Todd's Blog

Lee Berger and collaborators have been busy analyzing their discovery of Australopithecus sediba , which was initially announced with a set of papers in Science  in 2010.  Eighteen months later, Berger and colleagues published another set of papers with a more in-depth analysis of the fossils, and now eighteen months later, they're back for more.  The new papers  evaluate the phylogeny of sediba , along with the jaw, legs and arms, backbone, and chest.  The new phylogenetic study evaluates a huge set of data, which is extremely exciting.  To my knowledge, this level of detail has not been applied to hominids previously.  The results suggest that sediba  is actually a sister taxon to Australopithecus africanus  and that Homo habilis  and Homo rudolfensis  are collectively the sister taxa to Homo erectus .  I think many creationists will like the former bit (since they want sediba  to not be human), but they should find the...

I read the new Au. sediba papers over the weekend, and I'm really excited to see so much in-depth analysis being published in such a timely manner. To recap: Last year, I was in the midst of preparing a paper on human baraminology when a description of a newly discovered hominin fossil was published. That fossil was dubbed Australopithecus sediba . I halted work on my paper while I added that fossil to my analysis, and much to my surprise, it consistently grouped with members of Homo rather than australopiths. Of course, other creationists weighed in with their rather strong opinions that sediba was just another ape fossil. When my paper appeared claiming that sediba was human, some creationists felt I had erred in my analysis. Responses ranged from accusing me of recklessness and arrogance to this baffling assertion in the Answers Research Journal : Let me point out that we creationists can tell, merely from reading our Bible, that some fossils are human and some are ...

You know, I don't mean to be controversial. I sometimes find myself taking unpopular positions in creationism, but it's not because I like it. I would love to just sit back and not rock the boat. That would be nice. Wouldn't it be fun if my baraminological analysis of the horses confirmed what many creationists want to believe: that the horse series is made up of different baramins? Creationists would love that. I might even enjoy some measure of popularity or accolades. But that's not the way it happened. Granted, my study of the horses is by no means definitive, but I didn't find any evidence that the horse family should be separated into different baramins. What can I do, though? Manipulate the data until it tells me what I want to hear? That's not right. So I put all the fossil horses in a single created kind. As a result, I seem to have put some people's noses out of joint . With my latest paper, their heads will probably explode. As I note...

Wow, Peter Line had a pretty scathing rebuttal to my hominid baraminology paper on the CMI website last week. Here's the last paragraph of his article: Used in the hands of someone who acknowledges the limitations, these studies may have applications. However, when used recklessly as some kind of a ‘be all and end all’ human-australopith ‘truth detector’ the outcome is worse than useless—it is downright misleading. In some ways the result of Wood’s analysis is so wrong it can be refuted by simple observation. Consider the similarities of the Australopithecus sediba cranium to that of the Australopithecus africanus cranium Sts 71 from Sterkfontein. Then ask yourself, is a technique to be trusted that finds more similarities between the Australopithecus sediba skull and a modern human skull, than between the Australopithecus sediba skull and the Australopithecus africanus skull, to the point where Australopithecus sediba ...

This will be the last sediba post for a while. I promise. I've gotten a lot of interesting responses to my recent post on responding to my critics. As I expected, everyone who wrote wants me to finish and publish my formal response. Beyond that, the responses were all over the map. Some people thought I was discouraged by the critics. That was not what I meant to convey. My discouragement over finishing my response is simply a recognition that I'm basically talking to a brick wall. These five have already made up their minds about sediba , and nothing I say will change that. The only audience I could possibly address are those who aren't quite sure what to make of all this. I asked for feedback basically to find out how many of you are in that undecided camp, to see if responding was worth my while. More on that later. A few emailed to say that I'd been unfair to my critics. After all, no one wants to mistake an ape for a human! OK, let's put it in pers...

What's it been? Two days since I posted about sediba ? I really intended to give it a rest, but... Two of the heavy hitters in creationism have weighed in on the identity of Au. sediba . Over at CMI, neuroscientist Peter Line says sediba is just an ape that had nothing to do with human evolution . Over at ICR, science writer Brian Thomas says ... honestly, I'm not entirely sure what he says . He criticizes evolution, but he never really comes out and says what he thinks sediba is. Here's the closest he gets: So, not only does the discovery of A. sediba --which was dated as contemporaneous with true man--fail to provide a human ancestor in keeping with the story of human evolution, but according to the authors it is not even possible to figure out if or how A. sediba relates with other creatures in an evolutionary context! So he doesn't think that sediba is an ancestor within the context of human evolution , but what does he think it is in the context of c...

There's more feedback on my hominid baraminology work at ARJ . This time it's a trio of critics: David Menton, Anne Habermehl, and David DeWitt [ link ]. Menton focuses on theological issues (although never clearly enough to precisely state his objection), and Habermehl is just angry. DeWitt offers some genuinely insightful comments, but he condescendingly likens my research abilities to those of a clueless undergrad. How sweet. As the reactions continue, I'm becoming less interested in sediba and more interested in the psychology of my critics. One thing is certain: all five of the sediba critics are absolutely, positively convinced that it isn't human, and their strong reactions to my work suggests that they view it as dangerous or even unchristian. What motivates these reactions? Fear? Insecurity? Perhaps more importantly, why is it so offensive just to suggest that sediba is human? If it's just a case of mistaken identity, who cares? What's th...

