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Big pic, lots of words, link....


http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/971C/production/_85448683_01-homo-naledi-bone-table-vertical-john-hawks-cc-by.jpg



http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34192447

Hey Hey We're the Monkeys....

I suppose there are more embarrassing things we could of come from then monkeys. I mean the dung beetle is a thing. Just..why not bears though? Bears would of been better.

We all just come from some snot that one day just got warm. SCIENCE! Sucking the magic out of life since the 1990's.

I think its pretty magical.
Archeology is cool.

Originally posted by Surtur
I suppose there are more embarrassing things we could of come from then monkeys. I mean the dung beetle is a thing. Just..why not bears though? Bears would of been better.

We've come from all kinds of stuff. Once we were single celled!


It's not embarrassing to come from humble beginnings, it only shows how far we've come

Nice!



Yea, 'missing link' isn't a good term because it implies distinct links in a single chain, and that we were missing specific one that we need to find to make things fit in a nice line, rather than a continuum where we have so many examples of ancestors not just up and down, but branching out, possible re-converging, and so on.

Getting to know people here, I'm fairly confident that their ancestors evolved from a lower branch of homonid than mine.

Like my monkey ancestor came from the branch that first picked up a rock and used it to smash in the face of a rival monkey ancestor as a mean to claim resources. While their monkey ancestor was the monkey that was content fingering its own ass and then smelling it.

This brings up a question that has bothered me for a long time
concerning evolution. If we physically evolved from an apelike
creature, why hasn't the Gorilla, Alligator, Lion, and several
other animals changed significantly over time? Why does an
Alligator look the same way that it did millions of years ago?
Could it be, that those apelike people, or animals were simply
killed off by us, and were of a completely different species than
we are? I'd be very interested in seeing them map that skeleton
out using 3D mapping technology.

We're distant cousins with the gorilla, meaning some time back the strain that produced us and the strain the produced them were in effect the same at some point, mind you, there was lots of branchings along the way to get to were we are today.

I'm pretty sure the lion of today wasn't around some 30-40k years ago. Could possibly be said that they've changed more in the last 30-40k years than we did.

edit: To the killed off, did watch a docu on Neanderthals once and it proposed that Neanderthals were both killed and intermingled (produced offspring) with modern humans at times. But ultimately it listed 'low birth rates' and 'poor adaption to ending ice age' as the reason why Neanderthals went extinct.

@Stoic

That question was addressed on Ancient Aliens...

Originally posted by Stoic
This brings up a question that has bothered me for a long time
concerning evolution. If we physically evolved from an apelike
creature, why hasn't the Gorilla, Alligator, Lion, and several
other animals changed significantly over time? Why does an
Alligator look the same way that it did millions of years ago?
Could it be, that those apelike people, or animals were simply
killed off by us, and were of a completely different species than
we are? I'd be very interested in seeing them map that skeleton
out using 3D mapping technology.

If they were killed off by us you'd think other stuff would of still reached levels similar to us. For instance we couldn't of wiped out the various creatures that lived in the ocean.

For me my question is..how is it that certain species were not wiped out by the supposed meteor that killed the dinosaurs?

Originally posted by Stoic
This brings up a question that has bothered me for a long time
concerning evolution. If we physically evolved from an apelike
creature, why hasn't the Gorilla, Alligator, Lion, and several
other animals changed significantly over time? Why does an
Alligator look the same way that it did millions of years ago?
Could it be, that those apelike people, or animals were simply
killed off by us, and were of a completely different species than
we are? I'd be very interested in seeing them map that skeleton
out using 3D mapping technology.

Cause they lazy.


Originally posted by riv6672
@Stoic

That question was addressed on Ancient Aliens...
Biggest mystery on that show is why that idiot wears his hair like he does.

I love his hair!

Originally posted by Stoic
This brings up a question that has bothered me for a long time
concerning evolution. If we physically evolved from an apelike
creature, why hasn't the Gorilla, Alligator, Lion, and several
other animals changed significantly over time? Why does an
Alligator look the same way that it did millions of years ago?
Could it be, that those apelike people, or animals were simply
killed off by us, and were of a completely different species than
we are? I'd be very interested in seeing them map that skeleton
out using 3D mapping technology.

One, what makes you think they haven't? Lions are only 700,000 years old- older than us, but not massively so. Most big cats are believed to have come from something very similar to the clouded leopard two million years ago, with all the varieties having come since. We still have clouded leopards, but we also have the lions, which are quite different from them.

And two, because it's not a set-rate thing.

It's often the case you have a big population, which due to it's genepool size doesn't change much, then a population gets isolated, mutations get passed around faster, and that population changes- while the original group is still there. Sometimes the new population spreads the genes back into the group, sometimes they diverge entirely, and if they diverge, sometimes they shove out the original and sometimes they just exist separately.

Alligators don't change *much*- but do change, note how the caiman, alligator, and crocodile are all visually distinguishable- due to the fact that they're well adapted to their niche without much competition (the river-ambush-predator slot is hard to move into if there's something already there) and most changes are more likely to hurt than help.

Things like population isolation, outside pressures, and changes in habitats greatly increase rate of chance. Conversely, large stable intermixing populations, and pressures selecting against those who change, can slow it to a crawl.

Yes but is it that way because of.....ANCIENT ALIEN DESIGN!?

Why do they never discuss the important stuff!?

Originally posted by Flyattractor
Yes but is it that way because of.....ANCIENT ALIEN DESIGN!?

Why do they never discuss the important stuff!?


Honestly the alien ideas are way more boring than the truth.

Evolution is complex and interesting, 'aliens did it' is just kinda... eh.

Originally posted by riv6672
@Stoic

That question was addressed on Ancient Aliens...

A-A- Ancient aliens?

Originally posted by Robtard
We're distant cousins with the gorilla, meaning some time back the strain that produced us and the strain the produced them were in effect the same at some point, mind you, there was lots of branchings along the way to get to were we are today.

I'm pretty sure the lion of today wasn't around some 30-40k years ago. Could possibly be said that they've changed more in the last 30-40k years than we did.

edit: To the killed off, did watch a docu on Neanderthals once and it proposed that Neanderthals were both killed and intermingled (produced offspring) with modern humans at times. But ultimately it listed 'low birth rates' and 'poor adaption to ending ice age' as the reason why Neanderthals went extinct.

Can I ask you a question? Could the Nephelim have ever existed?
I mean regardless of whatever origins were placed on this possibility,
could there have ever been a race of extremely small, or large people
that existed, and that we killed off? We after all did kill off many
animals that threatened our superiority.

