Humans Evolved From a Single Origin In Africa

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "Researchers at the University of Cambridge have combined studies of global human genetic variations with skull measurements worldwide to show conclusively the validity of the single origin hypothesis. The alternative hypothesis contended that different populations independently evolved from Homo erectus to Home sapiens in different areas. The lead researcher explains, 'The origin of anatomically modern humans has been the focus of much heated debate. Our genetic research shows the further modern humans have migrated from Africa, the more genetic diversity has been lost within a population. However, some have used skull data to argue that modern humans originated in multiple spots around the world. We have combined our genetic data with new measurements of a large sample of skulls to show definitively that modern humans originated from a single area in Sub-saharan Africa.' The article abstract is available from Nature."

Comments

Not so fast

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

It looks like this research is already being torn to pieces:

"John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison says the paper is mistaken. A major flaw is that the current research is largely based on skull variability. "You can't find the origin of people by measuring the variability of their skulls," Hawks said.

"Differences in skull features are related to genetics, and genetic variation depends on how much mixing occurs with other populations. "The main problem with the paper is that it takes some assumptions from genetics papers of 10 to 15 years ago that we now know are wrong," Hawks said.

"Other scenarios, besides the single-origin theory, could account for the link between distance and skull variability. "Africa is ecologically diverse, and cranial variation is a function of environments," he said. In environments supporting hardy foods such as roots, people would need bigger jaw muscles, and thus larger areas for muscle attachments.

"Also, correcting for climate is not a good idea, according to Hawks. "The most important feature that is related to climate is skull size. So by correcting for climate, they are subtracting a major component of variability," he said.

"In his own research, Hawks is finding that natural selection has led to changes in thousands of genes during only the past few thousand years.

"I'm really thinking just the opposite of this paper," Hawks said. "There are differences in the skull between populations, including their variability, but it is mostly due to very recent effects and not the origin of modern humans."

"At the end of the day, a resolution to the "Out of Africa" debate may be impossible, he said. Most of the evidence can be interpreted as supporting both human-origins theories. "It's really hard to find observations that distinguish the two," Hawks said.

"The multiregional idea is identical to the recent African origin idea, except for its prediction that Europeans and Asians were part of the single population of origin and didn't become extinct."

Re:Not so fast

[macdaddy357]

This whole "everybody came from Africa" talk is bullshit! If everybody came from Africa, why isn't everybody black? It is all part of a plot by the man to keep a brother down.

Re:Not so fast

[Anonymous Coward]

Not so fast Wtf, nvisblePinkUnicorn (1126837) (parent poster) submitted this fucking story! Do you purposely look for stories that you can debunk then submit them and debunk them in the first post? Does this do something for you, IPU?

Re:Not so fast

[Moridineas]

Just FYI, Hawks has an interesting blog at http://www.johnhawks.net/weblog

I think it's down right now, but I'd recommend it!

Re:Not so fast

[LiquidCoooled]

Isn't it possible that after submitting this article he found out more information?
How exactly do you submit a retraction for a slash article?

I would rather have Unicorn posting his own update than having someone ripping the original to pieces.

His(her/it) actions are commendable in my book.

Re:Not so fast

[utopianfiat]

It's fine, they just forgot that this single origin's name is Adam PRAISE THE LORD

Re:Not so fast

[IdleTime]

You got to be the dumbest person I have ever met. Was that really a serious question?

1. Dark pigmentation is a protection against the sun.
2. When people migrate north were the sun is weaker, over time, the need for sun protection disappears and people lose the pigmentation, hence becoming lighter.

Re:Not so fast

[IDontAgreeWithYou]

1) Submit story to slashdot you know is already debunked.
2) Get first post on said story noting the debunking.
3) ...
4) Profit? Karma?

Re:Not so fast

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Hehehe. Actually I was reading up on the story and found the alternate analysis from the multi-source evolutionist, but it was already too late because I submitted the comment, so I figured I'd just post the additional information I found ASAP.

It looks like my OP is going to be modded -1 Troll anyways, since some people seem to think that there are only 2 theories: Evolution and Creationism, and that if I'm saying "Not so fast", I must be spouting creationist nonsense.

Hilarity ensues.

Re:Not so fast

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

See my explanation here. My submission was accepted and posted in record time.

Re:Not so fast

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you prove that?
Does a black man gradually become lighter over the years?

Re:Not so fast

[wytcld]

Can more variation in Africa really prove anything beyond ... more variation in Africa? Consider: There are more tribal cultures, more languages, more language families, more diverse environmental niches. When you look at a globe rather than our typical equatorial-land-cheating map projections, Africa is a huge place. But does the existence of more variations on a theme in a particular space prove that it was the location of the original of the theme?

An opposite argument is possible. Let's say you had butterflies everyplace but Africa, with each (sub)species displaying designs that worked best for camouflage/mate selection/whatever in its home territory. Over time many of these (sub)species reach Africa. Because it's a large, ecologically diverse space, a considerable number of them find successful niches. The subsequent conclusion that the range of different butterfly designs in Africa proves their ultimate origin there would be exactly wrong in this scenario.

Re:Not so fast

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Michael Jackson is a good candidate to support this theory.

Re:Not so fast

[IDontAgreeWithYou]

That's what I actually thought happened, it's just not as entertaining. Carry on.

Re:Not so fast

[ihuntrocks]

I wouldn't quite consider what Mr. Hawks is doing to be "tearing the research to pieces". Mr. Hawks is a researcher with a competing viewpoint. Furthermore, the viewpoint that is expressed (and this may be largely due to the interviewer, and may not be the fault of Mr. Hawks in all fairness) doesn't give much in the way of evidence to support his viewpoint (note "I'm really thinking just the opposite of this paper," is about as strong as it gets in the article. www.johnhawks.net has a bit more). Mr. Hawks seems to be carrying on the research of his doctoral advisor, Milford Wolpoff, who strongly advocates the multiregional idea. It seems here that we have a researcher who started with a conclusion and is trying to find data to support it, rather than starting with a hypothesis, gathering data, and forming a conclusion (some things can work backward...science isn't one of them). Mr. Hawks seems to be a little ruffled now that someone has published research (which went the right way up the scientific method) which doesn't seem to jive with his view. If you want a great overview of evolution explained in a great manner, grab some books by Stephen Jay Gould (or read up at http://www.stephenjaygould.org./ By far, one of the greatest in the field of Paleontology (co-developer of the idea of Punctuated Equilibrium, which is quite important to this discussion. A shame that Mr. Hawks doesn't seem to be very familiar with this concept). More than worth the read for anyone interested in the subject.

Re:Not so fast

[Anonymous Coward]

It's completely irrelevant, but yes, most dark-skinned people do in fact decrease melanin if they don't get sun exposure.

Your willful attempt to confuse evolution and Lamarckism would earn you a spot on my foes list if you weren't an AC.

Re:Not so fast

[notasheep]

"1. Dark pigmentation is a protection against the sun.
2. When people migrate north were the sun is weaker, over time, the need for sun protection disappears and people lose the pigmentation, hence becoming lighter."

Close, but not quite right. Sun + skin = creation of vitamin D, very important to the human body. Dark-skinned people created less vitamin D in this manner than light-skinned people, but also have better protection from the sun. A good trade-off in equatorial plains regions. As people migrated north they had less exposure to sun and therefore had less natural vitamin D so the sun-blocking benefits of dark skin became a negative to their survival. Lighter-skinned people could create more vitamin D in the northern regions so that became a plus for their survival - so skin became lighter over time in those regions. (Lighter-skinned people lived longer to reproduce.)

At least according to most programs I've caught on the Discovery Channel.

Re:Not so fast

[lawpoop]

Can more variation in Africa really prove anything beyond ... more variation in Africa? I have a degree in anthropology. I recall some mathematical work in populations and genetics that shows that the place with the most diversity is the origin of the species. That because the species has been in that location so long, they've had more time to mutate and spread those genes a lot. I didn't really understand it, but it was highly mathematical.

Anyways, some anthropologist took this population/genetics research and applied it to human populations. First off, they had to show that there was more diversity in Africa. They did this with genetics. So then if Africa has the most human diversity, and the above postulate about populations and diversity is true, then humans must have originated in Africa.

Re:Not so fast

[Trepalium]

It wasn't the need for sun protection, but rather the need for vitamin D that caused those who migrated north to slowly lose their skin pigmentation.

Re:Not so fast

[datapharmer]

No, this is a common misconception about genetics. Genetics don't change over a lifetime (as far as we can prove so far), but rather mutations occur over many generation (evolution)... this is proven over and over again. So the black man wouldn't turn white, but mother's genetics aside his great great great great grand kids would likely be much lighter skinned than him if they all lived in Norther Europe. The reason for the lighter skin is a genetic adaption to absorb UV from the sun for processing into vitamin D. In Africa UV is no problem, so skin protection from the negative impacts of high UV become the selecting force. The other thing to consider about why your "black man moving north" and kin don't turn white is there may no longer be a need for selection now that there are enriched foods. Most commercial milk has components added to increase vitamin D creation, so the skin absorption is less important.

Re:Not so fast

[notasheep]

Just more proof that Slashdot needs a doorman to make sure the people coming in meet a minimum IQ level...

Re:Not so fast

[MightyMartian]

A prediction of the Out of Africa scenario is that the origin point ought to have the highest amount of genetic diversity due to the fact that the oldest populations of modern humans live there, while genetic diversity would decrease as one went farther away from the point of origin.

Let's note here that we're not talking about a few novel mutations (which seems to be what your analogy is about) but more about genetic drift. This would be largely independent of other factors, and so should serve as a reasonably good indicator of the age of a population.

Re:Not so fast

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Among your misconceptions:

1. That evolution is "advancing" toward a goal.
2. That people in Africa didn't continue evolving while remaining in Africa.
3. That skin color can be used to differentiate between individuals based on geographic origin.

Re:Not so fast

[nomadic]

"Differences in skull features are related to genetics, and genetic variation depends on how much mixing occurs with other populations. "The main problem with the paper is that it takes some assumptions from genetics papers of 10 to 15 years ago that we now know are wrong," Hawks said.

Ok it's been a few years since I formally studied anthropology, but from what I remember Boas' (father of American anthropology) most famous paper dealt with facial characteristics and ethnicity, and he found that facial features changed drastically with diet and environment, so presumably cranial shape is part of that.

Re:Not so fast

[Anonymous Coward]

1. That evolution is "advancing" toward a goal.

Evolution's goal is to adapt for survival. The humans who left Africa and went onto places in the colder climates of Europe had to endure new hardships where things like increased intelligence and social cohesion would be beneficial to survival.

2. That people in Africa didn't continue evolving while remaining in Africa.

Random mutations will always occur. Its just a matter of asking if any of these mutations will be selected and kept. If there is no pressure to select them, then it is not likely there will be significant changes as far as evolution is concerned.

3. That skin color can be used to differentiate between individuals based on geographic origin.

Skin color is a crude measure and only one indicator of the sort of biological changes that occured as a result of long-term geographic separation of populations.

Re:Not so fast

[Anonymous Coward]

His comment is crude and overgeneralized, but his message is generally correct. I'd like to see someone attempt a refutation of the idea that the humans who came out of Africa and eventually made their way into the colder parts of Europe did not have some significant biological changes. Its pretty well documented.

Sitting here and telling people they are dumb for correctly interpreting biological data is not I am hoping for.

Re:Not so fast

[the phantom]

Actually, it is simpler than that. Movement out of Africa would occur as small groups leave, to go to other places. Those groups will only carry a subset of the alleles from the larger population. Thus, they will be less genetically diverse.

And it is nice to see another anthropologist on Slashdot. I have my degree in anthropology (focusing in archaeology), with a minor in statistics. ;)

Re:Not so fast

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>"You can't find the origin of people by measuring the variability of their skulls," Hawks said.

Hawks seems to be arguing his conclusion. The restriction of variability through genetic bottlenecking is well known and documented in a wide variety of species. In this case the original authors are suggesting that the bottlenecking occurred as small groups migrated long distances away from the original population. The bottleneck or genetic drift occurs simply because they are small populations with only a subset of the variation of the original, larger population. As larger populations grow from these small groups, they have less variation than the original.

Mancia is arguing that if Homo sapiens had interbred with H. neandertalensis as they expanded, there would be more genetic variation and thus more variation observed in the skulls.

>"At the end of the day, a resolution to the "Out of Africa" debate may be impossible, he said. Most of the evidence can be interpreted as supporting both human-origins theories. "It's really hard to find observations that distinguish the two," Hawks said.

This is not the view of most workers in this field. Hawks is arguing for a distinctly minority point of view. Quoting from Scientific American on this: 'Physical anthropologist Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in St. Louis says few experts doubt the out-of-Africa scenario in broad terms. "The issue is how much modern humans spreading out of Africa after 50,000 years ago interbred with regional groups of archaic humans, where and when"'.

Re:Not so fast

[aevans]

The genetic diversity in Africa comes from the Arabs, Egyptians, Berbers, and Afrikaners. None of whom live in central Africa (the "origin of the species) and all of whom (Except the Egyptians) migrated there quite recently. The rift valley, in fact all of Negro Africans have *way* less genetic diversity than England.

Re:Not so fast

[JLavezzo]

Specifically, the darker pigmentation protects against UV induced Folic acid degradation, producing healthier babies.

Re:Not so fast

[grouchomarxist]

Also, people in colder climates would require clothing to stay warm which means they have less skin to expose to the sun, this in turn would increase the need for lighter skin to create more vitamin D.

Re:Not so fast

[teh_chrizzle]

some people seem to think that there are only 2 theories: Evolution and Creationism, and that if I'm saying "Not so fast", I must be spouting creationist nonsense.

your post was not creationist nonsense. it is obvious that we didn't evolve from africa because adam and eve were white :-)

Re:Not so fast

[sasdrtx]

It's all these newbs with 7-digit ids that are ruining /.

Re:Not so fast

[msaavedra]

I have a degree in anthropology. I recall some mathematical work...I didn't really understand it, but it was highly mathematical.

Typical anthropology major (I kid, I kid. I have a degree in anthropology, too).

I believe I've read the same or similar material. Here is a little more detailed explanation:

Population geneticists have observed more genetic variability within the African population than in other areas. This by itself doesn't mean anything, though. It could just be that the environment in Africa in the old days was pleasant enough that mutant genes had a decent chance of survival, while harsher environments in paleolithic Europe, Asia, etc could weed out genes much more efficiently through very vigorous natural selection.

There is another piece to the puzzle, though. Not only does Africa have a huge amount of variability, but that variability encompasses nearly all the variability found in other places as well. That is, the gene pools of Europe, Asia, etc are basically sub-sets of the African gene pool. Consider the following scenarios that could explain this:

1. The populations in various locations split apart, and evolved somewhat independently. By luck or some unknown process, those new mutations arising in Europe and Asia also arose in Africa. However, those arising in Europe did not arise in Asia, and vice versa.
2. The populations of the various continents split apart, but there is sufficient gene flow for mutations originating in one part of the world to spread to another. By coincidence or some process I'm not familiar with, the mutations arising in Africa spread to Europe and Asia, and those arising elsewhere spread to Africa. However, Europe and Asia have less genetic exchange, even with Africa acting as an intermediary.
3. Modern humans developed almost exclusively in Africa, fairly recently in geological time. They spread through the world, replacing earlier populations with little if any interbreeding. The migrating populations lost some of their genetic variability through natural selection in their new environments, or through forces such as the founder effect.

