Proteins, Apes & Us (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, April 10, 2012, 00:42 (4612 days ago) @ dhw


> Filler's "discovery" (not theory?) supports Darwin if you classify the hominins as hominins (which you do) or as apes (which Filler does), but it brings in a sensational new dimension if you classify them as humans (which Filler does). -No he doesn't: See his original paper. He is describing the start of a line that leads to upright humans:-http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0001019)--> You have hit the nail on the head when you say Filler is locating what we both used to call "the missing link". If we replace his "ape" and "human" with "common ancestors", his four bipedal fossils fit in perfectly with Darwin's theory of common descent.-Yes.-> Then instead of his sensational "existing apes have a human ancestor" and Amazon's even more explicit "apes descended from humans and not the other way round", we have "humans and modern apes have common ancestors". But that means goodbye to the self-proclaimed "revolutionary" dimension of Filler's theory. -Forget the hype. Filler himself is reasonable as I have said, and if he is correct, it is sensational: his proposal is an ancient ape started on the road to upright bipedalism and every one else branched off. Since humans are the only truly bipedal survivors of the process of evolution, everyone branched off the 'human line'. Not an unreasonalbe viewpoint.
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> *******
> David: Nobel scientist, Dr Phillips, and his thoughts:
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> http://uip.edu/en/articles-en/ordinary-science-ordinary-faith
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> Thank you for this wonderful article, which I'm sure Tony and Casey will love too. -We theists can be human.