AlexandraToumaï, notre plus vieil ancêtre commun, continue de révéler ses secrets
#Paléoanthropologie #Anthropologie #Australopithèque #Toumai
Toumaï, notre plus vieil ancêtre commun, continue de révéler ses secrets
FuturaLes chercheurs n’en doutent plus : #Toumaï marchait debout, et ça change tout ! http://sci3nc.es/TQC8wp
#Toumaï : ce fossile qui remet en question l’histoire de l’humanité http://sci3nc.es/TM66nV
Hacker NewsThe curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull and a bitter feud over humanity's origins
#HackerNews #Toumai #Feud #HumanityOrigins #AncientSkull #FossilDiscovery
The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull, a disputed femur and a bitter feud over humanity’s origins
The long read: When fossilised remains were discovered in the Djurab desert in 2001, they were hailed as radically rewriting the history of our species. But not everyone was convinced – and the bitter argument that followed has consumed the lives of scholars ever since
Levka#palaeoanthropology #science #Toumaï
"Palaeoanthropology is a notoriously disputatious, not to say vicious, field. In part, this is an effect of self-selection: given its prestige, and its philosophical, even metaphysical implications, the study of human prehistory attracts the most ambitious and, as one member of the discipline put it to me, 'the most psychotic', palaeontologists. There is, additionally, a cultural divide within the field between, speaking very broadly, field workers and laboratory specialists. The former disdain the latter as 'armchair palaeontologists'; the latter disdain the former as 'fossil hunters'.
But most of the fighting in palaeoanthropology is simply a function of the wild imbalance between the number of palaeoanthropologists, which is large, and the number of objects available for them to study, which is very much not. Our direct knowledge of the first few million years of human evolution derives from a collection of bone fragments that could no more than halfway fill a large shoebox. 'It’s a bit frustrating,' the researcher Jean-Jacques Jaeger told me, with some understatement, 'but there really is a gap in the palaeontological record between, I’d say, 14m and 5m years ago in Africa.' Among other things, the tectonics of this period were not conducive to fossil formation. Unfortunately, this period is precisely when the human line began."
The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull, a disputed femur and a bitter feud over humanity’s origins
The long read: When fossilised remains were discovered in the Djurab desert in 2001, they were hailed as radically rewriting the history of our species. But not everyone was convinced – and the bitter argument that followed has consumed the lives of scholars ever since
Radical AnthropologyThe skullduggery over #Toumai involved suppression of possible evidence that it was not in fact a #hominin (bipedal) fossil.
'When she returned, she found that her research materials had been confiscated; the fossils were being “renumbered”, she was told. At one point, however, Bergeret said, one of her advisers appeared with the femur in his hand. “This piece,” he warned, holding it before her: “You forget you ever saw it.”'
The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull, a disputed femur and a bitter feud over humanity’s origins
The long read: When fossilised remains were discovered in the Djurab desert in 2001, they were hailed as radically rewriting the history of our species. But not everyone was convinced – and the bitter argument that followed has consumed the lives of scholars ever since
Rosie Walters "Fossils promise untold knowledge; fossils promise worldly fame. Often they withhold both; sometimes they drive people mad."
#Paleontology #Toumaï
The curse of Toumaï: an ancien...
The curse of Toumaï: an ancien...
Matt Hodgkinson“There’s been a selection, a choosing of which remains to publish, and which not. No one has the right to do that!”
The dark side of paleoanthropology.
#PaleoAnthropology #HumanOrigins #EvolutionaryBiology #Hominins #Toumai #Sahelanthropus #Fossils #MichelBrunet #ScientificControversy #ResearchIntegrity #PublicationEthics #RobertoMacchiarelli #Chad #AudeBergeret #UniversityofPoitiers #UniversiteDePoitiers
The curse of Toumaï: an ancient skull, a disputed femur and a bitter feud over humanity’s origins
The long read: When fossilised remains were discovered in the Djurab desert in 2001, they were hailed as radically rewriting the history of our species. But not everyone was convinced – and the bitter argument that followed has consumed the lives of scholars ever since
The Pigeon ExpressResearchers who found Sahelanthropus fossils intentionally left femur unexamined to name it Humanity's Oldest Ancestor #Chad #France #Sahelanthropus #Toumai #Evolution #Humanity https://www.thepigeonexpress.com/researchers-who-found-sahelanthropus-fossils-intentionally-unexamined-femur-to-name-it-humanitys-oldest-ancestor/
Researchers who found Sahelanthropus fossils intentionally left femur unexamined to name it Humanity's Oldest Ancestor • The Pigeon Express
French paleontologists who uncovered a Sahelanthropus in Chad about two decades ago intentionally left femur unexamined because it would discredit biped theory.