Originally posted by Surtur
If they were killed off by us you'd think other stuff would of still reached levels similar to us. For instance we couldn't of wiped out the various creatures that lived in the ocean.

For me my question is..how is it that certain species were not wiped out by the supposed meteor that killed the dinosaurs?

Why couldn't we have killed off many of the animals in the ocean?
Aren't we doing that right now? Could algae blooms have killed off
many aquatic species in the past, like they are today? Have you seen
ponds filled with this stuff, and what it does to the fish alone?
As for the meteor; This is something that could have wiped out many
of the dinosaurs, which may have caused a domino effect in terms of
creating an inhospitable environment for animals that would have
needed a stable ecology to sustain creatures of their enormous sizes.
I still can't get past the idea that Alligator's and several other creatures
have not changed in millions of years. @Rob, our DNA is more similar
to trees, than they are to Gorillas, and even Chimps. Weird shit huh?

Originally posted by Q99
Honestly the alien ideas are way more boring than the truth.

Evolution is complex and interesting, 'aliens did it' is just kinda... eh.

BL9S-TUikfg

Originally posted by Q99
One, what makes you think they haven't? Lions are only 700,000 years old- older than us, but not massively so. Most big cats are believed to have come from something very similar to the clouded leopard two million years ago, with all the varieties having come since. We still have clouded leopards, but we also have the lions, which are quite different from them.

And two, because it's not a set-rate thing.

It's often the case you have a big population, which due to it's genepool size doesn't change much, then a population gets isolated, mutations get passed around faster, and that population changes- while the original group is still there. Sometimes the new population spreads the genes back into the group, sometimes they diverge entirely, and if they diverge, sometimes they shove out the original and sometimes they just exist separately.

Alligators don't change *much*- but do change, note how the caiman, alligator, and crocodile are all visually distinguishable- due to the fact that they're well adapted to their niche without much competition (the river-ambush-predator slot is hard to move into if there's something already there) and most changes are more likely to hurt than help.

Things like population isolation, outside pressures, and changes in habitats greatly increase rate of chance. Conversely, large stable intermixing populations, and pressures selecting against those who change, can slow it to a crawl.

The theory of evolution has too many holes in it to rely on it 100% IMO.

Originally posted by Stoic
A-A- Ancient aliens?

It's from a show with theories about aliens in the distant past being involved with the evolution of mankind and how a lot of mythology is just a misunderstanding of technology and aliens.

For example the bible when an angel is described as a big wheel of fire with a bunch of eyes on it..they think that was how those people interpreted a UFO. Just like the light Moses followed in the desert. Or hell even the ark of the covenant and the stories of people being harmed by it had to do with it being an alien power source with deadly radiation.



Because back then there weren't as many people on the planet and we also didn't have anywhere near the level of technology we have now. Our ability to do harm to the environment was limited.



Well the problem with the meteor is some species from that same time period survived into today. Certain species of frog and insects.

But the meteor would of blocked out the sun for a long time..meaning no plant life would be able to continue. If there is no plant life what were the insects and frogs eating to stay alive?

I watched a documentary about what would of happened to the planet if such a meteor hit. You'd have the sun blotted out for at least a decade and acid rain lasting for many years. With huge firestorms across the planet and a shower of thousands of tiny meteors.

Shows like that are great but are just taking WAGs.
I 've seen the same subject spun in a positive light, showing the myriad ways different species would survive.
Both trains of thought make for interesting viewing.

Best if viewed when drunk.

Evolution isn't real, so it doesn't matter.

Good boy...have a nana.

If we come from a strain of.monkeys that evolved over time its only.natural that other monkeys will evolve over time. Maybe they're just waiting to attack...

Originally posted by Stoic
The theory of evolution has too many holes in it to rely on it 100% IMO.

There's a few things to note.


There's evolution, which 100% happens, it's both in the records and actually been observed in laboratory conditions.

Heck, did you know there's a species of mosquito adapted to the London Underground? Able to live in the warmer subway tunnels during the winter, it became isolated from the wider population, ditched seasonal breeding like it's non-subway dwelling cousins, and now cannot breed with other mosquitos. Unsurprisingly, it's evolved only very recently. Read about it, it's completely real

So, evolution definitely happens.


Then there's specific models of evolution, which may not be 100%, but are good enough that we can go, "Hmmm.... there should be a species of this kind here at this time," dig in that spot, and find fossils of the previously unseen type we were expected to find them. It's good enough to have solid predictive power (as compared to non-evolution models which have yet to demonstrate any predictive ability), but there's a lot of details we don't know, and things go get revised fairly often as we learn more about DNA, the fossil record, and so on.

It's not all that long ago that, say, we discovered that there was evidence of interbreeding with not just neanderthals but another homo genus member, denisovans, as well.


Originally posted by Surtur


Well the problem with the meteor is some species from that same time period survived into today. Certain species of frog and insects.

But the meteor would of blocked out the sun for a long time..meaning no plant life would be able to continue. If there is no plant life what were the insects and frogs eating to stay alive?

I watched a documentary about what would of happened to the planet if such a meteor hit. You'd have the sun blotted out for at least a decade and acid rain lasting for many years. With huge firestorms across the planet and a shower of thousands of tiny meteors.

The sun was blotted out, but not totally, not everywhere, and there are living things that don't rely on the sun like fungus and/or can go into dormancy for sustained periods. Plant life had a major extinction around that time itself, but certainly not total. Smaller life forms require a lot less food, so smaller populations of them could survive off of relatively small amounts of food.


The meteor completely wiped out life in the area it hit, but merely made it murky and harder to live in others. The firestorms were a pretty brief event and were a relatively small part of the problem.

Only about 75% of species were wiped out- bad, but there's been worse- the Permian hit 90-96% being a more sustained disaster.

^^^like i said, the situation can and has been spun in different ways.

Originally posted by riv6672
^^^like i said, the situation can and has been spun in different ways.

It's too bad there's no way to stick an observation setup back then and watch. It's not like we can replicate a mass extinction's effects on an extinct ecosystem in a lab, so we gotta make a lot of approximate guesses- We know is stuff got nasty, and some of the reason why and such, but to actually watch it would be something else.

Originally posted by Q99
It's too bad there's no way to stick an observation setup back then and watch. It's not like we can replicate a mass extinction's effects on an extinct ecosystem in a lab, so we gotta make a lot of approximate guesses- We know is stuff got nasty, and some of the reason why and such, but to actually watch it would be something else.

^^^Hell yeah, that would be pretty damn epic!

