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Science Forum Index » Anthropology - Paleo Forum » Museum combines DNA, fossils to show human ancestry
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| Roger Bagula |
 Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 4:16 pm |
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070208/sc_nm/exhibition_evolution_dc
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Museum combines DNA, fossils to show human ancestry
By Tom HalsThu Feb 8, 2:19 PM ET
The traditional museum showpieces of human evolution, Lucy and Peking
Man, are being nudged aside at the famed American Museum of Natural
History by a newcomer that appears to be an empty test tube.
Curators say a display of microscopic 38,000-year-old Neanderthal DNA,
which seems to be nothing but a vial in a glass case, marks a symbolic
start to a new permanent exhibit which breaks with a tradition of
relying on fossil research to educate.
Ellen V. Futter, the museum's president, called it "the first major
exhibit hall of its kind to present the fossil and genomic record side
by side, offering new and compelling evidence that tells a grand and
sweeping story of man."
Organizers of the exhibit hall wanted to incorporate genetic research
because they said it illustrated links between organisms in ways that
are often difficult with fossils.
"There are certain things you can't do with fossils. DNA can reinforce
things and amplify things," said Rob DeSalle, co-curator for the Anne
and Bernard Spitzer Hall of Human Origins which opens on Saturday at the
museum.
Almost half of Americans believe that humans were created by God in the
last 10,000 years, according to a 2006 Gallup Poll, and critics of
evolution have focused in part on the relatively thin fossil record.
In the exhibit next to the Neanderthal DNA, for example, a display of a
series of primates shows the percentage of genetic material they share
with humans, which ranges up to 99 percent for chimpanzees.
"That's what this hall is all about. It's about understanding we have
common ancestry with other organisms," said DeSalle.
The exhibition hall still has the dioramas and extensive archeological
discoveries for which the museum is famous, such as casts of Lucy and
Peking Man.
Lucy, a 3 million year-old fossil discovered in 1974, is considered one
of great discoveries of human origins because it showed she walked
upright. Peking Man, a fossil at least 300,000 years old, is considered
the first to use tools based on nearby discoveries.
Other highlights include a reconstructed skull of a tiny hominid that
has been dubbed the Hobbit after it was discovered in a cave in
Indonesia in 2003.
DeSalle said the 9,000-square-foot hall was designed to allow for
regular updates with recent genetic discoveries, such as the Neanderthal
DNA which was sequenced only a few months ago. A video will provide
updates every few weeks on the latest research, including work done in
the gene sequencing labs on site at the museum.
While a recent exhibit at the museum on the work of Charles Darwin
touched on creationism, the new hall avoids the subject -- a hot-button
political issue in recent years.
Science and religion are not necessarily in conflict, said Ian
Tattersall, co-curator of the exhibit. "We're telling the scientific story."
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