Random bits #10
A bunch of interesting papers have come out recently that I'd like to comment on, but I keep getting farther and farther and farther behind... so here's a quick summary of a few articles of note:
This week's PNAS has a series of articles on australopith diets as inferred from teeth - and this isn't your usual attempt at correlating tooth morphology to diet. These papers are using (or summarizing) isotope methods to figure out what australopiths (and other hominids) ate. Because certain plants have different carbon isotope ratios than others, and those ratios can still be detected in tooth enamel. What do we find? Lots of variation both geographically and taxonomically. Really interesting stuff, and it starts with this summary (which has links to the other articles in the series):
Stable carbon isotopes and human evolution
Over in Answers Research Journal, there's a new article by Michael Brandt. That name is probably unfamiliar to lots of English speaking creationists, but he's been actively publishing creationist research in German for many years. His interest is largely in human origins, and he even has a book on human demography:
It's nice to see him branching out to the English-speaking world. This new article is on alleged stone tools from the early Tertiary, which is hard to explain if humans really didn't appear until much later. I don't know that his conclusions are correct, but Brandt has done something unusual in creationist writings on human origins: original research. For that, I think we owe him serious attention and consideration. Here's his paper, which as always is free from ARJ:
Brandt. 2013. Stone Tools From the Early Tertiary in Europe - A Contradiction to any Evolutionary Theory about the Origin of Man and to Long Geological Periods of Time. ARJ 6:231-264.
Now I'm off to film the last lessons of Core Academy's biology course. Editing begins in earnest next week!
Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com.
This week's PNAS has a series of articles on australopith diets as inferred from teeth - and this isn't your usual attempt at correlating tooth morphology to diet. These papers are using (or summarizing) isotope methods to figure out what australopiths (and other hominids) ate. Because certain plants have different carbon isotope ratios than others, and those ratios can still be detected in tooth enamel. What do we find? Lots of variation both geographically and taxonomically. Really interesting stuff, and it starts with this summary (which has links to the other articles in the series):
Stable carbon isotopes and human evolution
Over in Answers Research Journal, there's a new article by Michael Brandt. That name is probably unfamiliar to lots of English speaking creationists, but he's been actively publishing creationist research in German for many years. His interest is largely in human origins, and he even has a book on human demography:
It's nice to see him branching out to the English-speaking world. This new article is on alleged stone tools from the early Tertiary, which is hard to explain if humans really didn't appear until much later. I don't know that his conclusions are correct, but Brandt has done something unusual in creationist writings on human origins: original research. For that, I think we owe him serious attention and consideration. Here's his paper, which as always is free from ARJ:
Brandt. 2013. Stone Tools From the Early Tertiary in Europe - A Contradiction to any Evolutionary Theory about the Origin of Man and to Long Geological Periods of Time. ARJ 6:231-264.
Now I'm off to film the last lessons of Core Academy's biology course. Editing begins in earnest next week!
Feedback? Email me at toddcharleswood [at] gmail [dot] com.