Also, if i'd been in charge, this discovery'd never have been made.
Look at the artist's rendition below.
No WAY i'd have gone into that...!



https://pbs.twimg.com/media/COjO6NaUEAA7Cws.png


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150910-human-evolution-change/

Thus showing evolutionary evidence that our ancient predecessors put up with way more BS crawling than we do. Evidence of interbreeding with such homo offshoots manifests in some members of modern homo sapiens, such as archeologists.

Originally posted by Q99
It's too bad there's no way to stick an observation setup back then and watch. It's not like we can replicate a mass extinction's effects on an extinct ecosystem in a lab, so we gotta make a lot of approximate guesses- We know is stuff got nasty, and some of the reason why and such, but to actually watch it would be something else.

Well the documentary I mentioned supposedly used computers to determine what the impact would of been like. It was on the history channel a few weeks ago though I forget the specific name.

The are extinct because they were all homos.

I sense someone who watched Friends.

Originally posted by Surtur
Well the documentary I mentioned supposedly used computers to determine what the impact would of been like. It was on the history channel a few weeks ago though I forget the specific name.

Sure, we can re-create the impact and such, that's not hard at all, but how life responds to the aftermath in the following months, years, and decades is the interesting part.

Like, one thing you don't think about is sure, stuff dies in the immediate disaster, but then that takes out some of the population controls, so some stuff then expands it's population too much and takes out it's own food supply, or expands and takes out several other critters only to be met with another rapidly expanding species who's similarly lost it's limiters. A whole lot of who survives is luck- During the Triassic, Crurotarsans (crocodile-relatives) were twice as diverse in body type as Dinosaurs (some were small and catlike, some were fully aquatic swimmers, some were large mobile animals, etc.. Notably, modern crocodilians have more heart chambers than they need for their lifestyle, an artifact of their more active ancestors), but luck favored the Dinosaurs and crurotarsans got pushed back into shoreline-ambush-predator niches.


After the Permian extinction, there was a type of herbivore the that resembled a small pig. Lystrosaurus. It looked like this:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/17/Lystrosaurus_BW.jpg/200px-Lystrosaurus_BW.jpg Had a few species before the extinction, but only one or two made it.

Evidence suggests it was a burrower, which may have been how it survived- it could dig and avoid a lot of danger. It also had a wide range, suggesting simply walking away from danger may have been key to it's survival. Aside from that, it's just a small herbivorous mammal, and hardly the only thing that burrowed or ranged.

Whatever the case, it was so successful with everything else dead that it makes up 95% of land-animal fossils from the post-extinction time period, and it had only two surviving possible predators (one of which a crurotarsan, which'd grow into the diverse batch I mentioned three paragraphs ago) . It was everywhere, no species has ever matched it's success in that respect.



It'd be fascinating if we could somehow learn how it was that successful. Or how the Crurotarsans went from kicking dinosaur tail to second place.

Of course ancient aliens tells us the dinosaurs were specifically targeted for destruction so humanity could rise and evolve.

Lystrosaurus. So CUTE!

C'mon man it's an F'ing dinosaur..it doesn't want to be called "cute".

Could be worse.

Okay all of what Q99 said is really interesting, but is there any proof that modern human's will continue to evolve over time (if we truly ever have in the first place)? Has there been any change in modern man in the past 4000 years? I for one saw pictures of a lot of extinct animals, but what about the animals that have continued to exist all the way up to present day with no visible differences to set them apart from their ancient ancestors?

There are ancient aquatic creatures that have not changed one bit, and are still swimming around in the deepest parts of the ocean. What happened with those mosquitoes could be as easily called adaptation instead of evolution. Right? I was under the impression that evolution was a process that took centuries or longer to happen? How long has these man made subways existed? I recall moving to Montreal as a child, and having a very difficult time with the cold weather in the winters, but after 3 years I adapted to the winters to the point that I was able to walk around for prolonged periods of time without a winter hat.

Should I consider that instance me adapting to the climate, or did I evolve? Oh and I have another question; Can we be certain that the fossils that were exhumed from that supposed ancient cavern wasn't a hoax?

Without my visiting the site personally, i'm going to take it on faith and assume no hoax.
This is an internet message board however, so...

Must have been your relatives.

Originally posted by Time-Immemorial
Must have been your relatives.


I haven't laughed that hard in a while. Thx.

Originally posted by riv6672
Without my visiting the site personally, i'm going to take it on faith and assume no hoax.
This is an internet message board however, so...

Man, they said that they didn't even know how old those fossils were. You know what that could mean right?

I know what i think it could mean. I dont pretend to know what you think it could mean.

Originally posted by Stoic
Okay all of what Q99 said is really interesting, but is there any proof that modern human's will continue to evolve over time (if we truly ever have in the first place)?

Yep.

Think about it- DNA is being shuffled around every single generation.

What do you think is making it play within the lines?

That's something people don't think about much, you need a mechanism for not-evolution, since evolution is just 'stuff doesn't stay the same' and we know we don't stay the same.

We have a couple mechanisms for genetic change. Simple sexual selection. We also know genetic mutations happen every generation- radiation damage and such means there's some altered genes every single generation, they're just normally so insignificant or in places that don't matter so they don't really have an effect and often vanish quickly or hang around without changing anything, but literally every generation there's a few random alterations.


Now, it's a very slow process when you have a large stable population, but we've yet to detect a mechanism that'd keep up locked in the same box as it were.




Probably, yea, though not *quite* that soon. Lactose tolerance is fairly recent, 7,000 years, and still doesn't cover much of the population despite obvious benefits.

We're such a big species that even successful adaptations that young don't have time to spread to all of us.

Back when there were thousands of us, any change could spread much faster.



Even sharks and crocodiles visibly change. When people talk about 'unchanged' lifeforms, they really mean 'something that retains the same basic outer shape,' but there's always some change.

Some stuff changes very slowly, some quickly, there's numerous traits and circumstances that affect that.


Note there's also changes that aren't visually apparent but are significant, like, say, alterations to the immune system. You could have two animals from 30 million years apart that look very similar, but their bloodtypes have changed and they can't interbreed anymore. If something's blood doesn't work quite the same, it may not look externally different, but it has changed in a very permanent and significant way.

Or intelligence and behavior. Something's brain could have changed some from it's ancestor and as long as it wasn't a big brainsize difference it'd look the same.




The Coelacanth is the most famous of those, and it's closest ancient, 80-million year old ancestor has been found to be about 2 feet long. Modern ones are five feet. I find being two and a half times longer to be a significant change, don't you? That it's otherwise so close is pretty amazing, but don't mistake that for no change.

