Evolution Starts with Lucy

[Cougarbear]

The 3.2 million year old Lucy is supposed to be the first humanoid person. But, the fossils just don't add up, do they!

 

[excalibur]

Many of the bones weren't even found near each other.

 

[scruffy]

Fossils schmossils.

If you want to know about evolution, study this:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2237266100#:~:text=In%20the%20continuous%2Dstate%20LPA,squares%20parameter%20estimates%20(24).

 

[1srelluc]

No shits given about some old bag-o-bones.

 

[Crepitus]

Fo

The 3.2 million year old Lucy is supposed to be the first humanoid person. But, the fossils just don't add up, do they!

Fossil records are incomplete.

That doesn't mean we are all descended from adam and his rib.

 

[Oddball]

Many of the bones weren't even found near each other.

She has some 'splaining to do!

 

[hondo 50]

Do they fit?

 

[Cougarbear]

Fo

Fossil records are incomplete.

That doesn't mean we are all descended from adam and his rib.

Actually yes! The DNA. Shows we go back about 4,400 years to a family. Noah now makes sense.

 

[Crepitus]

Actually yes! The DNA. Shows we go back about 4,400 years to a family. Noah now makes sense.

 

[cnm]

Or, you know, it can actually be looked up where people know what they're talking about.

Lucy: The Iconic Australopithecus afarensis and Her Role in Understanding Human Evolution

Introduction On November 24, 1974, paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson and his graduate student Tom Gray made a discovery that would reshape our understanding of human origins. In the arid landscape of Hadar, Ethiopia, they uncovered a partial skeleton of a hominin, later named “Lucy” after the Bea

www.thearchaeologist.org

​

Lucy’s Place in the Human Family Tree​

​

When Lucy was discovered, she was initially thought to be a direct ancestor of modern humans (Homo sapiens), potentially the “mother of humanity”. In 1978, Johanson and colleagues classified her as part of a new species, Australopithecus afarensis, distinct from other known australopiths like A. africanus. They proposed that A. afarensis was the last common ancestor of both the Homo lineage and the robust australopiths (Paranthropus). This hypothesis positioned Lucy’s species as a pivotal evolutionary intermediary.​

​

However, subsequent discoveries have complicated this view. Fossils like Ardipithecus ramidus (4.4 million years old) and Australopithecus anamensis (4.2–3.9 million years old) suggest a more bush-like human family tree, with multiple hominin species coexisting. Some researchers now view A. afarensis as a close relative rather than a direct ancestor, possibly a “great-great-great-aunt”. Nevertheless, Lucy remains a strong candidate for an ancestral role due to her anatomical similarities with later hominins, such as a mandible found in Hadar in 2013 that bridges A. afarensis and early Homo.​

 

[scruffy]

EVOLUTION HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FOSSILS !!!

Dammit people, evolution is biophysics.

It has to do with the mathematics of evolutionary attractors.

Read:

Evolutionary attractor - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Study on attractors during organism evolution - Scientific Reports

The important question that arises during determining the evolution of organisms is whether evolution should be treated as a continuous process or whether groups of organisms fall into 'local' attractors during evolution. A similar question arises during considering the development of cells...

www.nature.com

Evolutionary basins of attraction and convergence in plants and animals - PMC

Living organisms evolve, in part, according to the underlying properties of the amino acids and other compounds of which they are composed. Thus there are evolutionary basins of attraction that living organisms will tend to evolve toward. These ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9717/9/9/1646

Unifying evolutionary dynamics: from individual stochastic processes to macroscopic models - PubMed

A distinctive signature of living systems is Darwinian evolution, that is, a propensity to generate as well as self-select individual diversity. To capture this essential feature of life while describing the dynamics of populations, mathematical models must be rooted in the microscopic...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Evolutionary attractors are solutions of dynamic systems. Stochastic ones, in this case.

The shapes and capabilities of organisms are the RESULTS of evolution, but they are not evolution itself.

Fossils tell us relatively NOTHING. They are AT BEST a "point in time" snapshot. If you're lucky enough to capture many points in time, you can make some judgements about stability.

Concluding that Lucy is anyone's "ancestor" is IGNORANT. Finding a fossil tells us nothing about the millions of other fossils that were NOT found, perhaps destroyed, perhaps washed out to sea, perhaps turned into dust and blown away with the wind.

 

[alang1216]

Actually yes! The DNA. Shows we go back about 4,400 years to a family. Noah now makes sense.

