Unravelling Our Evolutionary Past

BBC News - Leg bone gives up oldest human DNA

New evidence which may help unravel the complicated story of human evolution was published in Nature today. Researchers led by Matthias Meyer at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig have isolated and analysed mitochondrial DNA from 400,000 year-old hominid fossils found at the Sima de los Huesos or 'pit of bones' in the Atapuerca mountains in northern Spain.

Scientifically, the significance of this is that this is the oldest hominid DNA yet recovered. Until recently it was assumed that DNA degrades over time at a rate which means 60,000 years was the limit beyond which DNA would not be recoverable but new techniques in DNA sequencing have now pushed that back way beyond what was thought possible.

Science can tell only so much from bones and fossils but DNA potentially provides a much clearer picture of evolutionary relationships and the recovery of mitochondrial DNA raises the possibility of a being able to recover the full genome.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is from the cell organelles responsible for using the energy in glucose to build adenosine triphosphate (ATP) which the cell can then use as an energy source to drive other metabolic processes. These organelles are believed to be the descendants of a bacterium which formed a symbiotic relationship with other simple cells to form the complex cells of which all multicellular life is composed. Mitochondria are present in the ovum but not in sperm, so we only inherit mtDNA from our mother and it does not get shuffled up and mixed with our father's DNA, unlike most of our genome, so it is possible to construct a tree of relationships through the maternal line.

Atapuercan family - artist's impression
(From Pilgrimage Day 13: Belorado - Atapuerca DR. Kaare Torgny Pettersen)

At 400,000 years old, researchers had expected this mtDNA to show the hominids to be close to the Neanderthals who are believed to have been in Euro-Asia for at least 250,000 years, so it was something of a surprise that they are actually closer to the recently-discovered Denisovans from Siberia. Physically, the fossils from Sima de los Huesos look like early Neanderthals and this has led some paleoanthropologists to classify them as Homo heidelbergensis which is a candidate for the forerunner of H. neanderthalensis, the as yet unnamed Denisovans, a third possible cousin known only from the DNA it is thought to have contributed to modern humans, and maybe even H. sapiens.

One possibility is that this population resulted from interbreeding between early Neanderthals or Homo heidelbergensis and H. erectus as humans expanded into Euro-Asia and diversified, forming what amounts to a ring species. This is of course to be expected as species diversify from a common ancestor to form regional varieties, subspecies and eventually new species. There will inevitably be a period during which fertile interbreeding is possible. It is also possible that the Denisovans were the descendants of an early expansion which was later replaced in Europe and Western Asia by Neanderthals who had evolved in isolation before moving into their final range as an Ice Age adapted human variant, to be replaced in their turn by H. sapiens only some 30-50,000 years ago as the ice retreated and Neanderthals found themselves specialised for an environment which no longer existed. For them, global warming happened 30,000 years ago.

Whatever the final resolution to this puzzle turns out to be, and DNA sequencing is bringing that ever closer, we can be absolutely sure it will not trace all humans to a boat in the Middle East some 4000 years ago. The Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, and the science of DNA sequencing and analysis, must be giving nightmares to the professional liars at the Discovery Institute and the Institute for Creation Research which are desperate to keep selling their primitive Bronze-Age mythology to scientifically illiterate simpletons, hoping to be swept to political power on a wave of scientific ignorance and arrogant incredulity.

The science, of course, is proving to be entirely consistent with the neo-Darwinian model for evolution. Indeed, the science only makes any sense in terms of Darwinian Evolution.

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The Small Problem of the Hobbit

Homo floresiensis (cast)

I'm obviously not keeping up.

Reading Becoming Human: Our Past, Present and Future a special publication by Scientific American editors, the chapter Rethinking the Hobbits of Indonesia by Kate Wong was something of a surprise.

I had assumed the so-called 'Hobbit', the diminutive hominid known to taxonomists as Homo floresiensis and to paleoanthropologists as LB1, after Liang Bua, the name of the cave it was found in in 2004 on the Indonesian island of Flores, was generally considered just that - a member of the Homo genus which had become miniaturised. Miniaturisation is common on islands, probably in response to limited resource and a generally smaller number of predators.

The problem, as I understood it, was that the cranial capacity of LB1 was only a little larger than a chimpanzee's and yet stone tools were found associated with it which showed a tool-making ability at least as advanced as H. erectus with a far larger brain.

