Chimps: fair. Humans:...?

February 17, 2005 11:26 AM

You humans have been around a lot longer than you were thought to have been here-- since at least 190,000 years ago. In 1967, the Omo fossils were thought to be about 130,000 years old.
posted by mcgraw (17 comments total)

No wonder I feel so tired.
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 11:36 AM on February 17, 2005

But, the Earth is only 6,000 years old. How can this be?
posted by caddis at 11:57 AM on February 17, 2005

I'm waiting for 2 million year old remails of hair dressers and telephone sanitizers to show up.

This is quite interesting, I'm curious though, what's the likelyhood of the remains to have been somehow moved between then and now? Also, how possible (or preserving) would it be if they tried to do a date on the bones themselves...
Satyagraha

on preview: I suppose that would probably distroy the bones though...nevermind.
posted by thebestsophist at 12:05 PM on February 17, 2005

Well its obvious isn't it: GOd put the fossils there to tempt us into believing the earth is older than 6000 years. Its a test.
posted by randomnfactor at 12:12 PM on February 17, 2005

This announcement is based on the assumption that the evolution of our species was basically complete once our skeletal features became what they are, an assumption I find dubious in the extreme. Anyone who assumes that people from 200,000 were us just because they looked like us has to explain the complete absence of any cultural artifacts or creativity until less than 80,000 years ago.

Even the genetic evidence used to date the emergence of our species to 200,000 years ago is less than solid; it's based on mtDNA, but every single base-pair has its own genetic history, which can differ dramatically from that of its neighbors, depending on distance. For example, based on Y-chromosome data, our species is ~66,000 years old, based on HLA data, we've been around for maybe 10 million years, and based on Cytochrome P450 data, our species is 400+ million years old! There is nothing sacrosanct about mtDNA to justify belief in the 200K mark as particularly relevant, and I actually think the Y-chromosome data is more informative, as it meshes better with the lack of evidence for H. sapiens style cultural creativity until a few tens of thousands of years ago.
posted by Goedel at 12:16 PM on February 17, 2005

There were no artifacts before 80,000 years ago because that is when the aliens had us eat the magic mushrooms! Sheesh!
posted by stinkycheese at 12:19 PM on February 17, 2005

God never ceases to amaze.
posted by pmbuko at 12:39 PM on February 17, 2005

Dude, it wasn't God who put them there, but Satan. You see?
posted by punkbitch at 1:01 PM on February 17, 2005

In Soviet Russia, mazes never cease to agog.

Wait, which site am I on?
posted by davejay at 1:03 PM on February 17, 2005

From the third of the three links above, New Scientist:
> They found that the sediments had collected only during
> relatively brief eras of extremely heavy monsoons - lasting
> about 1000 years in a 40,000-year cycle.....

I wonder what artifacts, besides the known stone knives, would have survived a millenium of extremely heavy monsoons.

Given that the fossils were preserved only in sediments washed down by such a climate change, maybe all we're seeing preserved is what didn't disintegrate and get washed away when the rains came on heavy -- most anything else would have been made of wood or grass or other material made during dry millenia, that would likely moulder away.
posted by hank at 1:49 PM on February 17, 2005

It probably took us a good 80,000 years to figure out that rock was harder than grass...
posted by BobFrapples at 2:00 PM on February 17, 2005

Do all of these things have to degrade into braindead religious swiping with you people? This happened with the life on mars thread yesterday, too. Guess what: your favorite young earth creationist strawmen aren't reading Metafilter, so they can't feel the sting of your oh-so-witty mockery. So please spare the rest of us.
posted by mr_roboto at 2:03 PM on February 17, 2005

Do all of these things have to degrade into braindead religious swiping with you people?

Based on empirical evidence: yeah. And I feel the same way you do about it (I suspect).
posted by Bugbread at 2:05 PM on February 17, 2005

oh you god-types are so cute when yer' uppity ^_^.
posted by basicchannel at 4:39 PM on February 17, 2005

"Now there is today, I believe, still a very common view, common to nineteenth- and twentieth-century freethinkers, that modern science and historical criticism have refuted revelation... There is the famous example [that supposedly] the age of the earth is much greater than the biblical reports assume. But this is obviously a very defective argument. The refutation presupposes that everything happens naturally; but this is denied by the Bible. The Bible speaks of creation; creation is a miracle, the miracle. All the evidence supplied by geology, paleontology, etc., is valid against the Bible only on the premise that no miracle intervened. The freethinking argument is really based on poor thinking. It begs the question."

- Leo Strauss, Progress or Return?
posted by koeselitz at 5:17 PM on February 17, 2005

oh you god-types are so cute when yer' uppity

Uh, are there any god-types in this thread so far?
posted by Bugbread at 6:15 PM on February 17, 2005

Wasn't this in Aliens vs. Predator?
posted by Kleptophoria! at 8:15 PM on February 17, 2005