Homo erectus 200,000 Years Older Than We Thought

UPI has a story about a discovery in South Africa of a Homo erectus infant that is 200 ky older than the oldest known specimen currently in existence.  From the original Science article: 

Fossil hominins from South Africa are enriching the story of early human evolution and dispersal. Herries et al. describe the geological context and dating of the hominin-bearing infilled cave, or palaeocave, at a site called Drimolen in South Africa (see the Perspective by Antón). They focus on the age and context of a recently discovered Homo erectus sensu lato fossil and a Paranthropus robustus fossil, which they dated to ∼2.04 million to 1.95 million years ago. This makes Drimolen one of the best-dated sites in South Africa and establishes these fossils as the oldest definitive specimens of their respective species ever discovered. The age confirms that species of Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and early Homo overlapped in the karst of South Africa ∼2 million years ago

The goofy thing about this is that, in East Africa,  early Homo was still running around and out-competing the robust australopithecines (Paranthropus).  The fossil was uncovered and described over a five year period at the site of Drimolen, which is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site in South Africa that contains the important fossil sites of Swartkrans and Sterkfontein. 

From the UPI story:

“One of the questions that interests us is what role changing habitats, resources, and the unique biological adaptations of early Homo erectus may have played in the eventual extinction of Australopithecus sediba in South Africa,” said study co-author Justin Adams, researcher at Monash University's Biomedicine Discovery Institute.
“Similar trends are also seen in other mammal species at this time. For example, there are more than one species of false sabre tooth cat, Dinofelis, at the site -- one of which became extinct after two million years,” Adams said. “Our data reinforces the fact that South Africa represented a truly unique mixture of evolutionary lineages -- a blended community of ancient and modern mammal species that was transitioning as climates and ecosystems changed.”

Just a few short years ago, it was thought that Australopithecus sediba might be ancestral to early Homo based on the characteristics of its hands, pelvis and the proximity of stone tools to the Rising Star Cave.  This was an idea championed by Lee Berger, but it now seems likely that it was another, earlier form that gave rise to Homo erectus. 

Here is the photo of DNH134, taken by Jesse Martin, Reanud Joannes-Boyau, and Andy I. R. Herries

Full Page Ad in Chattanooga Times Free Press: Livesay Resign!

A number of alumni and former faculty of Bryan College took out a full-page ad in the Chattanooga Times Free Press calling on President Stephen Livesay to resign from the college and for the Board of Trustees to resign as well.  The ad showed up in the print edition of the paper but has been transcribed to a page on Change.org here.  It reads in part:

President Livesay has failed to act biblically toward believers who disagree with him. Consistent reports from a number of those who have worked at the College show that Livesay does not follow the mandates of Matthew 18:15 and Ephesians 4:13-16 to discuss his differences with other believers in a humble, loving way that could promote correction and reconciliation. Instead, he treats all disagreement with his views as evil and uses deception, threats, and job termination to silence dialogue and hide dissent.
President Livesay has continued to incite the opposition of Christian men and women of proven faith and integrity. Pastors, Christian professionals, faculty and staff who have made sacrifices over many years for Christ and His ministry at Bryan College, and some of Bryan’s brightest and most faithful students, alumni, and friends have spoken up again and again against Livesay’s failures in godly servant-leadership. Yet he has refused to repent and goes on dividing and damaging the body of Christ at Bryan (John 17:20-21).

Rather than doing its job as a supervisory body that exercises authority over the president, the Bryan Board of Trustees has passively and blindly followed the president.

It is difficult to know what effect this letter will have on Livesay. There is nothing quite like being universally disliked.  It is clear that the fortunes and reputation of the college have taken a huge hit, so much so that Mike Adams, the conservative columnist and faculty at UNC Wilmington, has suggested that the college be shut down.  There are very few things worse for a Christian college than to be accused of ethical violations and moral turpitude.  I'm not sure how this one is going to turn out.

