting the discovery of a human tooth that could indicate humans were older than current thought would put the mechanisms of the greater theory in jeopardy.
That’s, um, not the best explanation for evolutionary theory. I’ll write up a better one in a minute. But the point I was trying to make, when I asked you that question, is that this discovery has basically nothing to do with evolutionary theory. Even as you understand it. I’ve found that people tend to criticize “straw men” of evolution, rather than the theory itself.
That said:
“Descent with modification” is not a good description of evolution because it leaves out the vital role that natural selection plays. A lot of people think the modification part is random; it is not. It is fiercely directed by natural selection. Also, I wouldn’t say “the environment makes mutations do nothing/beneficial.” That’s backwards: mutations may end up being beneficial for whatever environment the organism finds itself in. The environment determines what mutations are beneficial—i.e. the environment is what does the selecting.
@cockswain to be honest, I had the question worded three different ways that I felt were more generic in just asking what others thought of the discovery. The site moderators wouldn’t allow the previous wordings to my questions. This is the one that got approved.
@Dutchess_III thank you. I reached my 1000th mark today and one person sent me a very nice notice of recognition of it this morning. You are the first to give me an official overall welcome though. Again, thank you very much!
No. While the silly media trumpeted it as a game changer in evolution, it has nothing to do with our understanding of human evolution, just with when migrations from Africa really began. The find is not yet conclusive, but if it proves to be, it puts modern man in the Mesopotamian valley area 50,000 years earlier than we had previously thought.
Actually, this is a great example of the scientific process, and why it works.
In all probability, given what I have read, this discovery will turn out to be either misdated or misidentified. But, if it were real, science would adapt, theories (of human origin, not of evolution) would be updated, and science would go on discovering and explaining. As I have often mentioned, if facts contradict a theory, scientists throw out the theory, but creationists throw out the facts.
@crisw What’s wrong with saying “evolution?”
@Dutchess_III
“What’s wrong with saying “evolution?””
Because this has nothing to do with the theory of evolution itself, and saying it confuses the issue greatly.
I’m still not following you, @crisw. How does it confuse the issue? To determine human origins one needs to back track through the various stages of the evolution of humans, which, in theory, should take us to the actually “origin” of humans…the primal bacteria of all living things in general. It’ll take us another week er two, I’d say!
@Dutchess_III
The “theory of evolution” is, very roughly, this- all organisms are descended from a common ancestor through descent with modification. Anything that actually challenged the theory of evolution would have to challenge this premise. This fossil find, even if it were genuine, would not do that. Therefore, this fossil find doesn’t challenge the theory of evolution.
Kind of off subject here, but I also wanted to point out that “all organisms” needn’t descend from a common ancestor for evolutionary theory to be sound. Evolution doesn’t say anything about abiogenesis and I wouldn’t be surprised at all (though wildly excited) if we one day find a bacteria that represents a different biological origin.
And that would be so freaking cool…
@crazyivan They did find a new kind of bacteria based on arsenic in Mono Lake. Point well taken.
@Tropical_Willie
Just to be clear, though, that bacterium was based on the same life plan as all lifeforms we know; it’s just evolved to be able to use arsenic in place of phosphorus.
(I remember that hype about the arsenic bacteria…I was kind of excited! For about 2 hours… : (
The shame is that it still might represent an awesome discovery, just not the one they hyped it as. Once all the data is in that still may be a profound discovery.
evolution has tons of supporting evidence. You evidently dislike it and would love to see it refuted. You do not comprehend how Science operates. Discovery of more human fossils does b not refute Evolution. That just adds more details to it.
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