It has long been considered the most compelling question in our history: Where do human beings come from? Although life has existed for millions of years, only in the past century-and-a-half have we begun to use science to explore the ancestral roots of our own species. The search for the ultimate answer has taken a number of twists and turns, with careers made and broken along the way. APE TO MAN is the story of the quest to find the origins of the human race - a quest that spanned more than 150 years of obsessive searching.
The search for the origins of humanity is a story of bones and the tales they tell. It was in 1856 that the first bones of an extinct human ancestor were encountered, unearthed by a crew of unskilled laborers digging for limestone in Western Europe. The find would be known as Neanderthal Man and sparked a desire in the scientific community to know more about the origins of humanity. Around the same time, Charles Darwin's work The Origin of Species first broached the subject of evolution, and by the end of the nineteenth century, it had become the hottest topic of the age. Adventurers had embarked on the search for the Missing Link, the single creature that represented the evolutionary leap from apes to humans. APE TO MAN examines the major discoveries that have led us to the understanding we have today, including theories that never gained proper acceptance in their time, an elaborate hoax that confused the scientific community for years, and the ultimate understanding of the key elements that separate man from apes.
Highlights of APE TO MAN include:
Reenactments of the work of Eugene DuBois, an Amsterdam physician who left his practice in 1890 in search of the Missing Link and found what would be called Homo erectus, a 500,000-year old ape-like skeleton, in Sumatra. DuBois' assertion that he has found the Missing Link results in his rejection by the scientific community. Only later did people realize the impact of the discovery.
Examination of the key elements that marked the evolution from ape to man, including the ability to walk upright, the use of tools, the harnessing of fire, the ability to form communities, and the ability to reason and plan.
The story of Piltdown Man, a skeleton discovered in England in 1912 which was, for a time, considered by many to be the definitive Missing Link, but later discovered to be one of the greatest hoaxes in the history of science.
Raymond Dart's 1924 discovery of Taung Child, a fossilized brain in Africa, nearly two million years old. It was the oldest finding to date, but was completely ignored by the scientific community because people still believed in the erroneous story of Piltdown Man.
The two key shifts in thinking that led to our understanding today: the shift to Africa as the birthplace of the human species and the shift from the thinking that brain size was the driving force of evolution, to the understanding that the use of tools was really the key step.
I didn't know about Taung Child before. Sounds like it focuses more on the story behind the actual discoveries that supported it as opposed to the more abstract Darwin/Engels theorizing. I'm weak when it comes to these kinds of early man programs, it's a physical compulsion.
Basded on the half hour making of, it seems like it may be interesting. But based on some of the junk History Channel has put on, I am leery. It doesn't help that the last 10 minutes of the "Making Of" dealt with ID by having sound bytes of ID'ers and and...well, rational thinkers spout pro and con on ID. But they may have done this to reflect the conflict. I hope they will go into the inherent weaknesses of ID, and not just follow a point on ID's flaws with an ID'er denying it and belittling evolution. It would be nice if the show made a strong statement about ID and what it really is.
I just am leery with all the UFO hunter, Nostrodamas, DaVinci Code stuff etc. that History Channel likes to show.
- Odd Jack, Jaded Skeptic
--- jadedskeptic.blogspot.com
- "The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry."
"The universe is a strange and wondrous place. The truth is quite odd enough to need no help from pseudoscientific charlatans." - Richard Dawkins
Isn't the History Channel done by the same company that owns the Discovery Channel? If so, this will be good. Every time Discovery did stuff on Evolution and the Evolution of man, they have had very good material. Discovery also did a show on Noah's Ark and it ripped into the Biblical account something awful.
"If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. If the law is on your side, pound on the law. If neither is on your side, pound on the table."
"The captain claimed our people violated a 4,000 year old treaty forbidding us to develop hyperspace technology. Extermination of our planet was the consequence. The subject did not survive interrogation."
Well it seems History Channel is part of the A&E networks. We shall see how they do this.
"If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. If the law is on your side, pound on the law. If neither is on your side, pound on the table."
