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Humans First Arose in Asia?

IZ Reloaded writes "Two archaeologists are proposing the idea that early humans first arose in Asia instead of Africa as previously thought. These early humans then migrate out of Asia to parts of the world. From National Geographic: 'The unresolved status of the intriguing Flores finds attributed to H. floresiensis leaves open the possibility that this species is the end result and last survivor of an ancient migration of very primitive humans, or even prehumans, that formerly existed more widely across Asia ... '"

8 of 622 comments (clear)

  1. Except for the other guys... by Krach42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We have tons of data points showing homo sapiens evolved in Africa. So many of the missing links like Lucy and other members of the homo tree have all been found in Africa.

    I'm not debating their points (I've not read the article yet), but it would seem to require us to throw out the data that we already have. If homo species migrated to the rest of the world from Asia, then it would have requires Lucy, a relatively primitive human to have gotten to Africa, then start a long series of descendents and multiple branches of evolution there, eventually resulting in homo sapiens.

    --

    I am unamerican, and proud of it!
    1. Re:Except for the other guys... by Fiver- · · Score: 5, Funny

      Can't we just look for the region of the world that has a large concentration of talking snakes?

  2. Pfft. by big_groo · · Score: 5, Funny
    New Asian finds are significant, they say, especially the 1.75 million-year-old small-brained early-human fossils found in ...

    You can find that almost anywhere. Like here - browse at -1, for example.

  3. Re:On the first day.. by undeadly · · Score: 5, Funny
    I mean life is too complicated to arise by chance, right? I just don't want to believe I'm related to an animal renound for picking shit out of it's ass.

    You feel that beeing releated to Slashdotter regulars is an improvement?

  4. Wow, just wow. by Rude+Turnip · · Score: 5, Funny

    Amazing, even human evolution is getting outsourced to Asia!

  5. Re:On the first day.. by Ruff_ilb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ah yes, but religion is so CONVENIENT. It means that often the believer needs to make no personal moral decisions (your religion makes absolute moral decisions for you), and everyone's split into two camps: People that are going to Heaven (usually believers) and people that are going to Hell (usually everyone else). Often the sheer convenience and lifelong training in a religion overrides a personal quest for scientific truth.

    Furthurmore, in times where science would say to you "Hey man, you're 100% screwed!" religion can give a more optimistic answer. It's easy to decry religion when you're sitting in front of your LCD or CRT, but it's can give hope to the otherwise hopeless if they think that an all-powerful, all-knowing being is watching over their backs ready to send them to paradise when they die.

    I have no problem with religion whatsoever. However, I think that religion should stay in churches (for example) and science should stay in schools, universities, etc. Everything has its time and place.

    --
    http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
  6. NO! by PixelScuba · · Score: 5, Funny

    Evil Lord Xenu froze all the alien races and dumped them into volcanoes here on earth. Their souls were collected by soul vacuumes and then forced to watch movies and be brainwashed, only to then inhabit the bodies of primitive man. I think that's how it goes, I still have to pay for a few more audit councelings before my thetan levels are capable of truly grasping this profound knowledge

  7. Genetic evidence says Africa by brit74 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The article talks quite a bit about fossil evidence, but what about the genetic evidence? If you look at the variability of human genetics, you find that europeans aren't very genetically diverse. Similarly, American Indians aren't very genetically diverse, and Asians aren't either. Africans, on the other hand, are very genetically diverse. What this indicates is that the human race' history in Africa goes back much further than anywhere else. It appears that a subset of Africans left Africa and colonized the rest of the world. Here's a short article that talks about human genetic diversity compared to their location: http://info.med.yale.edu/genetics/kkidd/point.html http://www.umich.edu/news/?Releases/2005/Oct05/r10 1805