Revising Our Attitude To Sex as Christianity Fades

Image: Sven Görlich/Plainpicture

UK sex survey highlights tolerance, diversity and abuse - health - 27 November 2013 - New Scientist

A survey into attitudes to sex published in The Lancet today highlights the demise of Christianity and the advance of secular humanism in Britain with a subsequently healthier, more tolerant and more considerate attitude to sex and sexuality. The survey, the third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal) shows a marked change in attitudes towards a more tolerant, less censorious attitude to multiple parnerships and same-sex relationships but a reduced tolerance for infidelity. People are taking their responsibilities in a relationship more seriously but are less concerned about the sexual activities and preferences of others.

Christianity No Longer An Excuse For Discrimination.

Hazelmary and Peter Bull. No right to act unlawfully.

BBC News - Gay snub Cornish B&B owners lose Supreme Court appeal

In another landmark ruling today, the Supreme Court for England and Wales ruled that a Christian couple, Hazelmary and Peter Bull, had acted unlawfully when they refused to allow a gay couple to share a room in their guesthouse in Marazion in Cornwall in 2008. The five judges ruled that the Bulls' Christianity did not entitle them to deny other people their human right to not be discriminated against on the grounds of sexual orientation.

A Peculiar Bird is the Pelican...

Nose to beak with a Christian hero heavyweight champ - life - 26 November 2013 - New Scientist

I thought I'd share this with you. Not only is it a lovely photo but it makes you wonder what else St Thomas Aquinas, leading Christian thinker of his time, got wrong.

The Dalmatian pelican (Pelecanus crispus) is the heaviest flying animal of any kind and needs about 1.2 Kg (2.6lb) of fish to supply the fuel for keeping that bulk aloft. It swallows as much as it can and stores any surplus in the large pouch in it's throat. In one of those fascinating examples of evolution's utilitarian approach to 'design', the existence of this large, expandable bag of skin was put to an entirely unrelated use by turning bright red in males in the breeding season.

Unintelligent Evolution

The thing about Darwinian Evolution by Natural Selection is that it is, and cannot be, directed. There is no plan and so no strategy or purpose. If it leads a species over an evolutionary cliff to extinction, then so be it. In fact, there are so many ways of going extinct that it is almost surprising that only some 99% of all known species have gone extinct.

Just imagine how crowded the place would have been in the beginning if the Christian creation myth were true and a magic man in the sky really did magic all the species into existence one day, with a hundred times as many species then as there are now!

One way evolution can drive a species to extinction is by specialisation. If the conditions are right a species can become more and more specialised to cope with them simply because each improvement produces more descendents in those conditions. The species has no choice in the matter.

DNA and a History of Slavery and Genocide

A History of Slavery and Genocide Is Hidden in Modern DNA | Surprising Science

New techniques of DNA sequencing and analysis, combined with an understanding of neo-Darwinian evolution, is proving a powerful tool with which to study human history with far greater accuracy than is provided by archaeology. Quite simply, we carry a record of our history in our DNA.

I remember reading in one of Richard Dawkin's books some years ago - I forget which, possibly The Greatest Show On Earth - that it should in theory, if only we could read it in sufficient detail, be possible to 'read' the evolutionary history of any species because each stage in evolution leaves its mark on the DNA. We should also be able to read changes in Earth's climate and major changes in ecosystems because each species which survived them would have needed to adapt, and adaptation means changes in DNA.

Hey Folks! Have You Seen Manny's New Account?

Looks like Manuel is back on Twitter and has started abusing people already. Details here.

For those not familiar with Manuel, the unemployable former Catholic seminarian who was expelled from seminary due to his abusive behaviour and narcissistic personality disorder, and who now spends all day abusing people on the Internet from the safety of his room in the Bronx, you may find the details here.

[Update 24 November 2013:] Things move quickly in Manny World. He is now on yet another account - @SacerdotusLIves. I expect Twitter Safety are already aware but they often need reminding...

I see from the profile that Manuel is now claiming to have contacts inside Twitter. I wonder if these contacts resemble the vast army of contacts he claims to have in the UK for monitoring my every move and reporting back to him so he can include the details in the weekly reports on my criminal activities he claims he submits to 'The UK Authorities', in other words, another figment of his deranged imagination.

Those wishing to make use of Twitter's abuse reporting system can find details here.

The Monstrous Regiment of Christians

BBC News - Church of England synod vote 'paves way' for female bishops

In a nice example of the "you'll keep voting till you get it right!" approach to democracy, the General Synod of the Church of England, which a year ago voted against allowing the ordination of women bishops, was today told to try again, and managed to get it right - and by a substantial margin of 378 to 8.

Well, not quite. There is still some work to do but they have 'paved the way'.