Over at AIG, Marvin Lubenow weighed in on sediba . His conclusion? "The most parsimonious explanation regarding Australopithecus sediba is that it and Australopithecus africanus are both extinct varieties of the original Genesis ape kind." No surprises there. Here's my favorite bit, though: The exact nature of these creatures is determined by one’s worldview. If biblical creationism is true, then Au. sediba is just one of the many variant apes created by God. Ouch. I guess I know where I stand. Since I don't think sediba is an ape, I must not be a biblical creationist. Except that I am a creationist , and I'm not going to change. In any event, I'm really enjoying this sediba feedback. It's extremely revealing. Keep it coming! Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com.

I've had a day to digest the publications about Homo naledi , and I'm still just as excited as I was yesterday .  There are at least twelve other people in the world almost as excited as I am, since I told them yesterday to do homework because there are some things in this world more important than algebra. I'm currently writing up my results, but unfortunately for you, I won't be spoiling them here.  I'm a firm believer in peer review to make sure I've done my due diligence.  I will be submitting my manuscript for formal publication in a journal, and until then, I'm going to keep a lid on things.  In the mean time, though, I wanted to offer a few additional thoughts. First a reader question: Could these be antediluvian (pre-Flood)?  I doubt it.  The Rising Star Cave where these fossils were found is in a very old dolomite (Monte Christo Formation), possibly pre-Flood, but that doesn't tell us when the cave itself was carved.  I would not expec...

A reader emailed and asked me to summarize my thinking on human origins, complete with bibliography.  That sounded like a good blog post, so here it is. Let me begin by emphasizing context .  Constructing an alternate interpretation of the fossil and genetic evidence related to human origins requires a means of doing that.  That sounds obvious, but I think it's lost on a lot of people.  People just want to know what Neandertals are or what to do with the similarity of human and chimpanzee genomes.  Those sound like simple questions, but the possible explanations get pretty big pretty fast, and we need something to help narrow things down.  For example, a person's views on the age of the earth have a gigantic impact on interpretations of human origins.  As a young-age creationist, I put the Neandertals in the post-Flood, post-Babel period, but to an old-earth creationist, that interpretation might seem absurd, since it would require us to put Adam a...

Before I jet off to Pennsylvania, I wanted to comment again on the newly announced Au. sediba . I'm getting a lot of google traffic from people looking for a creationist response, and I didn't give a very satisfying one yesterday. So here's attempt #2 (there will be another attempt in the future). Here's what you'll get from most creationists: "It's an ape." That might even satisfy many of you. In the long run, though, I think it's unsatisfactory. The problem is its head. Au. sediba has the most human-looking head of any australopith I've seen, even though the body looks very apish, with its really long arms. This has been a hallmark of creationist interpretation of australopiths: that they are mosaics of facultative bipeds (meaning they can walk around on two legs) and tree dwellers (indicated by long forearms). If I had only the (remarkable) skeletons to judge from, I'd probably say it was obviously an ape. But then there's...

Science this week has five new papers on the marvelous fossil Australopithecus sediba that debuted some 18 months ago. There's one on the brain , the pelvis , the hand , the ankle/foot , and the date of the known sediba fossils. The verdict? From my brief skimming of the articles, sediba is a mixed bag of australopith and Homo traits (surprise, surprise). I'm eager to have a more detailed look, and I just can't wait for my fellow creationists to weigh in with their opinions. There's plenty of material here that they can selectively quote to support their claims that it isn't human. There's also plenty I can selectively quote to support my claim that sediba is part of the human family. But when it comes down to it, selective quoting isn't science. I'm eager to see if the new data actually changes any of my previous analyses (what a concept). I'll be reading over these papers this weekend, and maybe I'll be back with a more inform...

Me and Lu at the Cleveland Museum (She still isn't human.) Back in July, Answers Research Journal published a significant challenge to statistical baraminology , certainly the most knowledgeable I had ever seen.  When I first looked closely at the papers, I saw enough simple errors to give me pause, but I confess that I was still a little nervous.  What if I had gotten the hominin story wrong for an entire decade?  If so, it would have been an honest mistake but still very embarrassing.  And I knew there would be a lot of people who would be gleeful to see me end up publicly shamed like that. As I described previously , my response focused entirely on creatures other than hominins, and I only seriously looked at hominins once that paper was in print.  Today, my new analysis of hominin fossils has been published in ARJ .  It's co-authored with a student collaborator who did a lot of the "grunt work" and helped me write the paper.  Our intention was on...