"The captain claimed our people violated a 4,000 year old treaty forbidding us to develop hyperspace technology. Extermination of our planet was the consequence. The subject did not survive interrogation."
I've been leery of the History Channels scientific programs ever since their aired "The Hurricane that Saved London" about the pilot of a Hurricane fighter during the battle of Brain who rammed a German bomber that was about to drop bombs on Buckingham palace. They actually spent 5 minutes showing a fucking dowser looking flor the Hurricanes engine and basically portrayed dowsing as a valid and highly accurate technique for finding things buried underground.
We pissing our pants yet?
-Negan
You got your shittin' pants on? Because you’re about to Shit. Your. Pants!
-Negan
He who can, does; he who cannot, teaches.
-George Bernard Shaw
It has long been considered the most compelling question in our history: Where do human beings come from? Although life has existed for millions of years, only in the past century-and-a-half have we begun to use science to explore the ancestral roots of our own species. The search for the ultimate answer has taken a number of twists and turns, with careers made and broken along the way. APE TO MAN is the story of the quest to find the origins of the human race - a quest that spanned more than 150 years of obsessive searching.
The search for the origins of humanity is a story of bones and the tales they tell. It was in 1856 that the first bones of an extinct human ancestor were encountered, unearthed by a crew of unskilled laborers digging for limestone in Western Europe. The find would be known as Neanderthal Man and sparked a desire in the scientific community to know more about the origins of humanity. Around the same time, Charles Darwin's work The Origin of Species first broached the subject of evolution, and by the end of the nineteenth century, it had become the hottest topic of the age. Adventurers had embarked on the search for the Missing Link, the single creature that represented the evolutionary leap from apes to humans. APE TO MAN examines the major discoveries that have led us to the understanding we have today, including theories that never gained proper acceptance in their time, an elaborate hoax that confused the scientific community for years, and the ultimate understanding of the key elements that separate man from apes.
Highlights of APE TO MAN include:
Reenactments of the work of Eugene DuBois, an Amsterdam physician who left his practice in 1890 in search of the Missing Link and found what would be called Homo erectus, a 500,000-year old ape-like skeleton, in Sumatra. DuBois' assertion that he has found the Missing Link results in his rejection by the scientific community. Only later did people realize the impact of the discovery.
Examination of the key elements that marked the evolution from ape to man, including the ability to walk upright, the use of tools, the harnessing of fire, the ability to form communities, and the ability to reason and plan.
The story of Piltdown Man, a skeleton discovered in England in 1912 which was, for a time, considered by many to be the definitive Missing Link, but later discovered to be one of the greatest hoaxes in the history of science.
Raymond Dart's 1924 discovery of Taung Child, a fossilized brain in Africa, nearly two million years old. It was the oldest finding to date, but was completely ignored by the scientific community because people still believed in the erroneous story of Piltdown Man.
The two key shifts in thinking that led to our understanding today: the shift to Africa as the birthplace of the human species and the shift from the thinking that brain size was the driving force of evolution, to the understanding that the use of tools was really the key step.
Error #1 has been found!
The Taung Child was *not* a fossilized brain (Brains don't fossilize, they're soft tissue!). It was a skull from a young Australopithecus africanus.
Possible error #2: The specimen being found in a limestone quarry appears to refer to Neandertals. However, if I'm not mistaken, they were most likely a cousin to humanity, rather than an actual ancestor...
The Taung Child was *not* a fossilized brain (Brains don't fossilize, they're soft tissue!). It was a skull from a young Australopithecus africanus.
Hell, for that matter, brains are usually the first things to go, given their extremely high moisture content. What the Taung Child skull actually is, is an A. africanus skull, like you said. However, what makes it notable is the fact that it does have a fossilized imprint of the hominid's braincase.
Even though I am interested in the Science behind it all, I would hope that the show doesn't focus too too much on the science and more on the history of discovery, because it is, after all, on a history channel.
Although if it doesn't do that, I won't cry about it, since it's all good.
The Taung Child was *not* a fossilized brain (Brains don't fossilize, they're soft tissue!). It was a skull from a young Australopithecus africanus.