Christianity Is Dying Out

Christianity at risk of dying out in a generation, warns Lord Carey - Telegraph

This article made me laugh out loud. Not so much at the thought that the Church of England could be on the verge of a long-overdue world-wide extinction, welcome though that prospect is, but because of a particular paragraph which kind of gives the whole game away.

Lord Carey's warning came as he addressed the Shropshire Light Conference at Holy Trinity Church in Shrewsbury at the weekend discussing how the church could be “re-imagined”.

Re-imagined, eh? Is the Christian Church belatedly admitting that the whole thing was imaginary all along?

Boston's Bigots

St. Botolph's Church (Boston Stump)

St. Botolph's Church

Boston in Lincolnshire is a pretty little market town in the heart of the Fens, surrounded by acres and acres of cabbage fields which, when we were there last Friday, gave off a distinct hint of decaying cabbage.

This part of the England's coast is behind a defensive system of medieval dykes with extensive salt-marshes between the dyke and the sea making much of the actual coast inaccessible for much of the time and so a haven for millions of waders and other sea birds. These dykes are all that is preventing the entire area from reverting to the coastal marshes they were before reclamation in the early Middle Ages.

The tower of St Botolph's Church, known as the Boston Stump, dominates the surrounding fenlands and can be seen from miles away. It is Boston's claim to historic fame in that prominent member of the congregation of St Botolph's together with their fundamentalist rector, Rev. John Cotton, emigrated in 1630 to the New World to set up a Puritan Christian colony. They sailed on the Arbella and landed in Massachusetts Bay, where they founded the colony which became the city of Boston.

Lincoln Fundamental

Lincoln Cathedral, Lincolnshire, UK

Lincoln Cathedral at night

We had a nice couple of days in Lincoln and Boston, Lincolnshire on Thursday and Friday. I'll write about Boston next but this is about Lincoln, especially Lincoln Cathedral and what we can learn from it.

First a little background:

The See of Lincoln was the seat of one of the most powerful bishops in the Middle Ages and was certainly the largest, stretching at one time from the Thames to the Humber. It was thus immensely rich feeding off the produce of the surrounding agriculture, which included a large share of England's medieval wool wealth as well as the produce of the fertile reclaimed fenlands.

The cathedral is thus suitably impressive and sits atop a steep climb from the River Watham, which was

Evolving Theology

Charles Darwin to receive apology from the Church of England for rejecting evolution - Telegraph

I was amused to read today that the Church of England apologised to Charles Darwin in 2008 for rejecting his Theory of Evolution by Means of Natural Selection. It must have passed me by at the time as I wouldn't dream of picking up a copy of the Telegraph which used to be regarded as the Tory Party house journal, let alone ever opening it.

But that aside, I was still amused that the dear old CofE, forever chasing popularity and struggling to keep up with mainstream public opinion as its membership dwindles even further and more churches close despite population growth, would try to get away with the pretense that Darwinian Evolution and Christianity are compatible.

Yes, I know that many Christians, including, at least officially, the Pope, accept that evolution is the cause of diversity of living things and that the Darwinian Theory of Evolution is the best explanation of how it happens. I also know that a few evolutionary biologists like Francis Collins purport to be practicing Christians, but I have to assume they have managed to compartmentalize their beliefs and have squeezed two mutually inconsistent views into the same brain. It's surely no coincidence that religious evolutionary biologists are only slightly more common than hens' teeth.

Lessons From Nature - How Birds and Berries Gave Us Colour Vision

Hips and hawes in an Oxfordshire Hedgerow in Autumn

© 2013 Rosa Rubicondior

We've just spend a lovely afternoon walking over a footpath from Abingdon to the village of Sunningwell, where we had an especially good English Sunday roast dinner with a very drinkable Rioja at the Flowing Well. What made it even more enjoyable, apart from an almost cloud-free blue sky, was the profusion of wild berries amongst the autumn leaves on the hedgerows. The footpath is mostly ancient, so is well stocked with different plant species.

Now, a religious person, and especially a religious person who knew little of evolution and so would almost certainly not believe in it, would probably look at the beauty in the English countryside and marvel at how wonderful his or her god had been in magicking such a pretty planet just for them to marvel at. They

ET Will Destroy Religion's Foundations

An editorial in today's New Scientist very boldly states:

The idea that there might be another living planet a few light years from home, orbiting a star visible with the naked eye, is a tantalising prospect. For better or worse, the odds are stacked against that. But we can be pretty confident that, if life is common in the universe, we will have found signs of it by the middle of the next decade. [My emphasis]

We'll have the tools to spot nearby aliens by 2030; New Scientist 9 November 2013 (No. 2942)

The Silly Bible's Failed Prophecies.