If think if you put this into mathematical language, you'd find option #3 is definitely the most likely. I wouldn't call it conclusive, though. After all, options #1 and #2 could be correct, if we discover some unknown processes that make them work without resorting to blind luck. In the meantime, though, my bet is on #3.

Re:Not so fast

[aevans]

The only reason people ever thought the "origin of the species" was in Africa is because it supported their argument that blacks (and Khosians) are less "evolved" than whites (and Chinese). As evidence, they point out that black people look (and act) more like monkeys, which everyone knows, come from Africa. When the need to demonize Chinese arrived, it was a happy coincidence to learn that they also have monkeys in Asia, though they seem to be slightly cuter and cleverer than their African simian counterparts, though also (strangly coincidentally) not as big and agressive.

Re:Not so fast

[Narishma]

That's not exactly the case since MJ is a black man that's turning into a white woman.

Re:Not so fast

[daem0n1x]

So, he admits being wrong? Nooo, that's not how human beings behave, stop it! What's this World coming to?

Re:Not so fast

[Paracelcus]

You're all wrong, we were created out of mud by a bronze-age semitic deity 4,000 years ago!
And anybody who disagrees is a terrorist!

Re:Not so fast

[_anomaly_]

... and all these newbs with UID > 2^17 commenting on long UIDs
:-)

Re:Not so fast

[Gilmoure]

Not to mention those annoying 6 digit folks.

Re:Not so fast

[BalanceOfJudgement]

Hilarity ensues.

I wish it were hilarious. It stopped being hilarious to me a long time ago.. these days I just get sick to my stomach.

Re:Not so fast

[Wizy]

You noobs with 6 digits will never learn.

Re:Not so fast

[MightyMartian]

Whatever the origins of the theories of human evolution, the fact is that we did start out in Africa, that the earliest hominid remains to be found outside of Africa are far younger than those found on the continent. The fact is also that there is far greater genetic diversity in Sub-Saharan Africa than everywhere else combined, suggesting that humans have dwelt the longest in that region of the world. Of course, the molecular evidence also shows that modern humans originated relatively recently (about 150,000 years ago) and are still very closely related, pretty much debunking any Victorian racial holdovers that may have occupied a few anthropologists heads.

Re:Not so fast

[lawpoop]

Actually, it is simpler than that. Movement out of Africa would occur as small groups leave, to go to other places. Those groups will only carry a subset of the alleles from the larger population. That is pretty simple, but the trick is convincing someone that this was the case, rather than 'Out-of-Asia' or 'Out-of-Middle-East' or emerge of modern humans from African, Asian, and European hominids.

So all the data we have is the current population around the world. We don't know if they arose from 'everywhere' or, if they arose from a single point, where that point it. We can't really rely on fossil data because it's extremely spotty. So if you can show that modern Africans have more diversity than any other group of humans, then you can conclude whatever have shown about subpopulations with greater diversity.

Unless we were arguing the same point. In which case it's nice to argue anthropology on slashdot! ;)

Re:Not so fast

[smaddox]

I'm not an anthropologist (only a lowly engineer), but I can't help but notice everyone basing their conclusions solely on the genetic distribution of humans. This seems fundamentally flawed given that humans are unlike any other creature. It seems to me that our higher intelligence and strong emotions lead us to actions that animals would not take (such as changing scenery for a reason other than why an animal would do so). For this reason, we can't expect humans to act similarly to animals.

However, what we can do (and have, as far as I know) is look at humans closest relatives (apes) and look at their genetic distribution. Now I'm no expert, but I think apes are most diverse in Africa (maybe Asia?). Now assuming no major geographical changes (i.e. forests turning into deserts), it should be safe to assume that apes originated from Africa (once again assuming that is where they are most diverse). Given that it is common knowledge that apes and humans evolved from a common ancestor, it makes sense that wherever apes originated from, humans originated somewhere not too far off.

Re:Not so fast

[CrankyOldBastard]

Yes I make mistakes. Don't we all?

Yes indeed. I made a mistake once. I believe it was a Tuesday.

Re:Not so fast

[Anonymous Coward]

Judging by the mods and responses, I guess no one at Slashdot remembers Chris Rock's "The Dark Side with Nat X". Either that, or they have no sense of humor.

Re:Not so fast

[Anonymous Coward]

So the black man wouldn't turn white, Obligatory MJ link

Re:Not so fast

[Nullav]

I'd always thought that it had more to do with skin pigmentation becoming a neutral trait. After all, a lot of people ate plants containing vitamin D (and if people with lighter skin aren't selected against anymore, they're bound to pass on the trait, lightening their offspring's skin somewhat as well).

Re:Not so fast

[Darby]

That's not exactly the case since MJ is a black man that's turning into a white woman.That's not exactly the case since MJ is a black man that's turning into a white woman.

Yep, he was born a poor black boy and now he's a rich white woman ;-)

Re:Not so fast

[DeadCatX2]

If humans come from apes, and apes originate in Africa, then perhaps apes migrated from Africa and then everyone roughly turned into humans after that?

Re:Not so fast

[The One and Only]

Actually, the Inuit, who eat Vitamin-D-rich seals, are still fairly dark, unlike other Arctic populations.

Re:Not so fast

[treeves]

Genes don't change but expression of them can change. See epigenetics.

Re:Not so fast

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems typical that wacko evolutionists (for some reason, 99% of /.ers) could come up with a hypotheses and have it destroyed within 24 hours. Stop speaking so matter of factly, you fucking dolts.

Re:Not so fast

[The One and Only]

That's now how it works. "Turning into humans" (or any other species) is a long, involved process that entails some random genetic mutations being advantageous enough for you to spread them around. Then there's some separation that blocks interbreeding between populations. Evolution continues in both populations until they speciate--i.e. they can no longer interbreed because they have separately evolved for long enough. While parallel evolution does happen, the "parallel" species are still different species and can't interbreed. The probability that the exact same series of mutations would happen in even two separate populations is absurdly great, to say nothing of the countless different populations that would arise globally.

Another vague way that could happen is if there were interbreeding between nearby tribes of hominids. This is known as a ring species, and if humans were a ring species, then you could only interbreed with people who descended from your general area. Turks and Arabs could interbreed, and Greeks and Turks could interbreed, and maybe even Greeks and Arabs could interbreed some of the time, but none of them could interbreed with Koreans. This isn't how humanity is--all human populations can interbreed.

Re:Not so fast

[The One and Only]

I'm not an anthropologist (only a lowly engineer), but I can't help but notice everyone basing their conclusions solely on the genetic distribution of humans. This seems fundamentally flawed given that humans are unlike any other creature

But not in ways that would affect genetic distribution, at least not by now. Maybe in 200 years, if everybody is flying all over the place and international/interracial matings are commonplace, genetic distribution is gonna be all fucked up. But until a vanishingly short period of time ago (by an evolutionary standpoint), nobody got any further than they could walk on foot within a lifetime, and most people didn't go very far. Further, from what we know about prehistory, people organized themselves in hunter-gatherer tribes. Human migration at the time wasn't very purposeful--you went from where you were to where you could find enough game and vegetation to live off of. For a very long time, Africa was big enough for everyone, and crossing the Sahara was daunting enough that pretty much everyone stayed in Africa. Eventually some tribes ended up heading up through the Sinai into western Asia--again, not purposefully, but because that was the only place they could find enough vegetation and game to live off of. By combination of this process and a very long period of time, people ended up on every continent. (Well, some ancient people did make boats to colonize certain islands, but that's relatively recent compared to this.)

Most genetic diversity we see today is due to this process, which is not unlike what happens with other species. True, in recent years, vast areas of land have been colonized by people of different ancestries, and a lot of evidence was destroyed through genocides (the Mongols just plain wiped out a lot of people), but since we can control for what's happened within written history, and are fairly sure that people did not sail the Atlantic in prehistoric times ...

Re:Not so fast

[Dimensio]

It looks like my OP is going to be modded -1 Troll anyways, since some people seem to think that there are only 2 theories: Evolution and Creationism, and that if I'm saying "Not so fast", I must be spouting creationist nonsense.

Those people are morons. "Creationism" is not a theory.

Re:Not so fast

[notasheep]

Sorry, but his message is overtly racist and generally asinine. Yes, biological changes did occur, but to characterize them as somehow making white people superior is just plain wrong. Did you actually read the original AC message? If you did, and failed to understand it, then you're just proving the point I made about needing a doorman...

Re:Not so fast

[ghyd]

In this program there's a passage about skin color, which more or less say the same thing as you did:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=journe y+of+man&search=Search

Re:Not so fast

[daddyrief]

So, how old is she now?

Re:Not so fast

[Tatarize]

Actually, even without the need for sun protection the pigmentation doesn't hurt and doesn't just devolve. In reality, lighter skin serves as a method of increasing vitamin D, though blending into the snow a bit better while chasing down a deer or running from some big hulk of a Neanderthal would also be good. Where sun is heavy, protection is more important. Where it is less important, vitamin D is more fit more needed. It doesn't take much, the pigmentation is created by a gene, to evolve lighter skin only takes breaking a couple genes rather than making any fancy new ones. And frankly, those genes for lighter skin are probably already present in any given population and just selecting for them is enough to change skin tone.

In truth, it's a rather minor trait, though your explanation seems more Lamarckian than Darwinian. We're adjusting the gene levels, not just getting a tan.

Re:Not so fast

[Tatarize]

What? You don't believe in Darwinian Evolution? YOU GODDAMN LEMARCKIAN!

Re:Not so fast

[arminw]

.....It's fine, they just forgot that this single origin's name is Adam........

The would have to be at least two. The woman's name was Eve. They got the single origin right, but missed the place. The Garden of Eden was somewhere in what we call Iraq today.

Re:Not so fast

[Vellmont]

It seems here that we have a researcher who started with a conclusion and is trying to find data to support it, rather than starting with a hypothesis, gathering data, and forming a conclusion

While I don't know much about the research in question, this statement struck me as wildly wrong. Theories are quite often developed before there's data to support that theory. The most well known of those is special and general relativity. At the time Einstein created these theories there was very little data to support it. General relativity might have accurately predicted the orbit of mercury where newtonian physics didn't, but that wasn't the only explanation at the time. The data to support relativity was only produced after people started looking for it. You're correct though that much of science has theories to explain evidence previously gathered. You're wrong that science doesn't work the other way around though. It happens all the time.

Re:Not so fast

[ihuntrocks]

There is a slight difference in the methodologies between general/special relativity in the case you speak of and the genetic variance which was being determined by these researchers. When Einstein was developing his theories of general/special relativity, he could largely use mathematical modeling to construct a system under which it could be initially proven, with later, more concrete applications to back up the formulaic approach from the modeling. In this manner, we could determine HOW genetic variation occurs, and build statistical models of how populations could likely vary given particular parameters and arrive at a model this way. This has been done already, which is why we have the two theories of single point and multi-regional origins. Much in the manner that you described where general relativity accurately predicted the orbit of Mercury, so did other competing models at the time. This is the stage that we are at with the two theories of origin which are being discussed. The researchers mentioned in the original article, with a hypothesis and the previously done statistical modeling, set out to find the "hard" evidence which would further substantiate the findings in their models. I am sure that the multi-regional folks have done the same, however, Mr. Hawkes has no mention (that I have found thus far) of "hard" evidence of the type gathered by the research team in the original article to substantiate his claims.

I am not incorrect per se that science doesn't work from the conclusion backward. I should further clarify perhaps, that GOOD science runs from hypothesis to data gathering, testing, and conclusion, while POOR science starts with the conclusion, then gathers evidence, rarely tests (or does not test rigorously enough, or only tests certain applications in which the original conclusion would prove to be true while avoiding or dismissing other testing which might find flaw with it). You are right, it does happen all the time, but that doesn't make it good, correct, or inclusive.

Theories may be well tested and substantiated, and we must accept them until at which point another substantiated theory or model is developed which describes not only the original observations, but either describes them in greater detail or with greater accuracy (as in the case mentioned above between Newtonian Mechanics and general relativity), or describes the previous observation set while managing to accurately describe other observable data not previously described by the last prevailing theory on the subject.

Thus far, the research team mentioned in the original article are doing a good job of holding to this by providing a theory which is able to be substantiated, and accurately describes observable data. Mr. Hawks, and other multi-regional origin theorists are lagging behind at this point. This does not mean that those researchers in the article are right, and Mr. Hawks and his camp are wrong, but as of this time, the researchers from the article have done more to substantiate their theory of a single point of origin. For now, owing to the nature of science and rational though, this is the theory which must be considered to be the most complete and correct.

Re:Not so fast

[StarWreck]

That's not exactly the case since MJ is a black man that's turning into a white woman.

*turned into a white woman.

Re:Not so fast

[Anonymous Coward]

> The Garden of Eden was somewhere in what we call Iraq today.

But but but that's not in Africa! ...?

Re:Not so fast

[DeadCatX2]

That's now how it works. "Turning into humans" (or any other species) is a long, involved process that entails some random genetic mutations being advantageous enough for you to spread them around.

Okay. At what point in this long and involved process do you magically go from ape to human? I would think it would be somewhat of a continuous scale. At any point during this "long, involved process" migration occurs, isn't it possible that they would be still slightly more ape-like than human? And, with evolutionary inertia, some modifications would happen to make the species different, but for the most part the genetic half-and-half algorithm still generally pops out viable embryos.

Maybe. It's just a hypothesis. And this isn't even my field!

Re:Not so fast

[Vellmont]

I should further clarify perhaps, that GOOD science runs from hypothesis to data gathering, testing, and conclusion, while POOR science starts with the conclusion, then gathers evidence, rarely tests (or does not test rigorously enough, or only tests certain applications in which the original conclusion would prove to be true while avoiding or dismissing other testing which might find flaw with it).

"good" science? It's a perfectly valid methodology to devise a theory that isn't supported by evidence and then look for the evidence. I really see no problem with it, and why we should think of it as "bad" science. "bad" science would be science that isn't testable, falsifiable, ignores data, reaches conclusions that don't logically follow, etc. I have no idea if the guy in question produces good science or bad science (as defined above), but then I'm not really addressing that at all.

Re:Not so fast

[Anonymous Coward]

pigmentation also is related to the ability or inability to handle lactose. In regions where skin is darker, vitamin D is gotten from green leafy vegetables, no need to evolve mad milk skills. In northern Europe - where all the milk maids come from - there wasn't an abundance of leafy greens and people needed vitamin D so they developed the ability to process lactose into lactase which is necessary to turn sun beams into yummy delicious vitamin D.

