The Controversy Surrounding Discover of 4.4 Million Year Old Skeleton

What's your own experience was that one of the reasons why it was treated with so much skepticism? Because Well, I mean no one doubts the existence of the skeleton at least you know, no one should do things out Since well, they doubt I'm sorry But the couple there's so many things that are so specific like the the carbon dating of the the upper and lower layers the fact you have so many bones the fact that they're not repeating the fact that it's Clearly some sort of a primate and that you've put all this stuff together and reconstructed the skull and I mean, what is the controversy? the controversy Whether there's a couple of things. I mean you could talk for a long time about this but I guess one point of controversy is is it indeed a member of human family and you know, as I said before you get Further back in time and the things that tell you it's a member of the human family become more subtle like these canine teeth for example The bipedality is another one but you know, there's you know, a great deal of skepticism in the field about you know There's people who I talked to who will tell you Who doubt that any of these? Early species that have been identified as hominins or early members of the human family They doubt that any of them really are or that's just unknowable. So there's kind of like this this I Know almost in some people this Almost like neolistic view that you can really ever know that that's that's one But I but I do think that is changed The the the validation of arty as a member of the human family the human lineage is I Think there is a growing number of people who are accepting it And there's some people with a lot of outside people who have basically endorsed What the research team That's you know had said, you know, whether it's a direct ancestor or like, you know, one of your extinct and uncle you know, maybe it's not your grandfather, but maybe it's like your aunt I'll go, you know, that's we may never know that but So that anyway that's one point of controversy is it is it in our the human lineage another one is The arguments that the discovery team has made about what it reveals about the last common ancestor of humans and apes and You know like for example, we were talking before about About this model of a chimp like common ancestor of humans and and African apes and you know the the arty team would spent 15 years studying this thing before they announced it to the world they Believe and strenuously argued that The skeleton shows you that the common ancestor of humans and the African apes was in fact not like a chimp not nowhere near as chimp like as Everyone thought because there's no vestige of knuckle walking. I mean, there's a Whole bunch of things that gets into sort of like some anatomical Esoteric anatomical stuff. So if you read the book if you're interested because it gets into to do all that but So Anyway, so that's that's part of the controversy so so there there is a sort of Subset of the critics who have come to accept arty as indeed a member of the human family So they say yeah, they're right. They placed it correctly in the in the human family tree But they are not yet convinced that it it that it it falsifies this idea of a chimp like ancestor Their argument would be well sure in the ways that are already may have still descended from this chimp like ancestor, but you know it of all these new adaptations that sort of Erased those from its anatomy. So that that's one element of controversy. I mean there's there's The great thing about this skeleton actually because it because it is so complete and because it it Was released with this huge package of it So we a whole series of paper about you know the hand the foot, you know the the pelvis and the skull there was a Lot of fodder there for debate and disagreement and that's what's been happening for the last 10 years Now when they talk about a chimp ancestor a chimp like and ancestor Is this just because chimps are around and we know genetically that were at least closely related to chimps? So it's just presumed and is it possible that there was net that all the way back like From the beginning that our ancestors were bipedal Well, I don't think many people would say well ancestors of the human lineage, right When you look at already already is the oldest known full Skeleton that we have of our ancestors if we go back if we somehow or another found something that was 12 million years old What if that thing was bipedal? Okay. Well, okay. So one problem is that they split between humans and chimps. It's probably not that old So if you're at 12 million, you're probably somewhere Before the huge chimps chimps, but I mean there's a lot of like squish time in this so, you know and actually I think actually as it happens, I think some of the The estimates that are kind of furthest out are in fact 12 million But you know somewhere between 6 and 12 million where the humans and chimps split It's kind of and what are they but they do think that once upon a time There was a split between humans and chimps So if you go back far enough you're trying to chimp or something like a chip Well, you'll find an ancestor of a chip and then the big big question is it doesn't look like a modern chimp, right? Or does it look like something you've never seen before or does it look like something that's sort of a more primitive version of art of Pythagus? I mean this is this is the great another one. I mean, this is like, of course another quest You know for science. So the discovery of art of art of Pythagus was really a monkey wrench into this whole idea of what we yeah Yeah, so that that was what? What was one of the things it was quite controversial about it And you know, we haven't talked much about the discovery team that that put this together but they are you know, they're they're they're very good scholars, they're very good at what they do, but they're also quite provocative and Which which you know for me, of course made them great material, but you know, they don't present the skeleton and say here, you know Here's a physical description of the skeleton go ahead and make up your own minds they presented it and it said here's a You know skeleton and this is why you're wrong and you're wrong and you're wrong you're right So there it was it was a provocative It was a provocative series of papers with with some, you know stunning revelations, but a lot of Some people in the research community did not take kindly to the the mode of presentation. Let's let's say Because you know at one point You know, there's a there's a huge research community that study chimpanzees you know either it's studying them in the field doing observational studies or type them in the lab to try to find clues about the origin of human locomotion or I mean chimps are kind of became this all-purpose model and so When the ARDI team came along and told them they're all kind of barking up the wrong tree There was there was a lot of consternation about that Episodes of the Joe Rogan experience are now free on Spotify. That's right They're free from September 1st to December 1st. They're gonna be available everywhere But after December 1st, they will only be available on Spotify, but they will be free that includes the video The video will also be there. It'll also be free. That's all we're asking. Just go download Spotify much