The two groups saw each other as kindred spirits and, when conditions were right, they mated.

…

“Given the data we now have, it would be highly improbable to argue there is no Neanderthal contribution to the early European population that came out of Africa,” Trinkaus said. “I believe there was continuous breeding between the two for some period of time.

“Both groups would seem to us dirty and smelly but, cleaned up, we would understand both to be human. There’s good reason to think that they did as well.”

http://www.answersingenesis.or.....m-ethiopia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.....ithecus%29

http://www.nature.com/nature/j.....7-f1.2.jpg

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci.....363328.stm

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5479501/

Monkey apes humans
by walking on two legs
Macaque at Israeli zoo walks upright
after near death experience

The issue speaks to credibility. National Geographic, for example, reported as recently as 2006 that Lucy was a “missing link” and “an early human ancestor.” Whole article is here: http://news.nationalgeographic.....ution.html

Excellent point. Growing up I heard so much about Lucy. I recall reading about Lucy not only in science classes but also in my 7th grade history class.

Lucy was knuckle walking tree climber with a brain no bigger than a modern gorilla’s. Australopithecines have a brain size of 430 – 550 ccc, gorilla’s 450-550. Analysis of Australopithecines’ semicircular canal shows that it resembles that of extant apes and that Australopithecines probably did not walk upright any more than modern gorillas do.

The feature article is described “Adieu Lucy ; Les dévouvertes qui bouleversent notre généalogie” which translated means, “Farwell Lucy; The discoveries that overturn our genealogy”

A picture of the cover story can be accessed HERE

Like I said, it’s rather surprising, if not embarrassing for this to come up 8 years later in the US.

National Geographic’s 2006 “Fossil Find Is Missing Link in Human Evolution, Scientists Say” story is just more proof of how far out of date, out of sync and out of touch NG really is. Otherwise, if they were aware of the French article (which was supported by eminent scientists across Europe), it is nothing less than pure intentional deceit – which would not be surprising from them considering their crappy record of lies and manipulations.

Thanks, for your comments. It looks like pseudogenes and maybe introns are some of the best support for common descent but they are not necessarily indicative of anything else such as gradualism.

Maybe others here may have thoughts on this and what may be additional indications of common descent. I understand that common descent could mean many lines of descent.

although I am not specifically an expert of this field, I will try to comment on your questions according to my understanding.
First of all, I agree with you that the most convincing evidence for common descent is represented by DNA sequences which can with some certainty be identified as truly random (errors, virus insertions, etc), and which are found in similar pattern in different species. Indeed, the homologies in genes (and, more generally, in functional DNA) can always be explained on a functional basis, as reuse of the code, or as a necessary configuration of code to provide some function. In that sense, I think that homologies are overrated, because I understand that they are evaluated (see BLAST and similar software) on the basis of the improbability of their random occurrance (please, someone correct me if I am wrong), therefore ignoring in principle any other explanation of the homologies themselves, like design or function. This is a good example of how a prejudiced ideology can alter the correct and complete evaluation of data. If you assume that any improbable enough homology means commonality of descent, you are only using a Dembski-like argument in a wrong context, and ignoring the most likely explanation for what you have observed.
The homology of purely random sequences, instead, is more convincing in support of common descent. But the problem here is different: we should be certain that the configuration we observe is truly random. Unfortunately, I don’t know the subject well enough and I would be happy to learn from someone here, and so it is very difficult for me to really assess how convincing are the various evidences of this kind. Regarding introns, for instance, I would be very cautious. Indeed, introns are most certainly a highly functional part of DNA, probably more important then exons themselves. Therefore, any reasoning about introns has the same problem as reasoning about exons: homologies are probably due, in most cases, to similar function, and therefore to design.
Duplications, pseudogenes and viral insertions are probably more interesting. I know very little about viral insertions, but I would again be very cautious about duplicated genes (in my opinion, a non random, designed component of DNA). In another thread, I have already suggested the similarity between gene duplication and modification and the programming procedures of copying, pasting and modifying existing code.
As a supplementary note, I would remark that it is also possible that we observe partial common descent, in a general context where not every species is derived from a common ancestor.
Finally, about graduality or abrupt modification. As I have already said in another thread, I do believe that both time modalities are in principle compatible with designed common descent, while only the gradual modality seems to me reasonable for non designed evolution (but, really, non designed evolution does not seem reasonable to me in any way). Some evidence (Cambrian explosion, and the lack of intermediate forms) seem to favour non gradual modifications, but it is also true that a gradual design would be more compatible with the “traditional evidence” of darwinian science, provided that any of it be true.

The issue speaks to credibility. National Geographic, for example, reported as recently as 2006 that Lucy was a “missing link” and “an early human ancestor.” Whole article is here: http://news.nationalgeographic.....ution.html

Why would a leading source of popular science news publish this stuff 7 years after the fact—information which they either knew was wrong or should have known was wrong, assuming that the information ascribed to “Science at Vie” is accurate?
To me it’s very relevant because this sort of intellectual dishonesty (or laziness…) severely damages the credibility of the message. Why oversell the evidence? Why not just admit that it’s not conclusive? Could it be that so many of the grand conclusions we hear about are more about ideology and less about science?