Are we on the threshold of a paradigm shift in scientific knowledge

[imported_mateo]

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

Originally posted by: mateo

Originally posted by: Pliablemoose

We're saying we're in the trenches and health care is being rationed in an inhumane manner.

This sums it up well. We can do so much better than we are now.

So you think turning the system over to the Government is going to make it more 'humane'?

Turning it over to the govt completely: no

Access to healthcare for everyone: yes

Providing access to healthcare for every citizen is indeed more humane in my opinion.

 

[Fear No Evil]

Originally posted by: Pliablemoose

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

Believe what you want. I'm not a care provider but my company makes things you use daily in your job.

And the truth comes out...

Which truth is that? My company and my job would probably benefit from government mandates tha would come from UHC. I still STRONGLY oppose it.

 

[imported_mateo]

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

Originally posted by: Pliablemoose

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

You didn't seem to have a problem with it for the past 25 years. Why now? Because you are getting old and have made your profits already? Why is it OK for YOU to make good money off sick people but its evil and inhumane for insurance companies to do it?

Do you honestly think all of these wonderful expensive drugs, machines, treatments, etc that you get to use would have been invented if there was no incentive for the inventors risk their money and time? Do you think YOUR performance will improve if the government decides you are worth 25% less and need to work 25% more patients?

I think there is a reason a large majority of the innovation and improvements in Healthcare come out of the United States, because most other countries have removed the incentive for people to be innovative. I know 'profit' is the evil buzzword these days, but that same profit is what has driven the medical industry to be one of the most high tech in the world. Remove that motivation, and I think we will all suffer in the long run.

BTW, I do currently work in the Healthcare industry.. The current system is broke, but UHC is not the answer.

LOL, bullshit, unless you mop floors...

Believe what you want. I'm not a care provider but my company makes things you use daily in your job. The products I work with are specifically designed to make YOUR job easier.

How dare you profit off the suffering of others.

 

[Fear No Evil]

Originally posted by: mateo

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

Originally posted by: Pliablemoose

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

You didn't seem to have a problem with it for the past 25 years. Why now? Because you are getting old and have made your profits already? Why is it OK for YOU to make good money off sick people but its evil and inhumane for insurance companies to do it?

Do you honestly think all of these wonderful expensive drugs, machines, treatments, etc that you get to use would have been invented if there was no incentive for the inventors risk their money and time? Do you think YOUR performance will improve if the government decides you are worth 25% less and need to work 25% more patients?

I think there is a reason a large majority of the innovation and improvements in Healthcare come out of the United States, because most other countries have removed the incentive for people to be innovative. I know 'profit' is the evil buzzword these days, but that same profit is what has driven the medical industry to be one of the most high tech in the world. Remove that motivation, and I think we will all suffer in the long run.

BTW, I do currently work in the Healthcare industry.. The current system is broke, but UHC is not the answer.

LOL, bullshit, unless you mop floors...

Believe what you want. I'm not a care provider but my company makes things you use daily in your job. The products I work with are specifically designed to make YOUR job easier.

How dare you profit off the suffering of others.

I know! But I saw Pliablemoose driving around with his co-workers in his Lexus and I figured it was only fair that I get my piece of the pie as well.

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

You talk about 'fair wage' and about all the schooling you went though and how much all of the stuff you do costs. But then you say you support UHC.. which in MY mind seems to throw ALL of those things out the window. With government run Healthcare NONE of that matters. You get paid what the government says, you get to perform the procedures the government approves, you get paid what the government is willing to pay.

So while YOU think you should get paid what your worth.. and I think you should get paid what your worth.. The entire premise of UHC seems to not give a shit about any of that. There is a finite pool of money even with the government... my guess is the workers are going to be the first ones screwed in this new plan. But hey, if you want to believe that when the government takes over healthcare, everything is going to become a utopia, feel free to pass over whatever you are smoking because its some GOOD SHIT.