Sharks, similarly, have gotten sleeker over time, their teeth have changed, and they've gained other adaptations- Hammerheads have superior senses and different headshape, nurse sharks give birth to live young, whale sharks filter plankton. I don't think we have a good idea when sharks gained the electromagnetic sense, and that's a major evolutionary change.

Sometimes stuff really doesn't change much- if changing gets you killed and staying doesn't, then evolution is gonna encourage you to stay looking pretty darn similar. And often while some of a species changes into something new, some don't change and last in their same niche. Circumstances vary, sometimes stuff looks the same, sometimes stuff changes, that evolution happens is not reliant on the rate of change.




I could also call dinosaurs becoming birds adaptation instead of evolution, it wouldn't change anything, that's just a semantic line.

They have a notable genetic difference that prevents breeding and results in noticeably different traits like breeding season.

If you removed their non-subway dwelling relatives from the warmer area of the range, some of them would no doubt spread from the subway once more... but even once re-adapted to the outside, the genetics have split, and would be no more able to breed with the original species than their subway dwelling relatives could. Past that point, only further divergence is possible. Once two groups don't interbreed, normal random genetic mixup will eventually separate them entirely, and that's already happened here.


Also, there's been stuff in labs where they managed to get bacteria to metabolish citrus when that type of bacteria had no evolutionary history of it. That's a completely 100% new trait, entirely new evolutionary development has been observed in lab conditions.




Evolution takes how long it takes. Mosquitos have *very* fast generations, and the living in constantly warm conditions that always have food allowed for even faster ones.

The London Underground opened in 1863, so 150 years. Which in mosquito terms, who can have a life cycle of as little as 10 days, means thousands, possibly ten thousand generations.


Bacteria and viruses can change in very short times, because they are so simple (any change is noticeable fast) and their generation length similarly so short.

Something with a twenty year generation cycle and a complex genome, sure, it may get a few new genes each generation but it has such a large genome it won't show up, and a hundred fifty years is a mere 7 generations. Centuries for mosquitos is about as much 'evolution' time as hundreds of thousands of years to us.





But your genetics didn't change, and if you moved elsewhere you'd adjust back, and none of it would affect what you passed on. I could not take a blood sample, look at your DNA, and see where you lived. Indeed, your genetics are written with the adaptations that let you adjust, I'd just see, "Oh, this species can handle a variety of temperatures with these traits."

There's a difference between adjusting and a genetic adaptation, and indeed, you have the genetic adaptation that lets you adjust.

Now, if you developed a single gene that turned your skin blue to help with the cold, that'd be evolution. You'd have it even if you moved to the equator, your kids would have it if they did the same, and so on until either it wasn't passed on, or everyone has it, or humans with blue skin diverged from other humans and started accumulating other specific traits and differences.




There's been thousands and thousands of homo genus specimen found in caves throughout the world by many unrelated groups of researchers.

Researchers have also gotten pretty good at spotting hoaxed, after the early days had a few famous ones and the field is now very much into testing things to check and make sure.

So yes, it's almost certainly no hoax, because plenty of finds of similar sorts have been discovered in independently verifiable circumstances.




Originally posted by Surtur
Of course ancient aliens tells us the dinosaurs were specifically targeted for destruction so humanity could rise and evolve.


Ah, note, it's not a dinosaur at all. They just stuck everything with -saurus back when it was discovered ^^


A lystrosaurus is a synapsid / therapsid, closer to mammals than dinosaurs, but predating dinosaurs. Dimetrodon (the sail-backed species often alongside dinosaur displays) is another synapsid.

Synapids were dominant, some became therapsids which became dominant, then mass extinction happened and crurotarisans (crocs) took over and become dominant (while therapsids hung out for awhile).

Then mass extinction, and dinosaurs became dominant (and non-mammal therapsids went into final decline and finally died in the early cretaceous).

Then mass extinction, non-avian dinosaurs died out, and mammals became dominant (though it took awhile- at first avian-types were dominant in predatory and similar roles).

Did the aliens engineer the therapsid and crurotarisan extinctions too?



(Also, as one can probably tell, I totally *love* this stuff ^^)

Originally posted by Stoic
I haven't laughed that hard in a while. Thx.

Np friend.

Dang.
That was an interesting read. Thanks for putting so much thought into all this...

I'm sorry Q, but I just don't believe you. If we truly have evolved, why is it that we are still hung up on the very same things that we were hung up on thousands of years ago? It hasn't even been 30 years that people began killing each other over fashionable colors. Not to mention that racism is far from being a thing of the past.

If we somehow physically evolved beyond our ancestors, then I would also assume that our brains should have at least taken some form of a leap forward. However, I see the same politics used today as they were in the middle ages, we just got a little more sophisticated with them. Fashions change with the advent of technology, and in that perspective I can truly see a form of evolution in terms of practical thought patterns. What I have yet to see, is a change in our more primal thought patterns.

Your entire argument on proof of evolution appears to stem from mutation, which is not a true and neutral form of evolution, but instead it is something that should be considered to be an adaptation. Also, where is the 100% proof that mutation is a guaranteed avenue to claim evolution? Should we look closer at what occurred in Hiroshima or Nagasaki as a starting point to examine what a hostile environment's effects would have on humanity genetically? Did the Japanese families that have lived there over the past few generations somehow changed, or gained a stronger tolerance to radiation? Will Russians become more tolerant to radiation, or mutate over time because of Lake Karachay?

facepalm

What's the face palm about?

Evolvability Issues



Traditional theory assumes that all organisms possess the capacity for further evolution and that this capacity is a constant that does not vary between populations or species. There is growing evidence (much from recent genetics science) that this is not true leading to evolvability theories of evolutionary mechanics. If the ability of an organism to evolve can itself be affected by evolved design characteristics, then any valid evolutionary mechanics theory must explain why and how that situation affects or does not affect the evolution process. Proponents of traditional theory have not responded to this problem

F*ckin Monkeys...,"cant trust any of them".

Originally posted by Stoic
Evolvability Issues



Traditional theory assumes that all organisms possess the capacity for further evolution and that this capacity is a constant that does not vary between populations or species. There is growing evidence (much from recent genetics science) that this is not true leading to evolvability theories of evolutionary mechanics. If the ability of an organism to evolve can itself be affected by evolved design characteristics, then any valid evolutionary mechanics theory must explain why and how that situation affects or does not affect the evolution process. Proponents of traditional theory have not responded to this problem
Some of the terms in this don't seem clearly defined, can you link some papers or at least some popular science publications discussing the issue?