Re:Not so fast

[ihuntrocks]

Your use of "theory" is somewhat incorrect as it relates to science. You are using it in a sense where you have an idea that sounds plausible, though there is nothing to back it up, but you will be attempting to back it up at some point. In science, a theory is a collection of hypotheses which have been shown to be supportable by verifiable data. Also, the methodology you advocate may be a "valid" methodology, but that is not science by definition.

Science follows a process which can be described thusly:

      1. Define the question
      2. Gather information and resources
      3. Form hypothesis
      4. Perform experiment and collect data
      5. Analyze data
      6. Interpret data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypotheses
      7. Publish results

This must also be done objectively and without bias. To start with the conclusion (differing from a hypothesis in that a hypothesis is a "might be" and a conclusion is a "must be") is to introduce bias.

The process you are describing, where one starts with a conclusion which is not supported by any evidence and then seeks to find the evidence which supports the conclusion is not science, but rather pseudoscience as it relies on confirmation rather than refutation. It may seem to work, and you may be able to get a lot of people to buy it, but that doesn't make it science. What that would be is inductive reasoning at best, and if you'd like to stay on that ship you are more than welcome. David Hume will be your captain and you may feel free to sail about the flat Earth. Mind the edges though, the drop can be rather nasty.

Re:Not so fast

[ihuntrocks]

I'm sorry, strike David Hume from that last posting, as that is a total discredit to his empirical nature. I had his work on my mind when I was thinking of inductive reasoning in the previous posting (as he was against its logical admissibility) and I ended up typing his name instead. Please replace "David Hume" with "Archbishop Usher" if you will and ignore my previous slip.

Re:Not so fast

[CCFreak2K]

Karma?

Not if you believe in evolution.

Re:Not so fast

[Tablizer]

Sun + skin = creation of vitamin D, very important to the human body. Dark-skinned people created less vitamin D in this manner than light-skinned people

We humans are solar powered. If you don't mind, I will also try to photosynthesize this coming weekend. But first I have to find some Chloraphyl on ebay...

Re:Not so fast

[Dimensio]

The only reason people ever thought the "origin of the species" was in Africa is because it supported their argument that blacks (and Khosians) are less "evolved" than whites (and Chinese).

This is false. Theories regarding African origins of homo sapiens are derived from the locations at which hominid fossils have been located.

Your claim is based upon no factual evidence whatsoever. I suspect that you are dishonestly fabricating the assertion, as a means of attempting to discredit valid science through lies.

Re:Not so fast

[Nefarious Wheel]

...and crossing the Sahara was daunting enough

Was there really a "Sahara" at that point? Seems I remember reading that most of the desert was made by a certain species overloading the ecosystem in a spreading fashion -- Humans? Goats? Goats were called "The Desert Maker" for a very long time.

And I filter out anything from the .cx domain, thank you very much.

Re:Not so fast

[Anonymous Coward]

However, what we can do (and have, as far as I know) is look at humans closest relatives (apes) and look at their genetic distribution. Now I'm no expert, but I think apes are most diverse in Africa (maybe Asia?). Now assuming no major geographical changes (i.e. forests turning into deserts), it should be safe to assume that apes originated from Africa (once again assuming that is where they are most diverse). Given that it is common knowledge that apes and humans evolved from a common ancestor, it makes sense that wherever apes originated from, humans originated somewhere not too far off. Actually, apes have far more genetic diversity in Asia (far more species, and there's more genetic difference between a gibbon and an orang than between a gorilla and a chimp). In any case, ancestors of humans did not split off from a common ancestor of all apes: on more than occasion, ancestors of humans and some modern apes split off from ancestors of other modern apes; and the apes we split off from last are African.

Re:Not so fast

[master_p]

I am not an anthropologist, but what you say is very easily observable in real life: There are quite a few afroamericans that have lighter skin than Africans. As a long-time basketball fan, I am surprised to see more and more NBA players of african origin to have lighter skin, compared to 20 and 30 years ago. Of course the effect is not only because of environmental reasons, but also because of interracial marriages.

As I citizen of a Mediterranean country, I have traveled in various places in Europe. I was once in Paris, in the metro. Next to me, there was a lady of African origin, obvious from her eyes and lips. But her skin was white! it was much whiter than mine! Her eyes were pitch black, whereas my eyes are between brown and green (depending on lighting), but my skin was much darker than her skin. It was a short but enlightening experience on real-life genetic variations.

Re: Not so fast

[Black Parrot]

since some people seem to think that there are only 2 theories: Evolution and Creationism Only creationists think that. Everyone else can plainly see that there's no theory of creationism.

(A collection of claims is not a theory.)

Re:Not so fast

[tehcyder]

I have a degree in anthropology. I recall some mathematical work in populations and genetics that shows that the place with the most diversity is the origin of the species. That because the species has been in that location so long, they've had more time to mutate and spread those genes a lot. I didn't really understand it, but it was highly mathematical.

Well, I don't know about anyone else here, but that's totally convinced me.

Re:Not so fast

[Vellmont]

I guess we simply disagree then about what science is then. I don't think it's a narrowly defined process you see in textbooks.

Re:Not so fast

[Guignol]

Was she grabing her crotch singing "I'm bad" ?

Ooops sorry I missed the part where you said it was an enlightening experience...

Re:Not so fast

[lawpoop]

That's a good guess. But supposedly the genetic research points to an origin in Africa, because of the diversity. Also, there are other "apes", or homonids, such as Neanderthal and Cro-magnon, running around outside of Africa, but so are modern humans. So modern humans are found in Africa before any ape ancestors migrated out, IIRC. The wikipedia article is pretty informative.

Re:Not so fast

[The One and Only]

Speciation occurs when one population can no longer interbreed with another, either directly or transitively. (Transitive interbreeding is what happens in ring species--population A can interbreed with population B, who can interbreed with population C, so A and C are part of the same species even if they can't directly interbreed).

Re:Not so fast

[The One and Only]

There probably was something there, since there's a slight "gap" so to speak between sub-saharan Africans and other humans, and that usually occurs with a geographic barrier.

Re:Not so fast

[dasunt]

Does your theory explain why Tasmanians were so dark skinned and Europeans are so pale?

There are many examples of people living at similar latitudes for similar periods of time and having different skin colors. There is also the issue of latitude-vs-amount-of-sunlight, and how some of the most cloud-covered areas of the world have some of the darkest people.

I am leaning towards the theory that skin color is strongly related towards sexual selection with a prevelant "founder effect" in play.

Re:Not so fast

[notasheep]

Tasmania is fairly sunny. It is hard to be certain, but some early accounts suggest that the Tasmanian Aborigines did not wear a lot of clothing. Another point is that they were hunter-gatherers, with access to meat and seafood, which could have provided good sources of vitamin D. Oddly enough, there seemed to be a taboo on fish, but they certainly ate seals, seabirds and shellfish. Many of the tribes would have had access to such coastal resources.

No one knows for sure since the aboriginal Tasmanians were wiped out in the 1800's.

Re:Not so fast

[DeadCatX2]

Not all organisms all over the world would cross the speciation "barrier" at the same time, though. So, does this imply that for speciation to occur, transitive interbreeding must first occur, and then population B must then disappear, separating A and C?

Re:Not so fast

[jc42]

Unless we were arguing the same point. In which case it's nice to argue anthropology on slashdot! ;)

Well, yeah, but the problem is that most people here (and elsewhere) are effectively arguing against a "strawman" scenario that nobody actually supports, and people are missing the real point of the dispute.

Nobody seriously argues that the human species originated anywhere but Africa. The evidence of that is overwhelming, and evidence of humans elsewhere on the planet is fairly recent (geologically speaking ;-). It's obvious from the evidence that humans spread out from Africa, though exactly when depends on which fossils you accept as "human". It's better to say that "hominids" arose in Africa and spread from there.

The actual question being debated is whether all modern human genes originated in Africa and spread to the rest of the world, or whether some small number of alleles of a few genes appeared elsewhere and spread from there.

The problem with the sort of argument being made here is that it doesn't help to show that some specific set of genes arose in Africa. This says nothing at all about the possibility that some other alleles appeared elsewhere.

Since mutations are very close to random, the default assumption should be that mutations arose in all populations at a rate proportional to the size of each population. But note that this says nothing about where any specific mutation happened. To settle the argument would require finding proof that either 1) some specific allele(s) first appeared in a specific area outside of Africa and spread from there, or 2) finding proof that all alleles of all genes first appeared in Africa. So far, we haven't actually pinpointed the origin of even one allele of one gene. So arguing about it is basically silly.

(Actually, we do know the exact origin of a few recent mutations. Unfortunately, they are for things like haemophilia, and aren't likely to spread to the rest of the species. ;-)

Re:Not so fast

[jc42]

So, he admits being wrong? Nooo, that's not how human beings behave, stop it!

The conclusion is obvious: He's not a human. He's a visiting alien trying to pass for human. But we caught him by his non-human behavior!

Re:Not so fast

[lawpoop]

Nobody seriously argues that the human species originated anywhere but Africa. If I recall my anthropology classes correctly, that's true now, but there was a time when not everybody was so sure about that. Certainly hominids arose in Africa, but there was some debate about whether physiologically modern humans arose in Africa, or somewhere else, or were a mongrel of different hominids running across the continents.

The evidence of that is overwhelming, and evidence of humans elsewhere on the planet is fairly recent (geologically speaking ;-). It's obvious from the evidence that humans spread out from Africa, though exactly when depends on which fossils you accept as "human". It's better to say that "hominids" arose in Africa and spread from there. Thus the debate, I guess.

Re:Not so fast

[fuliginous]

Most likely those who didn't have the protection would die most often with fewer progeny. As that defense is no longer needed more people less tanned would survive until (getting silly now) they got near the snow. Once there it's an advantage to blend in against the white backdrop or be eaten by (the then) wolves.

It's only through needs (resulting in pruning from the evolutionary paths) that changes occur.

Re:Not so fast

[Anonymous Coward]

and yet none of you "anthropologists" with your keen insights have papers on this.

What about future cross breading?

[jellomizer]

I am wondering if this information may or may not discount the theory the Homosapians and Neanderthalls in Europe may have cross breaded?

Re:What about future cross breading?

[cliffiecee]

Mmmm, breaded Neanderthalls >

Re:What about future cross breading?

[vigmeister]

I know this is offtopic, but the following lyrics played in my head when I read this:

Does it bother me at all
My rival is neanderthal, it makes me think
Perhaps I need a drink

Iq is no problem here
We wont be playing scrabble for her hand I fear
I need that beer
-Sting, Seven Days

Cheers!

Re:What about future cross breading?

[Uthic]

Hm probably not, I doubt they even had the wherewithal to make bread,let alone trade it!

Re:What about future cross breading?

[Penguinisto]

One must never discount those wild Ice-Age parties, where beer-goggling can lead to more than just a little shame. ("Dude, you slept outside your own species!? WTF were you thinking?! I TOLD you not to eat the worm! Didn't I? Didn't I? But NooooOOOOooo... you just had to!")

After all, condoms hadn't even been invented yet, y'know?

/P

Re:What about future cross breading?

[mothrafokker]

I think it's highly believable that they traded various recipes for rolls, pastries, and other breads.

Re:What about future cross breading?

[Anonymous Coward]

As breadedness goes, I've often wondered whether we want to know where those yeasts and molds come from. Is Brie _Neanderthal_ toe jam?

Re:What about future cross breading?

[morgan_greywolf]

Deep-fried, on a stick, covered in cheese? Now you're making me hungry!

Re:What about future cross breading?

[Red Flayer]

Homosapians? I know it's just a spelling error, but as everyone knows, apians are bees. So, let me ask you a question:

Are you attracted to gay bees?

Disclaimer: I realize that not everyone here watched SNL in the early 80s. If you didn't, I'm sorry you don't get the joke -- but I don't mean to offend any gays or bee fetishists.

Re:What about future cross breading?

[DragonWriter]

I am wondering if this information may or may not discount the theory the Homosapians and Neanderthalls in Europe may have cross breaded?

Whether H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis interbred to result in H. sapiens sapiens or whether, OTOH, H. sapiens sapiens evolved from H. sapiens alone before, after, or while the latter displaced H. neanderthalensis in Europe is somewhat irrelevant to the question of whether H. sapiens had a single origin in Africa.

It might be relevant to the question of whether H. sapiens sapiens had a single origin, which would be a different question. (A subspecies without a single origin would seem to be less surprising; a species with multiple origins would be, AFAIK, rather unusual.)

Re:What about future cross breading?

[Silver Sloth]

That's why Neaderthals became extinct, they were eaten.

Re:What about future cross breading?

[A nonymous Coward]

Are you talking about gay (bee fetishists) or (gay bee) fetishists?

Re:What about future cross breading?

[A nonymous Coward]

After all, condoms hadn't even been invented yet, y'know?

No I don't know. Plastics weren't invented until the 1800s and 1900s, but there were condoms made from organic materials before then. Said organic materials aren't likely to be preserved in the archaeological record of 30,000 years ago, so we can't tell if they had condoms back then.

Re:What about future cross breading?

[MightyMartian]

It might be relevant to the question of whether H. sapiens sapiens had a single origin, which would be a different question. (A subspecies without a single origin would seem to be less surprising; a species with multiple origins would be, AFAIK, rather unusual.)

I don't think it's that unusual. There are plenty of species complexes out there. Probably the most familiar example is genus Canis (dogs). A large number of the members of this family are reproductively compatible, and gene flow between various populations ranging from domesticated dogs, wolves and coyotes (and other wild dogs) still occurs where territories overlap. It's also reasonably common in plant populations.

If Neandertal's and moderns were capable of producing viable, reproductively-capable offspring, then one would expect to find in the molecular data some reflection of a more ancient origin. The mtDNA research thus far indicates not, but there's still some possibility as we peer into Neandertal nuclear DNA that we may find some links there. That would certainly alter the Out of Africa theory from an exclusionary one to having to allow for local hominid populations descended from earlier H. erectus migrations having to be counted into the mix.

Let's be clear, though, that even making allowances for Neandertals contributing to modern human genes still is not the strong statement that the Multiregional Hypothesis makes; namely that a number of modern human populations evolved from earlier hominid migrations out of Africa, and that gene flow has largely kept us homogenous and not lead to reproductive isolation. The growing body of genetic evidence seems to topple the multiregional theory, but doesn't necessarily state that some older populations couldn't have added something to our modern genetic makeup.

Re:What about future cross breading?

[CastrTroy]

This is what I thought too. I think it would be kind of weird if the same species evolved in 2 different places. What are the odds of that happening? Say you have Homo Erectus in Asia and Africa. What are the odds that both would eventually evolve into homosapiens. It seems completely logical and non-surprising that humans originated in a single spot.

Re:What about future cross breading?

[teasea]

I am wondering if this information may or may not discount the theory the Homosapians and Neanderthalls in Europe may have cross breaded?