Hell, for that matter, brains are usually the first things to go, given their extremely high moisture content. What the Taung Child skull actually is, is an A. africanus skull, like you said. However, what makes it notable is the fact that it does have a fossilized imprint of the hominid's braincase.
Ah...more badly worded than an error, then. They never mentioned the fact that there's an imprint of the brain in my Intro. to Biological Anthropology class...
The History Channel has a forum on the program. With the exception of a few posters like skeptic67 and VoiceOfReason-T.O, however, the board consensus looks firmly in the creationist camp at the moment. I feel stupider for having read some of that tripe.
Datana wrote:The History Channel has a forum on the program. With the exception of a few posters like skeptic67 and VoiceOfReason-T.O, however, the board consensus looks firmly in the creationist camp at the moment. I feel stupider for having read some of that tripe.
I'm too damn tired of this crap to even go there. Someone else handle it. This is NOT a job for Superman.
Datana wrote:The History Channel has a forum on the program. With the exception of a few posters like skeptic67 and VoiceOfReason-T.O, however, the board consensus looks firmly in the creationist camp at the moment. I feel stupider for having read some of that tripe.
Datana wrote:The History Channel has a forum on the program. With the exception of a few posters like skeptic67 and VoiceOfReason-T.O, however, the board consensus looks firmly in the creationist camp at the moment. I feel stupider for having read some of that tripe.
I went through one thread in that forum and I wanted to pluck my eyes out. It's only because skeptic67's participation that I didn't.
If The Infinity Program were not a forum, it would be a pie-in-the-sky project. “Faith is both the prison and the open hand.”— Vienna Teng, "Augustine."
Datana wrote:The History Channel has a forum on the program. With the exception of a few posters like skeptic67 and VoiceOfReason-T.O, however, the board consensus looks firmly in the creationist camp at the moment. I feel stupider for having read some of that tripe.
Lets see...
I think that a lot of this so called science supports a leftist agenda.
And done.
Honestly, I wouldn't have expected such a hive of creationists there.
So many people so convinced that evolution is a disproven and beaten idea. Frightening, as are some of the topics. I almost want to post so as to assure the History Channel of the still existing presence of sanity.,,but I think I would have to register, etc. I'm not that sane.
But I did play the game on the Ape to Man page.
- Odd Jack, Jaded Skeptic
--- jadedskeptic.blogspot.com
- "The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry."
"The universe is a strange and wondrous place. The truth is quite odd enough to need no help from pseudoscientific charlatans." - Richard Dawkins
Datana wrote:The History Channel has a forum on the program. With the exception of a few posters like skeptic67 and VoiceOfReason-T.O, however, the board consensus looks firmly in the creationist camp at the moment. I feel stupider for having read some of that tripe.
Lets see...
I think that a lot of this so called science supports a leftist agenda.
And done.
Honestly, I wouldn't have expected such a hive of creationists there.
You left out the best parts of that post, though, that showed that the poster was not only a creationist, but a white-supremacist and somewhat of a neo-nazi.
Slightly off-topic, but why do people say that teaching evolution is a left-wing thing, or that it's part of the plot to make people gay? Do they ever give reasoning for it, or just assume it to be axiomatic? Or is it simply because it's secular, and anything that doesn't promote the church leads to sin?
Grandmaster Jogurt wrote:Slightly off-topic, but why do people say that teaching evolution is a left-wing thing, or that it's part of the plot to make people gay? Do they ever give reasoning for it, or just assume it to be axiomatic? Or is it simply because it's secular, and anything that doesn't promote the church leads to sin?
Because it teaches that God doesn't exist and if we're animals, then we don't have any morality at all!
That's the reasoning.
Mayabird is my girlfriend
Justice League:BotM:MM:SDnet City Watch:Cybertron's Finest "Well then, science is bullshit. "
-revprez, with yet another brilliant rebuttal.
Whats worse about Creationists is they keep calling Evolution a religion. Furthermore in order to prove it wrong they use incorrect definitions of the core concepts of Evolution and call biology book definitions "liberal lies". Not only do they disagree with Evolution, they have deemed only they know the correct definition of the thing they disagree with and those who propose it are lying about Evolutions definition.