I found your source:

http://www.programmed-aging.org/theories/evolution_issues.html

The very first sentences:

"Darwin's idea that current species are descended from different earlier species is now overwhelmingly confirmed by steadily increasing observational evidence and no longer has scientific opposition. Darwin's evolutionary mechanics theory, essentially survival of the fittest or natural selection, also fits the vast majority of observations. His idea was that mutational changes occasionally occurred in individual organisms. Sometimes the changes were inheritable. Sometimes inheritable changes improved the ability of individual organisms possessing them to survive longer (and thereby reproduce more) or to otherwise reproduce more, thus propagating their altered design in a population. According to traditional mechanics theory, any evolved organism characteristic must therefore improve the ability of individual organisms to live longer or reproduce more.

However, the traditional evolutionary mechanics theory, now known as neo-Darwinism or The Modern Synthesis, conflicts with some observations as described below. Because such a large proportion of observations conform, Darwin and many subsequent theorists assumed that conforming explanations for the relatively few conflicts would eventually be found. As time passed that did not happen and additional issues and conflicts surfaced leading to development of the alternative evolutionary mechanics theories beginning in 1962"

So this source as well agrees that Evolution happens.

Originally posted by Bardock42
Some of the terms in this don't seem clearly defined, can you link some papers or at least some popular science publications discussing the issue?


I found your source:

http://www.programmed-aging.org/theories/evolution_issues.html

The very first sentences:

"Darwin's idea that current species are descended from different earlier species is now overwhelmingly confirmed by steadily increasing observational evidence and no longer has scientific opposition. Darwin's evolutionary mechanics theory, essentially survival of the fittest or natural selection, also fits the vast majority of observations. His idea was that mutational changes occasionally occurred in individual organisms. Sometimes the changes were inheritable. Sometimes inheritable changes improved the ability of individual organisms possessing them to survive longer (and thereby reproduce more) or to otherwise reproduce more, thus propagating their altered design in a population. According to traditional mechanics theory, any evolved organism characteristic must therefore improve the ability of individual organisms to live longer or reproduce more.

However, the traditional evolutionary mechanics theory, now known as neo-Darwinism or The Modern Synthesis, conflicts with some observations as described below. Because such a large proportion of observations conform, Darwin and many subsequent theorists assumed that conforming explanations for the relatively few conflicts would eventually be found. As time passed that did not happen and additional issues and conflicts surfaced leading to development of the alternative evolutionary mechanics theories beginning in 1962"

So this source as well agrees that Evolution happens.

There's quite a bit to read here, but I found this to be very interesting. It delves into more than just the physical relationship that many animal species have. This is why I went into it on a different level earlier, but like I said, there is a lot more to it than I bothered to bring to the table. Put it this way, there are so many holes, and variations in the theory of evolution, that even what I am about to paste does not fully cover. Once you read it, you will have to read other takes on things. There are so many unknowns floating around, that one small unknown fact, could send all of this stuff back to the cutting floor.


Group/Kin Selection and Theories of Aging

Group and Kin Selection Theories - Alternatives to Traditional Evolutionary Mechanics


Group selection is one of the alternative evolutionary mechanics theories that have been developed in an effort to handle apparent observed discrepancies between observations of living organisms and traditional evolutionary mechanics theory (see Scientific Issues with Traditional Evolution Theory). The general concept is that benefit to survival of a group may offset some degree of individual fitness disadvantage and thus allow for the evolution of organism characteristics that are adverse to individual fitness such as programmed aging or animal altruism.



In 1962 British zoologist Vero Wynne-Edwards published a group selection theory in his book Animal Dispersions in Relation to Social Behavior. This theory was intended as an explanation for altruism and suggested that behaviors that improved group survival could evolve despite individual disadvantage. His theory was vigorously criticized by followers of traditional evolutionary mechanics theory particularly George Williams (author of a non-programmed theory of aging based on traditional evolutionary mechanics).



Critics suggested that group selection was motivated by anthropomorphism and that group selectionists were excessively ascribing human characteristics to animals. Human societies, civilizations, and religions are indeed greatly characterized by the concept of individual sacrifice for group benefit and this concept is certainly counter to the everyone out for himself, dog-eat-dog, situation described by Darwin and traditional evolutionary mechanics. Even though traditional Darwinists agree that humans are descended from prior species they think that humans have special properties, not possessed by animals, that lead to distinctly human (individually adverse) behaviors. However, most theorists now accept that there are many credible observations of animal behaviors that appear to be individually adverse and therefore conflict with traditional evolutionary mechanics.



Critics also raised mechanics issues. How does the genetic data that programs altruism propagate into a population sufficiently that the group benefit can be realized. There is a "cheater problem": Even if a trait benefits survival of the group, why wouldn't animals that did not possess the individually adverse trait be able to better propagate their non-altruistic design? This problem appears to become progressively more severe as the size of the group increases. Eventually this led to several variations of the group selection concept based on the size and nature of the group. Perhaps group selection only works for small groups, for isolated populations, for closely related organisms (kin), etc. For example, W. D. Hamilton is a major figure in development of the kin selection concept along with J. B. S. Haldane.



The mechanics issues depend on one's perception regarding the rapidity with which the evolution process responds to fitness advantage or disadvantage. Our collective experience with selective breeding suggests that enormous phenotypic change can be produced in a very few generations. Does this mean that an individually adverse trait would "select out" very rapidly and that therefore an individual disadvantage (even a very small one) would override a group benefit (even a large one)? Not necessarily. Selective breeders recognize that breeding for one property of an organism generally introduces changes to other properties. This is often inconsequential to the breeder. However, an evolutionary fitness advantage results from the combined net effect of all of an organism's design properties and evolution is therefore different from selective breeding. A mutational change that deleted altruism or some other individually adverse characteristic might well also negatively affect other individually beneficial characteristics. The evolution process, over a much longer period, can eventually sort out these issues producing a net benefit. This sort of analysis combined with recent genetics discoveries suggests that the evolution process is relatively slower and more complex than selective breeding and that therefore a group benefit my not be so different from an individual benefit. Modern genetics discoveries are adding to a mechanics basis for group selection.


Group/Kin Selection and Theories of Programmed Aging


The group selection concept has been applied to theories of programmed aging by Joshua Mitteldorf.


Giacinto Libertini is the author of a programmed aging theory based on kin selection. Libertini's concept, based on examinations of life span data gathered from many wild animals is that a shorter mean life span causes a quicker generational turnover and therefore a quicker diffusion of favorable genes within a species thus creating a competitive advantage.