The Continuing Downward Spiral of Bryan College

As if things could not get any worse for Bryan College, news has now surfaced that a much beloved professor, Phillip Lestmann, a tenured professor of mathematics, has been fired for voicing concern about the college and, in the face of recent controversies and scandals, circulating a petition calling for the resignation of President Stephen Livesay.  This petition reads, in part:

President Livesay has failed to act biblically toward believers who disagree with him. Consistent reports from a number of those who have worked at the College show that Livesay does not follow the mandates of Matthew 18:15 and Ephesians 4:13-16 to discuss his differences with other believers in a humble, loving way that could promote correction and reconciliation. Instead, he treats all disagreement with his views as evil and uses deception, threats, and job termination to silence dialogue and hide dissent.

President Livesay has continued to incite the opposition of Christian men and women of proven faith and integrity. Pastors, Christian professionals, faculty and staff who have made sacrifices over many years for Christ and His ministry at Bryan College, and some of Bryan’s brightest and most faithful students, alumni, and friends have spoken up again and again against Livesay’s failures in godly servant-leadership. Yet he has refused to repent and goes on dividing and damaging the body of Christ at Bryan (John 17:20-21).

 From Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed:

The professor was criticized by the administration for having helped organize an "opposition group" -- and that charge has many saying that disagreeing with the administration has become a firing offense, making academic freedom impossible.

That dismissal appears to have added to the push for change at Bryan, with the petition quickly gathering support among alumni.

Bryan's name honors William Jennings Bryan, the prosecutor in the 1925 trial of John Scopes, a public school teacher accused of teaching evolution. The trial took place near campus, and while Bryan's anti-evolution stance fell from favor elsewhere, it has never fallen with leaders of the college.

Tensions have been growing at Bryan since 2014, when the college issued a "clarification" to the college’s statement of faith, which all faculty members must endorse, asserting the historicity of Adam and Eve. While the college has long had a statement of faith stressing belief in the Bible and various core values, the detail about Adam and Eve struck many faculty members and alumni as going too far, and as a move that would limit the ability of some professors to stay (some indeed left).

The other controversy involved the hushed-up dealings with a Christian camp counselor indicted and jailed over sexual molestation charges. In the wake of this incident, the president, Stephen Livesay, has configured the Bryan College Board of Directors to be supportive of his agenda, and critics have argued that the new board is little more than a mouthpiece for Livesay.

Conservative columnist Mike Adams, who just participated in the Summit Ministries workshop, hosted at Bryan College (to which my son Marcus went last year), tweeted the following: 

Someone has also posted a tweet taking aim at the College's absolutely appalling decision to give Ken Ham, head of Answers in Genesis, an honorary degree in science:

Things will likely get worse for Bryan before they get better, if they get better.  I already know of one person who is a graduate of the college who has requested a transcript from them because he fears that they might shut down.  That would, in many ways, be very sad.  I have visited the college.  It is very pretty and has, from all reports, thriving programs in many disciplines.  Further, the faculty are Godly men and women and should not have to pay for the numerous sins of their president and administration. 

Slightly Off-Topic: Mike Adams: Inherit the Windfall

Mike Adams has a new column on the continuing travails of Bryan College and its embattled president Stephen Livesay.  Bryan, if you will remember, made the news when twenty percent of its faculty left after being required to sign a statement of faith supporting young earth creationism and a literal Adam and Eve.  More recently, it allied itself with Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis, which I am quite sure was, as much as anything, politically motivated.

Now it seems that there have been some financial irregularities to go on top of the religious ones.  Adams writes:

The present crisis dates back to 2009 when one of the founders of the National Association of Christian Athletes (NACA) was accused of sexual molestation. A proposal was made to sell a property owned by NACA, which is known as the Fort Bluff Camp, for an amount of $2.5 million. This would have covered NACA’s debt at the time, which was $900,000. Thus, it would have left them $1.6 million in the black. This is where Bryan College President Stephen Livesay gets involved. This is also where the gross financial misconduct begins.

Livesay managed to defeat the proposal to sell the land with an alternate proposal to get rid of the then-existing 13-member NACA Board. Livesay proposed a new 15-member NACA Board be put in its place. Elevating audacity to a Zen art form, Livesay suggested the following composition for the new NACA Board: Nine new members from the Bryan College Board and six members from the existing NACA Board. Unbelievably, Livesay proposed that he would be the one to choose all 15 members.

