Hi, I'm Ardi

It has been an {exciting} week for the Science world!!! This past week a new hominid species was discovered in Africa. “Ardi” as it is being called {Ardipithecus ramidus } is 4.4 million years old, living 1 million years before the earliest known Hominid species “Lucy”( Australopithecus afarensis).

"Ardi"

Ardi seems to be a “missing link” in “human evolution” and negates a former theory that humans evolved from chimpanzees. The new discovery provides proof that Humans and chimps actually share a common ancestor (probably 6-7 million years ago) but that each species developed and evolved in its own way. With the discovery of Lucy, scientists believed that the next most closely related ancestor was a chimpanzee. However Ardi is {neither} Human, nor Chimp, she is “Ardipithecus”, states Tim White, director of the Human Evolution Research Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

I am so excited by the discovery as I love Paleoanthropology! This simple discovery is {huge} and will change the way science will look at “human evolution.” Due to my religion and my education emphasis, I have never believed in “evolution” as most people believe it to be. I firmly believe that when Charles Darwin wrote ‘The Origin of Species’ {200 years ago this year} he made the mistake of using the word “evolution” instead of “adaptation.” Obviously a monkey didn’t go to bed one night and wake up a more ‘human-like’ species. However through ‘natural selection’ over millions of years, parents can pass more adaptative survival traits onto their offspring; species without the necessary acquired traits become extinct.

This theory of evolution is {hot} with controversy, always has been. Personally, I don’t believe that science negates the existence of God, I think it supports it. If God created everything, wouldn’t he have created and used ‘science’ and ‘scientific processes’ to do so? “Evolution/adaptation” is still occurring today, and it is right out in the open. For example, {Europeans have evolved a tolerance for dairy products into adulthood, whereas people in China and most of Africa have not.} While seemingly miniscule, in 3 million years, this could have significant effects on future populations.

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Get an idea of just how long we haven't been around.

Considering humans have only existed on Earth for about 10,000 years of it's 4 billion year geological time scale it is possible we don't know everything, and need to be open to new ideas. This is definately something to think about. If you’re interested, click here to read the full MSNBC article. Plus there are some fun interactive activities as well.

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