Why this constant equating of UHC with government-single-payer health care? Please show us where the UHC proposals in Congress say that government will tell the private insurance companies how much they're allowed to pay for services?

And since you're so down on whatever it is you THINK the current proposals are, um, proposing, why don't you explain to us how the system we have right now is much more wonderful OR tell us a SPECIFIC UHC system you DO support that solves the manifold problems of our current system.

And, no, "malpractice reform" is not a "UHC system."

 

[Pliablemoose]

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil


I know! But I saw Pliablemoose driving around with his co-workers in his Lexus and I figured it was only fair that I get my piece of the pie as well.

I worked for a Federally run health care system for 2 decades, gotta tell you, the vendors squirmed compared to the private sector...

 

[Fear No Evil]

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

You talk about 'fair wage' and about all the schooling you went though and how much all of the stuff you do costs. But then you say you support UHC.. which in MY mind seems to throw ALL of those things out the window. With government run Healthcare NONE of that matters. You get paid what the government says, you get to perform the procedures the government approves, you get paid what the government is willing to pay.

So while YOU think you should get paid what your worth.. and I think you should get paid what your worth.. The entire premise of UHC seems to not give a shit about any of that. There is a finite pool of money even with the government... my guess is the workers are going to be the first ones screwed in this new plan. But hey, if you want to believe that when the government takes over healthcare, everything is going to become a utopia, feel free to pass over whatever you are smoking because its some GOOD SHIT.

Why this constant equating of UHC with government-single-payer health care? Please show us where the UHC proposals in Congress say that government will tell the private insurance companies how much they're allowed to pay for services?

And since you're so down on whatever it is you THINK the current proposals are, um, proposing, why don't you explain to us how the system we have right now is much more wonderful OR tell us a SPECIFIC UHC system you DO support that solves the manifold problems of our current system.

And, no, "malpractice reform" is not a "UHC system."

Obama himself has said he is in favor of the single payer system. Pelosi has made it clear she wants a single-payer solution. How would any insurance company compete with a government who can just print money? Of course UHC means single payer because no insurance company could possibly compete on an even playing field with the government.

 

[LunarRay]

Ok.. after reading the OP I'm convinced we should extend UHC to the Great Apes too. I fear the subsidized aspect will run the costs up, however, and they already do have government provided health care but only if they are citizens of a facility that can provide it. What about the rest?

 

[IronWing]

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

Obama himself has said he is in favor of the single payer system. Pelosi has made it clear she wants a single-payer solution. How would any insurance company compete with a government who can just print money? Of course UHC means single payer because no insurance company could possibly compete on an even playing field with the government.

Thank you. That has been the point of going to a single payer system. Private industry has utterly failed to provide health insurance or health care in a cost effective manner. Time to try something different. As for Obama and Pelosi, whether or not they might want a single payer system, they haven't lifted a finger to make it happen. A single payer system hasn't even been considered by Congress. Because of this refusal on the part of the Democratic leadership to seriously consider a single payer system, this round of health care reform was a dead letter before it began. All that is left to argue about now is whether the private insurance companies will get to increase their piece of the pie or if the providers get to increase their piece. Either way, the rate payers, the taxpayers, and the sick continue to get screwed.

 

[shira]

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

You talk about 'fair wage' and about all the schooling you went though and how much all of the stuff you do costs. But then you say you support UHC.. which in MY mind seems to throw ALL of those things out the window. With government run Healthcare NONE of that matters. You get paid what the government says, you get to perform the procedures the government approves, you get paid what the government is willing to pay.

So while YOU think you should get paid what your worth.. and I think you should get paid what your worth.. The entire premise of UHC seems to not give a shit about any of that. There is a finite pool of money even with the government... my guess is the workers are going to be the first ones screwed in this new plan. But hey, if you want to believe that when the government takes over healthcare, everything is going to become a utopia, feel free to pass over whatever you are smoking because its some GOOD SHIT.

