In 2000 Leakey found an old H. erectus complete skull within walking distance of an upper jaw of the H. habilis, and both dated from the same general time period.

That makes it unlikely that H. erectus evolved from H. habilis, researchers said…

Not so fast. How do you know that the H. erectus was not an early paleontologist who was studying the bones of H. habilis when he died and his bones subsequently fossilized?

I know there have been lots of things that could change a theory as things have arrived and I haven’t much commented on those (ie like Out of Africa theory).

I’m just asking the question when can we “cast some doubt” on human evolution. This was a big hit! The notion that we were once tree dewelling than bipeds on the ground was foundational (at least when i was in HS).

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,292572,00.html

In 2000 Leakey found an old H. erectus complete skull within walking distance of an upper jaw of the H. habilis, and both dated from the same general time period.

Overall what it paints for human evolution is a “chaotic kind of looking evolutionary tree rather than this heroic march that you see with the cartoons of an early ancestor evolving into some intermediate and eventually unto us,” Spoor said in a phone interview from a field office of the Koobi Fora Research Project in northern Kenya.

Predictable – RIGHT… Ppl just won’t give up will they…

The reason is that the parasite is limited to the mosquito life cycle and the mosquito only reproduces in warm climates. The parasite would need to evolve to find a different, cold climate host, or the Anopheles mosquito would need to evolve cold climate adaptations.

Sounds like somebody has been listening to Nick Matzke. That is always a mistake. Why? Because Nick Matzke is always full of it. At temperatures below 20°C (68°F), Plasmodium falciparum (which causes severe malaria) cannot complete its growth cycle in the Anopheles mosquito, and thus cannot be transmitted. The Anopheles mosquito itself, however, has no problem reproducing below 20°C (68°F).

Check out this map which shows the global distribution of Anopheles. Now compare with this map that shows the endemic areas for Malaria. Notice all of the places where you find Anopheles but no Malaria.

Furthermore, even if it were true that P. falciparum was limited by Anopheles and not 68°F, what kind of an excuse is that in light to the numerous adaptations mammals have supposedly made in exponentailly fewer reproductive events? Let’s just list the complex innovations of mammals: diaphragm, neocortex, hair, echolocation, three boned inner ear, placenta, mammary glands, uterus, anus, vagina, four chambered heart, wings, flippers, hands. Did I get all of them? So even if Malaria’s excuse were the mosquito and not 68°F, why hasn’t malaria found a new way to travel?

I agree, except for the part about not adapting to low temperatures. I haven’t seen any credible refutations of Behe’s argument on the CQR complex, but his use of the failure of Plasmodium to adapt to cooler climates seems questionable. The reason is that the parasite is limited to the mosquito life cycle and the mosquito only reproduces in warm climates. The parasite would need to evolve to find a different, cold climate host, or the Anopheles mosquito would need to evolve cold climate adaptations.

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virtuosity (technical skill or fluency or style exhibited by a virtuoso)

Indeed. Their brains have become software due to perpetual misuse of speculation equivocated to proof.

http://nsm.uh.edu/~dgraur/Arti.....al2003.pdf

Type III secretion systems (TTSS) are unique bacterial mechanisms that mediate elaborate interactions with their hosts. The fact that several of the TTSS proteins are closely related to flagellar export proteins has led to the suggestion that TTSS had evolved from flagella. Here we reconstruct the evolutionary history of four conserved type III secretion proteins and their phylogenetic relationships with flagellar
paralogs. Our analysis indicates that the TTSS and the flagellar export mechanism share a common ancestor, but have evolved independently from one another. The suggestion that TTSS genes have evolved from genes encoding flagellar proteins is effectively refuted. A comparison of the species tree, as deduced from 16S rDNA sequences, to the protein phylogenetic trees has led to the identification of several major
lateral transfer events involving clusters of TTSS genes. It is hypothesized that horizontal gene transfer has occurred much earlier and more frequently than previously inferred for TTSS genes and is, consequently, a major force shaping the evolution of species that harbor type III secretion systems.

Notice that it’s also used as a workaround to claim that the type III secretion system appeared in nature before the flagellum. Which of course is in competition with the scenario preferred by ID proponents by which the flagellum came first and the TTSS derived from it. But even going with the scenario the Darwinists prefer the same complex mechanism has to evolve at least TWICE (or evolved once and transferred successfully).

Now I’ve seen this development coming for years. The Neo-Darwinist camp is still probably the biggest of all the Darwinist camps but people are likely to start abandoning “Neo-Darwinism as the primary mechanism” in droves. The Neo-Darwinist camp being so large is probably primarily due it being the only major version of Darwinism mentioned in higher education unless your degree program is focusing on evolution. And of course the media almost never differentiates between the various camps. So once education and media catch up I see the Neo-Darwinist camp shrinking even more rapidly.

Looks like a good follow up to Behe’s Edge of Evolution would be to try and estimate the limitations of lateral gene transfer and endosymbiosis from experimental data (IS there ANY data on what they’re capable of?). Of course, a Darwinist will just claim that all these Darwinian mechanisms “help” each other: where one is weak/limited the other may not, blah blah. I personally differentiate by camp based upon where the Darwinist puts their “Darwinian mechanism” emphasis.

On a side note I really haven’t seen a good (short) name that encapsulates all these other camp’s ideas. Some Darwinists just call it “modern evolutionary theory with Neo-Darwinism still playing a minor part” but that’s way too long. Neo-Neo-Darwinism? Post-Darwinism is already taken by Dynese…

Exactly right. It looks to me like, as usual, the Darwinists answer empirical reality with speculative virtuosity.