CDarwin

But it's not a simply a matter of semantics. It doesn't matter what word you use, you're still treating the australopithecines as a single species whose destiny can be controlled by single events like the eruption of super-volcanoes. You're ignoring the fact that at most times during their long history, there were multiples species of australopithecines existing all over Africa, and their very long decline doesn't seem to be due to any single event. Your suggestion also fails to explain why the australopithecines suffered but not other species in Africa, and there's the testability thing.

Well, I mean for security, which the army isn't up to for organizational reasons. You make a good point that the Iraqis aren't children, but the facts are that they've got a civil service shattered by sectarian differences which having "neutral" American mediators probably couldn't hurt. We certainly don't need 130,000 troops to do that, though. I'm finding myself in an odd position here arguing for "staying in Iraq." I just don't think we need to abandon this mess we've created irresponsibly and end up with Saigon 2.0, except with a civil war and ethnic cleansing this time.

Putting pressure on the government has definately got to be one of our objectives in Iraq, but we've got to help it to. Rebuilding the civil service and the bureaucracy are extremely important. We need Americans there to do that.

That's all that counts as far as CNN cares (advertising money is what they're concerned with). Depends on who you talk to and to which reality you subscribe. People do have genuine political opinions, and they tend to chose their parties on the basis of those opinions. I don't know what better system you could expect.

I really seemed like the Republican debates were more geared to be "entertaining" than the Democrats'. I don't know if that says something about CNN trying to get ratings, or how lowly they think of Republican viewers, or perhaps some great conspiracy on their part to make the Republicans look foolish.

You're obsfucating. We're talking about neither why the Iraq War was undertaken in the first place nor if the Middle East as a whole can solve its own problems. We're talking about the near-failed state of Iraq that we've created, the conditions in which would most certainly become much worse if we were to remove the stabilizing presence of our troops precipitously. Whether or not thats a valid reason to maintain troops in another country is dependent on your ethical standpoint, I suppose. Personally, I'm for a long-term low-troop solution, but that's just me. Any reasoned response is probably much better than the knee-jerk ideological "stay-the-course" or alternatively "withdraw."

I don't think you're supposed to use those outside of GD, but then again I don't think you're supposed to make useless condescending comments either. But onto my actual post: I got a chance to read the article, and this is my distillation: If Nakalipithecus is the common ancestor of the African apes (and Ouranopithecus, which was a later genus than Nakalipithecus), then these would be the lineage's most noteworthy derived features (or at least the ones that I caught): A prominent inferior transverse torus (also known as the simian shelf, a bony shelf in the mandibles of the living African apes lost in hominids); low but broad central incisors with narrower lateral incisors; large, gorillia-esque size; relatively squat canines, which the modern African apes possess relative to some Miocene apes and hominids take to a much higher degree; and a large first molar compared to the second molar. From the closely related but slightly more recent Ouranopithecus we can infer: A supra-orbital torus (as all modern apes and Sahelanthropus possess), a broad space between the eyes, a broad nasal apeture, and sexual dimorphism. The biggest problems I could see come from the hominid-like quality of Nakalipithecus's teeth. They are thick-enameled like hominds', and the lower premolars are broad and lack the honing facet that African apes have, and many early hominids show traces of. The canine of Nakalipithecus has a prominent bump on the inside, however, that makes the tooth more premolariform. Perhaps this indicates a heavy emphasis on chewing which could explain a secondarily derived thick enamal and broad premolars, and the real common ancestors is still a few years older and more primitive. What all of this does mostly-definitavely tell us is that the last common ancestor of all the African apes probably really did originate in Africa, and didn't migrate from another continent.

I tend to side with Bascule on this one. Could a person with Parkinson's conceivably hold down a job? Sure. But I don't think in the richest country on earth he or she should have to in order to survive (it's not like living off welfare and Medicare is easy street without any independent income). You're expecting a lot more out of that person when you tell them "go get a job" than you are with an able bodied person when you tell them to "go get a job."

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0706190104v1 Now this wouldn't be the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees; that was a few million years off, but the common ancestor of all the African apes, which is just as fascinating. This would be the primitive layout from which the human, gorilla, and chimpanzee conditions are derived. So, any thoughts on its implications? Its validity? I can't actually access the article, so I can't say much. Looks pretty promising, though. Ouranopithecus is fairly well known from Greece, so if this is a close relative, we could have an unprecedented look at the starting point of our own unique lineage.

According to Fox News, the whole thing was an example of CNN bias, because the questions all sounded like they were asked by Democrats.