Why this constant equating of UHC with government-single-payer health care? Please show us where the UHC proposals in Congress say that government will tell the private insurance companies how much they're allowed to pay for services?

And since you're so down on whatever it is you THINK the current proposals are, um, proposing, why don't you explain to us how the system we have right now is much more wonderful OR tell us a SPECIFIC UHC system you DO support that solves the manifold problems of our current system.

And, no, "malpractice reform" is not a "UHC system."

Obama himself has said he is in favor of the single payer system. Pelosi has made it clear she wants a single-payer solution. How would any insurance company compete with a government who can just print money? Of course UHC means single payer because no insurance company could possibly compete on an even playing field with the government.

You're living in a fantasy world. The bills coming out of committee are what count, not what Obama or Pelosi or any other single individual says. And - if you'll recall - the public option was just voted out of the House bill this past week. Afaik, there's no public option at all in the Senate bill. The most we'll see in the way of "competition" for private insurance will be those useless health-insurance co-ops.

So, again, where in the real, live bills working their ways through the Senate and the House are you seeing "single payer"?

Also, you seem to have conveniently avoided responding to the second part of my original post: The status quo is clearly unacceptable; where's the SPECIFIC right-wing proposal that solves the problems? Where's the right-wing proposal that:

1) Doesn't increase the deficit in the out years.
2) Covers everyone (or at least, everyone that wants it).
3) Eliminates pre-existing conditions exclusions.
4) Available at reasonable cost.
5) Provides GOOD coverage that delivers high-quality health-care.
6) "Bends the curve."
7) Does NOT lead to rationing (since this is a big criticism the right likes to make).
8) Does NOT lead to long waiting lists (since this is another big criticism the right likes to make).
9) Does not dictate to physicians the treatments they must use (since this is yet another big criticism the right likes to make)

 

[Fear No Evil]

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

You talk about 'fair wage' and about all the schooling you went though and how much all of the stuff you do costs. But then you say you support UHC.. which in MY mind seems to throw ALL of those things out the window. With government run Healthcare NONE of that matters. You get paid what the government says, you get to perform the procedures the government approves, you get paid what the government is willing to pay.

So while YOU think you should get paid what your worth.. and I think you should get paid what your worth.. The entire premise of UHC seems to not give a shit about any of that. There is a finite pool of money even with the government... my guess is the workers are going to be the first ones screwed in this new plan. But hey, if you want to believe that when the government takes over healthcare, everything is going to become a utopia, feel free to pass over whatever you are smoking because its some GOOD SHIT.

Why this constant equating of UHC with government-single-payer health care? Please show us where the UHC proposals in Congress say that government will tell the private insurance companies how much they're allowed to pay for services?

And since you're so down on whatever it is you THINK the current proposals are, um, proposing, why don't you explain to us how the system we have right now is much more wonderful OR tell us a SPECIFIC UHC system you DO support that solves the manifold problems of our current system.

And, no, "malpractice reform" is not a "UHC system."

Obama himself has said he is in favor of the single payer system. Pelosi has made it clear she wants a single-payer solution. How would any insurance company compete with a government who can just print money? Of course UHC means single payer because no insurance company could possibly compete on an even playing field with the government.

You're living in a fantasy world. The bills coming out of committee are what count, not what Obama or Pelosi or any other single individual says. And - if you'll recall - the public option was just voted out of the House bill this past week. Afaik, there's no public option at all in the Senate bill. The most we'll see in the way of "competition" for private insurance will be those useless health-insurance co-ops.

So, again, where in the real, live bills working their ways through the Senate and the House are you seeing "single payer"?

Also, you seem to have conveniently avoided responding to the second part of my original post: The status quo is clearly unacceptable; where's the SPECIFIC right-wing proposal that solves the problems? Where's the right-wing proposal that:

1) Doesn't increase the deficit in the out years.
2) Covers everyone (or at least, everyone that wants it).
3) Eliminates pre-existing conditions exclusions.
4) Available at reasonable cost.
5) Provides GOOD coverage that delivers high-quality health-care.
6) "Bends the curve."
7) Does NOT lead to rationing (since this is a big criticism the right likes to make).
8) Does NOT lead to long waiting lists (since this is another big criticism the right likes to make).
9) Does not dictate to physicians the treatments they must use (since this is yet another big criticism the right likes to make)

I haven't seen a proposal from ANYONE which does all of this.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: LunarRay
Ok.. after reading the OP I'm convinced we should extend UHC to the Great Apes too. I fear the subsidized aspect will run the costs up, however, and they already do have government provided health care but only if they are citizens of a facility that can provide it. What about the rest?

Pay no attention to me. We can see pretty clearly, I think, that the apes don't want to extend it to themselves.

But what I did was to provide some, what I suggested might be called paradigmatic scientific information from various scientific fields, suggesting a shift or new understanding of human nature is emerging in that community and, asking others to do the same, provided an example of how that new vision can be applied to our lives today. What, in other words, changes for you, if anything, in light of this new thinking. Generally, what the Ardi fossil and other studies from neuroscience, etc, seem to be suggesting is that the function of cooperation and empathy, just to supply some sort of buzz words or code to identify the ideas loosely here for talking purposes, are far more important than previously thought and the notion of humanity as some sort of killer ape by evolution, are totally wrong. We are human and our human evolution was driven by cooperation, it now seems.

So far I proposed two things this new thinking has suggested to me, that the one nation on earth the most distant in its philosophical underpinnings regarding cooperation, the nation of rugged individualists, the nation of the cult of personality, the United States, is the only nation on the planet that has any standard of living and does not have universal health care and these two facts are not coincidental, then secondly, that any buy-in to universal health care will have to satisfy the monkey in us that it is fair, that somebody else isn't getting grapes to our cucumber.

On that second point, I suggested that everybody should perhaps be contributing something to the general welfare perhaps except where any sane person would agree they really can't. This was suggested as a remedy to the objection that 47% of people aren't paying income tax even though they are likely paying other taxes in disproportional amounts to their disposable income.

So, instead of intending a debate on the merits of health care, I asked people to suggest ways these new insights into our nature, so different than the traditional ones I think we have all pretty much been raised with, may be affecting their thinking, if at all, but of course, like the wound up automatatons I often suggest us to be, the mention of a single thought, in this case health care, has got a good many spilling their script. The difficulties of intellectual expansion beyond the partisan stage of development seem to be rather enormous. Of course, I have elsewhere addressed that problem too.

 

[DealMonkey]

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil
Obama himself has said he is in favor of the single payer system. Pelosi has made it clear she wants a single-payer solution. How would any insurance company compete with a government who can just print money? Of course UHC means single payer because no insurance company could possibly compete on an even playing field with the government.

FedEx and UPS (and DHL and a host of others) compete just fine with the USPS. And last I heard, they were all in the package delivery business.

 

[DealMonkey]

Originally posted by: LunarRay
Ok.. after reading the OP I'm convinced we should extend UHC to the Great Apes too. I fear the subsidized aspect will run the costs up, however, and they already do have government provided health care but only if they are citizens of a facility that can provide it. What about the rest?

So long as the Republicans can insert a statement into the final legislation that declares that man did not descend from monkeys and that all textbooks must include this undisputed fact. Oh, and a second amendment allowing apes to conceal carry in any public zoo.

Seems fair to me.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Originally posted by: DealMonkey

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil
Obama himself has said he is in favor of the single payer system. Pelosi has made it clear she wants a single-payer solution. How would any insurance company compete with a government who can just print money? Of course UHC means single payer because no insurance company could possibly compete on an even playing field with the government.

FedEx and UPS (and DHL and a host of others) compete just fine with the USPS. And last I heard, they were all in the package delivery business.

Yep, they're killing the USPS...

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

Also, if we are going to shift the responsibility of PAYING from the current percentage of people who have insurance to the 53% of people who currently pay Federal Taxes..