Actually this was my thought and might explain the thicker brows of those in colder climates. It may not be so much a development in response to the climate as a trait inherited from our Neanderthal brethren. Of course this assumes cross breeding is even possible.

<joke type=bad>Or if the Neaderthals could make a decent Panillo</joke>.

Re:What about future cross breading?

[thedeadswiss]

So, you're suggesting that they invented hot cross buns?

Re:What about future cross breading?

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

Are you talking about gay (bee fetishists) or (gay bee) fetishists?

gay bee fetishists = gay modifies the word bee, so we are talking about fetishists who are gay bees or into gay bees.

gay, bee fetishists = gay modifies the word fetishists, so we are talking about gay fetishists who are into bees.

It's all about the commas.

Re:What about future cross breading?

[datapharmer]

That theory has been all but discounted by studying non-coding DNA. Assuming the mtDNA tests hold up to time it is pretty certain that Neandertals are separate from humans, but likely did interact in some manner (it may have been indirect). There are cases of similar tool technology in Europe but it may have been a case of finding some stone points and replicating them. Personally I think they had physical interaction to some degree as the tools in question are rather difficult to make.

Re:What about future cross breading?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Plastics weren't invented until the 1800s and 1900s, but there were condoms made from organic materials before then. "

In days of old,
When knights were bold,
And condoms not invented -

They wrapped their cocks,
In woolen socks,
And babies were prevented.

Re:What about future cross breading?

[rhakka]

that's very educational. But I have to point out that if the grammatical constructs are not intuitive enough to be grasped without intense study, then they are useless for normal conversation.

I actually prefer the parenthetical method the GP used; it's much clearer and more intuitive in a written mode.

Just musing. I think most of the rules regarding "proper" language usage are just as arbitrary as common usage patterns are. I am further musing that a superior language construction, regardless of what is "right", is one that is less ambiguous and more clear, intuitively. Less chance for misunderstanding, as this post shows: the OP was written grammatically correctly for one given meaning, but unless you assume that the person is speaking queen's english, you are not sure of what the intended meaning.

Since you obviously know more about the "proper" constructions.. I'm curious what you think about this series of statements (grammatical or spelling errors aside :D)? I suspect you might have an opposing view?

Re:What about future cross breading?

[ahodgson]

Hardly. The best way to make sure a species doesn't go extinct is to make them taste good to humans. We'd have ranches full of them in no time.

Re:What about future cross breading?

[kiracatgirl]

Tsk, you shouldn't go teaching people grammar when you don't know what you're talking about either. A comma there is just entirely wrong. You want gay bee-fetishists for the second one, as it links the bee to fetishists so you have bee fetishists who are also gay.

Either way, the other post was perfectly fine. After all, as this is a board populated by nerds and geeks who are much more familiar with mathematical syntax than linguistic syntax and the entire point of language is to communicate, using the methods the targets are most familiar with is more effective. :P

Re:What about future cross breading?

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>I actually prefer the parenthetical method the GP used; it's much clearer and more intuitive in a written mode.

It is for you and me and probably most in this forum who are comfortable with math constructions like (A+B)*C != A+(B*C). It is clear, because we are used to math and programming language structures. I would argue that it is not intuitive for those not used to those forms.

I learned the comma usage I outlined above at a young age, probably sixth or seventh grade. To me, it is "intuitive", but only because it is so deeply ingrained. It is still learned usage like the parenthetical method. The rules of English grammar and punctuation are mostly clear and unambiguous. They are certainly less well-known now that they were thirty years ago. Usage is more arbitrary and inconsistent than it was. Lots of people say, "I seen," instead of "I saw" or "I have seen".

One of the attorneys I use at work is fond of saying that "words and punctuation have to mean something, or there's no point in using them." Just as programming languages have rules about ending statements with commas or semicolons or nothing, English has rules about the use of things such as punctuation and sentence structure. The placement of commas in a contract can change the meaning in ways that cost big bucks. Just as a compiler applies a set of rules to compile code, there is a set of rules to decide what language means.

You used the word "arbitrary" a couple of times. I agree that to some extent the rules are arbitrary. For example, we could just as well use two commas ",," instead of a semicolon ";". However, arbitrary does not mean inconsistent.

I largely agree with you. I do think it is important to know the rules for the sandbox you're playing in. The previous sentence is fine here, but the dangling participle wouldn't fly for me in business correspondence.

Re:What about future cross breading?

[The One and Only]

Most condoms aren't made from plastic. Okay, almost no condoms are made from plastic. Condoms are made from latex, a naturally occurring product of certain South American trees. They are also made from animal intestine, for whose who are allergic to latex.

Re:What about future cross breading?

[MightyMartian]

This is what I thought too. I think it would be kind of weird if the same species evolved in 2 different places. What are the odds of that happening? Say you have Homo Erectus in Asia and Africa. What are the odds that both would eventually evolve into homosapiens. It seems completely logical and non-surprising that humans originated in a single spot.

I'm going to preface this by saying that I am an advocate of the Out of Africa hypothesis. The Multi-regional hypothesis, in my opinion at least, is untenable in the light of the molecular data that has been gathered in the last two decades.

That being said, I think it's important to understand what the Multiregional Hypothesis says, and why, if it wasn't for a nasty little matter of the data, it could still be a tenable theory.

To start with, it's important to understand that there is a distinct possibility that hominid populations from different periods could still interbreed and create reproductively viable offspring. It's possible that an H. erectus female could be impregnated by an H. sapiens male, if there was some way in which the latter could jump into a time machine and meet up with the former. (That's not to say that they could interbreed, it's also possible that modern humans could not successfully do so).

If we accept this bit of hypothesizing as possibly true, then we can carry on with the Multiregional Hypothesis, which states that certain populations have very long histories, predating any alleged arrival of modern humans out of Africa (ie. the Cro Magnons of Europe). Despite the vast distances of Eurasia and Africa, the hypothesis states that there would still be gene flow between various populations, enough that no population would be truly reproductively isolated. Perhaps certain innovated genes that would represent new abilities found in modern humans could have trickled down through time to various populations throughout the Old World. Certainly H. erectus was hanging around Eurasia for a very long time, more than long enough for any such new abilities to find their way across the landmass.

So we have a scenario in which H. erectus populations evolve for hundreds of thousands of years in only partial isolation. Out of these groups arise diverse groups like the Mongoloids of East Asia, the ancient Aborigines and Aborigine-like peoples of Australia and New Guinea, as well as other groups.

It was a perfectly acceptable theory for some time, and seem strengthened by the fact that even after what seemed like physically modern humans appeared, they're toolkits and they're general cultural behavior seemed little different than that of earlier populations like H. neandertal, suggesting that the less robust features of modern humans was in and of itself not a particular sign of some great intellectual leap forward in hominid evolution. These less robust populations were only the latest iteration in a slow evolution from H. erectus to modern forms. Perhaps the major innovations; fully articulated and modern language and culture, were simply an inevitably of neural wiring that took a long time to express itself, or perhaps it was a novel genetic innovation that simply took time to spread throughout existing populations.

The essential idea behind the Multiregional hypothesis is that there was never a true reproductive isolation in the Old World that would have lead to separate species. It is somewhat analogous to what we see with the Canid complex, where there are many varieties of wolves, coyotes, wild and domesticated dogs that, because there is still at least some gene flow, are never truly reproductively isolated.

What really blows the Multiregionalists out of the water is that the data simply doesn't support it. If they were right, a molecular analysis of various populations would show a rather complex pattern of inheritance, as genes spread almost in waves across populations over hundreds of thousands of years. The reality is that there is

Re:What about future cross breading?

[Anonymous Coward]

A couple of comments about parent post:

1. I don't care how you dangle your participles, but it is a serious mistake to apply the grammar of Latin to English sentences. English does not have verb tenses in the same way Latin did, nor does it have the same kind of syntax structures, and trying to impose Latin rules upon English was an ill-conceived effort by English teachers from the 1800s that has only proved that you can give a lot of people a great deal of training without actually providing any of them with an education.

   Perhaps if Latin had been more like English and not so gawdawful inflexible in its constructions, it would not have become the dead language that it is today.

2. English is not only very flexible, but it is currently evolving more rapidly than any language has ever done before. Periods of rapid growth in a language are characterized by a relaxation of its grammar and syntax as new words and constructions are introduced from foreign sources. This language needs room to breathe and grow.

We are now several years past the point where the number of people who speak English as a second language is greater than the number of native English speakers.

We are approaching the point where the amount of daily English conversations between non-native speakers exceeds the number of conversations where at least one party is a native speaker. In some technical areas, like 3D modeling and animation, it is now common to see German, French, Italian, and Brazilian collaborators using English to communicate with each other.

Re:What about future cross breading?

[Tablizer]

[Homosapians and Neanderthalls in Europe may have cross breaded?] I think it's highly believable that they traded various recipes for rolls, pastries, and other breads.

Both new species and new recipes come about from spelling mutations.

Oh really?

[SatanicPuppy]

I would like to summarize all the following concise and logical refuations from the Intelligent Design Proponents:

"NUH-UH!"

They're clearly right. This proof of human evolutionary origins only has 6,000 empty skulls worth of evidence; Intelligent Design has many many more empty skulls than that.

Re:Oh really?

[Red Flayer]

None of those posts appeared yet. Why invoke them? For karma?

The sooner they are relegated to obscurity, the better -- then most people will consider them the crackpots that they are. Giving them attention before they even appear doesn't help.

Re:Oh really?

[jellomizer]

Which version of Intelligent Design?
There are many different Intelligent Design "Theories" or beleafs. Some of the more liberal have All the science works out and humans did come from ape like creatures over millions of years, the only difference is they replace the word Random with Controlled by a higher being or a God. Needless to say a person of faith would normally not attribute anything as completly random but controlled in some way by a God or higher beeing. But in terms of science it is OK to say it is random because God cannot be proven or disproven thus making him a bad varable to use in science. So the point is just because someone has faith and says they beleave in intelegent Design you shouldn't assume they are dumb don't follow the science and doesn't know what is going on, sure there are some people who do fit that but there are others who actually follow the science and agree with the evidence, but just figure the Random Element used for the calculation in science is actually controlled by a higher force.

Re:Oh really?

[Himring]

What I find most surprising about ID and /. is that it is always first mentioned, and mostly tossed about, by those who obviously disagree (to put it mildly).

Re:Oh really?

[Himring]

There are many different Intelligent Design "Theories" or beleafs.

beleafs in trees....

Re:Oh really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, in fact Slashdot is the only place where I ever read about intelligent design. Then again I live in Europe.

Re:Oh really?

[loafula]

probably because the posters want to be comedians. in my experience, the people i know who believe in ID tend to be more naive than those who do not believe in ID. believers take for granted something that the large amount of evidence points away from. ID is a social issue, and pointing out social flaws (for lack of a better word) is the meat of comedy.

Re:Oh really?

[Himring]

Good point. /.ers -- including myself -- are all struggling comedians. As my buddy used to say to a bad joke, "there's a 1000 comedians out of work, and you're trying to be funny...."

As far as someone who doesn't see things my way being naive: I must say, my friend, though must be young, for I am old, and I have learned I know nothing except for the fact that all I once knew was nothing more than me thinking the other person knew less....

Re:Oh really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats a good point.

As far as ID proponents being more naive it's the opposite. Being a skeptic is easy, especially when its' the side dodging all of the slander. whats the benefit in knowing something when all your going to do with it is tell people how stupid they are?

Re:Oh really?

[A nonymous Coward]

Yup, in fact Slashdot is the only place where I ever read about intelligent design. Then again I live in Europe.

Well that explains it all! All decent god fearing Americans understand that intelligent and Europe don't go together. An intelligent designer would have intelligently designed things such that the smart people in Europe would migrate to America where they could displace the other dumb people who had only been invented to give the intelligent people target practice.

Duh!

Re:Oh really?

[Merk]

Intelligent Design is fundamentally incompatible with science.

At first the claim is "Adam and Eve were created magically, ate fruit, etc." the version that's straight out of the bible, that involves no species change at all, all creatures simply being created, and puts the age of the earth at a few thousand years. This theory quickly gets knocked down because it's easy to prove that the earth is more than a few thousand years old.

More convoluted theories -- sorry, "stories", because theories are things that are testable and disprovable and the Intelligent Design people really want to avoid that -- so these more convoluted stories are introduced next. In these ones, the earth is at least millions of years old, so the dates in the bible are wrong, but everything else happened (i.e. humans were dropped on the planet by god, fully formed). This version of the story gets debunked too because it's easy to prove that evolution exists.

Some people keep clinging to the previous story because they're afraid to challenge the stories they've been told, but other people think they can be scientific by saying they believe in evolution, but that the processes controlling it aren't random, they're controlled by god. This story starts breaking down too, because it becomes obvious that most mutations are failures, and only a select few are useful, they truly are random events.

In the end, it comes down to either evolution is a truly random process with no god overseeing it at all, or that the god is generating mutations that are so similar to random mutations that they're completely indistinguishable from random noise... and at that point, Occam's razor comes into play. If there's indeed a god, but the only influence he/she has on the world is so small it's indistinguishable from random noise, what point is there in believing in a deity at all, let alone praying, following an obviously false bible, etc.

Re:Oh really?

[jellomizer]

Many Versions of Intelligent Design is fundamentally incompatible with science.

The ones you point out are the ones that are more on the Creationist side of it. The ones that Radical Religious people like to spew out and Athiests like to give as en example of why religion is wrong. (To pollar oposits using each other rederick to make their point) There are others who understand that Intelligent Disign is not science but faith, and the science doesn't conflect with it.

Re:Oh really?

[Himring]

It's like politics. When I was younger I was passionate about it. But I just don't have the stomach for it anymore. As soon as I hear someone bashing one side or the other, I tune out....

Re:Oh really?

[Blitz22]

I believe you're talking about "Theistic Evolution", catholics like it.

Re:Oh really?

[aevans]

If men evolved from monkeys, then what did the monkeys evolve from?

Re:Oh really?

[grub]

Not this tired old line again.
Humans and other existing primates share a common ancestry.

Re:Oh really?

[Anonymous Coward]

...beleafs...beeing...beleave...intelegent Apearently, hooked on fonics didint werk fore yoo.

Re:Oh really?

[plunge]

Whenever someone mentions ID, they almost always mean the modern movement, whose core figures are the Discovery Institute, Philip Johnson, Bill Dembski, Michael Behe, etc. Most people do NOT mean, by Intelligent Design, things like theistic evolution.

Re:Oh really?

[arminw]

.....it's easy to prove that the earth is more than a few thousand years old.......

Proving anything is very hard. Proving origins and things that took place supposedly millions of years ago is impossible. The best anyone can do is to present certain evidence. All evidence is based on certain assumptions (beliefs) which cannot be proved.

To assert that some object is N number of years old there has to be some sort of evidence of a reliable clock that has been ticking uniformly for all that time and there has to be some evidence that associates the clock with that object.

