Well, there goes the neighborhood...

Looks like this is getting some widespread attention:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070808/ap_on_sc/human_evolution

So, what we have is two species of hominids not behaving well. For one, they're supposed to have evolved from one to the other, in classic evolutionary linear fashion. Instead, it looks like they were neighbors. That is to say they co-existed at approximately the same place, at the same time. On the face of it, it does fly in the face of heretofore accepted anthropology concerning the evolution of man as we are now.

So, now what?

• There'll be more questions, more research, other evidence reviewed and presented, but in the meantime, we get this:

"Susan Anton, a New York University anthropologist and co-author of the Leakey work, said she expects anti-evolution proponents to seize on the new research, but said it would be a mistake to try to use the new work to show flaws in evolution theory."

"This is not questioning the idea at all of evolution; it is refining some of the specific points," Anton said. "This is a great example of what science does and religion doesn't do. It's a continous self-testing process."

Well, duh.

I would expect science to continue to do what it does and religion to do what it does. What' s telling here is that Dr. Anton is proactively defending current theory from...whom? Is she worried about other scientists that would challenge the conventional wisdom and her research.? Nooooooooooooo. She goes after religion first, with a warning: it would be a mistake to try to use the new work to show flaws in evolution theory. I'm thinking she and Meave Leakey have done a pretty good job of showing the flaws all by themselves. Is this going to be the same thing as science thinking we evolved from Neanderthals, then come to find out we didn't? We'll see...

Where I think science has gone haywire on all of this, is shifting its position of, "We can't include God in, we have no evidence indicating that", to "We have to pre-emptively, completely include God out, and don't ever mention that so-called creative entity again".

If they'd only worry about the how, what, where, and the when and stop insisting there's no 'Who', they could spend a whole lot more time figuring out the stuff science figures out.