Well, I was wrong . The paper did not appear in Nature ; it was published in Science . Here's the Science Daily take: New Hominid Shares Traits With Homo Species: Fossil Find Sheds Light on the Transition to Homo Genus from Earlier Hominids The Science special website (complete with movie of reconstructed skull): http://www.sciencemag.org/extra/sediba/ And the papers from Science : Berger et al. 2010. Australopithecus sediba: A New Species of Homo-Like Australopith from South Africa. Science 328:195-204. [ PDF ] Abstract: Despite a rich African Plio-Pleistocene hominin fossil record, the ancestry of Homo and its relation to earlier australopithecines remain unresolved. Here we report on two partial skeletons with an age of 1.95 to 1.78 million years. The fossils were encased in cave deposits at the Malapa site in South Africa. The skeletons were found close together and are directly associated with craniodental remains. Together they represent a new species of Australopithecus...

This week's Science is reporting additional remains of Au. sediba from Lee Berger's team in South Africa. There are four individuals, including an infant. Given the controversy I stirred up this time last year when I published a paper suggesting that Au. sediba should be included in the human holobaramin , I found this little snippet extremely interesting: The team calls the hominin an australopithecine because it had a small brain and “overall body plan” like that of an australopithecine, team member de Ruiter said in his talk. But the fossils also show some surprisingly modern traits usually found only in members of our genus, Berger said. The two pelvises, in particular, are capacious and elongated, resembling those of Homo. In his talk, Berger ticked off a list of other modern traits, including smaller teeth, short hands, and an elongated thumb. Last year, my critics relished pointing out all the characteristics of sediba that were very different from Homo sapiens...

Thanks to everyone who came out to hear me speak at Messiah College on Saturday. I thought the symposium went really well, and I was very happy to see and meet folks who have been reading this blog. Thanks also to Ted Davis for the invitation and for the great hospitality. Now I'm home for the next few months. I think my next big trip will be Evolution 2010 , June 25-29 in Portland, Oregon. In the meantime, I've got plenty of work I want to get done. As you might imagine, this week will likely be consumed by Australopithecus sediba (and my tax return, but that's boring in comparison). Speaking of sediba , Bob Simon did a report on Lee Berger and the discovery on 60 Minutes last night. (To be completely honest, I had no idea it was coming. I just flipped on the TV right before my usual Sunday addiction, The Amazing Race .) Here's the embed from cbsnews.com : As I watched, part of me (a very small part) was thinking about the manufactured hype over Ida . I th...

Back in February, I announced that we'd rebranded the BSG as the Creation Biology Society , since that makes more sense than an acronym that doesn't stand for anything. By dropping BSG, we also needed to change the name of our journal Occasional Papers of the BSG . We decided to use this name change as an opportunity to update the software to Open Journal Systems, and while we were making those changes, we invited the Creation Geology Society to join us in publishing this new online journal. We settled on Journal of Creation Theology and Science for the new name, with the CBS publishing JCTS Series B: Life Sciences and the CGS publishing JCTS Series C: Earth Sciences . Where's JCTS Series A ? We're earnestly hoping and praying that within the next year or two, we'll be able to launch a new journal devoted to theological and biblical studies, and we've reserved Series A for that purpose. The debut issue of JCTSB is now available (hosted by CORE at Bry...

Evidently, there are more bones of Australopithecus sediba  sitting in a big rock at Lee Berger's lab in the University of Witwatersrand.  In an interesting twist, National Geographic is helping them set up a lab where the preparation of the new fossils will be streamed live on the internet.  It's kind of a neat gesture of open access.  Read all about it in the press release: New Au. sediba fossils discovered in rock Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com.

This one's going to be pretty technical.  You've been warned. Last year, creationists proposed a bunch of explanations for Homo naledi , with each major organization suggesting something different.  My own analysis was published in May, and I concluded that the baraminological analysis supported putting H. naledi in the human holobaramin.  In the same issue of JCTSB , O'Micks did a separate baraminology study and found that H. naledi  clustered with other members of Homo , so O'Micks concluded that it was probably part of the human holobaramin. Just a few weeks ago, O'Micks published a followup to his original analysis in Answers Research Journal , wherein he did a complete about face.  He tried to add postcranial characters to his original analysis.  In doing so, he cut his sample of species to just a handful of his original study.  O'Micks discovered that his new sample of characters did not show correlation between Homo naledi and other me...

Longsuffering readers will be interested to know that I'm putting the finishing touches on my response to the critics of my hominid baraminology paper . Last year, I discussed several responses: Reckless and farcical Lubenow on sediba Sediba, the bad, and the ugly As I noted previously, I was given the opportunity to respond to Menton, Habermehl, and DeWitt by the editor of Answers Research Journal , but I declined. In retrospect, I'm glad I did. My intention was to allow the dust to settle, so to speak. I wanted to give the print journals ( CRSQ and JC ) the opportunity to put out rebuttals, and I wanted to take the time to think the issues over more carefully. Some people were pretty critical of my unwillingness to shoot right back at my critics, but I'm glad I waited. My manuscript response has now been heavily edited and modified twice, and I'm much happier with the result. So we can look forward to its imminent publication. Meanwhile, I'm off to...