Originally posted by Bardock42
Some of the terms in this don't seem clearly defined, can you link some papers or at least some popular science publications discussing the issue?


I found your source:

http://www.programmed-aging.org/theories/evolution_issues.html

The very first sentences:

"Darwin's idea that current species are descended from different earlier species is now overwhelmingly confirmed by steadily increasing observational evidence and no longer has scientific opposition. Darwin's evolutionary mechanics theory, essentially survival of the fittest or natural selection, also fits the vast majority of observations. His idea was that mutational changes occasionally occurred in individual organisms. Sometimes the changes were inheritable. Sometimes inheritable changes improved the ability of individual organisms possessing them to survive longer (and thereby reproduce more) or to otherwise reproduce more, thus propagating their altered design in a population. According to traditional mechanics theory, any evolved organism characteristic must therefore improve the ability of individual organisms to live longer or reproduce more.

However, the traditional evolutionary mechanics theory, now known as neo-Darwinism or The Modern Synthesis, conflicts with some observations as described below. Because such a large proportion of observations conform, Darwin and many subsequent theorists assumed that conforming explanations for the relatively few conflicts would eventually be found. As time passed that did not happen and additional issues and conflicts surfaced leading to development of the alternative evolutionary mechanics theories beginning in 1962"

So this source as well agrees that Evolution happens.


Evolution happens only to an extent, and in many cases it is due to breeding out genes, or inheriting them. But is this truly evolution, adaptation, or mutation? What about many species that died off for various reasons? If we delved into what happened to that particular race of humanoid individuals that those fossils came from, could they have been victims of racism? Could there have also been other species that existed? Can we truly say that Ancient Alligators that died off weren't just cousins to the ones that we see today? How do we explain the fact that human DNA has more in common with trees? Why has there been no visible sign of physical change in several primates? in 200 years from now, could we discover a new insect that only lives in molten rock? This is what I mean about there being so many holes in the theory of evolution.

Here check this out as well

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vida_alien/alien_watchers06.htm

Originally posted by Stoic
Evolution happens only to an extent, and in many cases it is due to breeding out genes, or inheriting them. But is this truly evolution, adaptation, or mutation?

What makes you think they're different things?

One new gene or gene configuration that sticks around is evolution, just a small amount of it.

Evolution can be called the accumulation of adaptations.


People unfamiliar with evolution sometimes draw weird boxes around what is and isn't evolution- that have nothing to do with the actual process.




What about them? When something dies, it stops evolving.



In that some of 'em were likely killed by other humanoids for being different, yes.



We're entirely sure there is.



Cousins is one descriptor that applies to some, though some are clearly direct ancestors to each other. There is often a clear progression of species and traits that develop and become more pronounced over time.

Is your great grandmother your cousin?




It doesn't, whereever you read that is wrong. Even our cells are designed different.




One, what makes you think there hasn't been?

Two, sometimes evolution happens slowly. This doesn't somehow make it not evolution.

Larger primates as a whole are a younger group as these things go. There was a lot of change to get where they are, but then once in a comfortable successful niche, that slows down.



As far as I know, there's no gene configuration that'd allow that, since insects, like all animals, are made from proteins and minerals from their food, and those break down under high heat.



What holes? You didn't mention any holes there, except for the tree one- which is simply wrong.

To go through your list, your statements are-

"What about these different semantic descriptors?" -a lingual question, not a problem with the theory

"Why do some things evolve slowly?" -Not a problem with evolution, rather, it's something that's answered by delving into how evolution works.

"Why are some species dead?" -nothing about evolution says species can't die.

"Could there have been other species we don't know about?" -Obviously not a flaw in evolution.

"Could you call ancient crocodiles cousins?" a linguistic question, and the answer is 'sometimes, but many are direct ancestors.'

"Is it possible for magma dwellers to exist?" a question of whether a particular trait is possible, which says nothing about whether or not evolution is happening.


How is any of that supposed to be a hole in evolution itself rather than just a question you personally don't know?




I don't think you're entirely familiar with what evolution is.

Evolution is the change in species over time. It is not some 'you do this for awhile and you become all better all over.'

We've evolved a spine that lets us stand upright, a mouth that lets us speak language, arms that let us throw like nothing else, legs and lungs that let us walk further than 99% of other species.

Those are all changes, some of them quite recent.

A few thousand years? That's an eyeblink evolutionarily- and most of that stuff is society changes, not genetic changes.


My question for you is, why do you think evolution means we wouldn't have those things? I certainly haven't said that's the case.










Stop there. 'Beyond.'

There is no levels in evolution, or 'beyond'. There is the gaining or losing of traits, some of which we-as-humans may view as better or worse, but evolution is just about changing traits to survive.

Like, if there was an alien that showed up, and killed every human that spoke, stayed around for ten thousand generations, and then left, the humans remaining would likely be unable to make speech like we could now- it'd be an evolutionary response to 'aliens kill us when we talk.' That's not 'beyond,' that's just 'alive,' which is what evolution is all about.




We can talk, do math, etc..

Our ancestors didn't have any of those things.

That's a big leap.



Ok, and genetically there's almost zero change between now and then, that's only a few hundred generations. Societally, we've changed much more rapidly than genetic evolution can keep up.

Are you under the impression that evolution has to be fast for it to be evolution?




You don't think going from small groups that didn't speak, to groups of hundreds or thousands that use communication, tool use, grow their own food instead of simply hunting or gathering like every other species, etc. constitutes a change in thought?




What? Genetic evolution is the accumulation of genetic change. It's not only a 'true and neutral' form of evolution, but it's one of the most common causes of it.

Also, adaptations that are passed on is evolution. You're drawing a line here where there is none.


It seems to me you're arguing here "evolution isn't happening here because I'm choosing to define it otherwise," but of note?

That is not the scientific definition of evolution you're using. That's a you-definition. I can only tell you what the definition of the word that scientists use is, I can't tell you what you chose to make up for yourself.





Evolution is "species change over time."

Mutation causes change.



Saying there's mutation but no change is like saying, "Where is the 100% proof that adding water makes the water level go up?".






Nothing about evolution says a species cannot do stuff that messes itself up bigtime.

That's you saying that.




The timeframe is way too short for that kind of adaptation. There *are* some species more resistant to radiation, so given a long enough time frame eventually radiation-survival mechanisms may develop, but for the most part, the effects are simply more people dying. And the easiest radiation-survival mechanism is 'move away.'

Evolutionary change of note normally takes place on a scale of hundreds of thousands to millions of years. Why are you insisting that if a change doesn't occur in 70 years that there must be no evolution?