Scientists must assume (believe) that the ticks of certain clocks (radioactivity, tree rings, ice cores, deposition of minerals, magnetization etc.) are 1) equally spaced over time and 2) can be tied to time as defined by the motion of the earth around the sun (years). There is no way anyone can KNOW whether these uniformitarian assumptions (beliefs) are true. There is evidence for some rather catastrophic sudden events in the past.

There may be other "clocks", but one of the ones I mentioned, which is often cited in global warming debates is the ice core analysis, such as in the ice that now covers most of Greenland. There are clearly layers of ice. The assumption (belief) is that these are deposited at the rate of one layer annually. So they count the layers and based on the annual assumption, the bottom of the ice is hundreds of thousands years or even millions of years old.

Some aircraft that had crash landed there in WW2 were discovered after 42 years under 263 feet of ice, compressed into several distinct layers per foot. This shows that these layers are NOT annual cycles, but simply periods of warmer and colder weather. Thus this evidence shows that the assumption about the annual nature of these layers is wrong. Therefore, these layers cannot be equated to years.

Scientists have determined that roughly 400 million tons of minerals are deposited yearly into the world's oceans. Today's mineral content (mostly NaCl) is less than 4%. At today's rate, IF it were really true that the earth is over a billion years old the water of the sea should be totally saturated with minerals. At the present rate, the salt content corresponds to around only 4000 years worth of accumulation. This corresponds to about the time of the biblical flood. This is evidence that the earth is not billions of years old, but still doesn't PROVE it, since we have no way of knowing whether the rate of mineral addition has always been constant. There also could have been a mechanism to remove minerals from the water, although so far nobody has come forward with a plausible mechanism.

There is no PROOF anyone can show that the earth is billions of years old, but there is evidence for both a very young earth and universe.

Re:Oh really?

[arminw]

.......believers take for granted something that the large amount of evidence points away from...........

But if there IS some evidence that agrees with the ID idea, then it either has to be explained away or the minority who accepts the evidence gets shouted down and/or ridiculed. Of course we KNOW that the majority is ALWAYS right.

Re:Oh really?

[loafula]

please, show me this evidence.

Re: Oh really?

[Black Parrot]

What I find most surprising about ID and /. is that it is always first mentioned, and mostly tossed about, by those who obviously disagree (to put it mildly). That's what happens to beliefs that become a joke.

You'll notice that the idea that aliens abduct people to 'probe' them doesn't get a lot of respect around here either.

Re: Oh really?

[Himring]

You do realize that you will now, soon, be abducted and horridly probed....

Re: Oh really?

[Black Parrot]

You do realize that you will now, soon, be abducted and horridly probed.... Again?!?!?

Re: Oh really?

[Himring]

I sense a school-girl excitement....

Re:Oh really?

[arminw]

......please, show me this evidence......

OK, I show you a few points that even only creating the CONDITIONS needed for life to develop is highly unlikely without the operation of intelligence. The mechanics of life are vastly more intricate than all of physics. Yet even the physical conditions required for the possibility of life to start are so many and so precise, that the chance of this happening is 20 orders of magnitude smaller than the estimated number of subatomic particles in the known universe.

If you would look at all the physics parameters and ratios needed for there to even be one planet like earth, you would come up with about a one chance in 10^-24 of all stars might have a planet that could sustain life. Half of all stars are eliminated from having a planet like ours simply by the fact that they are too close together or too far apart.

The proton is exactly 1836 times the mass of an electron. If that ratio were even a little larger or smaller, the formation of molecules could not happen. The force of gravity in relation to the other forces has to be exactly right. Otherwise there could not be elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. The electromagnetic force that holds electrons and the nuclei of atoms together has to be right. Otherwise, again, there would be no large molecules needed for life. If you statistically analyze all the parameters we know about, that have to be right, it comes up with numbers far exceeding any imagined probabilities that evolutionary theory can come up with. There may be some that nobody has even thought about yet.

Evolution depends on immense periods of time. There is plenty of evidence the universe and the earth are not nearly as old as evolutionists try to make use believe. I'll give you one.

Scientists have determined that roughly 400 million tons of minerals are deposited yearly into the world's oceans. Today's mineral content (mostly NaCl) is less than 4%. At today's rate, IF it were really true that the earth is over a billion years old the water of the sea should be totally saturated with minerals. At the present rate, the salt content corresponds to around only 4000 years worth of accumulation. Could it be the mineral deposition into the seas began around the time of the great flood of Noah?

Re:Oh really?

[loafula]

where did you get your data? the creation museum?

the fact is that there is a probability, regardless how small, that the conditions can exist to support life. given the vast amount of matter and energy, the conditions will be right somewhere (and perhaps even elsewhere).

what happens when a sub-atomic particle isn't exactly 1836 times more massive than an electron? atoms don't form, and you are left with quarks, photons, gluons and all the other amazing little bits of matter that are being discovered.

scientists have also determined fossils to be 65,000,000 years old through carbon dating. scientists have also found animals 10,000 years old frozen in glaciers. there is much stronger evidence supporting the earth to be 4 billion years old than there is supporting a 6000 year old earth.

the sea is not saturated with minerals because earth is not static. minerals recycle themselves much the same was as water. only instead of evaporation and rain, we have them depositing on beaches or the ocean floor, or they enter the ground at underwater fault lines to be churned in the molten core before reaching the surface some where and when else.

the problem with the ID standpoint is proponents of ID have a preconcieved notion of what they are looking for. they believe in ID, so they look for evidence to support it; or, look at evidence in a way that could support it. evolution theory was not formed by this approach. it is the result of unbiased analysis of evidence, it is a damn good explaination of why we see such evidence.

Re:Oh really?

[arminw]

....scientists have also determined fossils to be 65,000,000 years old through carbon dating......

It is a science fact that we find fossils all over the earth. The very existence of fossils cries out loudly against the idea of evolution over immense periods of time. Nobody has ever made a fossil nor watched one form in nature. Today when a living thing dies, it decays. It never makes a fossil. I order to make one, the creature to be fossilized has to die quickly, along with all decay causing organisms and then be buried away from air. An unimaginably violent, world wide, sudden catastrophe, such as a flood could have made fossils and coal beds found all over the globe, not slow burial in sediments over great periods of time. A geologic construct, such as the Grand Canyon could never be formed by a puny little Colorado River.

If the Universe were really billions of years old, there should no longer be such a thing as comets. However there are still plenty of them. So to get around this quandary, an evolutionist astronomer named Jan Oort came up with a hypothetical thing that has been named the Oort cloud where comets are supposed to originate. Of course, such a cloud has never been found. Science is observation and experiment, not somebody's imagination of non-existent constructs.

Evolution is faith in lots and lots of time. It basically substitutes billions and millions of years for the creative power of God. The evolutionist's God is time, lots of time. Without all that supposed time, evolution is a dead farce, pure belief, masquerading as science.

Re:Oh really?

[loafula]

explain to me how the light from the andromeda galaxy, which is 2.5 MILLION light years away, can be seen present day. and if you give the compulsory "he gave the light a head start" argument, then please explain why he wants to trick us. it seems like a dirty trick to pull for an all-loving benevolent creator

The Oort cloud is thought to be a remnant of the original protoplanetary disc that formed around the Sun approximately 4.6 billion years ago note the part that says "approximately 4.6 billion years"

The major geologic exposures in Grand Canyon range in age from the 2 billion year old Vishnu Schist at the bottom of the Inner Gorge to the 230 million year old Kaibab Limestone on the Rim

evolution is not faith by any means. it is a logical conclusion brought by observation cold hard facts. god is the only farce here- a two thousand year old construct to try and explain the previously unexplainable. the modern day zeus, whipping lightning bolts from the top of olympus because the romans didn't understand static electricity.

Re:Oh really?

[arminw]

.....then please explain why he wants to trick us. it seems like a dirty trick to pull for an all-loving benevolent creator......

He doesn't trick anyone. When scientists tell us an object is a certain distance away, such as so many light years, they are making an unwarranted assumption. That assumption is that light has always travelled at the speed it does today. The speed of light is a variable, depending on the properties of what it is going through. Light speed is NOT a fundamental constant. Space is not an empty nothing but has certain properties. There is evidence that the speed of light was at least 300 million times faster immediately after what is commonly called the "big bang" than we observe today. It has decayed about exponentially since then and is still changing a little even now. Since the speed of light was first measured in the early 1600s by Roemer, it has dropped about 4%. With the expansion of space, the density of conventional matter-energy has decreased and the virtual particle density of "the vacuum" has correspondingly increased. A well known law of physics states that an accelerating charge radiates energy. This is why it is impractical to build very high energy circular accelerators using electrons. It is the energy in space itself that keeps every electron in the entire universe in its orbit around the nucleus of its atom. This energy also affects the photons traveling through space, slowing them down. Experiments near absolute zero clearly show the existence of this residual energy of space.

The measured fact that the red shift is quantized is also evidence for the dramatic downward change in these "constants" over time. Since radioactivity and atomic behavior equations contain Planck's "constant" h which is inversely related it c, all radiometric dating and other atomic phenomena have to be corrected for this. The farther we go back toward the beginning the greater is the disparity between the atomic time keepers and the time keepers based on gravity. Gravity equations do not contain h or any other time dependent terms. Therefore, the atomic clocks have not and still don't run at a constant rate compared to clocks run by gravity. The earth's orbit is determined by gravity, not by atomic forces.

Because of this, the rocks of the Grand Canyon and elsewhere, dated by radioactivity, are indeed about 2 billion atomic years old which corresponds to about 4000 earth orbital years.

(....The Oort cloud is thought to be a remnant of the original protoplanetary......)

The key here is "thought to be" by proponents of evolution. True science is NOT based on "thought to be" conjectures, but on actual measurement and observation. Nobody has observed such an Oort cloud or any other place where comets might be hiding out before coming into view. This "thought to be" is based on math founded on assumptions, not on measured scientific data. The math is fine, but the assumptions (beliefs) are only that.

The theory of evolution is based on fundamental assumptions (beliefs) that have no evidence to back them up. In nature, there is nothing as constant as change. Assumptions of unvarying quantities in nature over great periods of time must be carefully and skeptically examined for evidence.

Re:Oh really?

[arminw]

.....What evidence -- that allegedly "stands" -- have you that new comets can never form, then?......

You have to come up with evidence that they still form today. To me the evidence shows that comets were made not billions of years ago, but recently. We actually see the ones that are still around, but we also know that comets do not last all that long. That's why evolutionists have to come with the idea that comets are still being made "somewhere". The only trouble is that nobody has ever found any such a birthplace of comets. Neither Mr. Ooort nor anyone else has any idea how to go about finding comets at the distance this fabled cloud of comets is conjectured to reside.

(....Do you even look to see if your claims haven't been rebutted already?...)

Yes, and the rebuttal doesn't come up with an observed, measured mechanism by which more salt is removed from the ocean faster than it is being deposited, thus preventing a gradual buildup over billions of years. There are some conjectures about such a mechanism, just as there is a conjecture that comets are still being produced or hidden away somewhere. Nobody has shown a plausible salt removal mechanism that can be demonstrated.

(.....evolution is not faith by any means.....)

True, evolution itself isn't, but many of its underlying assumptions (beliefs) are. Read how many erudite scientific papers have phrases to the effect: "if we assume xxx, then yyy follows. That is of course right and very logical.

-> Evolution, a modern fairy tale. (My comments in parentheses)

Fairy tales give the magic formula "frog+kiss=prince". In evolution fairy tales we get "frog+time=prince". The magic of time can eventually even turn a rock into a prince.

You can read the tale in school "science" text books. Billions of years ago, (thats long before your great grandmother lived) torrents of rain washed minerals from the rocky land into the pre-biotic soup (Campbells?) of the warm seas where organic molecules eventually (eventually is a really long time) formed. After more time, these molecules organized themselves into single celled organisms, such as simple bacteria. Eventually (after lots more time, the magic potion) multicellular forms showed up, which after even more time evolved into animals like snails and fish. Some of these after xxx million years evolved to be able to also live on land. These are called amphibians.( true, that's what they are) This is where the frogs get on stage. After more time some of these evolved to live entirely on land. After a lot more time (the magic word) some even figured out how to fly by turning into birds In more time yet, (more magic) some became mammals and eventually, after more still more time, one of these mammals became human at last. (man was the result of deepest magic time was capable of)

Of course it was inevitable that sooner or later one of these evolved men would become a prince. After all some men do become princes without getting a kiss from a maiden. It is only a matter of time.

There you have it, a modern fairy tale, that many have the audacity to label as science. The magic ingredient necessary to turn a frog (or even a rock) into a prince, is not some beautiful maiden's kiss, but time, unimaginable amounts of time. THAT is called science, taught in schools and financed by my tax dollars? GIVEM ME A BREAK!

I'm from Kansas

[uberjoe]

Humans were designed in single origin in heaven.

There, fixed it for you.

Re:I'm from Kansas

[Analogy Man]

And it happened about 5000 years ago...I will stand by that from one edge of the earth to the other.

Re:I'm from Kansas

[Anonymous Coward]

> And it happened about 5000 years ago...I will stand by that from one edge of the earth to the other.

Teach the Controversy! I'm from Montana, and I don't care how flat it looks to you, I say the world is bowl-shaped!

Re:I'm from Kansas

[mathmatt]

Another fix:
Homo erectus = Adam
Home sapiens = Eve

Re:I'm from Kansas

[Anonymous Coward]

The Gods Hate Kansas

"A startling story of science at war with alien life-forms."

Re:I'm from Kansas

[Vulva R. Thompson, P]

And it happened about 5000 years ago...I will stand by that from one edge of the earth to the other.

Actually it's 6000 years old.

Oh wait a sec...you're one of those 'Even More Young Earthers' aren't you?

Re:I'm from Kansas

[glitch23]

Humans were designed in single origin in heaven. There, fixed it for you.

Despite others who don't know any better who modded you funny, if you are going to make fun of someone then at least get the joke right. No one, especially on here, has ever claimed that Man was designed/created in Heaven. The belief is you end up in Heaven, you start out on Earth. Idiot.

Re:I'm from Kansas

[The One and Only]

I loved "Carry On Wayward Son", but I had no idea you folks were creationists.

Re:I'm from Kansas

[Analogy Man]

You need to reset the gain on your sarcasm detector.

See if you take the number of disciples and multiply that by the seven days it took to create the universe...divide by 3 of course because F.S.HS were all chipping in...blah blah blah...and it actually works out to last Thursday.

One source for all life

[tsa]

A bit off-topic, I know, but what often puzzles me is that all living things basically work with the same chemistry. All have DNA, and there are many proteins that are physically very similar between different species, even between animals and plants. This leads me to conclude that all life must have come form one ancestor that materialized somewhere on the planet. But the earth is a big place. To me it seems very unlikely that life hasn't occurred in more than one place and more than one time. So how is it possible that all life, on a chemical level, is more or less the same?

Re:One source for all life

[Penguinisto]

Actually, I thought that some life forms only had RNA at best...

