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Comment by gnaritas | Hacker News Reader

> The clock is "reset" on these types of things so frequently

It really isn't; this doesn't change anything, we previously knew we were at least 200k years old, that fact is still true. We now know we're at least 300k years old, that fact will also always remain true. What's at fault is your understanding of what science is saying rather than what it's actually saying.

> that I can help wondering why we speak so confidently about the origins of our species

Because it's a given that we're always speaking about current best available knowledge. What is proven true remains true, it's just refined over time as new truths are discovered. What we know continually grows, it's not like we're changing what we know to be something else, we're just growing what we know continually.

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But seriously, what the heck makes more current information better? We aren't talking about significant technological advancements in the last 30 years in dating. What about releasing the click bait news story when a date is corroborated by a new piece of evidence, instead of every time some new find is dated we change the scientifically accepted just to the new number. gnaritas, its hilarious how you ask a very legitimate question, and then the responses are all "Isn't it great how the scientific method allows us to blatantly...." Instead of a response like "Oh...why the heck did we say we had so much confidence before" Regardless of what commenters say, the truth is that yes, without corroboration or quantifiable changes in technology, there is NO VALIDITY in saying that the newest number is the best number. It's another data point, and more importantly its another data point to prove that its stupid to so quickly decide that once you find something in 1 hole in 1 location, that artifact MUST be the beginning of an era!

It's not about the newest number being the best number, it's simply an older number that changes our idea of the timeline. So yes, it there is validity in it because it's "new" data that differs from our existing data giving us a fuller understanding of the timeline.

And I think you're confusing me with the OP, I didn't ask any question at all, nor do I think the OP's question is legitimate. The OP is assuming incorrectly that current science states definitively when homo sapiens began, but it doesn't, it merely says here's the oldest evidence we currently have so we're at least this old; science never said we're not older. As we cannot time travel, we can never definitively say when homo sapiens began, it will always be an estimate based on the oldest fossils found and as such that estimate can be changed anytime new fossils are found that pre-date the existing oldest fossil.

http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm

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