Günter Bechly and the “Species Pair” Problem

A Biologist’s View, African elephants, Asian elephants, Bible, Cambrian Explosion, Charles Darwin, chimps, classes, computers, creations, Darwinism, designs, Evolution, Evolution after Darwin, explosions, fossil record, Genesis, George Gaylord Simpson, Gorilla gorilla, Günter Bechly, Homo sapiens, human exceptionalism, humans, Intelligent Design, Jean Rostand, orders, paleontology, Pan paniscus, phyla, software, species pair problem, theists, TimeTree.org, University of Chicago Press
Asian elephants (like the one at the top of this page) and their African counterparts apparently diverged about 8 million years ago. Source
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Not Out of Context: Comments on Hawks et al. (2000)

anthropology, Aosis, Australopithecines, Australopithecus, autosomes, body plan, body size, bottleneck, brain size, cladogenesis, Evolution, faces, fossil record, Grok, hominids, Homo, Homo erectus, Homo ergaster, Homo sapiens, Human Origins, Human Origins and Anthropology, John Hawks, Journal of Molecular Biology and Evolution, Molecular Biology and Evolution, mtDNA, nuchal areas, nuclear DNA, paleoanthropology, paleontology, population, population size, Religions (journal), Science and Faith in Dialogue, sex chromosomes, skeleton, speciation, Stephen Barr, University of Wisconsin-Madison
The lead author is John Hawks, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who has a popular blog on paleoanthropology. Source
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Addressing More Icons of Theistic Evolution

Ann Gauger, apes, BIO-Complexity, Brown University, Christians, Chromosomal Fusion, chromosomes, common ancestry, crocodiles, Daniel Kuebler, Darwin and Doctrine, Developmental Cell, DNA, Dover trial, Eugenie Scott, Evolution, Faith & Science, fish, Franciscan University of Steubenville, genes, genetic evidence, genetics, GULO, Günter Bechly, human chromosome 2, human genetic diversity, Kenneth Miller, National Center for Science Education, Ola Hössjer, paleontologists, paleontology, Poland, pseudogenes, Return of the God Hypothesis, Stephen Meyer, tetrapods, theistic evolution, tiktaalik, __featured1
Professor Kuebler doesn’t acknowledge the pattern of explosions in the fossil record, but he does cite a supposed transitional form. Source
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Physicist Overstates the “Gradual” Nature of Human Origins in the Fossil Record

Ann Gauger, Australopithecines, Australopithecus, brain size, cranial buttressing, dental function, Evolution, First Things, God's Grandeur, Homo erectus, Homo rudolfensis, Homo sapiens, Human Origins, Human Origins and Anthropology, humans, Nature (journal), paleoanthropologists, paleontology, Stephen Barr, theology, University of Delaware
We’ve gone back and forth with Dr. Barr many times in the past. Mainstream paleoanthropologists acknowledge that the origin of humans is sudden and abrupt. Source
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Beach Stroll Casts Further Doubt on Some Supposed Ediacaran Bilaterian Fossils

air bladder, animals, beach, beachcombing, bilaterian animals, brown algae, Cambrian Explosion, Cambrian News, convergent evolution, Ediacaran biota, Ediacaran fossils, Evolution, evolutionary theory, fauna, flora, fossil-hunting, fossils, hemichordate worms, holdfast, kelp, kelp stipe, Kingdom Protista, Margaretia dorus, Pacific Northwest, paleontology, plants, Precambrian strata, protists, rock hammer, Science (journal), tide-pooling, Western Washington
Over the past few days I’ve been discussing an important paper in the journal Science that reveals supposed Ediacaran bilaterian animal fossils (see here and here, with more to come). Meanwhile, this past weekend, I happened to go on a trip with friends here in Western Washington to do some tide-pooling, beach-combing, and fossil-hunting. We had a fantastic time enjoying the beauty of the inland-coastal Pacific Northwest. During our excursion, I also stumbled on a few things that, with that Science paper in mind, caught my attention. In one instance I found a kelp on the beach with its holdfast still nicely attached. A photo of it is at the top (the holdfast is near the pointy “pick” end of Read More › Source
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Giraffes and the Fossil Record: Bad News for Neo-Darwinism

common descent, common design, environmental shifts, Evolution, evolutionary lineage, evolutionary sequence, fossil record, geneticists, geological evidence, giraffe evolution, giraffes, giraffe’s neck, ID The Future, intermediates, Neo-Darwinism, paleontology, Samotherium major, silos, stasis, Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, zoology
Dr. Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig highlights the discrepancies in the fossil record that cause the traditional Darwinian narrative to unravel. Source
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Like It Never Happened: Yunxian Skulls Reassigned Based on Evolution, Not Data

Archaeology, China, Chris Stringer, Denisovans, Evolution, evolutionary narrative, evolutionary timeline, Günter Bechly, hominins, Homo erectus, Homo longi, Homo sapiens, human evolution, Human Origins and Anthropology, London, media, morphological data, morphology, Natural History Museum, paleoanthropologists, paleontology, revision, Rick Potts, Science (journal), Science Advances, skulls, Susan Antón, Xiaobo Feng, Yunxian 2, Yunxian skulls
As Günter Bechly used to wryly observe, human evolution is a subject that is constantly being “rewritten,” often accompanied by much media fanfare. Source
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Be Prepared: Here Are Portable Neanderthal Toolkits

bear cave, Boy Scouts, Caverna Generosa, Denisovans, generosity, hierarchies, high altitudes, historical racism, human groups, Human Origins and Anthropology, hunter-gatheresr, intelligence, Italy, Journal of Quaternary Science, journeys, Lombard Prealps, motto, Neanderthals, paleontology, sensitivity, settlements, stereotypes, tools
Folks, that is impressive behavior. As David Coppedge says, let’s ditch the historical racism. Source
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New Paper Has Bad News for Popular “Oxygen Theory” of the Cambrian Explosion

Cambrian animals, Cambrian Explosion, clades, Darwin's Doubt, David Coppedge, Douglas Erwin, Evolution, evolutionary precursors, Gizmodo, Intelligent Design, James Valentine, oxygen, oxygen theory, oxygen trigger model, oxygenation, paleontologists, paleontology, partial pressure of oxygen, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, The Cambrian Explosion (book)
The technical paper acknowledges that this level of oxygenation, if sustained, would indeed “challenge the view” that oxygen was a trigger for animal evolution. Source
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