"If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. If the law is on your side, pound on the law. If neither is on your side, pound on the table."
"The captain claimed our people violated a 4,000 year old treaty forbidding us to develop hyperspace technology. Extermination of our planet was the consequence. The subject did not survive interrogation."
Grandmaster Jogurt wrote:
Slightly off-topic, but why do people say that teaching evolution is a left-wing thing, or that it's part of the plot to make people gay? Do they ever give reasoning for it, or just assume it to be axiomatic? Or is it simply because it's secular, and anything that doesn't promote the church leads to sin?
Standard marketing. You offer several things in a bundle, you save money, and the consumer buys more. Imagine evolution is a Big Mac, homosexuals are fries, and anything liberal is a medium Coke. You put it all together and you get a fundie Happy Meal.
The most basic assumption about the world is that it does not contradict itself.
And evolution has many many spiritual leaders, ie. Liberals, Teachers, Scientists etc...
Trains and computers are Things, Tools. Evolution is a philosophy, a religion.
Evolution is NOT a practical fact, it is a value-less moral-less religious system that is vastly flawed. Every post you make proves it more and more.
"If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. If the law is on your side, pound on the law. If neither is on your side, pound on the table."
"The captain claimed our people violated a 4,000 year old treaty forbidding us to develop hyperspace technology. Extermination of our planet was the consequence. The subject did not survive interrogation."
Originally Posted by Sakura Azhreia
Well, it's not a manmade experiment, but we have direct proof of the evolution of the HIV virus. And it's happening now.
Thats not evolution, thats Adaptation. Same with viruses. Adaptation.
"If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. If the law is on your side, pound on the law. If neither is on your side, pound on the table."
"The captain claimed our people violated a 4,000 year old treaty forbidding us to develop hyperspace technology. Extermination of our planet was the consequence. The subject did not survive interrogation."
Originally Posted by Sakura Azhreia
Reeeaally.
My biology text book defines adaptation as "any heritable trait that increases the fitness of an individual with that trait compared to individuals without that trait."
Note that 'ftness' means not physical fitness, but reproductive fitness, so the number of offspring an individual has.
My textbook defines natural selection as "one of the major mechanisms of evolution, this is the process by which individuals with certain heritable traits tend to produce more surviving offspring than individuals without those traits, resulting in a change in the genetic make-up of the population."
Hmm, lookie that. Adaptation has almost exactly the same definition as natural selection and natural selection is a mechanism of evolution!
And my textbook is Biological Science, 2002 by Scott Freedman, printed by Prentice Hall.
Your text book is also a fat load of liberal crap.
"If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. If the law is on your side, pound on the law. If neither is on your side, pound on the table."
"The captain claimed our people violated a 4,000 year old treaty forbidding us to develop hyperspace technology. Extermination of our planet was the consequence. The subject did not survive interrogation."
Originally Posted by Sakura Azhreia
Liberal crap? My book is a nationally used college text. Your definition, while mostly accurate, isn't completely. For instance, adaptation is natural selection. Ooh, and look, even your definition of evolution mentions that phrase.
I just took a course on evolution and I have all of my texts at hand. Don't try debating this topic with me. Especially not the definition of evolution.
And internet dictionaries just aren't a very creditable source for scientific definitions.
Correct, you have a nationally used college text book. Its a fat load of liberal BS. 90%+ of every college facility in the USA is Liberal and pushes a liberal mindset on the youth of america as they grow up teaching them trash, pushing a non-moralistic system where no one is ever at fault but the cooperations and the government. Stupid PC BS. Its people like you that allowed a woman in a McDonalds resturant to sue them for spilling her coffee on herself and WINNING the lawsuit cause McDonalds didnt have a warning: Hot on the cup. Pure liberal PC BS.
It astounds me the lenghs that Creationists will go to try and get their way. Intentionaly deceptive.
"If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. If the law is on your side, pound on the law. If neither is on your side, pound on the table."
"The captain claimed our people violated a 4,000 year old treaty forbidding us to develop hyperspace technology. Extermination of our planet was the consequence. The subject did not survive interrogation."