You need that stick in the modern world, though. There's no way that China is going to trade fair if all they're faced with is a Paulite policy of unilaterally dropping tariffs and subsidies and withdrawing all troops from Southeast Asia, for example. Anyone who thinks that the best thing for Iraq would be to pull out troops immediately and let them figure it out for themselves is a bit scary to me too. That's just naive. I don't deny that US actions have certainly drawn the ire of Islamic extremists, but to think that if we just said "Ok, we'll leave Saudi Arabia" that would fix everything is also pretty naive. I'm not saying that's quite what Paul has said, but I think it gets the drift ideologically. I just don't think that late 19th century models of governance can work in the modern world. He has a noble ideal, but it's not a realistic one for today. At least thats my .01 Euro.

Biden's had a record of that, too. But he's been declared "third tier" and doomed from the onset, not that he has the charisma or honestly probably the energy to make a campaign work in '08. I'm hoping for him to get a Sec of State position in a forthcoming Democratic (or McCain) presidency. McCain has the potential of a unifier too, but that's for the other thread.

You've encapsulated all the problems with your hypothesis in that statement. A) You're still thinking of the Australopithecines, an extensive lineage inhabiting the entire continent of Africa, as a "species." B) You're suggestion simply isn't testable.

Wait. So if you're not atomicpsycho, who is? I'm confused.

It's not "my" logic or anything. Just a humorous observation.

He's also a bit of an isolationist, which frightens us minions of globalism (he's on to us!). A completly irrelevant fact that an ultra-conservative friend of mine pointed out to me today: Does he not remind you of the Kebler elf? It's freaky. Someone needs to make a photoshop of him carrying a box of cookies out of a tree.

Gah... I do this every time.

I just thought I'd share: Irony EDIT: If it will work. Imageshack is blocked on this computer.

Alright, I don't mean to be disimissive. The super-volcano alternative just don't seem to fit what we see in Africa for the time, which is gradual faunal change spread all over the continent over millions of years. There isn't any evidence of the sudden destruction of whole lineages. Also, I'm not aware of any evidence of any super-volcanoes errupting around that time. But the austrolopithecines were't that specialized. They were generally geared toward a more vegatitive diet, but so are a lot of animals. The australopithecine extinctions did coincide with a legitimate environmental shift, the beginning of the Pleistocene and the drying of Africa, so it would be unreasonable to ignore that as an important factor in their extiction. Why were they less competitive than the other animals they might have competed with, though? That would have been monkeys (geladas, baboons, possibly early savannah guenons or late African macaque-like things) mostly, and possibly early Homo. Did the baboon smite Lucy? I think that possible. They probably would have shared similar general diets, though I can't think of anything in the African woodland at the time that might have been able to handle the heavy mastication of the tough, fibrous foods that Paranthropus was exploiting. Well, elephants maybe? I'd also be willing to except the "dumb luck" explanation, that australopithecines weren't able to hang on in a more limited niche like the geladas were after they were usurped by the baboons, but I wonder if there is a better one. Why on earth did the gelaldas lose out? That'd be an interesting quesiton to find an answer to. I believe there's a book on it.

The answer for the australopithecines to "where were they" was "all over Africa." A super-volcano that big would leave a faunal impact, which you don't see. The extinction of the australopithecines wasn't a sudden event like a super-volcano anyway. I think we can move past that notion.

Think about what the "australopithecines" were, though. We're talking about two genera spread out over 3 million years all over Africa. You're proposing numerous bottlenecks in numerous populations of numerous species spread out over at least a million years, each accompanied by a super-volcano?

That's true, but there's always going to be a forest edge. That's the environment the australopithecines were adapted to. East Africa was volcanically active, but I think that begs the question. Why were the australopithecines so weak to be knocked off from a super-volcano (really that would be two super volcanoes a million years apart) in the first place?

Same rules as with the Democratic Primaries, except I have excluded one Presidential candidate, Mark Klein, to keep the options under 15 and because I've never heard of him and because he hasn't actually announced. If you really feel like you want to vote for him, make a comment and a moderator might add him on. Select the one candidate you you would support as nominee for President of the United States from the Republican Party. Vote for the candidate you could honestly support. I back McCain. Post who you support if you wish.

The last poll had some flaws that were helpfully pointed out, and I am interested in the results so we're going to do this poll a bit more professionally this time. All the candidates who have filed with the Federal Elections Commission are listed, and you can only vote once. Furthermore, the voting is limited in time, so after the time is past we can actually get a winner and then do an actual "election." Select the one candidate you you would support as nominee for President of the United States from the Democratic Party. Obviously, it misses the point if you vote for someone you don't like because you don't like Democrats. Vote for the candidate you could honestly support. I back Biden, by the way. Post who you support if you wish.