(and if we find life somewhere off-planet, all bets are off, yo...)

/P

Re:One source for all life

[Anonymous Coward]

open minded questions allowing all possible answers allows for two real possibilities.

1. Aliens matter, life landed here and continued to take over.
2. God(s) put us here.

Re:One source for all life

[mwvdlee]

Survival of the fittest.

Perhaps one day, when life started out, there were many different types of bacterial lifeforms. Turns out that only a handful managed to stay alive in the ever-changing environment. Some of those just happened to have the bad luck of being wiped out by a meteor shower. And one of few remaining ones was a bloodthirsty killer that ate the few remaining other species; we decended from that guy.

Perhaps something completely different happenned. The chances of a lifeform being succesful in it's environment is likely something so small, the number of digits would overflow this comment box. Just count yourself lucky you were born from the odd chance that one lifeform did manage to survive.

Re:One source for all life

[Anonymous Coward]

- Life might be hard to bootstrap: something that occurs once every billion year per galaxy.
- Even if life reoccurs at a different time, one type is likely to be vastly superior and outcompete the other.

Re:One source for all life

[Urban Garlic]

Don't forget that you're only seeing the survivors. It's possible that several variations of primeval life did arise, but one variation out-competed the others, or was the sole survivor of some catastrophe. The fossil record, fragmentary as it is, has numerous examples of whole species groups going extinct, and there's no reason to imagine that life was any less challenging or competitive before it could form fossils.

Re:One source for all life

[aadvancedGIR]

This is a widely accepted theory, but you are wrong about all life using DNA: some virii and bacteria are still relying on RNA.

Re:One source for all life

[SatanicPuppy]

Who the hell knows where life started (besides the ID crowd, haha)? In terms of evolution, however, there is no real need to have multiple origins; starting with a simple enough organism, they can split and diverge countless times to provide the sort of diversity we see today, and that common starting point would provide you your chemical homogeneity.

On the other hand, conditions on the pre-life earth were wildly different from the ones we have now. There could have been a number of different species, and only ones that could adapt to the emerging environment could have survived...They would all have been extremely simple, so that's not impossible.

Or, considering that most things here consume other things from here, a chemical similarity could be absolutely required for existence in the current environment, in order to survive the conditions, and to be able to eat anything.

Or, it could just be that our chemical composition is the most efficient, and natural selection drives species inevitably toward it.

It's unquestionable that all life here is from a common pool. The difference between a human and everything else on the planet isn't all that large in terms of DNA.

Re:One source for all life

[Scaba]

And you are wrong about the plural form of "virus." It's "viruses."

Re:One source for all life

[E 99]

- Life might be hard to bootstrap: something that occurs once every billion year per galaxy.

Highly unlikely, given that life appeared on earth virtually the instant (geologically) that there was solid ground and liquid water.

- Even if life reoccurs at a different time, one type is likely to be vastly superior and outcompete the other.

That doesn't seem to be the case. Bacteria, for example, are biologically vastly superior to humans, and out-compete humans in most measurable ways, but we (for the most part) have no trouble surviving as a species alongside them. The incredibly vast number of species on the planet argues against the idea that out-competed species, are as a rule, eliminated.

Re:One source for all life

[lawpoop]

To me it seems very unlikely that life hasn't occurred in more than one place and more than one time. So how is it possible that all life, on a chemical level, is more or less the same? Maybe because there's only one chemical formula for life to exist, so that no matter where it arises, it's always the same chemical formula.

Re:One source for all life

[Anonymous Coward]

A bit off-topic, I know, but what often puzzles me is that all living things basically work with the same chemistry. All have DNA, and there are many proteins that are physically very similar between different species, even between animals and plants. This leads me to conclude that all life must have come form one ancestor that materialized somewhere on the planet. But the earth is a big place. To me it seems very unlikely that life hasn't occurred in more than one place and more than one time. So how is it possible that all life, on a chemical level, is more or less the same? Sure, that's what the TSA would want you to believe!

Re:One source for all life

[Belacgod]

The limits on the expansion of one life form are:

1) How fast it can move

2) Other life forms

In the absence of other life forms, the first life form would expand its geographic range as fast as it could move. That would be slow, they being single-celled organisms, but lighting speed by evolutionary time. By the time something else might have become life, there was already life around that had had time to evolve into a decent level of fitness for the environment, and so outcompeted the newcomers.

Re:One source for all life

[ipjohnson]

Kinda like VHS vs. Betamax .....

Re:One source for all life

[Anonymous Coward]

Three major points here:

1) It is clear that there were early (and still on going) exchanges of genetic information between species. Bacteria with other bacteria and plants (and possibly higher organisms). This exchange only needs to occur at a rate comparable to the development of something radically new -- which is very very very unlikely at this point in evolution, but which, at an earlier time, in a limited environment could have been much much faster.

2) Life hasn't existed forever, and most differences between lower and high organisms are now understood to be small, regulatory over big structural changes. Basically, there is a limited subset of proteins early life played with -- it is from this subset that all life now comes. Evolution is stabilizing in some contexts.

3) Convergent evolution. Although unlikely to explain all of the similarities between the active sites of various proteins found throughout life, it can explain some of them.

Re:One source for all life

[Anonymous Coward]

Right about the viruses (and yes, 'virii' is a tongue-in-cheek form coined by computer enthusiasts, like 'boxen'; the original Latin word meant 'slime, ooze' and had no plural), but not bacteria -- anything alive nowadays that can replicate with its own machinery has a DNA genome.

Re:One source for all life

[noidentity]

"So how is it possible that all life, on a chemical level, is more or less the same?"

At one time it probably wasn't, but one form probably came to outnumber the others and finally eliminated them. I can imagine something similar with programming, involving different processor architectures (or the very notion of a processor), and also assemblers being plentiful but now mostly hidden away, if used at all.

Re:One source for all life

[MightyMartian]

Let's not forget that the sharing of genetic information between primitive organisms might have been much more common. The modern view of Common Descent is not some single monolithic ancestor at the bottom of the tree of life, but rather more probably a bush of gene-swapping ancestors.

Re:One source for all life

[Anonymous Coward]

it is a rule, and easy to derive for that matter, that if two species competes for the same resource, one will eventually fail (if they aren't equally good competing, that is).
given that bacteria and humans coexist, they are either equally good, or more obviously...not competing for the same resources.

either way, you're wrong.

For "biological superiority" that's what nazis believed they were. Indeed it's only something you can believe something is, until you've seen the actual outcome. In biology the outcome defines what's biologically superior and not you!

You may have personal bias for some biology but that does not make it a fact it really is.

etc...

Re:One source for all life

[megaditto]

1) Life needs a few conditions that are pretty rare in the Universe (things like availability of chemical eliments from a dead star (C, N, S, P, O), large water bodies, strong magnetic field & reasonable gravity, a lack of strong ionizing radiation, reducing atmosphere, comfortable temperature (water-based forms need a constant T between 273 and 373 K). All these are extremely hard to come by all at once! Even though the earth had all these, it still took at least a billion years to bootstrap 'life' and a few more billions to get something reasonable out of it.

2) You confuse superiority (whatever the hell that means) and competition. Humans don't really compete with bacteria, they compete with each-other. One million years humans competed with other ape species and hunter-gatherer-type animals. Today, 'we' compete with no other species, we only have intra-specific competition (with other horny males, with other job applicants, with the Russians and the Mexicans, etc.)

Re:One source for all life

[Anonymous Coward]

He is also the guy that likes to use hice instead of houses, fabu instead of fabulous, the little captain as a pet name, and quotes Monty Python when he gets in uncomfortable situations...

Re:One source for all life

[Scaba]

I think you're spot on, Anonymous Coward!

Re:One source for all life

[Anonymous Coward]

In theory it could be the mirror chemical formula, i.e. life with the DNA double-helix turning the other way. This is not seen.

Re:One source for all life

[nEoN nOoDlE]

But the earth is a big place.

The earth isn't so big compared to the rest of the solar system, and even compared to other planets in the solar system, but we're the only planet as far as we know that has life. So obviously, the spark that creates life is a rare occurrence. It doesn't seem unlikely at all that life hasn't occured in more than one place and more than one time on earth, since it's so rare to begin with.

Re:One source for all life

[aevans]

What makes you think life has to be organic as we understand it. I don't believe robots are overtaking the world, but it's at least conceivable that "life" could exist based on Iron-carbon alloys and silicon crystals, why not something else. It used to be fashionable to speculate about methane breathing or sulphide composed creatures, and in fact we have such diversity on Earth.

Re:One source for all life

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference between RNA and DNA is negligible (I think one atom different) for the grandparent's argument. How is it that all known organisms have the same mechanism for storing genetic information? Also, DNA is just a small example, considering what might have been changed (carbon-based, amino acid chirality, etc.)

Re:One source for all life

[MightyMartian]

Life needs a few conditions that are pretty rare in the Universe...

Life as we know it needs conditions pretty rare in the Universe.

Even the latter part of the statement is something we don't really know at all. Our ability to peer into other solar systems is still pretty primitive, and already the hypothesis that many stars have planets has been confirmed.

I'm willing to suspend judgement on this one for some time yet. Maybe, by the middle of the century (hopefully I'm still kicking around) when we get some mass inferometers up there with the power to directly image Earth-sized planets and get a good idea of the atmospheric composition out there, we'll be further along.

Re:One source for all life

[sasdrtx]

Evolution is the theory that humankind is descended from the best rapists and killers.

OK, I see their point.

Re:One source for all life

[Cadallin]

Yikes. This is going to be a complex post. There are a number of problems that keep a second abiogenic origin of life from happening. One is that in the past 2.5 Billion years or so, the population of photosynthetic organisms has been sufficient to maintain significant amounts of molecular oxygen in the atmosphere, making it an oxidizing environment (oxidizing in this case referring to the "oxidation number" or positive charge on atoms and molecules). This has the consequence of causing complex molecules unprotected by the biochemistry of a cell to be subject to decomposition over time, in addition to the risk of consumption by other cells. It is therefore extremely unlikely for another abiogenesis event to occur.

It is also generally accepted by the Scientific Community that all life on earth today is descended from a common origin of life only a few hundred million years after the Earth's formation, for the reason you cite, as well as others. Not only does all life have DNA (or, at this point, is descended from a living thing which had DNA, which is how viruses are thought to have arisen, through evolution of progressively simplified parasitic bacteria) but the coding scheme used by DNA in all living things is the same (with a couple of relatively minor exceptions that are thought to be have evolved from the common code, Mammals coding for selenocysteine is one.) There are many other pieces of evidence. But anyway, none of this is to say that there weren't other, independent, competing "origins" of life in the very early days, only that it appears that none of those survived. It is possible that many completely independent lineages existed, but that any others must have been out competed by our own.

So basically, yes it appears that all life on earth has a common origin that occurred sometime 3+ billion years ago, and that the current oxygenated environment, in addition to competition from the existing life prevents another from occurring successfully. Which means that all life on Earth today is related.

Re:One source for all life

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, he's not right about viruses. He implies that viruses are life. Biologists universally consider viruses to be non-living, much like bricks and rainbows.

Re:One source for all life

[tsa]

You said (to another poster who wasn't me): You confuse superiority (whatever the hell that means) and competition. Humans don't really compete with bacteria, they compete with each-other. One million years humans competed with other ape species and hunter-gatherer-type animals. Today, 'we' compete with no other species, we only have intra-specific competition (with other horny males, with other job applicants, with the Russians and the Mexicans, etc.)

The general consensus in this thread is that all other life-forms were outcompeted by 'our' life-form. But why can't different life-forms based on different chemistry also co-exist? There might be niches where 'our' lifeforms can never exist but others fit perfectly well. There is another theory, which is that life on eart came here from outer space in the insides of porous rocks. I think that is a very plausible theory that takes care of my problem very nicely. Maybe there are other planets where there really are different forms of life, based on different chemistry. And yes, I know that the 'life form outer space' theory has its flaws and is very hard to prove. But I find it interesting.

Re:One source for all life

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually there were far better life forms, but momentum is a very powerful force.

Cause by that time the bacteria were all like "well, my grandparents had DNA 3.1, and my parents had DNA 95, and I have DNA XP, so I guess I'll just give my kids that new DNA Vista thing". And the Macteria were all like "no, we're way cooler! but slightly less compatible". And there were these Linux bacteria who were like "genetic material is better when it's free, dudes!" but they couldn't even play DVDs so nobody wanted to hang out with them. Also they smelled funny. Finally one of the groups was all "listen up bitches, we've got SEX!" and all the others just died out. Well, the Macteria were "well we were probably gay anyway" so they were doomed already.

Re:One source for all life

[smellsofbikes]

There's a fair bit of difference between DNA and RNA. DNA uses thymine while RNA uses uracil. Likewise, RNA uses ribose as the sugar that bonds each nucleotide to the next, while DNA uses deoxyribose -- which is just a single atom change, an addition of an oxygen between a hydrogen and a carbon. But then again, the difference between the flammable heating gas ethane and alcohol is also just an oxygen added between a carbon and a hydrogen, so that's kind of a big deal. Now, just looking at it, you'll say it's just a methyl group, 4 atoms where otherwise there was only 1. But the thing is: uracil is thermodynamically cheaper than thymine so if you're building a buttload of protein you probably want to use the cheaper base as your RNA, but since cytosine spontaneously decays into uracil, which is cytosine's opposite, if you have a gene information saving system based on cytosine and uracil, you'll slowly end up with a lot more uracils, and the faulty bits will be propagated into the daughter cells of the original cell. By using cytosine and thymine, every time the DNA replication process finds a uracil, it knows that a cytosine used to be there and replaces it with a new cytosine. Using thymine provides an error-correction code, in essence.

My answer to why all organisms have basically the same mechanism is because it's wildly successful. Ernst Meyr and others did calculations on competitive advantages, and as I recall, some stupidly small advantage, like 0.1% increased reproduction rate, would lead to near-complete expression of that trait through a population in a few dozen generations. Sorry I don't have an exact ref: I'm recalling this from a book I read six months ago about Meyr and a couple of his cronies and British genetics in general. Anyway, if you had an initial group of things that were more or less self-replicating -- they exhibited growth and division, and the children reflected the characteristics of the parent -- and then you multiplied by a billion years, I don't think it's at all surprising that one set of traits utterly overwhelmed others.

With that said, I would not be surprised to find other forms of life on Earth, as we get better at looking at and *recognizing* systems. Prions are interesting things. I don't know that I'd call them life, but they're replicating and spreading, and they don't have very much in common with 'life' other than protein. I think they're degenerate forms of 'life' but I also think it's possible we'll find something else, or many other things, that are replicating but aren't even vaguely similar to dna/protein/micelle-based life.

Re:One source for all life

[stud9920]

The fucking plural of a male gendered word in -us is -i in Latin, not -ii. Also, virus is neuter and has no plural in Latin.

Re:One source for all life

[arminw]

....This leads me to conclude that all life must have come form one ancestor ........

You can get a lot of exercise jumping to conclusions. Computers use binary codes. Therefore all computers came from a common ancestor computer. Cars have 4 wheels and so do horse drawn carriages. Does that mean that cars descended from carriages. I suppose in a sense they did, but designers of both really used proven principles of design.

How about all life, computers cars an carriages all have a designer. Could that POSSIBLY also explain the commonality?

Re:One source for all life

[arminw]

...Life as we know it ......

At the molecular level life is far more complex than Mr. Darwin ever dreamed. As far as we can tell, the properties of the elements are pretty much the same throughout the universe. Of these elements, carbon is the only one that has just the right binding energies to allow complex molecules (proteins, DNA, fats) to hold together reasonably well, yet not be attached too strongly to each other and other elements. The building blocks of life have to be of such nature to allow them to be assembled and taken apart without an undue expenditure of energy. Photosynthesis is just one example of the arrow parameters needed for living chemistry.

Therefore, as far as PHYSICAL life, based on atoms and molecules goes, no, there is no other possibility outside of the life as we know it.

Re:One source for all life

[arminw]

...I think that is a very plausible theory that takes care of my problem very nicely...

So then, where did the rocks from space get their life forms? Of course, the earth is supported on the back of a big turtle. And then its turtles all the way down :-) !!

Re:One source for all life

[arminw]

....are still relying on RNA.....

Maybe they are simple enough so their designer figured the complexities of DNA were unnecessary. Gliders don't have engines, but the still fly. Maybe God knows about Occams razor?

Re:One source for all life

[Tablizer]

Don't forget that you're only seeing the survivors. It's possible that several variations of primeval life did arise, but one variation out-competed the others

I agree this is the most likely explanation for the "single root" observation. It is sort of like dot-coms in 1995. If you didn't grab big open niches early (auctions, stores, search engines, etc.) you were probably toast because the early bird has much more momentum and experience than later comers. (Youtube is a rather lone exception, but this is because video was not practical on modems in 1995.)

Another possibility is that viruses etc. stole the best ideas from multiple (early) branches by cross-infecting DNA, creating homogeniety.

Re:One source for all life

[arminw]

.....starting with a simple enough organism....

It was thought that cells and even viruses were 'simple' until modern microbiology showed that these things are incredibly complex systems at the molecular and atomic level. One of the simplest proteins is made of 385 amino acids, each of which is composed of many atoms. One protein is still a long ways from a self replicating cell or even a virus. There is no such thing as a "simple" organism and there never was.

Re: One source for all life

[Black Parrot]

This leads me to conclude that all life must have come form one ancestor that materialized somewhere on the planet. But the earth is a big place. To me it seems very unlikely that life hasn't occurred in more than one place and more than one time. So how is it possible that all life, on a chemical level, is more or less the same? Probably the kind we have now outcompeted any other flavors that might have arisen. Kind of like the way we (probably) killed off all the other varieties of human (whether directly or indirectly), and are now in the process of killing off all the other apes for good measure.

You can imagine what would happen if an independent variety of life arose these days: good food for the nearest bacterium.

Re: One source for all life

[Black Parrot]

This is a widely accepted theory, but you are wrong about all life using DNA: some virii and bacteria are still relying on RNA. Strictly speaking (and this was a surprise to me as well), biologists don't consider viruses to be 'life'. Because they don't metabolize, or some such technicality.

Re:One source for all life

[SatanicPuppy]

...You don't think that a modern cell or virus was the first life do you?

Obviously I don't know, but the cells and viruses that we see today are the product of an even longer evolutionary cycle than anything else on the planet, and it seems unlikely that something on the order of one of those came into existence without any simpler ancestor.

Re:One source for all life

[arminw]

.....something on the order of one of those came into existence without any simpler ancestor........

There is not even a simple protein, let alone a simple machine to make proteins. Living things contain huge amounts of information. When someone can demonstrate (not theorize) the creation of information by any means OTHER than processes of thought in a mind, evolution might gain the status of science rather than a religious belief system disguised as science.

Finally

[endianx]

This evidence proves conclusively without a doubt that there is a 100% chance that humans either evolved from primates, were created by God, or both. Case closed!

Re:Finally

[eln]

Actually, this proves that humans came to earth from Golgafrincham just like the great anthropologist Dr. Douglas Adams postulated. His only error was that he believed they landed in Britain rather than in Africa.

Re:Finally

[CogDissident]

This evidence proves conclusively without a doubt that there is a 100% chance that humans either evolved from pirates, were created by His Noodly Appendage, or both. Case closed!

All hail the flying spaghetti monster!

Re:Finally

[obergfellja]

if you look at it, religion only gives an overview on what could have and might have happened. Evolution explains more details. I am not saying one way or the other is right, we just have gaps in both theories and until we have a time machine, we will never know.

Re:Finally

[tttonyyy]

This evidence proves conclusively without a doubt that there is a 100% chance that humans either evolved from pirates, were created by God, or both. Case closed! I much prefer my original misreading of your comment, as above. Being evolved from pirates would explain a lot about life, me hearties.

Re:Finally

[Tablizer]

This evidence proves conclusively without a doubt that there is a 100% chance that humans either evolved from primates, were created by God, or both. Case closed!

What, no Flying Spehgetti Monster option? Pfffft. This ain't no real science.

Re:Do this mean...

[vigmeister]

Just replying to state that I am not trying to be racist and that this was just a feeble attempt at humor. I don't see why this ought to be offensive, but since it is modded flamebait, I thought I'd clear the air.

Cheers!

Confusing Creationists

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure these sort of ideas are thought up just to piss off creationists: "Hey guess what, we've found scientific evidence that the human race actually could have started from a single couple like Adam and Eve, but guess what? They were black".

Re:Confusing Creationists

[arminw]

......human race actually could have started from a single couple like Adam and Eve.......

Also, all dogs COULD have started from a single male and female poodle. Both scenarios are definitely possible. There is no way to prove that neither could NOT have happened.

"Mutant monkeys escape from Africa"

[peter303]

Headline of 10PM news, July 19, 85,000 BC.

Re:Do this mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

we all brothas n sistas No. It means we all descended from an erect homo. Some of us have apparently evolved more than you have since then.

Hate Speech!! I have alerted the ACLJOO!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your joke is not the ha-ha jokerman!

Heresy committed! It is clearly the human rights abuse and a possibly the war crime! Fascist, colonial warmonger of destruction! You r the xenohomophobejangoracist oppressor of all da indigenous peoples!

You have committed verbal assault, sprinkled liberally with thought-invoked racialist genocide! Quick, some1 notify the ADLCLU soldiers! Punishment forthcoming! Southpark style "Apologize" sessions and entry to state-sponsored re-education campz! We must make you chant the mantra! We must make you wholeheartedly believe the falsenesses! "Diversity is Strength"..."War is Peace"...you know the rest

Re:Hate Speech!! I have alerted the ACLJOO!

[vigmeister]

Actually, I had in mind the south park episode with Randy using the 'N-word' when I said this :)

Cheers!

troll troll troll flamebait troll

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, kids, it's only a troll and/or flamebait if you disagree with it.

Re:Do this mean...

[techpawn]

Porch Monkey 4 life... It's okay, We're takin' it back...

Probably not "negroes"

[Anonymous Coward]

They were probably khoisan"

What were (formerly?) called caucasian, mongoloid and negroid probably evolved from them.

I know it's hard to fit into your leftist racialist view of the world, but deal with it.

Re:Probably not "negroes"

[Anonymous Coward]

And what does a Khoisan look like?
Black, dumbass.

The point is that the many white people who (secretly or not) imagine themselves superior to black people and have *tons* of artwork through the millenia depicting adam & eve as WHITE will have to either:
* change the image in their heads when they think of adam & eve, recognize that all those artists were dead wrong, and that God built people to be dark-skinned (but some oddities interbred and spread as humankind expanded), or
* dismiss all these kinds of findings as crazy "science" nonsense.

Re:Probably not "negroes"

[bargainsale]

Not "Khoisan", strictly speaking.

Khoisan is the name of a modern human population, so to call our common ancestors Khoisan is like saying that the French language is descended from Italian.

Linguistically, BTW, "Khoisan" is a suspect concept: there are several different groups of "Khoisan" languages which cannot be shown to be related to one another by orthodox comparative linguistics - the time depths involved are too great for the question to be answerable one way or the other.

There was a recent paper, purporting to show that the earliest human languages must have had clicks, from the fact that the speakers of "click languages" do indeed show as much variety genetically among themselves as all the rest of the human race. Criticism of this:

http://www.ling.umu.se/fonetik2003/pdf/001.pdf

That isn't to say that our common ancestors may not have looked like modern Khoisan; at any rate they were certainly "black" in modern racist-speak. Pale skin seems to be a fairly recent adaptation to dim-light northern climes: the only physical benefit seems to be increased ability to synthesize Vitamin D, thus making you less likely to get rickets. In premodern times this was presumably enough to outweigh the increased skin cancer risk. In parts of the world where the sun occasionally shines (if I sound bitter, it's because I'm from Scotland), genes for dark skin are advantageous enough to spread quite quickly through a population. The racists' favourite way of dividing up the one single human race is based on a particularly superficial (!) criterion

Umm... what does that have to do with anything?

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

What does that have to do with anything I said in the original submission or my OP?

Re:wow

[killproc]

Totally uncool...

mod grandparent up

[fyoder]

If I had mod points, I would mod your original post up as underrated. Sadly, Slashdot is getting as mindlessly touchy as Digg.

erect homo?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please rephrase, this gives me a very unpleasant image

Now we know where to look for....

[metoc]

the spaceship that brought the first humans to earth. Or was it god? It's been so long.

Re:Now we know where to look for....

[Anonymous Coward]

Tom Cruise, is that you?

So we've been wrong all along...?

[bogaboga]

Have we been wrong all along by addressing non-white/Hispanic or Indian Americans as "Americans of African decent?" It appears we'll all have roots in Africa. In any case those "black" Americans look more brown than black to me.

A more accurate description should be "brown Americans". How about that?

Re:So we've been wrong all along...?

[DeepHurtn!]

Yeah, and you think "whites" have white skin? I'm comparing my skin to my wood desk right now, and actually, it's not a bad match! Maybe those of German descent, like me, are actually brown, eh? (Although I'm half Czech, as well -- oops, I can't remember, are Slavs "white" or not? I suppose it depends on where and when I am!)

Conversations like this miss the point, though. "Race", as the word gets bandied about, is an entirely constructed, historical term. It means nothing outside of specific situations. 100 years ago the Irish *very literally* weren't considered white. In the 19th centuries the English upper classes didn't consider the lower classes to be white -- they *really* saw (or thought they saw, which is the same thing) darker skin on those of lower status. There's plenty of examples of Age of Discovery explorers describing Native Americans/First Nations peoples as "white" -- for those explorers, the idea of race (as we understand and use that word today) didn't exist!

Re:So we've been wrong all along...?

[aevans]

Hey, I'm a light shade of brown too! I'm a brown-african-american just like everyone else. Now that we're all classified under one category, let's give it a simpler name. How about "man"? Now, since we're all the same, but obviously there are also differences among us, in order to describe those differences let's pick things like various shades of brown and differentiate them. You be "dark brown", he can be "medium brown" and I'll be "light brown." But that girl is medium brown too, and clearly different from him. I know, let's use geographical origin to describe the difference. He can be medium-brown-descended-originally-from-africa-but- for-the-past-million-or-so-years-his-anscestors-ha ve-been-living-in-asia and for her, something equally long winded with the word "the-region-currently-within-the-political-boundar ies-of-brazil" instead of "Asia"

Re:So we've been wrong all along...?

[fsmunoz]

Eheheh, that reminds me a perl of anglo-saxon racial mythology:

"Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth." Benjamim Franklin

So, to ol' Ben you're "tawny". I'm even in worse conditions, since I would probably be a hit-n-miss between tawny, swarthy, "hispanic" or "latino" (this last two by name alone).

That being said "white" is an historical construct onlyif you use the WASPish and/or nordicist redefinition of the term. It was already - and still is in most of the world - used to denote people of European descent. While there are grey areas the range itself (i.e. europoid people leaving outside of Europe) is more or less well defined in a racial sense. In general the discoverers you mention did view both africans and native americans as different in a racial perspective, going so far has having precise names for the resulting offspring according to the "mixture".

Re:So we've been wrong all along...?

[DeepHurtn!]

That's a great quote -- thanks for passing it along!

Regarding the racial basis for whiteness, I still somewhat disagree. I don't believe it's really valid to gloss over those grey areas -- the fact is that the borders of whiteness are constantly being redefined and contested. Even defining it in terms of European descent -- well, what's "Europe"? For example, are Greeks "white"? Specifically, were the Classical Greeks "white"? There's a fascinating body of 19th century literature that deals with this; it was a bit of a crisis for racial justifications for European colonialism, since the Classical Greeks were a touchstone of sorts for claims of European cultural and intellectual superiority, but they weren't white enough for the scholars. And regarding the nomenclature that developed to describe "mixed" offspring, my understanding is that mostly developed after the earliest stages of exploration, when slavery created a need for a racial ideology that would justify and perpetuate it. A "whiteness" scholar, Abby Ferber, argues that English didn't even have a word for "race" in the biological sense of the word until about the 16th century, where it was applied to livestock breeding, and that the word didn't begin to be applied to humans until closer to the 18th century. (The book, in case you're interested, is called "White Man Falling". Fascinating read.)

Anyways, I suppose my point is that if the boundaries are fluid (and there's no doubt that they are), any claim to objective categorization is ultimately contingent and suspect. Any attempts to clearly define those boundaries will always be intimately tied to the wielding of power.

Thanks again for your thoughts -- that Franklin quote really is a find. I think I'm gonna try to work tawny into my conversations when I can. ;)

Re:So we've been wrong all along...?

[yo man]

>And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes what was Ben smoking :-) Russians and Swedes are both Scandinavian races. I have seen more swarthy English than swarthy Swedes in my time!

Re:So we've been wrong all along...?

[fsmunoz]

Hi,

For example, are Greeks "white"? Specifically, were the Classical Greeks "white"?

As white as they come. That was never even an issue before the 19th century and the English racial theories of anglo-saxon superiority.The Greeks in particular are the fathers of European civilization. They weren't "white enough" for scholars in a time when "scholars" were all from the Anglosphere, and took the word white to mean some arbitrary paleness. The Celts were actually thought to be "africans" by some scholars, also to suport a political superiority of England, in this case a justification of colonialism in Ireland and Wales:

He believed that eye colour and hair colour were valuable evidence in the origins of the British people. He published The Races of Britain: A Contribution to the Anthropology of Western Europe in 1862 and again in 1885 and 1905 and again in 1971. Beddoe wrote in his that all geniuses were "orthognathous" (that is, have receding jaws) while the Irish and the Welsh were "prognathous" (have large jaws). Beddoe also maintained that Celts were similar to Cromagnon man, and Cromagnon man was similar to the "Africanoid" race. Celts in Beddoe's "Index of Negrescence" are very different than Anglo-Saxons.