I DO think _MY_ cost is going to go up, regardless if overall costs do.

Good, I hope you have pay out your ass

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Pliablemoose

Originally posted by: DealMonkey

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil
Obama himself has said he is in favor of the single payer system. Pelosi has made it clear she wants a single-payer solution. How would any insurance company compete with a government who can just print money? Of course UHC means single payer because no insurance company could possibly compete on an even playing field with the government.

FedEx and UPS (and DHL and a host of others) compete just fine with the USPS. And last I heard, they were all in the package delivery business.

Yep, they're killing the USPS...

No they aren't, it's electronic mail, business recession and gas price that's killing the PO.

 

[LunarRay]

Originally posted by: DealMonkey

Originally posted by: LunarRay
Ok.. after reading the OP I'm convinced we should extend UHC to the Great Apes too. I fear the subsidized aspect will run the costs up, however, and they already do have government provided health care but only if they are citizens of a facility that can provide it. What about the rest?

So long as the Republicans can insert a statement into the final legislation that declares that man did not descend from monkeys and that all textbooks must include this undisputed fact. Oh, and a second amendment allowing apes to conceal carry in any public zoo.

Seems fair to me.

I think Sen Grassley had an amendment to that effect in the Finance Committee Mark up of their bill.. But, he couldn't get a majority to agree on any language... I think the bill will say that to be covered by any Government Health Care program they must be citizens descended from God but a last minute amendment indicated that God could have been an Ape so to appease both sides and to enable Chimps, Gorilla and Orang who have lived in the US a certain amount of time can be considered citizens if they register as Liberals.

 

[ebaycj]

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

Originally posted by: Pliablemoose

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

You didn't seem to have a problem with it for the past 25 years. Why now? Because you are getting old and have made your profits already? Why is it OK for YOU to make good money off sick people but its evil and inhumane for insurance companies to do it?

Do you honestly think all of these wonderful expensive drugs, machines, treatments, etc that you get to use would have been invented if there was no incentive for the inventors risk their money and time? Do you think YOUR performance will improve if the government decides you are worth 25% less and need to work 25% more patients?

I think there is a reason a large majority of the innovation and improvements in Healthcare come out of the United States, because most other countries have removed the incentive for people to be innovative. I know 'profit' is the evil buzzword these days, but that same profit is what has driven the medical industry to be one of the most high tech in the world. Remove that motivation, and I think we will all suffer in the long run.

BTW, I do currently work in the Healthcare industry.. The current system is broke, but UHC is not the answer.

LOL, bullshit, unless you mop floors...

Believe what you want. I'm not a care provider but my company makes things you use daily in your job. The products I work with are specifically designed to make YOUR job easier.

Ahh, so you're the one who makes the $100 band-aids. Now it makes sense.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: ebaycj

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

Believe what you want. I'm not a care provider but my company makes things you use daily in your job. The products I work with are specifically designed to make YOUR job easier.

Ahh, so you're the one who makes the $100 band-aids. Now it makes sense.

Yep, slowly but surely the blatant conflicts of interest of these America haters comes out.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: ebaycj

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

Believe what you want. I'm not a care provider but my company makes things you use daily in your job. The products I work with are specifically designed to make YOUR job easier.

Ahh, so you're the one who makes the $100 band-aids. Now it makes sense.

Yep, slowly but surely the blatant conflicts of interest of these America haters comes out.

Coming from the King of America Haters (aka Dave McOwned), I suppose this should have some weight. But as with all of your ridiculous posts/history ($10/gal gas, SETI install debacle, etc), your post is just another punchline.

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: DealMonkey

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil
Obama himself has said he is in favor of the single payer system. Pelosi has made it clear she wants a single-payer solution. How would any insurance company compete with a government who can just print money? Of course UHC means single payer because no insurance company could possibly compete on an even playing field with the government.

FedEx and UPS (and DHL and a host of others) compete just fine with the USPS. And last I heard, they were all in the package delivery business.

