Re: ASA Whitepaper? (was [asa] AAAS Symposium on Human Origins)

So Randy, what is your theological take on all this?

Here's a project I'd love to see the ASA take on: a whitepaper / book on
(a) the existing state of scientific evidence concerning human origins,
incuding areas of incompleteness / controversy, and (b) the existing range
of theological views within Christianity on human origins, for use as a
resource by theologians. I know a number of popular-level books as well as
Perspectives on an Evolving Creation include segments on this, but I'd love
to see a true reference work with a detailed appendix.

David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology

On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 12:24 AM, Randy Isaac <randyisaac@comcast.net>wrote:

> Today there was an excellent talk on human origins by Tim White,
> cofounder with Don Johannsen of the Lucy fossil. He gave high credit to
> yesterday's speakers but gave a different perspective.
>
> White has been a major force behind the Middle Awash project
> http://middleawash.berkeley.edu/middle_awash.php which has been working
> since 1981 in the region near the Awash river in Ethiopia. This project has
> discovered 19,000 fossils including 290 hominid specimens spanning the last
> 6 million years.
>
> White took issue with the tendency toward increasing numbers of hominid
> species. He referred to the book "The Last Humans" sponsored by the American
> Museum of Natural History which lists 22 species. He thinks it is less than
> half that. Specifically, he did not think the new species mentioned
> yesterday, H. Georgica and H. Antecessor, were unique species.
>
> He noted that the Middle Awash region was unique in providing a single site
> with a continuous sedimentation and fossil column through the last 6 million
> years. He cited a real problem with comparing specimens from vastly
> different geographies and different times. This site allows a coherent
> fossil record. He listed the following hominid fossils that were all found
> in the same region, making it a continuous evolutionary trend:
>
> Aduma; 80 kya; H. sapiens at about the time of the last out of Africa
> migration
>
> Herto; 160 kya; the earliest known H. sapiens fossil
>
> Bodo; 500 kya; intermediate between H. erectus and H. sapiens
>
> Daka; 1 Mya; H. erectus
>
> Bouri Hata; 2.5 Mya; most recent Australopithecus
>
> Maka; 3.4 Mya; A. afarensis (Lucy species--he noted that Lucy wasn't
> typical for her species)
>
> Asa Issie; 4.2 Mya; earliest Australopithecus (amenensis)
>
> Sagantole Aramis; 4.4 Mya; fragments only
>
> Adu asa; 5.8 Mya; Ardipithecus earliest known hominid fossil
>
>
>
> This is really quite impressive to see this monotonical development in a
> single region. White thinks that the geometry of human evolution from its
> split with chimpanzees shouldn't be thought of as either a tree or a bush
> but as a saguaro. He also talked about H. floresiensis and said as we heard
> yesterday that it was quite a mystery.
>
> I wish I could have written down all the Darwin quotes and the "what would
> Darwin have asked in 2009" speculation quotes. He had a lot of them and they
> were very good. It was a standing room only crowd. He's a terrific speaker.
>
> Net: he doesn't see the human evolutionary pattern nearly as confusing as
> yesterday's speakers but his last few slides did point out where all the
> major gaps were in the fossil record and where it would be great to find
> more. But what we have found seems to fit remarkably well.
>
> Randey
>

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Received on Sun Feb 15 11:31:20 2009