Slow-Witted? Neanderthals Invented Their Own Tech — Didn’t Copy

archaeologists, Archaeology, Ars Technica, Bob Yirka, bone tip, Caucasus Mountains, Eurasia, Europe, Homo sapiens, Human Origins, Human Origins and Anthropology, humans, Kiona N. Smith, Liubov V. Golovanova, Mezmaiskaya Cave, Neanderthals, paleontology, Phys.org, Technology, weapons
Neanderthals cannot be the missing link that many paleontologists are looking for. But if the human mind has no history, there is no missing link. Source
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How Evolutionary Theory Confuses the Study of Human History: Case of the Stone Spheres

abstract reasoning, Addis Ababa, balls, behavior, Ethiopia, Evolution, game pieces, Geology, hominins, human evolution, human history, human mind, Human Origins, Human Origins and Anthropology, Margherita Mussi, Melka Kunture, Moon, Olduvai Gorge, paleontology, spheres, stone spheres, stones, Technology, toolmakers, Tudor Tarita, ZME Science
Any state of affairs that dates to eons ago can be referred to as “evolution” even when, as in this case, the facts imply the opposite. Source
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Science Writing Tries to Smash Human Exceptionalism

Africa, Amanda Richardson, animal behavior, antiquity, BBC News, Bronze Age, chimpanzees, Claire Asher, Côte D’Ivoire, Culture & Ethics, England, Homo sapiens, human exceptionalism, human mind, humans, Ice Age, Merlin, metal tools, monkeys, Neuroscience & Mind, New Stone Age, paleontology, polar bears, Royal BC Museum, Salisbury, Stone Age, stone tools, vultures, walruses
Stone tool use among animals versus the Stone Age provides a useful illustration of the tendency. Source
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Günter Bechly on Life’s Sudden Information Explosions

ancestral species, Avalon explosion, bacteria, biological explosions, body plans, Cambrian Explosion, common ancestry, descendant species, Evolution, genes, Günter Bechly, ID The Future, Intelligent Design, mammals, neo-Darwinian process, paleontologists, paleontology, placental mammals, Podcast, protein folds, Sarah Chaffee, Stephen Meyer, Triassic explosion
“There’s no reasonable way,” Bechly concludes, “to get from bacteria to mammals via evolutionary processes.” Source
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Fossil Friday: A Scientific Controversy About Warm-Blooded Animals

birds, Brian Gardiner, Charles Darwin, convergent adaptations, Darwinism, dinosaurs, Dromaeosauridae, Evolution, Fossil Friday (series), Green River Formation, Haematothermia, Intelligent Design, John Ray, mammals, Nahmavis grande, paleontology, Philippe Janvier, physiology, pterosaurs, Richard Dawkins, Richard Owen, spermatozoa, synapsid, Søren Løvtrup, warm-blooded animals, Wyoming
How do popularizers of Darwinism such as Richard Dawkins react? Unsurprisingly, they just ignore the evidence. Source
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No. 4 Story of 2024: Darwin’s Abominable Mystery Corroborated Again

abominable mystery, angiosperms, biological novelty, biology, Charles Darwin, diversification, Early Cretaceous, Evolution, flowering plants, Fossil Friday (series), genomes, Intelligent Design, jumps, Las Hoyas, Late Jurassic, Lower Cretaceous, Montsechia vidalii, nature, Nature (journal), paleontology, Philip Donoghue, Spain
This notorious discontinuity in the fossil record did not get any smaller with 160 years of research since Darwin, but instead became more and more acute. Source
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No. 5 Story of 2024: New Evidence Against Dino-Bird Ancestry

Alan Feduccia, antitrochanter, birds, dinosaur-bird hypothesis, dinosaurs, Evolution, evolutionary biology, Fossil Friday (series), fossil record, Germany, Hesperornis gracilis, iliac, ischium, Jurassic Park, Karlsruhe, Late Cretaceous, marine birds, microraptorids, paleontology, paleornithologists, penguins, phylogenetics, Temporal Paradox, theropod dinosaurs, troodontids, University of North Carolina, vertebrates
Few hypotheses in evolutionary biology have become as popular among lay people as the postulated ancestry of birds from bipedal dinosaurs. Source
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No. 9 Story of 2024: Suppressed Dissent About Neanderthal DNA in Modern Humans

"Out of Africa", Africans, bioRxiv, Current Biology, evolutionary genetics, evolutionary rate, Fossil Friday (series), heterozygous sites, Human Origins, Intelligent Design, introgression, Kafkaesque, Nature (journal), Nature Genetics, Neanderthal DNA, Neanderthals, Nobel laureates, non-Africans, paleontology, Philip Magness, PLOS, PNAS, population size, Science (journal), Scientific community, Svante Pääbo, Sydney Brenner, University of Cambridge
The case of Professor William Amos represents an interesting parallel with dissenters in the intelligent design community. Source
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Fossil Friday: Nakridletia — The Rise and Fall (and Possible Resurrection) of a Fossil Insect Order

aquatic flies, biology, China, Daohugou site, Darwinian theory, ectoparasites, Evolution, fleas, forewings, Fossil Friday (series), fossil record, gyroscopes, holometabolan insects, insects, Intelligent Design, Middle Jurassic, mouthparts, Nakridletia, paleontology, parasites, parasitic insects, pincers, pterosaurs, scorpionflies, Strashila incredibilis, Strashilidae, strashilids, Vosilidae, wings
So, were strashilids a distinct order of parasitic insects or just aquatic flies? Source
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