Actually thats not entirely true. As managment at UPS I have some knowledge of the subject and FedEx and us are really considered "express delivery" companies, not a mail service. In the US there is really only one main company that does letters, and that is USPS. Sure, FedEx does alot of air envelopes and we move a fair number as well but they are all express. Heck, we don't even offer a ground service for letters, they go by air only (our worldship system won't even let you print a ground label for a letter). Our bread and butter are packages, something USPS has tried to break into and has been more or less successful depending on how you look at it.

I believe there are competing mail carrying companies in the UK and parts of Europe but I'm not 100% on that. Over here though that market is almost 100% locked down by USPS, with the exception of some minor local players.

Now back to your regularly scheduled UHC debate.

 

[Fear No Evil]

Originally posted by: ebaycj

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

Originally posted by: Pliablemoose

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil

You didn't seem to have a problem with it for the past 25 years. Why now? Because you are getting old and have made your profits already? Why is it OK for YOU to make good money off sick people but its evil and inhumane for insurance companies to do it?

Do you honestly think all of these wonderful expensive drugs, machines, treatments, etc that you get to use would have been invented if there was no incentive for the inventors risk their money and time? Do you think YOUR performance will improve if the government decides you are worth 25% less and need to work 25% more patients?

I think there is a reason a large majority of the innovation and improvements in Healthcare come out of the United States, because most other countries have removed the incentive for people to be innovative. I know 'profit' is the evil buzzword these days, but that same profit is what has driven the medical industry to be one of the most high tech in the world. Remove that motivation, and I think we will all suffer in the long run.

BTW, I do currently work in the Healthcare industry.. The current system is broke, but UHC is not the answer.

LOL, bullshit, unless you mop floors...

Believe what you want. I'm not a care provider but my company makes things you use daily in your job. The products I work with are specifically designed to make YOUR job easier.

Ahh, so you're the one who makes the $100 band-aids. Now it makes sense.

The double-standard here is amazing. Did you miss where Pliablemoose said the following:

I'm living in Hollywood, my apt paid for, all utilities, cable, etc and working at one of the largest HMO's in the US making good $ in addition to having all my needs met for housing, the only thing they don't do for me is shop for my groceries and drive me back & forth to work as a temp.

My co-workers (nurses) drive Mercedes and Lexus's and make a ton of cash here and we're 80%+ in favor of UHC, despite the very real likelihood we will earn less $.

It sounds to me like the HMO has to charge $100 for a band-aid to pay for Pliablemoose.

BTW - My company does not make band-aids..

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: Fear No Evil
I'll jump in and save someone from drowning, or run into their house if its on fire to try to get them out, or stop if there is a car accident and someone is injured.

That doesn't mean I should pay for a fence around their pool, pay to rebuild their house, or pay their healthcare bill.

Yes you will or you will get the fuck out of here of you don't like it.

Amerika...love it or leave it! Will the chain be unbroken?

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Originally posted by: DealMonkey

Originally posted by: LunarRay
Ok.. after reading the OP I'm convinced we should extend UHC to the Great Apes too. I fear the subsidized aspect will run the costs up, however, and they already do have government provided health care but only if they are citizens of a facility that can provide it. What about the rest?

So long as the Republicans can insert a statement into the final legislation that declares that man did not descend from monkeys and that all textbooks must include this undisputed fact. Oh, and a second amendment allowing apes to conceal carry in any public zoo.

Seems fair to me.

It's beginning to look like man did not descend from monkeys after all...it may be the other way around. Tell me again about your undisputed facts...time to eat crow? I love science.

Did apes descend from us?
What is closer to the truth is that our knuckle-dragging cousins descended from us.

That's one of the shocking new theories being drawn from a series of anthropology papers published Friday in a special edition of the journal Science.

Scientists say a 4.4-million-year-old fossil called Ardi ? short for ardipithecus ramidus ? is descended from the "missing link," or the last common ancestor between humans and apes.