Most of your arguments seem to stem from insisting on limitations or conditions on what to count/not count as evolution, or to insist that evolution implies stuff which it does not.


Which is one of the the harder things about teaching people about evolution, it's not rare that they have preconceived notions of what evolution is that are way off from how it actually works and how scientists and others who study it discuss it.

Mystery of our 145 'alien' genes: Scientists discover some DNA is NOT from our ancestors - and say it could change how we think about evolution

Study challenges views that evolution relies solely on genes passed down
Instead says we acquired essential 'foreign' genes from microorganisms

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2994187/Mystery-alien-genes-Scientists-discover-DNA-NOT-ancestors-say-change-think-evolution.html

Originally posted by riv6672
Dang.
That was an interesting read. Thanks for putting so much thought into all this...


If you have any more questions about any old species or groups, feel free to ask ^^

When I look up references, it's not rare that I find new stuff myself.



And to post images of the Crurotarsans I was talking about:

https://haysvillelibrary.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/crurotarsan-pancrocodylia-diversity.jpg?w=470&h=646


I find it really fascinating how they started out in a river-ambush predator position, after a mass extinction spread out and got everywhere, but then another mass extinction happened and only ones who went back to the rivers survived. With dinosaurs becoming big, leaving the waters to compete on land became a dangerous and evolutionarily unsuccessful gambit from that point forward, but river crocodilians would become bigger, smaller, adjust their jaws, and etc., growing better adapted to their role as time passes and situations change.


And there's evidence of this period outside the river even in modern crocodiles- they have four chambered hearts, when almost all other reptiles have only 3, despite the fact that, obviously, other land reptiles are more active. There's truly no need for an ambusher to have such a sophisticated heart, but once you have one, well, there's no particular disadvantage to it either, so it stays around, a relic of their active period over two hundred million years ago.

Image on the heart

Hey Q99, what do you think of this?

http://kgov.com/list-of-genomes-that-just-dont-fit

Has anyone else here wanted to **** monkey??

Originally posted by Stoic
Hey Q99, what do you think of this?

http://kgov.com/list-of-genomes-that-just-dont-fit


A lot of very misleading stuff there. And some simply wrong. I'll take a sampling.

Like, for example...

- Mouse DNA is the same as 80% of the human genome

Kinda true, but it's not specific to mouse DNA at all. A lot of both our DNA is simply mammal DNA, and a lot of that is the DNA in common to all animals.

A lot of our genome is how cells work. Past that, it's how tissues work, and past that, how things like lungs work. All mammals have the same root lungs- heck, all vertebrates, even if we have variations.


- Kangaroo DNA unexpectedly contains huge chunks of the human genome

This is simply false, or at the least trying to phrase something much more sane-sounding (i.e. 'marsupials and placental mammals are more similar than expected,' without humans being any closer than any others) in a deeply misleading way.


- Gorilla DNA is closer to humans than chimps in 15% of the genome

Note how this is oddly phrased. We are closer to chimps than Gorillas, but all it's saying is that some *specific* parts are more similar between gorilla and us.

And if you think about it, this is no surprise- We didn't evolve from modern chimps, we evolved from a chimp-like ancestor that Gorillas were closest related to.

As we changed in specific ways, chimps also changed. In some areas, chimps changed where we and gorillas didn't. In more areas, both us and chimps changed in similar ways after the gorilla split but before the human one. And in yet other areas, all three of us went into our own direction.



- Neanderthal DNA is fully human, closer than a chimp is to a chimp

See, that's basically true. Humans hit a genetic bottleneck at two points (i.e. most of us died, and thus the remainder are closer related), so we're closer to each other genetically than most species, Chimps are genetically a lot more diverse than us, as is, well, almost every species (though, say, Cheetahs are in a genetic bottleneck situation and thus also like us, low on diversity). Neanderthals are a close and recent branch off with a few distinct traits, but easily close enough to interbeed- as they did. They aren't the only ones either.

If there was a whole spectrum of stuff in between us and neanderthals, a mixed population that shifted in a spectrum between us on one end and neanderthals on the other, they'd be fairly easy to consider the same species.

As, aside from a bit of interbreeding, they *mostly* stayed a distinct population, we count them separately, but if the population mixed and blended more we wouldn't.

Species boundaries are a lot more blurry than a lot of people realize. When species diverge, it's a gradual process, it's not 'one day you're the same, the next you're different and can't interbreed'.




- The chimp Y chromosome is "horrendously different" from our 'Y'

Y chromosomes can and do change. Dunno what's 'horrendous' about that.

Here is an actual article on Chimp y-chromosomes

Note that it's only the second one fully sequenced- so before we tested it we actually had no baseline on how different we should expect- and the article concludes that due to high competition of Y-linked traits (namely, sperm racing with each other, a product of the Chimp reproductive strategy), and because the Y chromosome can't swap genes with other chromosomes like most chromosomes can (since they come paired), it has it's own way of adapting rapidly.

And the scientists, upon seeing this, immediately went, "Hmmm... is this an artifact of the chimp method specifically," in which case it'd mean that Chimpanzees actually have specific evolutionary pressures and adaptations to encourage Y-chromosome change, "or is it representative of other primates as well?"- in which case it's a common evolutionary trait. And thus, went on the course for more knowledge!

Or to put it another way, the article took a recent discovering that made actual evolutionary biologists go, "Oh, that's cool! Evolution is so neat," and is trying to wave it around and say, "See how wroooong evolution is!".

And they probably only knew about it in the first place from *that* specific article.


- The human Y is astoundingly similar all over the world lacking the expected mutational variation

Again, recent genetic bottlenecks, plural, this is no shock- except, apparently, to the article writer.


- Mitochondrial Eve "would be a mere 6000 years old" by ignoring chimp DNA and calculating by mutation rates

Now this is a nonsense phrasing meant to say something out of nothing. "Ignoring chimp DNA"- If this means that it's ignoring the parts of the genome we and chimps have in common, it's saying it's trying to judge by mutation rate while also tossing out a lot of the genome.

Additionally, mutation rate can vary based on a variety of things. Any fatal mutations can be ignored, for example (if your mitochondrial DNA doesn't work, then it doesn't get passed on). And I just posted an article on how it's possible that Chimps may adaptations that cause Y-chromosome DNA to change unusually fast.


- Roundworms have far more genes than Darwinist predictions,19,000, compared to our 20,500 genes

Darwin was centuries ago and worked without any modern knowledge of DNA. Early study of genes also worked with fewer tools than we have now. They made guesses, tested them, in some cases were right, in some cases were not, and where they were wrong, that allowed them to adjust and improve their understanding.

That evolution exists is, obviously, not reliant on them being right about everything. Quite the opposite- If you're looking for one change and find a different one, that still shows evidence that change is happening, just that you don't know all the factors that lead to it. That's evidence against a single predictive guess, while supporting evolutionary existing.

Note that non-evolutionary types have... no predictions for how many genes things have.

- The leading evidence for Darwinism, junk DNA, is vanishing, as the journal Nature reports function for 80% of human genome, moving toward "100%"-

Note how absurd this is even on the face of it. "Junk DNA" is the leading evidence? The leading evidence is, depending on how you view it, the complete fossil record, the fact we've seen it happen live, the complete living diversity of species, or the analysis of the *rest* of the genome- functional DNA tells us of the passing on of traits which, like I've been telling you before reading this article, is the fundamental aspect of evolution.


Basically this article is saying "This disproves evolution/is something that goes against evolution!" without actually presenting any evidence that this stuff is crucial, or often that it's claims are even true, and uses misleading phrasing left and right.


And additionally, there is the total lack of evidence for the 'stuff doesn't change' hypothesis. No mechanism has been presented for how species are supported to not evolve and diverge.


Our knowledge of what causes changes, the forms the changes take, the timeframes involved, and so on grows and changes, but to say this disproves evolution is like saying a better telescope showing that some stars are really galaxies and others are planets disproves astronomy.




I'm not even a professional scientist or anything, I'm a hobbyist who loves ancient animals, yet I find most of that list laughably silly in the things it tries to paint as flaws, including ones that are actually reliant on evolution to exist. The writer doesn't have a good view of what evolution is, and thus the attempts to debunk it are pretty bad- before one even gets into the obviously phrased to be purposefully misleading stuff.

The out of Africa theory has been debunked anyway. Not everyone left Africa and not everyone has the same monkey as ancestors.

Hell, aboriginal people have a totally different ancestor than everyone else.

^^^Do they? Huh.

Originally posted by riv6672
^^^Do they? Huh.

Yeah, their DNA is different. Its pretty interesting.

Originally posted by long pig
The out of Africa theory has been debunked anyway. Not everyone left Africa and not everyone has the same monkey as ancestors.

Hell, aboriginal people have a totally different ancestor than everyone else.
No it hasn't. It's still the most accepted theory for human origination.

Citations please.

Your second claim needs a lot of support. If Aboriginal Australians evolved from a separate species, they'd be sufficiently different as to make normal interbreeding with other humans difficult or impossible, yet it happens all the time.

Originally posted by long pig
The out of Africa theory has been debunked anyway. Not everyone left Africa and not everyone has the same monkey as ancestors.

Hell, aboriginal people have a totally different ancestor than everyone else.


One, some leaving Africa doesn't mean everyone left, to state the obvious, but we did still come from there.

Two, we all came from the same ape ancestors. That's how species work.

Aboriginal people have the same ancestors as everyone else up to their divergence point.

To quote wikipedia:
"It is generally believed that Aboriginal people are the descendants of a single migration into the continent, a people that split from the first modern human populations to leave Africa 64,000 to 75,000 years ago, although a minority propose that there were three waves of migration, most likely island hopping by boat during periods of low sea levels"

So, they'd come from the group that left Africa, went through Asia, and then came South.

It's an older divergence point than most, but there's lots of divergence points.

Originally posted by long pig
Yeah, their DNA is different. Its pretty interesting.
Gonna have to do some Googling on that.

Rethinking "Out of Africa" by Christopher Stringer

Originally posted by Adam_PoE
Rethinking "Out of Africa" by Christopher Stringer


"his argues that we had a recent African origin, that we came out of Africa, and that we replaced all of the other human forms that were outside of Africa. But we're having to re-evaluate that now because genetic data suggest that the modern humans who came out of Africa about 60,000 years ago probably interbred with Neanderthals, first of all, and then some of them later on interbred with another group of people called the Denisovans, over in south eastern Asia.

If this is so, then we are not purely of recent African origin. We're mostly of recent African origin, but there was contact with these other so-called species. "


Or in others words, every last one of us had most of our ancestors come from Africa, but we have had a smaller group of ancestors (or at least some of us) that developed elsewhere.

In short, we came from Africa, but there's some detail in there, and more nuance in how the different types of homo-genus interacted and how close they were. As the story itself says, "We end up with quite a complex story, with even some of this ancient DNA coming back into modern humans within Africa. So our evolutionary story is mostly, but not absolutely, a Recent African Origin."

Quite an interesting article.


Especially the bits on Neanderthal / human breeding- how it might've been quite limited in scope, *or* wider in scope, but only rarely producing viable children. In short, if the latter is true, the groups were getting near the edge of interbreedability, and much longer before meeting and it wouldn't have been possible.

Says a lot about species divergence.



I do recommend reading through that one to others.

Originally posted by Q99
Or in others words, every last one of us had most of our ancestors come from Africa, but we have had a smaller group of ancestors (or at least some of us) that developed elsewhere.

In short, we came from Africa, but there's some detail in there, and more nuance in how the different types of homo-genus interacted and how close they were. As the story itself says, "We end up with quite a complex story, with even some of this ancient DNA coming back into modern humans within Africa. So our evolutionary story is mostly, but not absolutely, a Recent African Origin."

Quite an interesting article.


Especially the bits on Neanderthal / human breeding- how it might've been quite limited in scope, *or* wider in scope, but only rarely producing viable children. In short, if the latter is true, the groups were getting near the edge of interbreedability, and much longer before meeting and it wouldn't have been possible.

Says a lot about species divergence.

I do recommend reading through that one to others.

Basically, he posits that modern humans are the result of the interbreeding of independent hominid lineages who share a distant African ancestor.

Interesting. Some folks wont buy that on sale, true or not. It challenges a certain world view.

Originally posted by rudester
Has anyone else here wanted to **** monkey??

More the question..."how many people are here because someone did **** a monkey?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-the-out-of-africa-theory-out/

Originally posted by Flyattractor
More the question..."how many people are here because someone did **** a monkey?

Truth be told a monkey would probably rip the dick off of anyone who tried to bang it. Or so I've heard. You ever see the movie Congo? These things do not f*ck around. You need a lasergun powered by a diamond to even stand a chance and most people don't carry those around with them, especially when attempting the sexual conquest of an animal.

You'd think thst'd be the one time they WOULD carry a lasergun powered by a diamond.