Cherry-picking your support of science.

 

[Cougarbear]

Cherry-picking your support of science.

Remember, science is settled.

 

[Cougarbear]

Or, you know, it can actually be looked up where people know what they're talking about.

Lucy: The Iconic Australopithecus afarensis and Her Role in Understanding Human Evolution

Introduction On November 24, 1974, paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson and his graduate student Tom Gray made a discovery that would reshape our understanding of human origins. In the arid landscape of Hadar, Ethiopia, they uncovered a partial skeleton of a hominin, later named “Lucy” after the Bea

www.thearchaeologist.org

​

Lucy’s Place in the Human Family Tree​

​

When Lucy was discovered, she was initially thought to be a direct ancestor of modern humans (Homo sapiens), potentially the “mother of humanity”. In 1978, Johanson and colleagues classified her as part of a new species, Australopithecus afarensis, distinct from other known australopiths like A. africanus. They proposed that A. afarensis was the last common ancestor of both the Homo lineage and the robust australopiths (Paranthropus). This hypothesis positioned Lucy’s species as a pivotal evolutionary intermediary.​

​

However, subsequent discoveries have complicated this view. Fossils like Ardipithecus ramidus (4.4 million years old) and Australopithecus anamensis (4.2–3.9 million years old) suggest a more bush-like human family tree, with multiple hominin species coexisting. Some researchers now view A. afarensis as a close relative rather than a direct ancestor, possibly a “great-great-great-aunt”. Nevertheless, Lucy remains a strong candidate for an ancestral role due to her anatomical similarities with later hominins, such as a mandible found in Hadar in 2013 that bridges A. afarensis and early Homo.​

The problem with Lucy and the others you mentioned is the manipulation of the bones that didn't fit homo sapiens. Those involved are guilty of fabrication with the very few bones found.

 

[Cougarbear]

Don't you just love people in here that just post a thumb's down meme thinking that it means something. This is a debate forum. So, if you disagree, then say why. Hopefully, you have something to back up your disagreements.

 

[scruffy]

Evolution is made of biochemical attractors.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666386423001522

Think of it like making a cookie. Mutation is like the yeast that makes your dough grow. Selection is like the cookie cutter that shapes the result.

In chemistry this is called a reaction-diffusion process. Several Nobel prizes have been awarded for its discovery.

It falls into the general category of "non-equilibrium thermodynamics".

The math looks easy, but it's not. It is "high dimensional nonlinear dynamics".

You can imagine it in simple form, this way:

You have a lattice of points, like a Go board. Every time you put down a piece, it replicates itself - the original piece stays in place, and after some time t a new piece appears in a random unoccupied location.

Each piece influences every other piece as follows:

E(t+1) = aE(t) + bI(t)
I(t+1) = cI(t) + dE(t)

Where E and I are excitatory and inhibitory influences respectively.

When E(t) >> I(t), the rate of reproduction increases, causing a piece to create more progeny.

When I(t) >> E(t), the piece dies but its progeny remain in place.

Those familiar with nonequilibrium thermodynamics will recognize a, b, c, and d as the "coupling constants".

The mutual influence of pieces on each other turns the whole thing into a gigantic dynamic system.

This is what the "loose network" looks like:

This is what the "tight self reproducing network" looks like:

 

[alang1216]

Don't you just love people in here that just post a thumb's down meme thinking that it means something. This is a debate forum. So, if you disagree, then say why. Hopefully, you have something to back up your disagreements.

If this was aimed at me, let me reply. You wrote "Remember, science is settled", but offered nothing to back up your statement. In this case a thumb's down was the equivalent.

 

[Old Rocks]

Evolution started with the first self replicating molecule. We are a direct result of the evolution of that molecule. As is all other life on Earth.

 

[Cougarbear]

If this was aimed at me, let me reply. You wrote "Remember, science is settled", but offered nothing to back up your statement. In this case a thumb's down was the equivalent.

Liberals and Democrats have stated clearly that when it comes to climate change, science has been settled. To anything liberal, science is settled. To ignore this fact, you can now reply. Because science is never settled.

 

[Cougarbear]

Evolution started with the first self replicating molecule. We are a direct result of the evolution of that molecule. As is all other life on Earth.

Where did the molecule come from? The fact is, life doesn't progress. It digresses. And, how did your molecule self replicate? You act as if that can just miraculously happen. Yet, you reject the miracle of God. Hypocrite.