It goes downhill from there.According to Adams and other sources with whom I have spoken personally, the board is now little more than a mouthpiece for Livesay.  The last person who would stand up to him resigned from the board last year, as Adams notes.  From other sources, it became known that, as of a few years ago, Stephen Livesay was paying himself over $300k a year as president.  This after telling Todd Wood and the CORE Institute that the college didn't have the funds to continue supporting the institute.  This is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.  I hope that Bryan survives.  We were down there for a summer institute last summer with my son, Marcus, and it is a very pretty campus and the people there were very friendly.

New Information on Coppedge Suit

The lawyer for David Coppedge is considering refiling the suit in light of a new court decision. In a storyby Beige Luciano-Adams in the Pasadena Star:

[Coppedge]... filed suit with the Los Angeles Superior in April of last year, claiming he was demoted at JPL for propagating his beliefs at work, citing protection under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act.

A JPL spokeswoman said Coppedge's "suit is without merit."

But while the original lawsuit rested on claims of discrimination under California's Fair Employment and Housing Act, Coppedge's legal team is now considering a new tactics - including taking a page from the Supreme Court's Jan. 19 in NASA v. Nelson.

Two weeks ago the high court ruled against JPL employees who sought to terminate background checks at the facility. The employees claimed those checks violated their civil rights.

"David was terminated and the NASA v. Nelson decision came down
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... which changes the case in material ways," said Coppedge's attorney, Bill Becker.

Becker said he would seek to amend the complaint within the next two weeks to include a wrongful termination claim - adding that a First Amendment claim might also be on the table.

Here is the WaPo story on the NASA vs. Nelson ruling, which involved whether or not the federal government had the right to conduct background checks for prospective employees even if they were subcontractors. But Eugene Volokh writes:

"The real question is who is making the decision - that was clear in (NASA v. Nelson), but not so clear here. Just because a research center is federally funded is not enough to make it a government actor," Volokh said of JPL, which is managed by the California Institute of Technology for NASA.

Read the whole thing.

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Stephen Meyer on Thomas Jefferson and ID

Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute has an article in the Boston Globe on how Thomas Jefferson would view ID. He writes:

In 1823, when materialist evolutionary ideas had long been circulating, Jefferson wrote to John Adams and insisted that the scientific evidence of design in nature was clear: “I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in its parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition.’’ It was on empirical grounds, not religious ones, that he took this view.

Contemplating everything from the heavenly bodies down to the creaturely bodies of men and animals, he argued: “It is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion.’’

Did I read that right? Evolutionary ideas before Charles Darwin? Weren 't Darwin and "Darwinism" responsible for the decay of society? No matter. Onward. Meyer proceeds to use the example of the information present in DNA to suggest that Jefferson had it right, and that evolution could not possibly be responsible for how the information in DNA exists.

The problem is that, as Abyssal's weblog points out, Jefferson had other things to say on the matter, in a letter to John Adams, in 1823:

The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and cent. metal forces; the structure of our earth itself, with its distribution of lands, waters, and atmosphere; animals and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutes” particles; insects, mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organized as man or mammoth; the mineral substances, their generation and uses; it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe, that there is in all of this, design, cause, and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a Fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their Preserver and Regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regeneration into new and other forms.

While this one passage is not exactly a smoking gun, it is clear that Jefferson had some idea that creation had not been static and that the ideas of biological change through time had some credibility. Meyer confuses the call for belief in a creator and his creation with the mechanism by which He did it. This passage as much supports "Jefferson the Theistic Evolutionist" as it does "Jefferson the ID Supporter."
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Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Evolve...

The Guardian has a tongue-in-cheek article (influenced quite heavily by reading Douglas Adams, I'm sure) on why not continuing to evolve would be a good thing. One of the four points:

1. We're not going backwards. If we're standing still then at least we're not backsliding down the evolutionary ladder, despite whatever anecdotal evidence to the contrary you may have gathered. This is good news. If de-evolution were suddenly to start accelerating rapidly we could all end up as hairy little hominids standing around on all fours in the lobbies of buildings waiting for someone tall enough to come along and push the lift button.

Funny.