The 4-foot, 110-pound female's skeleton and physiological characteristics bear a closer resemblance to modern-day humans than to contemporary apes, meaning they evolved from humanlike creatures ? not the other way around.

The partial skeleton "is probably the most important find we have had yet," says Owen Lovejoy, one of the primary authors on the journal package.

"It's transformative. This is a lot closer to anything that you'd call the missing link than anything that's ever been found," says Lovejoy, a biological anthropologist at Ohio's Kent State University.

Among other things, research on Ardi suggests humans are far more primitive in an evolutionary sense than today's great apes ? like chimps and gorillas ? which have continued to evolve from the missing link.

"In a way we're saying that the old idea that we evolved from a chimpanzee is totally incorrect," he says. "It's more proper to say that chimpanzees evolved from us."

Lovejoy says chimps experienced more profound evolutionary changes in their backs, pelvises, limbs, hands and feet as they adapted to life in the trees than the hominid line of upright species that evolved into humans.

"Hominids, it turns out to be, are pretty primitive," he says.

Lovejoy explains the actual missing link ? or last common ancestor in scientific parlance ? may have first sprung up some six million years before Ardi.

But Ardi, while past the initial link stage, possesses enough ape and hominid traits to show what those true common ancestors would have looked like, he says.

"It's the first find that we have that is really informative about what that last common ancestor was like."

Along with busting the supposed ape-to-man lineage, Lovejoy says, Ardi has obliterated existing theories about how, where and why our ancestors began the signature practice of upright walking.

First off, he says, none of our ancestors were like the "knuckle walkers" shown at the start of those famous human decent lineups.

The loping, knuckle-down gait that characterizes gorillas on the ground comes as a result of the stiffened backs they evolved to help in their arboreal acrobatics.

Hominids like Ardi, Lovejoy says, had pliant lower backs that allowed them to stand upright. And while they would often have moved palms-down across the ground like monkeys, they were bipedal much of the time.

But why did Ardi and her kin evolve this pedestrian practice in the first place?

Traditional thinking, Lovejoy says, is that our distant ancestors first stood up to get a better view of lurking predators and potential prey after they had knuckle-walked their way out of the forest and onto the grassy savannahs of Africa.

But Ardi, as two of the journal papers show, walked tall in a wooded setting, where trees would have negated the improved sightlines of added height.

Found in the Afar Triangle area of Ethiopia in 1992, Ardi's incomplete skeleton was pieced together from about 100 bone fragments that took three years to fully uncover. While the area is now desert, it was semideciduous woodland when the creature lived, says Kathlyn Stewart, a scientist with Ottawa's Canadian Museum of Nature, who collaborated on one of these papers.

Go back 4.4 million years and you would find Ardi's kind climbing in the trees and foraging upright on the ground, their feet planted comfortably in both worlds.

"This thing is both arboreal and terrestrial," Lovejoy says. "Its pelvis is kind of a mosaic, the upper part is adapted to upright walking, but the lower part is adapted to climbing trees."

Unlike the earliest previously known pre-human ? a creature known as Lucy, who lived 1.2 million years later ? Ardi still had the opposable big toe of a tree climber.

Yet the males of her species also had the small canine teeth that distinguish humans from great apes.

This dental detail, says Lovejoy, is a key clue to the walking mystery.

Male apes with small canines were less capable of fighting off competitors, Lovejoy says, and would have to offer females something more for mating favours.

"Instead of males gaining access to females by threatening other males ... they're getting access to females by providing them food," he says. Upright walking made it easier to carry that food through their woodland environment.

"So the whole savannah theory (of walking) is now gone as well."

In an independent analysis of the research, Alan Walker, a Pennsylvania State University paleoanthropologist, called the Ardi fossils "extraordinary."

"The anatomy behind this behavioural combination is very unexpected and is certain to cause considerable rethinking of not only our evolutionary past, but also that of our living relatives, the great apes."