Ask almost any Christian fundamentalist for one single proof that the Bible is the word of God and they will almost invariably trot out the accepted dogma that there are proven prophecies in the Bible which only a god could have inspired and they confirm the Bible's inerrancy.

Asking them for examples of these often results in indignant flounces and abuse, however, because, quite simply, there are none. There are a few statements which, at a stretch, parallel later events, usually events which were entirely predictable anyway - a bit like prophesying that there will be an earthquake in Japan or that the Caribbean will suffer a devastating hurricane sometime soon.

Very many of them are only 'confirmed' later in the Bible and have no extra-biblical evidence, like the alleged birth of Jesus, which apparently also prophesied he would be called Immanuel - a name by which he was never ever known in the Bible. The New Testament 'confirmation' of Old Testament 'prophecies' were written by people like the author of Matthew specifically to make it look like Jesus was the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy to suit a Jewish cultic agenda.

I have even had it claimed that the prophecy about Jesus returning, which is attributed to Jesus himself, is really a fulfilled prophecy because it will be fulfilled at sometime.

Darwin Creationist Award 2013 - Tiebreaker!

The votes are in for the 2013 Darwin Creationist Award and we have an unprecedented three-way tie!

Three excellent candidates and it's all up for grabs. It's good to see Joe Cienkowski still in there as Joe seems to have been trying for this prestigious award for several years now, even writing semi-literate, and scientifically fully illiterate, books to support his claim.

I'm sorry to see my personal favourite, Errol Smythe, in all his different manifestations, failing to make the grade. Perhaps his multiple attempts to refute the children's fairy tale Cinderella, in the mistaken belief that it is a standard biology textbook dealing with evolution, was just too preposterous for most people's tastes. Regrettably, Errol seems to have a minder who kindly deletes his more insane tweets and he regularly changes his user name, so his little gems are hard to come by.

Anyway, good luck for next year Errol. I'm sure you'll be in with another chance.

Evolution's Relics

Our genes have a very long history. 99% of them were in other species before they were in Homo sapiens.

About six million years ago they were in Africa in an ancestor we have in common with the other African apes. Three million years ago they were in the bipedal chimpanzees-like apes called Australopithecines in Southern and Eastern Africa. 375 million years ago most of them were in early amphibians that had recently evolved from lobe-finned fish to move out onto the land. 160 million years ago they were in the earliest mammals.

So it's not surprising that they still produce a few structures that were useful to something else but are no longer useful to us.

Scientists have identified several things that we no longer need and some that, although we no longer need them for what it was originally used for, have been adapted for another purpose. The appendix, for example, is no longer needed to aid digestion of cellulose like it is in some herbivores but serves a useful, though non-essential, role in the lymphatic and immune systems.

Finding Evolution's Missing Links

Evolution's detectives: Closing in on missing links - life - 19 February 2013 - New Scientist

'Missing links' are creationist's favourite gaps in which they try to fit their god. The great thing about them is that no matter how many fossils are found and no matter how complete an evolutionary sequence they make, creationist frauds can always point to the gap between two adjacent fossils in the series and claim it as their 'missing' link. In fact, every fossil ever found is of course part of an evolutionary series and is the 'missing' link of its generation, but it simply serves to double the number of gaps for creationists.

This article in New Scientist from last February, which unfortunately is behind a paywall, goes into great detail about the key stages in the evolution of life which need to be evidenced by the fossil record, and attempts currently being made to find that evidence. Evolutionary biologists, like other scientists, are not at all embarrassed by the "don't know" answer. In fact, it's knowing what you don't know that drives enquiry and makes science such an interesting and fascinating subject for most people who don't need absolute certainty in their lives and who don't need to pretend they have all the answers (or should that be 'answer', because it's always the same one - "God did it!" - which can be glibly and smugly trotted out in the hope of impressing people with your expertise).

Christian Lie Alert!

Screen-shot. Click to enlarge.

Little Manuel "Manny" de Dios Agosto, who still hopes people will believe his name is Michael, apparently, has plumbed new depths in his continuing campaign of attention-seeking abuse.

He is now spamming Twitter, dutifully RT'ed by all his other accounts, claiming that the money I raised by carrying advertising on my blog, and which I donated to Oxfam as promised as detailed here, where all the receipts may be seen, was in some way fraudulent. Initially, his rage was confined to spamming my blog yet again with abusive comments and boast about how much money people are giving him in response to his incessant begging.

One such was: