Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Out of Asia -NOT- Out of Africa?

Well I've Never really believed in the "Out of Africa Theory" anyway.
This seems more plausible...but its a very long article. From this weeks 'New Scientist' July 1st.
START
THE archaeological excavations at Dmanisi, in the Republic of Georgia, are a glorious exception to the rule that if you are in a hole, you should stop digging. What began as the excavation of a medieval town has turned into a pivotal site for our understanding of human evolution. So far, palaeoarchaeologists working there have unearthed five ancestral human skulls and other remains: the individuals they represent are now the central characters in a story whose plot is poised to undergo a major twist.

The story is known as Out of Africa. It tells of Africa as the centre of evolutionary innovation in our ancestors, and the springboard from which some of these hominins struck out into other continents. There are two main parts to the tale. The most familiar one charts the evolution of our own species in Africa around 200,000 years ago, and the subsequent migration of these modern humans throughout the world. The less well known part of the story concerns the first migration of our ancestors out of Africa, more than 1 million years earlier. It is this part of the story that is now being challenged for the first time. Last December, Nature ran a provocative critique by Robin Dennell of the University of Sheffield, UK, and Wil Roebroeks of Leiden University, the Netherlands, that concluded: "Most probably, we are on the threshold of a profound transformation of our understanding of early hominin evolution."

The "Out of Africa 1" story begins more than 2 million years ago when small upright African apes, known as australopithecines, start evolving into large and recognisably human creatures - the first members of our own genus, Homo. Eventually one of these, Homo erectus, strikes out to conquer Eurasia. At the heart of the tale of this first transcontinental migration lies the assumption that what made us human also propelled us out across the rest of the planet. This idea has a powerful romantic appeal, suggesting that exploration and settlement are primordial and defining human instincts. H. erectus had "a typically insatiable human wanderlust", according to palaeoanthropologist Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. What enabled these beings to satisfy the urge to boldly go was their package of characteristically human traits that distinguished them from the australopithecines: longer limbs, increased body and brain size, an omnivorous diet and the use of stone tools.

Until quite recently, all the evidence seemed to support this view and version of events. The earliest remains of H. erectus in Africa are about 1.8 million years old. At first these beings seem to have produced only simple flaked stone tools, but around 1.5 million years ago these are joined in the archaeological record by teardrop-shaped hand axes, suggesting that their creators had reached a new level of sophistication. In addition, the various hominin fossils found in east Asia over the past century (see "The shifting spotlight") had been dated at a million years old at most. The timing of all this seemed to attest to the emergence of H. erectus in Africa, its growing ingenuity there and then gradual spread eastward.

In the past decade, however, this sequence has begun to unravel. Fossils of H. erectus found at the Indonesian sites of Sangiran and Mojokerto are now believed to be over 1.5 million years old - possibly as much as 1.8 million years old. Those at Dmanisi have been dated at 1.7 million years or more. With these startlingly early dates from both ends of Asia it looks as though H. erectus materialised almost simultaneously in Africa, east Asia and a point in between. What's more, hand axes have proved to be red herrings. The stone tools associated with the migrant populations are no technological advance on the first ones to appear in the archaeological record, half a million years previously (see "Tooled up and ready to go"). As for brain size: with an adult average of about 700 cubic centimetres these colonisers had the edge on australopithecines, whose brains were under half a litre, but they were at the bottom end of the H. erectus range, and had only about half the volume of a modern human brain. It looks as though increased intelligence was not a prerequisite for migration.

A still more radical challenge to the supposed role of superior cognitive abilities in the dispersal of hominins comes from a mid-1990s fossil discovery that Dennell considers one of the most important of the past two decades. Australopithecine fossils had hitherto been found in the Great Rift Valley of eastern Africa and in the south of the continent. Then one turned up in Chad, in the middle of the continent, 2500 kilometres away from the Rift Valley. If australopithecines were able to colonise that region between 3 and 3.5 million years ago, argues Dennell, there is no reason why they should have stopped at the Red Sea. Ancient hominins would not have distinguished between Africa and Asia, and neither should we, he and Roebroeks argue. Those australopithecines in Chad date from an era when grasslands stretched from northern Africa to eastern Asia. Other animals moved freely across this landscape, so why not hominins? "If you were a herbivore that took grass seriously," Dennell remarks, "you could munch your way all across south-west Asia to northern China." He and Roebroeks suggest that we should re-imagine this vast transcontinental band of grass as a zone throughout which our ancestors also roamed. Dennell has dubbed it "Savannahstan".

The savannahs were the product of global cooling, which dried out moist woodlands, shifting the balance to grass. Over millions of years, the global climate gradually cooled, but there were also times when conditions altered quite abruptly. These shifts rearranged the fauna - species vanished, new species emerged. One of these climatic pulses occurred around 2.5 million years ago. In the Arctic, ice sheets spread. In eastern Africa, forest-adapted antelopes were replaced by those suited to savannah. New, robust australopithecines appeared, as did somewhat larger-brained hominins, Homo habilis, the first members of the Homo genus, and we also find the earliest known stone tools.

In a bold challenge to the conventional story, Dennell argues that hominins migrated out of Africa before H. erectus even evolved, and long before the dates of the oldest known hominin fossils in Asia. These first migrants were either australopithecines or H. habilis - he, like some prominent palaeoanthropologists, regards these two as much the same kind of creatures. For evidence that small stature was no obstacle to dispersal he points to the Dmanisi hominins. Not only do their brain sizes fit within the H. habilis range, evidence from a femur and a tibia, as yet unpublished, indicates that one of them may have weighed only about 54 kilograms and stood just 1.4 metres tall. Although the stature of the individuals at Sangiran and Mojokerto is unknown, hominins clearly did not need long legs to stride out of Africa.

?In a bold challenge to the conventional story, some argue that hominins migrated out of Africa before H. erectus evolved?What's more, Dennell has the makings of a story set in Savannahstan that could explain a key mystery of human evolution - what spurred the evolution of H. erectus itself. While H. habilis seems to have evolved in response to the cold snap around 2.5 million years ago, there is no such climate change in Africa coinciding with the emergence of the earliest known examples of H. erectus, around 1.8 million years ago. Nor does H. erectus have any clearly identifiable immediate predecessors. "Not for nothing has it been described as a hominin 'without an ancestor, without a clear past'," observe Dennell and Roebroeks.

Dennell's solution to the problem is beguilingly simple: perhaps we have been looking in the wrong place. "Maybe the Rift Valley was a cul-de-sac," Dennell suggests. Tongue in cheek perhaps, but the remark conveys his strong conviction that the importance of Asia has been unfairly neglected. At around the time H. erectus emerged some 1.8 million years ago, selective pressures to evolve would have been greater in Asia than in Africa, he argues. Traces of the global cooling pulse starting around 2.5 million years ago have been detected in the soils of China's Loess Plateau.

Beneath the silty loess are layers of red clay, which appear to have been blown there by westerly winds before the cooling began. Above these, the particles of loess decrease in size from north to south, indicating that they were deposited by northerly winds, the heavier particles falling to the ground first. So it appears that the winds changed when the climate cooled. This would have brought monsoons and polarised the years into seasons, with summers becoming increasingly arid over subsequent millennia, causing the grasslands to expand. Asia was the core of this process and Africa was peripheral, according to Dennell.

In this perspective the Dmanisi hominins may represent a missing link in the evolution of H. erectus, responding to climatic pressures but still retaining much in common with H. habilis. Australopithecines were adapted to open spaces in woodlands, ranging around relatively small areas, living off plants, seeds, small mammals and perhaps carcasses. As these open spaces expanded into savannah, the Dmanisi hominins would have faced pressures to evolve more human-like traits, increasing the distances over which they ranged, and turning more to animals as a source of food.

Dennell even goes so far as to suggest that the Dmanisi hominins might be ancestors of the later H. erectus in Africa. The most celebrated representative there is the 1.6-million-year-old "Turkana Boy". His tall stature, long limbs and body proportions epitomise adaptation to a hot, dry climate. In other words, African H. erectus might have Asian roots. If this is the case, Out of Africa 1 is a crucial part of the story of our own evolution, since H. erectus is generally thought to be a direct ancestor of modern humans.

?African H. erectus might have had Asian roots, adding a crucial twist to the story of our own evolution?Since Dennell and Roebroeks wrote their Nature review, American and Georgian researchers studying the Dmanisi finds have published a paper that points in a similar direction (Journal of Human Evolution, vol 50(2), p 115). Suggesting the finds be classed as Homo erectus georgicus, Philip Rightmire of Binghamton University, New York, and his colleagues conclude that Dmanisi may be "close to the stem from which H. erectus evolved". They also point to the possibility that the Dmanisi population's ancestors were H. habilis emigrants from Africa, and that the dates do not rule out the possibility that H. erectus evolved in Asia. "For me, the evidence from Dmanisi is critical," says Rightmire. "It seems to me that such a population could well be ancestral to H. erectus in Africa and also to H. erectus in the Far East." But he anticipates that rewriting the origin and dispersal of H. erectus will be a slow process. "We're not likely to see a major breakthrough immediately."

Further research that broadly chimes with Dennell and Roebroeks's arguments comes from Alan Templeton of Washington University, St Louis (Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, vol 48, p 33). By comparing clusters of DNA that vary between individuals and tend to be inherited together, geneticists can identify when particular mutations arose, and use these to map relationships within or between species. Until a few years ago, they had to rely on DNA from mitochondria or sex chromosomes, but it is now becoming possible to increase the resolution of such maps by using data from the rest of the genome. Comparing 25 DNA regions in the genomes of people from across the world, Templeton found evidence for an expansion out of Africa around 1.9 million years ago, and that gene flow between African and Eurasian populations - in both directions - was established by 1.5 million years ago. Not only do these findings suggest that migration began earlier than previously thought, it also looks as though hominins were moving back and forth between Eurasia and Africa.

"The hypotheses Dennell and Roebroeks present are testable with molecular genetic data," Templeton says, "so I think that the prospects for testing some of their alternatives to 'Out of Africa 1' will be excellent in the near future." Only four years ago, when he first conducted an analysis of this kind, there were insufficient results for him to detect any expansion out of Africa between 1 and 3 million years ago. Increasingly, however, researchers looking for genetic variation among individuals are also recording their geographical origins - just the information Templeton needs to do his analysis. "I anticipate greater and greater statistical resolution of these older events in human evolutionary history," he says. "Genetics will play an increasing and important role in testing their ideas in conjunction with new fossil and archaeological discoveries."

For Dennell, however, the objects in the ground are what matters. He is keen to look for hominin remains in Asia to balance the generous legacies of the Rift Valley and southern Africa. Unfortunately, the countries he most wants to search - Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan - read like a list of places not to visit these days. A site in Pakistan where he found stone tools in the 1980s dating from 1.9 million years ago is also now off limits because of the political turbulence that has spread across the region. It seems that Asia will not give up its secrets easily, but Dennell is convinced that in this case, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The search may prove difficult but the rewards are potentially enormous, amounting to nothing less than the rewriting of human prehistory.

From issue 2558 of New Scientist magazine, 01 July 2006, page 34
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THERE ARE MANY FURTHER Pictures and comments by others. But I have not included those to save space. Since the full article will be put on the Net, by New Scientist next week.

mikey

this stuff is great, laughable but great; can't let this one pass w/o comment...

i'm gonna try and quote some excerpts below (in order so that you'll be able to refer back the original and locate the context) and follow each with my own jazz, eh

i love these grand claims ("pivotal site"), which of course makes the last several pivotal sites less pivotal and requires us to rethink and redraw the imaginary lines of alleged ancestry and descent...not to mention scrambling the previously assumed dating scenario

oooo...we've got a basketful of powerful neuro/phsycolinguistic word images goin' on here, eh (threshold, profound transformation)

but how many times have we heard virtually the same story before...almost everytime an alleged "ancestor" is discovered (ie, "we're going to have rewrite the story of human evolution" or "this will radically change our understanding of human evolution as we now know it" or somesuch yadayadayada)

the necessary inference here is that evolution is assumed to be a fact when in fact the only real fact about evolution is that it is not a fact

and then of course while we are assured that evolution is a fact as sure as the earth orbits the sun, we are careful to preface this latest claim with the safety net phrase "most probably" so that we can feel good about changing the story again when the next "ancestor" discovery is made


tale indeed, as in fairy, made up, imagined

and then there is the *assumption*...and therein lies the rub...we scream and restate ad nauseum: fact, fact, fact, fact, but we forget the myriad assumptions upon which the so-called fact is predicated

only if all of the assumptions are true/real can we reasonably conclude that evolution is a fact, and even then it would not *necessarily* follow but would at least be reasonable...the problem is that so many of the assumptions associated with evolution have been shown to be in conflict with the evidence a/o reality...but we go blissfully on in our willful ignorance

he he he hooo, beeeeautiful

so even though the out of africa story was touted as fact (and this has long been debated but that didn't stop lots of folks from screaming fact anyway) apparently it wasn't based on fact or facts or objective evidence but rather on subjective appeal...and *romantic* appeal at that

yeeeah, baby; go 'head on wit' yo' good se'f

and then we have "suggesting" rather than assuring...but don't worry, it's still a fact :-)

so for the past 100yrs it was a "fact" based on "x" assumptions...but now that those assumptions have been falsified or are the subject of serious doubt...ahh don't worry, the conclusive fact is still a fact...because now we've got some more assumptions/interpretations of evidence that are better...at least until they come under more fire because we come up with still more assumptions in place of these

but no problem, because the one thing we're sure about is the conclusion -- evolution is a fact...so we'll just keep on rethinking and rewriting this plastic elastic story until the story supports what we already know to be the fact

evolution is a fact...got it (don't worry about the what, when, where, who, how, and why; we can debate that until the sun rises in the west; even though we don't know or understand the process, we DO understand the outcome...it's already been decided)

oh yeah, i get it

yeah, well, we actually predicted (assumed) a dating scenario that was quite different

but since we aren't going to change our preconceived outcome...we'll just change our predictions (btw -- this happens with virtually every new *ancestor* discovery too)

we're gooooooood *just-so* story writers with lots of imagination so we'll just keep rewriting the story until we get it to support our desired outcome -- evolution is a fact (NOT!:-)

another assumption dashed against the rocks, oh my

we believe in geological gradualism, uniformitarianism...kinda

but sometimes we evoke catastrophism...mm, when we absolutely have to

we believe in biological gradualism, uniformitarianism...mostly

but sometimes we evoke punk eek (punc eq, punctuated equilibrium)...mmm, when we just can't get the record to support gradualism, uniformitarianism (which is actually virtually always)

we believe in evolutionary divergence...well, except when we need to invoke evolutionary convergence

and we must not forget to repeat the "millions of years" mantra

not only was our evolutionary prediction/assumption about the role of superior cognition wrong in one aspect but it was radically wrong in this one

but let's not reject our known conclusion that evolution is a fact, let's rather re-massage the data to fit the "fact"

sssublimely sssuperb...

re-imagine indeed...our earlier scenarios were not based on actual facts but rather on a little bit of misinterpreted evidence and a lot of imagination

and since things haven't really seemed to fit for some time anyway, it's time for us to open up our imaginations and re-imagine; it's time for us to come up with another just-so story to try and explain the one known fact that evolution is a fact

got it? got it!

first, we are going to rewrite the so-called "timeline of pre-human/human history"

second, in one part of the article they seem to be saying that out of africa is out of date...here they are saying that it is still out of africa but a lot earlier than previously claimed

that instead of h erectus being the out of africa candidate, it is now australopithecines or h habilis that went out of africa and later evolved into h erectus, etc in asia a/o europe

h habilis has been a joke taxon for some time...on the one hand, you have the guys that say habilis is different from australopithecines and should be classed with homo...on the other hand, you've got the guys that say australopithecines and habilis are essentially the same creature and that habilis should be reclassified as australopithecines habilis rather than remain in the homo genus

then you have still other guys that say that there are at least two (some say more) different "species" presently residing in the h habilis wastebin...and no one seems to be able to agree on which ones are which...for example:

(the quote immediately above is not a quote from mike's source in new scientist but rather from another source and is quoted to support my point --am)

you've got your "splitters" (paleontologists/paleoanthroplogists that like to name "new speicies") and your "lumpers" (those that say many of the so-called different species are in actually the same and shouldn't be given new species names...of course, the splitters are attractive to many scientists because which scientist wouldn't like to have his name associated with the discovery of a species or several)

the so-called "history of man" or "ancestry of man" is a HUGE MESS, a hodge-podge of nonsense...but don't let that cloud your vision of the fact that evolution is a fact, eh :-)

besides, we are trying to rewrite the history so that it does make sense...okay? okay!

he he hack hack he he hooo

okay...h erectus has no ancestor, no clear past, no clearly identifiable immediate predecessors

ahem, hack hack...mmm, huh?

okay, okay, don't worry, evolution is still a fact...we just haven't sorted it out yet...

but keep the faith, baby

hey, no problem, the explanation is simple...we've just been looking in the wrong place(s) all this time

there, see...simple

okay, well, he did say *perhaps*, eh

and "maybe the rift valley was a cul-de-sac"

so we've classifying the remains in the wrong taxons, predicting/assuming the wrong timetables, looking in the wrong places and generally just been wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong but it doesn't matter because we still came out with the right conclusion, we're still right...evolution is a fact, it's just a fact waiting to be explained and verified :p

got it? yep!

mmm...apparently one of many missing links since h erectus doesn't have "any clearly identifiable immediate predecessors" and is "'without an ancestor, without a clear past'"

at least these guys had the decency, the intellectual integrity to acknowledge some of this in this article...

but they only do it to point to why their theory is better...because the previuos paradigm is clearly bankrupt

lots more ambiguous language here, eh ("suggest," "might be" :-)

so it's pretty simple now...

australopithcenes/habilenes migrated out of africa into asia and europe...then later evolved into h erectus...but either before they evolved into h erectus, or some of the ones that didn't evolve, went back down into africa and evolved into h erectus there...and then of course later migrated back out of africa, back into asia and europe...as h erectus

now how's that for a "just-so story"? a whopper of a tale, eh :-)

saaaay, that is pretty spiffy

"...generally thought..." we wanna make sure and leave plenty of wiggle room because the story will probably change a few dozen more times in the next 20-50yrs

oooooouu, pretty cool, eh

african h erectus might have had asian roots

now that IS a crucial twist...except that if it came out of africa before it went into asia and then went back into africa...what's the major point???

i guess if an african primate went on walkabout and later returned, albeit much wiser and better traveled, or if he didn?t make it back and his kiddo?s kiddos did, then that has GOT to put a crucial twist on human evolution

and it is a crucial twist...mmm, somehow

but don't be confused by the details, don't be confused by the facts, don't let the facts get in your way...just park all of the conflict and confusion under the rug, and remember...evolution is still a fact...and that is that

now we're getting somewhere...maybe...because dmanisi "may be" close to the stem that led directly to h erectus

that will surely get them millions in research dollars...even if later, as so often happens, the claims are much revised from those originally splashed all over the news headlines throughout the world (but when the find is later found to be not nearly so spectacular, there is either no retraction made or a clarification is posted on page 63 somewhere close to the obituaries or something else that no one reads, or maybe it might get written up in the science journals that more than half of the scientists don't even read much of, much less the general public...so the original grand claim is the only thing that remains in the minds of most...more so-called "evidence" for evolution :-)

cool, uh

more ambiguous language surrounded by grandiose tones ("the possibility")

more just-so stories

more imagination

more blah blah blah

more of the same jazz

...but not much science...

well, we're glad it seems that way to you...

then again, you are dedicated to the materialistic evolutionary worldview so we're thankful for your opinion but...let's have a little more science and less of the just-so stuff

why, if it were indeed true, would it take so long to rewrite the evolutionary tale of the origin and dispersal of h erectus? because reigning paradigms are difficult to overturn, often taking a generation or two or more

or because the "new, spectacular, challenging" evidence is really just a splash in the pan good for some grant money and doesn't warrant it (even if the reigning paradigm isn't powerfully supported by the evidence and the conflicts continue to mount up)

changing paradigms is tough stuff to wit:

• haekel's biogenetic law, "ontogeny recapitulates philogeny" -- the science textbooks have removed haekel's name (at least some have), and some have even removed the phrase "biogenetic law"...but most still carry the illustration...which has been known for more than 100yrs to be false (among embryologists), and widely known among biologists to be false for about 50yrs
  
  but the vast majority of average joes and many scientists still believe it to be true...and many that know better still teach it as though it were true
  
  the light/dark (melanic) moths are still used as a key support for evolution both in textbooks and by teachers...even though kittlewell's research has been known to have been falsely reported and FAKED (like haekel's work before him)
  
  and on and on it goes (pesticide resistance, antibiotic resistance, etc, etc, etc)

plenty of ambiguous but grand sounding language in this pericope

lots of folks like to talk about the molecular data but it too is based on a huge and numerous (not to mention faulty) assumptions

and rest assured that if there is any conflict between the fossils and the molecular data, the paleontologists are here and quick to remind us that the bones have established priority and will carry the argument (rather than the molecular data)

so we like to talk about the molecular data and how that helps the cause (evolution)...even though it doesn't support evolution either...but if there is a rub, the molecular data gets spurned, shelved, or tossed in a bin while the fossils carry the day...as is made very clear in the following statement by one of the authors:

and finally,

and there it is again, that powerful closing and abiding thought: this discovery will [probably] result in a rewriting of human prehistory

the "rewards" (financial) will probably be great for a few scientists, but the rewards for science will probably be pretty slim

anyway, millions of years are a fact, evolution is fact, and when we're done sorting out all of the confusion and conflict in the details (the devil is in the details) we'll get back to you

have a great day...and keep the faith (evolution is a fact!)

NOT :-)

anyman wrote:
"lots of folks like to talk about the molecular data but it too is based on a huge and numerous (not to mention faulty) assumptions"

I see you haven't changed since the last time your broke your promise to go away and stay there.

Faulty assumption? Really? Name them! And provide a reference to an objective source supporting your nonsense that the assumptions are faulty.

Didn't your momma teach you lying is a sin?

"...the only real fact about evolution is that it is not a fact."

Really.

You sure have an itchy "Add Reply" finger, anyman.

yeah, sorry about the multiple posts

the system kept telling me: "sorry wait 30 seconds and try again" or something like that, which i did until i got a "thanks for posting" msg

there are actually only 6 different posts instead of 12 (from me)

the first two or three got multiposted, the latter 3 or 4 went a little smoother

still trying to figure out the new forum format

anyman:

You are on a roll and it is fun.
I doubt that Mike anticipated that onslought.
jjw

i dunno, jjw

mikey and i go back to the spring of '97 on this board

he probably posted it for bait

just to see if i still had it in me :-)

Evolution *is* a fact. And it is also a theory. The two things are not mutually exclusive. Also, theories are not lesser than facts. I realize that this goes against the lay perception of what those terms mean.

There is only one reason why people reject evolution - what they "know" about it amounts to nothing more than barbershop gossip.

Fact: Knowledge or information based on real occurrence.

Theory: A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

How can it be said that theories are not lesser than facts? Or have the definitions of fact and theory been redefined for the expert, and us laymen are working with inferior, out of date versions?

On the basis of the above definitions, evolution is certainly not a fact, especially in the usual scientific sense. E=mc? is a fact.

A species evolving into other species is not testable, repeatable or even observable. It is simply a very good theory when the available evidence is taken into account.

Scientists may feel that to call evolution a theory is to give to much ground to creationists, but it would seem to me to be much more honest a position.


**************************


And I notice that people feel free to insult Anyman and accuse him of having Barbershop knowledge regarding evolution, but no one has actually made much of an answer to his points. Far too much of that goes on here - I expect more from such an intelligent community. If his writing is so baseless then it shouldn't be too difficult a task to effectively refute it.


Blacknad.

thanks for your thought

that clears things up...immensely

see, evolution is a fact

get it? got it!

well kinda...mmmaybe not

i guess i need to learn to quote everytime in this new format or at least somehow identify folks if my response is more direct than general

your post wasn't there when i began to respond, blacknad

on the old board, you posted directly under those you were responding to, things were clearer and you could see the big board picture much more easily

i'm sure there are some advantages to this one; i'll just have to adjust

~~~~~

thanks for your thought, fallible one

that clears things up immensely

see, evolution is a fact

get it? got it!

well kinda...mmmaybe not

I'll make a guess. In every instance of a creationist that I have argued with in person or over the net, said creationist has proven himself/herself to be accutely ignorant in the subject of what evolution actually is, what it actually means, and what it actually predicts. They then go on to repeat some comic-book version of a scientific law which evolution supposedly violates and then emumerate a list of "questions" they have been spoon-fed from various websites and acquaintances and their parents and preachers. Typically these "questions" are not questions at all, but absolute statements about some aspect of evolution which amount to urban legend among those who are too intellectually lazy to do any actual homework on the subject. This way they can complain vociferously when they get lambasted they can claim that "you can't even ask questions about evolution." Of course this a blatant lie. The problem isn't about the asking of the question. It's about making the false statements about evolution.

Yes. Evolution is a fact. First, it is an observed fact. And even the "intelligentsia" among creationists admit this. After first they denied it altogether; then they said it was true, but that it never resulted in speciation. Now they say it CAN produce speciation, but it can't produce a new KIND. So, yes. Evolution is a fact. And that's not even a significant point of debate even among the people on your side.

Secondly, and even more importantly, you don't have to actually SEE something for it to be considered a fact. No one has ever seen an electron, but their existence is considered a fact. The idea that we "absolute proof" or that we have to actually witness something to accept it's existence is convincing only to those with a comic-book understanding of science.

The central problem is this: creationist leaders depend on the fact that their followers are intellectually lazy. They will read the science-lite presented on AiG, etc, but they're not actually going to read any real science books or try to actually understand the issues. They actually train people on the site on how to not really debate the subject. "Now them thar matEARialISTic evilutionists will say you're ignorant! See! That thar just shows how shaky thar own position is!"

IDers and other creationists invariably believe that they have "studied enough" about it to conclude that at least evolution is no better than creationism. They then go on to make some utterly stupid statement, essentially repeating an urban legend they heard. If they would do the slightest amount of actual homework, they wouldn't have made so many insanely stupid assertions. OTOH, if they did their homework, there wouldn't be an argument to begin with.

Falliable wrote:
"creationist leaders depend on the fact that their followers are intellectually lazy."

And you can add to that profoundly and often wilfully ignorant.

That's exactly what I've seen. Arguments with them amount to semantic games, at best. Mostly it's:

1. Explain evolution or some scientific principle or theory incorrectly;
2. Attack that incorrect idea.

One of my favorites is, "Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics."

tff: "creationist leaders depend on the fact that their followers are intellectually lazy."

da: And you can add to that profoundly and often wilfully ignorant.

tff: The "profoundly" part is a direct consequence of intellectual laziness combined with the "wilfully ignorant" part.

It's an interesting situation - or it would be, if these guys didn't waste so much of people's time.

I recall when I was very young I was very good at basic arithmetic. I could do math much faster in my head than most people could do on a calculator. This was true all the way through HS. I'm very slow now, because I've taken to using a calculator for everything, but there was a time when I could easily multiply 3 digit by 2 digit numbers in my head. Nevertheless, I never actually understood arithmetic. I could do it, but I didn't fully believe it or understand it. It was almost a miracle to me. Much later, in college, when I learned about groups and fields, I felt that I finally was justified in actually believing it.
The thing is, though, in those early years it never occurred to me that all the mathematicians who had ever lived were essentially lying to me or that they were stupid. I just figured that I was not getting it and that if I were patient and persistent that I'd eventually figure it out.

In any case, I realized very early on that I didn't know enough to criticize people who clearly knew more than I did. But this is exactly what creationists are doing - most of them know almost nothing about evolution. Almost all of them LOTS about some strawman version of evolution that their preacher or their parents told them about - almost none of them actually knows anything of consequence on the subject that an actual practicing evoluionary scientist would recognize as a part of the theory. But that's not the weird thing. Everybody's ignorant about something. The weird thing is that these guys INVARIABLY assert that they have "studied evolution" and that they have "researched sufficiently" to come to some conclusions about it - I mean, some of them - many of them - are absolutely convinced that they actually know something about the theory. These people are utterly delusional. And that is interesting in a very weird and disappointing way.

"Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics."

sg, funny you mention it. I was pretty much on the fence until I began studying this exact problem more than 2 decades ago. I think among my first posts on the internet was on this very subject.

Still no one has refuted any of Anyman's points. How come? Some of them were very specific.

Blacknad.

Dear Blacknad,

My experience in debating this subject for more than 20 years now is that generally speaking, no matter what you say, it will be ignored. Also, a common technique used by IDers and other creationists is to make an argument in the most arcane subject, feeling that no one listening would be smart enough or know enough to refute what they know to begin with.

In this particular case, he hasn't actually made an argument. He has accused the author of the story of having made up fairy stories and so forth and of using rhetorical techniques in place of reasoning. If you can't see that anyman himself was using exactly those techniques then I don't know what to say to you.

There are assumptions in any field of science - we call them laws or facts. The problem is that he's using a comic book understanding of the subject matter to criticize people who know a lot more than he does about it.

A good understanding of the entire 'debate' can be had by considering a single event in the recent Dover case. One of the witnesses for the school board, someone who was promoting ID in the schools and the downplaying of evolution education, was asked a question and then admitted that he hadn't actually read the standard that the school board was planning to adopt. Then one of the boardmembers complained about the length of the standard and admitted that she, too, had not read it.
That pretty much summarizes the last 150 years of debate on the subject.

Blacknad wrote:
"Still no one has refuted any of Anyman's points. How come? Some of them were very specific."

They have been refuted countless times. And there is no value in doing it yet again. Those interested in objective truth can read books. Those not interested can be preached to on Sunday morning by someone whose degree (divinity) taught them nothing about the subject.

Fascinating really. Astronomers, biologists, physicists, and mathematicians don't teach scripture. But for 25 pence every clergyman on the planet feels qualified to discuss evolution and physics.

dano,

sigh...again?

MORE THAN HALF of all published studies...

for the full article in nature

okay, let's see...

MORE THAN HALF OF ALL PUBLISHED studies on mtDNA...contain mistakes

whoa...how's that for scientific accuracy

hoooouuie...how's that for assumptions gone wild

and all you wanted was one, eh :-)

"occassional chagrin" = dramatically mild understatement

he has "repeatedly pointed out errors" but they still keep on citing the same data to support the conclusions in their published work

(mtDNA is now known to not even be exclusively acquired matrilineally but can at times be acquired patrilineally...throwing the data off by an even greater factor than the already acknowledged radical margin of error in the article...but we'll save that for another time :-)

and he writes elsewhere (annals of human genentics) that the prob is WAY BIGGER than anybody imagined...even after his repeated notifications

this more than satisfies your skeptical request criterion, blows it away, in fact...but we are not done yet...

part a here is radically understated...it's leading to massive error, period

part b translated to common language says:forensic analyses are case by case observable data...but they are ignoring that data and opting for the easy way by simply applying the paradigms accepted rates/sequences that are already **known and calculated** (NOT) rather than report the real observable individual data

then since the data in the reports and papers conform to the **known and calculated paradigmatic rates/sequences** they are sure to pass muster in the almighty peer-review process...and then the results are published...further confirming and adding to the **mountains of evidence** that so many love to site in support of their evolutionary paradigm

pretty tidy, eh :-)

yeah...that's the way, uh huh uh huh, we likes it...

get it? got it!

oh...he said confusing the results, NOT confirming the mountains of evidence

well, no matter, just ignore all that, sweep it under the rug, because we already know what the rates/sequences are/should be...and let's get back about the business of publishing more papers to confirm the paradigm and build our mountains of evidence rather than waste time on the confusion and conflict...don't worry, those are just anomolous data...go to the established table/database and use that; it gives the big picture and everything is already nicely worked out

he was *surprised*...hmm, this is one of the most common words used in association with new discoveries, realizations by those in the evolutionary camp...

why...because reality doesn't fit with their philosophical evolutionary predictions/assumptions/expectations...that's why

he's concerned that this massive number of errors "could be" compounded in the databases...they use waffle language throughout to try and dilute the devastating but necessary inferences...but the massive errors are indubitably in the databases and they are without doubt compounded

these data are commonly, virtually exclusively used in ?evolutionary? biology and ?evolutionary developmental" (evo-devo) biology...not to mention the negative affect on REAL biology :-)

stop it, you're killing me...no there's more

yeah...don't confuse me with the facts, don't bother me with trifles; the study is done, the paper is already written (not going to go to the trouble of rewriting, especially since if it doesn't conform to known data, it might get bounced in peer-review), the paper's already been published (what, you think i'm going to just withdraw it/them; don't you know that academia and the science communities are *publish or perish* societies...)

yeah...antagonism is generally an understatement

not only is the mtDNA data bogus but so is the nDNA...and it's not just a little mistake, it's a big mess, "plagued by errors"

more difficult to detect, bigger problem

the problem is exponentially worse than the already radical acknowledgement...errors compounded on top of compounded errors on top of buku/beaucoup bad assumptions

MORE THAN HALF OF ALL PUBLISHED STUDIES...

c'mon guys, this is not just a little mistake or even several mistakes...this is egregious error, willful ignorance exponentially compounded based on wrong assumptions and leading to woefully bogus conclusions

there's more but that'll do for now...that'll do

ps -- got other interesting references, at least one of which i'll post in the next frame...and it too is a doozy :-)

Do you think your posts are judged on length or volume?

dunno, don't really mind either way or some other

do you think yours are judged on dealing with the content...or ad homineminemineminem nonsense...

or just plain comic relief :-)

If you're going to cut-n-paste, anyman, you might at least give a reference. Did you get your "information" from http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2332

BTW, the presence of errors in these databases doesn't refute evolution. These are problems that have been discovered by evolutionists. Dr Peter Forster who discovered these problems from which creationist shills are eager to draw incorrect inferences is still an evolutionist.

The mechanisms used for mapping DNA were already known to induce some error. IIRC, the techniques used in the national labs were producing error rates of like 1 in 1000, while that Ventner owned company was using their "scatter shot" approach to map it quicker, but with an error rate of 1 in 100. These were estimated rates according to my recollection and not measured rates.

Oddly, despite the crowing on apologetics sites, the creationists haven't contributed one bit of understanding to the data.

It was pretty obvious AM did all that copying to disguise the source. Thanks for pointing it out.

sorry...you wrong again

actually i copied from myself for the more recent post and updated it to make it relevant to the present thread

w\'ya lookithar...it ain\'t your link :-)

and the original source was nature

are you having trouble getting to the full nature article

what...you don't subscribe

i have personal subscriptions to 11 major science journals (nature, nature genetics, cell, science, molecular biology, etc)...both hardcopy and online versions for all

what's wrong fellas...you guys can't adequately refute my comments so you spend about half your time trying to belittle me personally...and your not doing that very adequately either :-)

carry on, fellas...carry on

I no longer personally subscribe to any science journals. I used to get over a dozen, including Nature, Science, and IEEE transactions on Information Theory; however, I no longer need 'personal' subscriptions as my company provides electronic subscriptions to hundreds of journals. (Some are one time fees and some I only get the abstracts for them and have to purchase text.)

OTOH, even when I had a lot of journals, I found that for the technical stuff, I had to spend many, many hours reading them to understand them. I very seldom read all of a journal. Usually, I could maybe make it through 4 - 8 articles in a month, depending on the difficulty.

Buying lots of journals isn't the same thing as buying understanding of them. The article doesn't refute evolution. You're exaggerating your case by using rhetorical techniques you accuse evolutionists of using.

It's *awful* curious that you quoted the same thing that the apologetics page quoted with the same alarmist admonitions - the same implication that somehow refutes evolution: despite the fact that no one in the article apparently believes it refutes evolution. In fact, in Forster's article in the Annals of Human Genetics doesn't indicate that this bodes ill for the theory of evolution.

Rather, there's some cleaning up to do. Evolutionists have discovered the problem. Evolutionists are fixing the problem. And the know-nothings at the various apologetics sites are crowing as if they had actually refuted something - because, as usual, they don't understand what they're reading and they're grasping at any straw they can find. As usual, creationists aren't contributing anything to understanding.

fallible,

don't know what to tell ya, guy

i know bert (the author of your linked article), we met on several occasions in the '90s, we've been to dinner together, i've been to his home

and we always talked about our favorite two subjects, the book and c&e

we think pretty much alike on most things

we're both creationary guys with the same philosophical underpinnings...we see things through similar glasses

i also know and have dined with and have discussed our favorite subjects with half a dozen guys associated with AIG, and a couple of more over at ICR, and a couple down under at another creationary outfit

most of us think simimlarly on the c&e issues, we speak similarly and we write similar things

you and your evolutionary compadres here do the same...you haven't said a thing that i haven't heard a thousand times from a thousand guys in a thousand different places (on and off the net)

i could readily find some quotable material from others guys that sounds almost identical to what you have said since i came back to the board (and if memory serves, you were here for a short while before i got blocked awhile back)

but i don't find that *awfully* curious, and i'm not accusing you of copying them...you guys have all been to t.o and read thousands of posts on lots of different c&e sites that all say the same stuff

none of us have too many truly original thoughts on either side

i remember laughing years ago when i read an article or a book by futuyma where he said something like "evolution is a fact just like the earth goes around the sun"

i laughed because i had read the same thing years earlier in material written by gould...and i've heard the same thing a thousand times since from a thousand guys in a thousand places

i don't see them giving credit to where they got there stuff

we all sat through university classes and labs...where do we get everything we've got in our heads...mostly from someone else

do we stop and cite those sources every time we utter or write a word

give it a rest, guy

you were intent on doing one thing...making me look like a parrot, or worse a plagiarist so that no one would pay attention to my jazz...so that you could make me look like "another ignorant creationist"

well, carry on with that

and i'm going to carry on offering alternative commentary on the posts, articles, and books that are relevant to the c&e dialogue

i listen to, read, and study both sides...then i do my own thinking, my own speaking, and my own writing

and it doesn't matter if anyone pays attention to my jazz...it's not required reading

we use the same rhetorical devices to argue from different perspectives (as does everyone else in the dialogue on your side or mine)...the difference is that i unashamedly admit it...you guys don't

you guys think you have exclusive rights to the evidence and the rhetoric...you guys thought/think you can just run us over with your highbrow jazz...that ain't happening anymore...we've got our own jazz now :-)

i understand fine...i even understand your side (it used to be my side :-)

but here we are; you say i don't understand...and i say you don't understand...does it carry more force or authority because you said it...

well, with those that share your philosophy, sure

somebody's gotta point out the jazz you guys are spouting is as leaky as a broken boat...i'm one of those guys

you say that i exaggerate my case...i say that you way overexaggerate your case (because your case is a non-case)...

it's not *who*'s right that really matters, it's *what*'s right...

my case is not exaggerated at all

of course they don't refute evolution...they're believers filled with FAITH...and faithfully dedicated to preserving the paradigm

but the paradigm is not based on solid data

and some of us know how to read critically and sythesize

they did express concern for those using the databases in their *evolutionary* studies

there are thousands of papers out there that have used those data to get or confirm their results

wrong assumptions, wrong data, wrong results

that's not too difficult to grasp, eh

and thousands more papers have cited those papers that used the flawed and faulty data

yeah...yank all those papers out of the lit

ooopps...there goes those *mountains of evidence* for evolution

now tff (or someone else) chimes in and says...

but there are so many other areas of study that contribute to the mountains of evidence that even if we lost the mtDNA clock it wouldn't affect the fact that evolution is a fact

except that they are also based on bogus assumptions and flawed data

the only guys that are "fixing the problem" is our guys, by pointing out the jazz

but that's not going to happen...those papers will remain in the lit...and they will continue to be cited...and the evolutionary camp will continue to build its bogus mountains of evidence on top of broken reeds and swampland

here we are with the you say, i say thing again

you say we contribute nothing

i say yous contribute nothing (to evolutionary understanding)...actually you do contribute **something**...a whole lot of confusion

i say we contribute a lot to pushing that confusion back into the darkness whence it came and whence it belongs

the good news is...we all gonna know the truth someday :-)

ps -- the mtDNA "clock" is broken...irreparably

it never really existed except in the minds of the evolutionary FAITHful :-)

Anyman wrote:
"the mtDNA "clock" is broken...irreparably"

And you learned this watching the cartoons on Sunday morning TV?

Where?

Identify the source of this information. If the point is, as is your norm, pontification, try sending your emails to the Pontiff.

"except that they are also based on bogus assumptions and flawed data"

So you and your cronies claim.

"the only guys that are "fixing the problem" is our guys, by pointing out the jazz"

You guys aren't fixing anything. You're piggy backing off of legitimate scientific criticism to make things appear the way they are not. The actual errors were found by evolutionists, not creationists. The actual work of fixing it is going to be done by evolutionists, not creationists.

You have collectively contributed exactly zip.


am: "the mtDNA "clock" is broken...irreparably"

There's nothing in the article to suggest that it is irreparably broken.

The multi-regionalists such as Milford Wolpoff and Alan Thorne must be still drunk from celebrating. All the criticism they got.

Anyway the problem anyman has in understanding how evolution works seems to be the problem of what are separate species. It's been obvious to me for a long time that all these Australopithecus and Homo "species" are not actually separate species. Subspecies perhaps. Anyman seems trapped by the biblical idea that all species must come from just one couple. Of course he is not the only one. Even atheists are influenced by stories we grow up with. That's why everyone was so willing to jump on the recent out of Africa theory. Sure, each individual mutation in each single chromosome must occur in just one individual. But species consist of populations. Each individual has some different genes.

Blacknad wrote:
"And I notice that people feel free to insult Anyman and accuse him of having Barbershop knowledge regarding evolution, but no one has actually made much of an answer to his points."

I've never accused him of ignorance. I've accused him of deceit, hypocrisy, and being a troll. Lets not confuse one with the other. He is quite intelligent and knows precisely what he is doing. He has no serious interest in science ... only in discrediting specific aspects of it that disprove a contemporary literalist biblical interpretation.

Answer his points? I didn't see that he had any. He had volume ... not substance. If you can distill what he posted into even one serious point, and provide a reference as to its origin, I will gladly refute it.

Some people are complaining that no one has replied to anyman's long criticism of this posting.

Here goes:

quote:
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What began as the excavation of a medieval town has turned into a pivotal site for our understanding of human evolution
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Simply journalistic hyperbole. Journalists have to make money by selling their articles. There has actually been no overturning of ideas of human evolution for nearly forty years.

quote:
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Most probably, we are on the threshold of a profound transformation of our understanding of early hominin evolution
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see above.

quote:
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At the heart of the tale of this first transcontinental migration lies the assumption
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The assumption has very little relevance as to whether evolution is correct. Only as to the actual pattern of human migration. In fact the assumption referred to relies on the influence the Christian religion has had on our interpretation of the evidence. The assumption made is that humans are totally different and superior to the rest of nature.

quote:
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This idea has a powerful romantic appeal, suggesting that exploration and settlement are primordial and defining human instincts
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The out of africa story was touted as fact because of: see above.

quote:
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over the past century...timing of all this seemed to attest to...In the past decade, however, this sequence has begun to unravel
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You are again splitting hairs over the detail. I look forward to a detailed explanation of human migration from the Garden of Eden. I would bet there will be plenty of maybes, perhaps and so on.

quote:
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With these startlingly early dates
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The dating scenario was not actually very different. Again a journalist selling his article.

quote:
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It looks as though increased intelligence was not a prerequisite
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The assumption was made because even atheists have been influenced by biblical stories.

quote:
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Over millions of years, the global climate gradually cooled, but there were also times when conditions altered quite abruptly
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How gradual do things happen in geological terms. There is plenty of scope for fairly rapid change even under the theory of uniformitarianism.

quote:
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A still more radical challenge to the supposed role of superior cognitive abilities
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again the original assumption was that our brain was our most important development. Let's not forget that most biologists are academics!

quote:
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He and Roebroeks suggest that we should re-imagine...
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Surprisingly enough we don't know all the facts. Yet.

quote:
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In a bold challenge to the conventional story, Dennell argues that hominins migrated out of Africa before H. erectus even evolved, and long before the dates of the oldest known hominin fossils in Asia. These first migrants were either australopithecines or H. habilis - he, like some prominent palaeoanthropologists, regards these two as much the same kind of creatures
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again the problem arises from the Bible. Many people who should know better accept that just because we call things two different species they automatically cannot breed together and form hybrids. We know that many creatures that appear to be very different are able to breed together.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nor does H. erectus have any clearly identifiable immediate predecessors. "Not for nothing has it been described as a hominin 'without an ancestor, without a clear past'," observe Dennell and Roebroeks.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is actually the main point of the article. We can now be pretty sure H. erectus evolved in Asia, moved back into africa and hybridised with H. ergaster. The same process happens between different groups of humans to this day. Except between groups who consider themselves to be far superior to any other group.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dennell's solution to the problem is beguilingly simple: perhaps we have been looking in the wrong place. "Maybe the Rift Valley was a cul-de-sac," Dennell suggests. Tongue in cheek perhaps, but the remark conveys his strong conviction that the importance of Asia has been unfairly neglected
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Your comment: hey, no problem, the explanation is simple...we've just been looking in the wrong place(s) all this time

there, see...simple

Me: Ah, so you do understand evolution.

quote:
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In this perspective the Dmanisi hominins may represent a missing link in the evolution of H. erectus
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

quote:
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Dennell even goes so far as to suggest that the Dmanisi hominins might be ancestors of the later H. erectus in Africa
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Your comment: so it's pretty simple now...

australopithcenes/habilenes migrated out of africa into asia and europe...then later evolved into h erectus...but either before they evolved into h erectus, or some of the ones that didn't evolve, went back down into africa and evolved into h erectus there...and then of course later migrated back out of africa, back into asia and europe...as h erectus

Me: Sums it up nicely. I think you've got it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In other words, African H. erectus might have Asian roots. If this is the case, Out of Africa 1 is a crucial part of the story of our own evolution, since H. erectus is generally thought to be a direct ancestor of modern humans.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Almost certainly correct.

I'm getting sick of this now. Look forward to more of your comments.

I wish to add a little bit of objective ideas.

FACT & TESTABLE : Micro evolution : small changes between one generation and the next, me versus my parents or you.

FACT & TESTABLE : Natural Selection : One characteristic that is already in a species becomming more prominant due to (un)natural changes in the enviornment.

FACT & TESTABLE : Mutations : DNA sequence changing almost always for the worse, and occasionally nuetral. I can't think of any observed that has been a positive mutation so if anyone has a reference please post.

THEORY : Speciation : I think there have been a few OBSERVED cases of speciation that I have read, but since I can't remember if they were observed (one speicies specifically seperated from another and no longer able to bread together) or only assumed based on close similarities I cannot say for certain. Post reference if you can.

THEORY : Macro Evolution : A projection of speciation of millions of years in combination with the previous facts. Since species are dictated mainly by differences in DNA fossils can't really help to much in that regard. Bone structure and looks alone I would say do not ammount to much "hard evidence", but would be more of a supporting evidence. Projecting speciation backwards does seem plausible however there are also some things that evolution, at the time, does not seem able to produce. That is the interdependence of every organ in an orgainsm arrising at the same time. Since we cannot see or test the past (at least right now) I don't see this being answered...

There are a few other examples in modern things that evolution can't explain (or at least no reason for there being) that I'll find articles later and post later (as in tommorow) since I need to wake up in a few hours to go to work, I don't have time now.

Thanks Terry.

Danismyname wrote:
"FACT & TESTABLE : Mutations : DNA sequence changing almost always for the worse, and occasionally nuetral. I can't think of any observed that has been a positive mutation so if anyone has a reference please post."

A mutation having a positive effect (or negative or neutral for that matter) is a value judgement and one that can only be determined after-the-fact based upon the judgement of the observer.

From the standpoint of the AIDS virus its mutations have been very positive. TB too would agree that its mutations have been positive. A human lifetime is far too short to make this type of judgement about ourselves. But I might point out that 10,000 years ago not one of us had the capacity to grasp algebra ... today we can. Is that the result of a positive change in brain structure? Might well be. Perhaps we will know some day.

Danismyname wrote:
"There are a few other examples in modern things that evolution can't explain"

Too bad you didn't do what you said you wished to do: "add a little bit of objective ideas." There is nothing objective about your agenda.

Well that and you are incorrect. Evolution can explain everything you mentioned: Everything. The fact that you haven't studied the subject or can't grasp it, or that science continues to make progress and makes smaller the areas of darkness in which you dwell is not an issue.

You can still bury your head in the sand if you wish. But the desert is getting smaller and smaller with each passing day. Ignorance is NOT bliss.

Danismyname would like someone to explain why we don't see species forming before our eyes. The short answer is that it takes a long time. Just confining ourselves to the subject of the original posting which deals with the evolution of H. erectus from some Australopithecus species:

The article shows that change was fairly slow, seems it took a million years, from 2.5 to 1.5 million years ago. A single small group of apes did not wake up one morning and suddenly find themselves to be human. It's not like becoming a rock star.

I remember finding an article in Nature vol. 441, no. 7097, 17th May 2006, entitled "Genetic evidence for complex speciation of humans and chimpanzees". Unfortunately I cannot find the full article on the net again. However you should be able to find at least a summary somewhere if you type in the above information in your search engine. In it the authors suggest the earlier split between apes and humans took three and a half million years, from 7.5 million years ago to 4 million years ago. In other words all the time from Sahelanthropus to Australopithecus. The divergence involved several periods of back hybridising.

Lets concede for a moment that all humans have evolved from a single human, a couple or even a small group. How can we account for the regional variation of modern humans without falling back on some form of evolution? We know that nearly all species vary over their geographic range. Sometimes the extremes are classified as separate species. Do horses, donkeys and zebras for example come from a common ancestor? In spite of myths the hybrid between a male horse and a female donkey are not always sterile. It's just the hybrid is useless to us humans.

Hope that clears up your puzzlement

"There are a few other examples in modern things that evolution can't explain (or at least no reason for there being) that I'll find articles later and post later (as in tommorow) since I need to wake up in a few hours to go to work, I don't have time now."

Uh...no. There are "modern things" that it is ALLEGED that evolution can't explain. Creationists have a long history of falsely claiming that certain esoteric facts "couldn't possibly be explained by evolution."

Evolution can even explain those that cling desperately to fairy tales and that is a huge accomplishment.

Well first, I never asked for an explanation of why we don't see speciation. I know why we don't. I asked if someone had a reference off the top of their head because I wasn't sure if there was a documented and observed case over several dozen generations...

Second, how is pointing out that since the oldest fossils we have are either bacteria or algea, some 2.5-3 billion years old, in rock that paleontologists are debating how some formed. There is nothing to show the transition between single and multi-celled life reason to say that it is explainable. Scientific laws explain what we can see and test. Theories are educated guesses, and by educated I do mean well informed, which evolution is one of them. We have not seen a transition from multi to single celled life or from plant/bacteria to animal, or asexual to sexual reproduction or other such things. Because of this, and this is objective, modern fossils of these old lifeforms can not be the only way that evolution explains how all life evolved. The only thing they show is that there was life, and the shape of it, nothing else.

Thrid, Ignorance is not Bliss. When you claim something as undisputed fact when it isn't, there are problems. Evolutionary theory is used as a basis to make educated speculations on how all life arised, but all they are are speculations.

I think I should say this as the closer. Evolution is much much more plausible than creationism. I like how evolution does make plausible claims on a lot of things, but what I don't like is when people shout "It's fact and 100% proven" when it is not. So when arguments turn into you're wrong because evolution is right, I usually like to bring it back to a little more objectivity, since well that is what Science is, objectivity.

There are examples of speciation at http://talkorgins.org/

Evolution is a fact. In science there is no such thing as an undisputable fact. However, evolution is as much a fact as the existence of hydrogen. Nobody has ever seen a hydrogen atom, but we don't teach them in school as "hypothetical" or "merely theoretical."

There are things that aren't explained yet. Every science has things that are unexplained - questions that haven't yet been answered. The theory of gravitation, however, is not mere speculation just because, as R. Feynman writes in Vol 1 of his "Essays on Physics", there is no mechanism for it. (Maybe there *IS* a mechanism by now, but there wasn't when he wrote it and still gravitation wasn't taught as "mere" theory.)

Fact does not mean "100% proven," at least not in the scientific parlance.

There's a lot more to say, but it's 1:30 am and I have to work tomorrow. If you honestly believe that evolution is more plausible than creationism, then you've probably done at least a little homework.

Simply put: Africa was not connected to europe until quite late in human history, so it could not be the origin. Enough said.

Dear Frog:
I ignored everything you copied as I am more than capable of following a link.

In the future please don't waste our time or our bandwidth.

If you have something to say ... use your own brain and your own words of which I don't see a single one.

Thank you.

Frog in my head.

What is your point exactly? Europe has been connected to Africa via the Middle East for the whole of human existence. But I still fail to see the relevance of this. Anyway no problem for ancient humans to get to Europe. Or for any other animals that occupied the appropriate environment.

I suppose it was worthwhile our reading the article again twice. I actually have seen the original complete with pretty pictures.

I don't want to seem pedantic but the term 'Out of Africa' is generally accepted as referring to the origin and spread (from Africa, obviously) of modern humans ie Homo sapiens whereas this article is referring to Homo erectus.

Sorry Eduardo. I should have done this the other night. You wrote:

I don't want to seem pedantic but the term 'Out of Africa' is generally accepted as referring to the origin and spread (from Africa, obviously) of modern humans ie Homo sapiens whereas this article is referring to Homo erectus.

Quite correct. But the original posting demonstrates that at least some of our evolution has happened as a result of gene flow, the movement of populations through regions already occupied by a variation of that species. It is therefore fair to say that the mitochondrial DNA evidence used as support for the evolution of "modern" humans was the result of a similar process. Another point made in the original posting is that "each gene has its own evolutionary history". This quote is actually from a paper "Ancestral Asian sources of New World Y-chromosome founder haplotypes", Karafet et al American Journal of Human Genetics, 64: 817-831. Geneticsts have long accepted it though.

The mtDNA evidence is best regarded as just one more human gene. There may have been selection for people carrying this gene but for various reasons it's more likely to be cultural rather than genetic. Besides if you can provide me with any evidence for when this modern "Out of Africa" occurred let me know. It's very imprecise. Anywhere between a hundred thousand years ago till 50,000.

Hi Terry,

I wasn't questioning the validity of the article in any way, merely trying to clear up an ambiguity of terminology.

PS I do not see this as a 'black vs white' issue (mmm, perhaps that could be better phrased given the subject). I have no doubt that some gene flow occurred, the question is how much.

Eduardo, Thanks for the question. I'll see if I can get our heads around it.

Firstly the article mentions genes that show a point of origin within the human species going back over the last two million years. The first of these genes to be studied was mitochondrial DNA. This was because there is so much of it and it doesn't recombine. The results showed the mtDNA line split in two about 180,000 years ago. Allan Wilson (a New Zealnder, yay) jokingly called the common female ancestor Eve and immediately regretted it. Aha, the Bible is basically correct after all. What a relief. As a result the distinctiveness of mtEve's line has been greatly exaggerated. Try finding it in the fossils for example. Or any change in technology. No can do.

As the article points out Alan Templeton of Washington University has developed techniques from those used for mtDNA to look at single genes. PCR has allowed him to multiply the DNA strands and so supply is not a problem either. As he says in the article he has traced the regional origin of many of those genes.

How much interbreeding between mtEve's descendants from Africa and the original inhabitants in each region? I think the evidence shows: quite a bit.

The modern Asian type seems to have been developing by about 300,000 years ago. Also there are similarities between some early Australian fossils and Javan H. erectus. Many modern European skulls are closer to Neanderthal skulls than are Polynesian skulls.

Of course including Neanderthals in our species means the Bible falls to pieces again. We have to be cleverer than those Neanderthals. After all we replaced them. But did we? I think the evidence shows overwhelmingly that we did not. Unfortunately the complete proof for substantial hybridizing is long and complicated.

What do you think of that?

My vote is that there are two reasons there are no more Neandertals.

1. We were better at genocide.
2. We were better at genocide.

Couldn't think of a third-reason.

Terry, please don't get me started on the hybridisation issue, I had a barney about that on this very forum some time ago for daring to suggest that it was even possible. Using precisely this mtDNA is not the only gene argument.

If you know of any good online articles on this subject I would be very interested.

PS barney means fight or argument in my native south London tongue.

PPS I was in NZ a couple of years ago, Tauranga to be exact. Nice view from Maunganui.

from what ive read (please its been decades, so dont ask for links), man was better at hunting and gathering than the neadertals, so we starved him to death.

Don't know of any sites but we have the evidence of hybrid cultures if not genetic hybrids. eg. Chatelperronian, Uluzzian and Szeletian. Should find something about them easily enough. How would the culture hybridize without at least social contact. Also the Portuguese skeleton that many people regard as a hybrid.

We also have modern evidence of hybrids between different-looking people. At least we do in New Zealand, perhaps less so in other countries. We always look at the world through the prism of our own upbringing.

There are many examples of hybrids between different species. Try following evolution of dabbling ducks online. There is nothing impossible about Neranderthal genes being with us still. If I come across any sites I'll let you know.

dehammer wrote:
"man was better at hunting and gathering than the neadertals, so we starved him to death."

and

"please its been decades, so dont ask for links"

I went to google.com
I typed in "Nealdertal" and "hunters"

It really wasn't that hard. Though it did require moving the mouse and typeing in two words.

Ouch! My carpal tunnel is acting up again.

Seriously dehammer ... how can you be so lazy?

I seriously doubt that you found the article i was refering too. it was long before apples computer came out, let alone the internet. Im glad that you found it of enough interest that you checked it out.

I haven't a clue whether I found the article you were referring to and you seemingly are too lazy to try it yourself and find out.

But what I did find was many articles on the subject. None of which you, it appears, have any interest in reading.

Sad!

Here are some sites that sum up evidence for hybrids between Neanderthal and modern human. The first three are arguments, sometimes nasty, the last two are articles. Most have links to other sites.

http://home.entouch.net/dmd/hybrid.htm

http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199906/0279.html

This one contains remarks by a multi-regional supporter, Erik Trinkaus. Here is a reply to it, rather anti.

http://www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199906/0346.html

The reply doesn?t touch on remarks Ian Tattersall makes in his book. You can see from the original posting of this subject that he is a firm believer in the inherent superiority of us modern humans. I presume this superiority justifies the virtual extermination of humans with less advanced technology that has happened during the last few hundred years.
And another from a different source:

http://www.discover.com/issues/mar-02/departments/featworks

A last one.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s23000.htm

The original article shows that the evolution of h. erectus imvolved hybridizing. We know it occurrs in modern times. Surely it's reasonable to suppose it happened during the evolution of modern Europeans.

The most recent item I read was that there was no evidence of interbreeding or genocide. But my suspicion is that this is just wishful thinking.

dannysmyname, I've finally found the article on speciation between humans and chimps. It's:

http://www.haverford.edu/KINSC/06Journal/nature04789.pdf#search=%22genetic%20evidence%20for%20complex%20speciation%20of%20humans%20and%20chimpanzees%22

How's that for a long one? Seems that particular speciation event involved several periods of separation followed by hybridization. I suspect all human species from H. erectus on have been capable of breeding together, ie all one species. It's just that we humans like to believe we are special, much different to those species that show connections to apes. The gradualness of our evolution has been downplayed. There must be some sudden change that means we're superior to mere animals.

Wow. That is a find.

There must have been a SUDDEN change?
You mean from Apes to Man? Impossible
But you are trying hard, Terry, or is it Danny?
Let me show you some facts. Which taken together are difficult to reconcile.

A few of you may remember me talking about my personal theory, which I first proposed some years ago.
Lets just forget about Race and Religion for a moment. And just talk about Color. The undisputable separate colours of mankind.

Lets name them:- WHITE, BLACK, BROWN, YELLOW, RED. LIGHT BROWN and ABORIGINE (aborigines are not Negro)
Thats it, thats all, ...those colors are fact!
Now imagine, can you, that the Aeroplane or Boat had never ever been invented!!
Then to this day those Seven different Colors of Man would still be living in their OWN CONTINENTS!!
What I hear you say?
Yes thats right...The SEVEN colors of MAN would only be FOUND in their own, SEVEN Continents
Thats SEVEN Colors and SEVEN Continents!
Dont you find that a VERY strange coincidence?

Lets list them out.
Whites in Europe
Browns in India
Reds in N America
Blacks in Africa
Yellows in China
Light Browns in S America
Aborigines (color) in Australia

Now they could hardly get there by foot, could they? Cross the Alps, cross the Ghobi desert etc. And change color along the way, could they? That would take a hundred thousand years each color
would'nt it? What about purity of color?

Mans continental colors are pure,(or were) They could hardly have gone on foot, and if thay had procreated along the way. Where are those occasional 'throwbacks'. The occasional white or
black, or odd colored baby that would spring up due to procreation of color mixing, all in according to the present laws of Genetics, I might add. The odd color that should be thropwn up even back in the 14 or 15th century when there was little or no mixing?

Since each of the Continents are virtually inaccessible from any other, by foot. It was always my contention that, (but for the invention of the boat and aeroplane) that each colour/race of man has been locked into his own Continent for tens of thousands of years.
Which of course pre-supposes that we could hardly migrate out of Africa, and populate the other six Continents, in view of the mobility difficulty of
achieving this, together with physiological and skin color changes, plus interbreeding, that supposedly went hand in hand with this (unproven) world migration. While keeping all within the accepted time limitations of the H. erectus and H. sapiens discoverys to date, ie.-that the 'Out of Africa migration' started about 100,000 years ago.
The above constitutes the nub of my theory, which I have always considered to be obviously self evident....without the proof.
But interesting nevertheless.
Remember that 'Out of Africa' proponents by splitting Homo specimens into erectus and sapiens, slam the door on interbreeding. Since a species is defined as a group that is reproductively separate. That should hold for 'out of anywhere', (which ever archaic hominins are said to be involved) I feel.

sorry mike. My comment "there must have been some sudden change" was paraphrasing how biblically oriented people view evolution. In fact the article on the separation between chimps and humans suggests this took nearly four million years, hardly a sudden change. Therefore I agree totally with your comment above. The only minor disagreement I have would be that there are probably only five separate regional variations of humans. It's hardly an important disagreement. If you look at my previous postings on the subject you will see that I believe the biblical perspective has influenced the ready acceptance of the out of Africa theory. They believe there must have been a sudden leap at some time.

I actually reckon the white skin and blond hair of many Europeans goes back to Neanderthals. After all they lived for 200,000 years in a region of winter snow and they are not the only creature to change from white to brown with the seasons.

Yes, there are some strange disparities not only amongst the animal kingdom but in humans as well.
Animals that live in the cold Artic regions are well protedted with either blubber, or prehaps two distinct layers of thick hair (polar bears)
You might have expected humans to have developed a lot of body hair, after living for thousands of years in Artic conditions? Yet Eskimoes, are almost devoid of body, and facial hair.
Ever seen an Eskimoe with a beard? And they are dark skinned not white.

"Thats SEVEN Colors and SEVEN Continents!
Dont you find that a VERY strange coincidence?"

No.

"Lets list them out.
Whites in Europe
Browns in India
Reds in N America
Blacks in Africa
Yellows in China
Light Browns in S America
Aborigines (color) in Australia"

India and China are not continents. They're on the same continent. A continent that they share with *whites*. Aren't the *light browns* in S. America essentially the same color as the *reds* in N. America?

Why would you find it a strange coincidence that there are differences among geographically isolated peoples?

I do not feel that this article disproves the theory of evolution, nor supports it.
The existence of any variant humanoids does support evolution theory, in my opinion.

The discovery of human remains, as we are today, dating from 500,000 yrs ago would discredit the theory of evolution for me

What I haven't noticed so far is an alternative theory.

If we didn't evolve from apes (with which we share so much DNA), then where did we come from?

I agree that the seven number is arbitrary. Seven continents? From my perspective North and Soth America are the same continent. Well they have been for the last few million years.

The people of China and India obviously are a little different to each other. They must have at least some different genes. As I said previously we can divide humanity into five groups, the rest seem to be hybrids between these five. Genetic evidence shows Polynesians for a start are a hybrid between Northeast Asians and Australian Aborigines/Papuans. I'll post a reference when I find it again. The five groups are at the geographic extremities of the H. erectus distribution. The original article shows that today the human population has genes that originate in different places.

As to Neanderthals being either hairy or blubbery, how do we know they weren't? They could still have been part of modern Europeans' ancestry.

p.s.Here is the reference:

Underhill et al (2001) Y-Chromosome Haplotypes and Implications for Human History in the Pacific. Human Mutation 17: 271-280.
http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/HM...e%20pacifi c%22

I find it a strange co-incidence in the particular case of color separation, in respect of the original article I posted "Out of Africa NOT".
Further more, the concensus of opinions today regarding the 'spread' of Evolution, aka: Darwinianism contend, that mans colour changes
(meaning:- a genetic color change) occured while Man was spreading and populating the world.

That the different colours of Man equate to a difference in Genetic makeup.

You could not wander (walk)...ie. populate the Continents, without leaving genetic markers of copulation, within the peoples. Meaning mans seven skin colours, are, and cetainly were pure in the recent past. No throwback of a mixed racial types. I could have included basic hair types PLUS color, but chose not to. Its a simple visual exercise, that everyone can understand, and have thoughts about. It works even if we go back to a single Gwondala/Pangean world land mass (theoretically more color mixing) Or just accept the present distribution of Continents.
India and China plus North and South America, I agree are not true continents. But for this argument are distinct land masses, which in my view, were impossible enter and populate, and change colour,......as Darwinians suggest.
The difficulties being the Ghobi desert of China the Himalayas , India. In addition, the Panama Isthmus, although joining N and S America might prove a difficult thoroughfare to negotiate, (No horses or monkeys evolved in the Americas) And anyway I dont think there was any particular reason as to why Red man or Light brown man would move away from their areas, they had all the food, lush vegetation or Bison they could eat.
That they didnt move and mix is proven again by the purity of Redskin and Light Brown, plus the additional fact that Red man is hairless.

Mike, are you saying the various races, or colours, of humans have been on each separate continent since Gondwanaland broke up? We've been around for more than sixty five million years? Extremely unlikely.

Also don't forget that most deserts in the world have been much moister at times. As your original posting says, no problem for even H. erectus to move through the Gobi Desert at times. The article suggests that human movement has been going on much longer and at a greater level than we currently think.

There are many genetic markers of migrating populations besides the ones mentioned in your original posting. Regarding American Indians not being a hybrid population try this site:

Karafet et al (1999) Ancestral Asian Source(s) of New World Y-chromosome Founder Haplotypes. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 64: 817-831.
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/jo...6940161261Guest

Y-chromosome from Central Asia, Mitochondrial DNA from further south: Mongolia, Tibet China and Korea.

Re horses and monkeys. It's my understanding that horses actually evolved in North America, moved out from about three million years ago and then were exterminated in North America by the ancestors of the American Indians. Monkeys seem to have become isolated in South America when that continent split from Africa near the end of the Cretaceous.

Terryt,
I got an operation not permitted error. Do you have another link you could post? Thanks.

Amaranth

When I type in "ancestral asian source(s) of new world y-chromosome haplotypes" it seems to work. It's the first site that comes up on google. I've copied the site over. see if it works. It's a ddf file. shouldn't make a difference though.

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/jo...5583036053Guest

It worked alright that time. Of course it's not a ddf file. silly me. pdf.

I tried this morning and it didn't work again. I found this. Same article:
http://www.familytreedna.com/pdf/Karafet_et_al.1999.pdf

Re Gondwalaland, I tried to imply that HAD man been around at that time, we would almost certainly be very mixed by now.

I think it will ultimately be found that H.erectus as presently labelled in China, could well be totally different geneticaly from H. erectus as presently named, and found in Africa.
We dont have nearly enough factual information yet, either way. H, erectus being a catch name for early hominids. I expect there may be better genetical divisions in the future? Which would verify Darwinianism?
If not,.....mans ancient ancestry will remain a mystery.

Do you maintain that the pre-American Red Indians
exterminated the horse? Prehistoric horses were dog size, quite small.
I have always understood that neither horses nor apes ever developed in the Americas. Since neither ever crossed into the American continent, dependant on what you believe?
Interestingly, Dinosaurus have been found in all Seven Continents.
Monkeys? I should have said Apes, they came later than monkeys. Nevertheless New World monkeys are somewhat diff from African monkeys, are a lot smaller and have more teeth. 38 as against 32, I think.

I will read your added URL's with interest later,.....short on time at the moment.

Yes, I do maintain the ancestors of the american Indians exterminated the horse; along with mammoth, mastodont, ground sloths, giant armadillo, I could go on. There are plenty of books on the subject but I'll try to find some websites. Horses were small until the Miocene but from then on were about the size of modern ponies.

Sure apes never made it to the Americas but you did say "monkeys" originally.

I believe there is a great deal of evidence that humans have been one continually evolving species for the last two million years. The concept of "species" is simply a classification tool. Without experiments we can't know if the species on the human line classified as different could not breed together. Most scientists love to be remembered as having discovered a new species, especially on the human line.

The different-looking humans around the earth at present are simply regional variations. All species and groups of species exhibit the same phenomenon.