"Father of all humankind is 340,000 years old"?

[A Theist]

Thought this may be interesting to you guys...DNA evidence has revealed that humans may be older than first expected...what does everyone think....

Father of all humankind is 340,000 years old

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/fat...33011.html

[Brian37]

No man we are only 6 to 10 thousand years old.

[LastPoet]

Kinda puts a boot on young earth creationists asses

[Brian37]

Kinda puts a boot on young earth creationists asses

YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU and your stupid facts and science!

[popeyespappy]

Thought this may be interesting to you guys...DNA evidence has revealed that humans may be older than first expected...what does everyone think....

Father of all humankind is 340,000 years old

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/fat...33011.html

This doesn't really indicate that "humans" are older than expected. It pushes the age of the oldest common male ancestor back, but does not necessitate that he was Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

[Minimalist]

Unless such distinctions are totally meaningless, that is.

[Anomalocaris]

Thought this may be interesting to you guys...DNA evidence has revealed that humans may be older than first expected...what does everyone think....


http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/fat...33011.html

This doesn't really indicate that "humans" are older than expected. It pushes the age of the oldest common male ancestor back, but does not necessitate that he was Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

The article misrepresents the implication, and in fact contradicts itself. The finding suggest not the oldest, but the most recent common male ancestor of living humans lived much earlier then thought.

The oldest common male ancestor of all humans would also be the oldest common male ancestrr between humans, chimpanzees, tyrannosaurs, trilobites, and velvet worms, and is undoubtedly some single celled organism living more than 2 billion years ago.

[Whateverist]

I read somewhere that someone plans to clone a Neanderthal. Great idea. But then there was discussion about the ethics of how it should be kept and studied. It seems to me that you would have to do your best to give it a typical human upbringing if you wanted to know what it was capable of. A modern human child raised in a closet or by wolves would hardly be a prime specimen to study if you wanted to understand us.

I wonder what criteria was cited for claiming this 340,000 year old specimen was a direct contributor to our line? It doesn't sound to me like they are claiming this specimen was identical to modern humans - although it might be for all I know. But most early humanoids seem to be lost branches which do not necessarily feed directly to our lineage.

[popeyespappy]

This doesn't really indicate that "humans" are older than expected. It pushes the age of the oldest common male ancestor back, but does not necessitate that he was Homo Sapiens Sapiens.

The article misrepresents the implication, and in fact contradicts itself. The finding suggest not the oldest, but the most recent common male ancestor lived much earlier then thought.

Sorry, my bad when I said oldest. He was the most recent common male ancestor of all known humans. The oldest would be really old. Cambrian explosion old if not before.

[A Theist]

I read somewhere that someone plans to clone a Neanderthal. Great idea. But then there was discussion about the ethics of how it should be kept and studied. It seems to me that you would have to do your best to give it a typical human upbringing if you wanted to know what it was capable of. A modern human child raised in a closet or by wolves would hardly be a prime specimen to study if you wanted to understand us.

I wonder what criteria was cited for claiming this 340,000 year old specimen was a direct contributor to our line? It doesn't sound to me like they are claiming this specimen was identical to modern humans - although it might be for all I know. But most early humanoids seem to be lost branches which do not necessarily feed directly to our lineage.

I read somewhere that someone plans to clone a Neanderthal. Great idea.

I remember watching TV where Japanese scientists were wanting to do the same thing with a Wooly Mammoth...that was last year and I haven't seen anything else about it since then....I wonder if they're actually able to do it?