Greece and Antient Greeks are if anything the archetypal Europeans, and thus, again, as white as one can be when talking about a ethnocultural sense of "race"; they have been "attacked" nowadays by the descendents of the Bedoe fellow I quote above that say that modern Greeks are mixed with Turks: this is a sort of acusation that stems from the 19th century as well, and also disregards the fact that it's actually the Turkish area that has a lot of Greek input due to Magna Grecia and the Byzantine Empire.

Bear in mind that this is, for example, similar to the "Black Lengend" against the Spanish (and by contact Iberians as a whole): the English - and Americans inherited this probably due to the Spanish American War. To quote Spain's Long Shadow: The Black Legend, Off-Whiteness, and Anglo-American Empire synopsis:

Reveals the dependence of American ethnic identity on Spain as an imperial alter-ego.

England and the Netherlands, Spain's imperial rivals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, imagined Spain as a land of cruel and degenerate barbarians of la leyenda negra (the Black Legend), in league with the powers of "blackest darkness" and driven by "dark motives." In Spain's Long Shadow, María DeGuzmán explores how this convenient demonization made its way into American culture--and proved essential to the construction of whiteness.

DeGuzmán's work reaches from the late eighteenth century--in the wake of the American Revolution--to the present. Surveying a broad range of texts and images from Poe's "William Wilson" and John Singer Sargent's El Jaleo to Richard Wright's "Pagan Spain" and Kathy Acker's Don Quixote, Spain's Long Shadow shows how the creation of Anglo-American ethnicity as specifically American has depended on the casting of Spain as a colonial alter ego. The symbolic power of Spain in the American imagination, DeGuzmán argues, is not just a legacy of that nation's colonial presence in the Americas; it lives on as well in the "blackness" of Spain and Spaniards--in the assigning of people of Spanish origin to an "off-white" racial category that reserves the designation of white for Anglo-Americans.

By demonstrating how the Anglo-American imagination needs Spain and Spaniards as figures of attraction and repulsion, DeGuzmán makes a compelling and illuminating case for treating Spain as the imperial alter ego of the United States. Cross-cultural and interdisciplinary, ambitious in its chronological sweep, and elegant in its interpretation of literary and visual works, DeGuzmán's book leads us to a powerful new understanding of the nature--and history--of American ethnicity.

Serious question here...

[Anonymous Coward]

If man evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? NO ONE HAS THE ANSWER!

Re:Serious question here...

[Belacgod]

Evolution doesn't have a goal.

There were monkeys, and then some monkeys went into a new habitat (grasslands) and evolved into humans. The monkeys who stayed in the jungle remained monkeys. Later on, some humans returned to the jungle but didn't wipe out the monkeys because their population didn't expand to that point.

Re:Serious question here...

[Anonymous Coward]

kill yourself now. thank you.

Re:Serious question here...

[jimlintott]

First of all man did not evolve from monkeys. Your question has no valid premise as worded.

There are many creatures that are very basic and have existed for almost as long as life has been present. Why do nematodes still exist?

Evolution would predict that when a species evolves from a certain population that the population may still continue on as before. They were just forked is all.

A species being obligated to cease to exist because it evolved a new species would be what I would expect from Intelligent Design and would likely falsify evolution.

Re:Serious question here...

[SirStiff]

Cause, even though women smell nice and look pretty, nothing makes man laugh like a monkey. So we decided to keep 'em around.

Re:Serious question here...

[grolschie]

If man evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys? NO ONE HAS THE ANSWER!

Either you are joking, or ignorant. Darwinian evolutionists don't believe that humans decended from monkeys. They believe the humans and monkeys share a common ancestor. Big difference.

They also believe that humans and lettuce also share a common ancestor. :-)

Interesting evolution...

[jojoba_oil]

The alternative hypothesis contended that different populations independently evolved from Homo erectus to Home sapiens in different areas. (emphasis mine)

So the alternative theory is that different populations individually evolved into a race of agoraphobes? Makes sense...

Oops, nevermind :)

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Damn Slashdot formatting made it look like you replied to my original post.

Um, why is this even in question?

[jollyreaper]

I am not a scientist, nor do I play one on TV. But my understanding of the way evolution worked is that you need a breeding population sharing common mutations and traits in order to lock in evolutionary traits. The old textbook example for regular speciation within a main population a fertile jungle valley split in two by a great river. Species A was once on both sides of the river and populations could interbreed if presented the opportunity. But given enough isolation, and especially if any environmental factors differ on one side or the other, a Species B can emerge. When the changes are minor, one could refer to the changed one as a sub-species. If the changes become very pronounced, such that interbreeding is difficult or rarely results in viable offspring, then you could say that second population constitutes a new species.

Given that two identical populations can drift away from the ability to interbreed through nothing more than isolation, how likely would it be that one species, scattered across many environments, could independently evolve into a new species whose members could interbreed? That seems a bit off!

I do think that hybrid species are pretty cool, even though they don't occur too often in nature. We had the polar/kodiak hybrid shot a year or so back. Zoos also have many examples of lygers, tylons, etc. Wolves and domestic dogs can interbreed, the same goes with cyotes and jackals as well. It does make one wonder how far humans could drift apart if several populations were isolated for 20,000 years. I wonder if they'd all still look alike except for different bumpy foreheads?

Re:Um, why is this even in question?

[plehmuffin]

I remember from my population genetics class that separate populations need only one interbreeding event very 1000 generations or so in order prevent them drifting apart into reproductive incompatibility. The prof gave the example that the (very long lived) sequoia red wood trees, which are found in both asia and north america, are still capable of interbreeding despite having been separated for millions of years.

Of course, the amount of time required for populations to become reproductively incompatible would be augmented by the rate of evolution of those populations, so the figure above is only for a baseline situation. High rates of mutation and heavy selection pressures could speed up the process.

Re:Um, why is this even in question?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dead on as to why the mechanism of evolution would basically eliminate the multiple origin hypothesis as a theory. I'm not sure why the multiple origin hypothesis even has any proponents.

I've also always been very confused by the emphasis on skull sizes and shapes in the study of evolution. It sounds like a remnant of phrenology creeping back into science with no real solid data to back its role. I won't pretend to have studied this in detail, but the ape with the skull most resembling humans is the Orangutan, which also happens to be the most genetically distant great ape from humans. This strikes me as a sure indication that skull shape among hominids has little to do with their evolutionary origins within our genus.

Re:Um, why is this even in question?

[the phantom]

The Multiple Origin Hypothesis is really misnamed, if you ask me. The model states that H. erectus migrated out of Africa, and that populations of H. erectus interbred, keeping variation down, or at least keeping interbreeding possible. Thus, modern H. sapiens evolved all over the place, in a direct line from the H. erectus ancestors already in place.

The Single Origin or Out of Africa Hypothesis states that H. sapiens evolved in Africa, and migrated out from there.

In both cases, there is an acknowledgeable that human ancestors first evolved in Africa, then moved out from there. The difference, as I see it, is really the time at which this happened. Out of Africa is much more recent than Multiple Origins.

Re:Um, why is this even in question?

[alas_anon]

The old textbook example for regular speciation...

Anthropologists tend to make the theories when it comes to the story of human evolution. They are not real familiar with standard evolutionary theory and do not realize how bizarre the "Multiple Origins" theory is.

Humans like to assign magical things to happen in their evolution. You don't want us to be like flatworms, do you?

Alas, Anon...

Re:Um, why is this even in question?

[ookabooka]

I believe my sister post said it well. You do have to take the time-scale of the isolated species and the also the mobility of the species. Humans have migrated quite a bit in a relatively short time(geologically) , thanks in part to our innate ability to adapt to all sorts of environments w/o having to rely on genetic mutations to give us the necessary edge from our ancestors to survive. Some species of different animals are genetically specialized to their environment, to the point where they can't interbreed and cannot live well in the other species habitat. Humans don't need that genetic specialization to thrive. Though minor genetic mutations (skin color vs. proximity to equator and sun exposure) do help it isn't strictly necessary. For example, I am a Caucasian, if my genetics were thrown into the Sahara many thousands of years ago do you think I would perish? I may not tolerate the sun/heat as well but I could adapt with wearing more clothing instead of relying on genetic mutations. This is even more relevant considering I would most likely be a member of a small community which I could lean upon or find some niche to fill that I was better suited for.

Especially nowadays with gene therapy and all sorts of medications, sunblock, etc. Genetic mutations are (in my extremely unqualified opinion) not very prevalent for the human species. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if we haven't changed much at all genetically from our earliest ancestors. Besides, how long have cro-magnons (the current human species, I'm not sure on the terminology) existed? Considering the average lifespan has it really been enough generations to have a large enough mutation to create a separate species?

Re:Um, why is this even in question?

[aevans]

What makes someone a scientist? Is there a special store that sells lab coats and only those who purchase their lab coat from that store are REAL scientists? Or is there a secret-society that emblazons their clipboard with a seal of authenticity if they swear to something similar to the Hippocratic oath? Do you have to send in a number of coupons and box tops or vote a certain way in federal elections and a different way in local ones?

Re:Um, why is this even in question?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be clear that's how it can happen, not how it always happens. It's also possible for seperation to not result in anything but cosmetic differences (or none at all) if the evolutionary pressures of the two environments are not strong enough to force a splinter in the speicies.

Re:Um, why is this even in question?

[Anonymous Coward]

The arguments for and against the Multiple Origins Hypothesis seem to reduce to a single, easy question:

How important was tourism to our ancestors?

If they are like we are today, then all that traveling around would have kept the gene pool well mixed, and there would be no single point of origin. We could expect simultaneous evolutionary development spreading out from all the hot tourist locations of the day.

I personally favor this approach, because it doesn't make sense to me that the inner drive to see the other side of the mountain that caused the original wave(s) of exodus from Africa would turn off once everybody got to a new location, only to turn on again a few millennia later, when we started writing our travelogues. After our ancestors acquired the technology that allowed them to leave Africa, the tourist factor has kept our gene pool pretty well mixed. The relatively minor differences in amounts of genetic variation are more likely to be due to regional differences in destination resorts and travel accommodations (for want of better terms) than anything else.

LISTEN UP

[Anonymous Coward]

So, uh, that "Bible" thing that I put out, a while back? Yeah, it's a bunch of nonsense. Instead of "My given truth", I basically "guided" some wackos over the years to fill it with a bunch of contradictory odds and ends.... Why? Well, duh -- to test you.

Once you all get your heads on straight, we can move on with the plans I've had in mind.... Can, uh -- can you hurry it up a bit?

Later.
Big G

Re:LISTEN UP

[Deanalator]

I've got a similar theory about Adam and Eve. I have always wondered how many pairs of Adams and Eves god had to go through before he managed to make a set that would think for themselves (and thus be released into the world).

Re:LISTEN UP

[cynvision]

I've got a similar theory about Adam and Eve. I have always wondered how many pairs of Adams and Eves god had to go through before he managed to make a set that would think for themselves (and thus be released into the world). I still think He has not got the right set running the place.

Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam

[xmedar]

I thought this had been settled, see Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam what's next PhD grants for theorising why the sky is blue?

Re:Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam

[ch-chuck]

So the force was strong with Eve.

Re:Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam

[misleb]

Y-chromosomal Adam and mitochondrial Eve are separated by at least 30,000 years. So that doesn't tell really suggest that they necessarily came from the same place. A lot of migration can happen in 30,000 years.

-matthew

Re:Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam

[EmagGeek]

Of course not. We already know factually why the sky is blue. It is due to Rayleigh scattering.

Only confusing the stupid ones

[paladinwannabe2]

Adam and Eve were black? Next you'll be telling us that Jesus was Jewish!

Seriously, though, the creationists I respect go to the Bible/Koran/Talmud and say "God created the heavens and the earth" then go to a science textbook to figure out how he did it.

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[Eco-Mono]

So your view is that it's impossible to know? Or that we simply haven't made any good arguments yet?

It's hard to tell from that post, y'see.

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[smaddox]

I believe they evolved from pirates. It just seems logical. I mean, why would the FSM make create anything other than a pirate?

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[smaddox]

And the creationists I respect, use modern (read: scientifically informed) sources to decide how the heavens and earth were formed.

They are called astrologist's and physicists.

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[MightyMartian]

For all your love of science, you seem to have constructed a series of rather moronic strawmen. Perhaps you should call yourself a lover of fallacies, because that appears to be the only thing you're good at.

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[Dimensio]

No unambiguous evidence from fossils (just claims, later quietly rejected)

This is false, and you are a liar.

No natural mechanism to make fossils as found in large beds with prey/predator together, etc.

This is false, and you are a liar.

No evidence from biological systems

This is false, and you are a liar.

No evidence from embryology

This is false, and you are a liar.

No biogenesis

This is completely irrelevant to the theory of evolution.

No possibility from chemistry or physics

Your unsubstantiated assertion is false, and you are a liar.

No mechanisms(including mutations and natural selection)

This is false, and you are a liar.

No unambiguous evidence from homology

This unsubstantiated assertion is false, and you are a liar.

Filled with lies, deceipt, religion

Yes, your claims are.

Given your numerous lies above, why should anything that you say be considered credible?

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[Dimensio]

No way to know before that, which is why evolutionists are dishonest.

Please explain the dishonesty. Refer to specific actual statements and state why they are dishonest.

Evolutionism is a useless, dangerous and deadly religion.

Please substantiate your claim -- that evolution is a "religion", that it is "useless", that it is "deadly" and that it is "dangerous" -- with evidence.

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[plunge]

You seem to be under the misapprehension that the only sort of evidence worth anything are personal accounts of human witnesses seeing things with their eyeballs.

That's not the case: physical evidence can not only be very good well-established evidence, but can even be superior to direct eye-witness, especially in cases where there are converging lines of independent evidence, which is probably the strongest forms of evidence that there is.

That is, assuming you are sincere in the first place: a lot of people just try to troll by making all these claims about evolution being a religion and pretending to be creationists.

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[plunge]

"Darwinism is religion and not science. "

Seems like a pretty weak accusation.

The rest of your accusations are, well, nonsense too. We have lots and lots of good evidence for all of those things, and more importantly, the one and only interpretation it supports (evolution via common descent) has held up against new evidence and new methods. You simply declaring the opposite is, well, not very convincing.

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[zukester]

Your declaring that you had or have evidence is, well, not convincing. Simply chanting this line is not science-it is, well, religion. Obviously you do not have any. "Lots of good evidence" that you have seems to be lacking in your response.

When one has actual evidence, they present it. You and I both know yours never passes the sniff test, and can't. So you do not present it.

Thus far in history, to date, there has never bee a scrap of unambiguous evidence discovered which can not be explained by a Creator.

NOTHING happens by accident. Simple as that. Called a LAW, not a theory.

I can defend my statement that evolutionism is useless, unproductive deadly, dangerous and purely religious. You cannot defend yours.

ALL evidence in science points to incredible, intelligent design, from the simplest cell to humans. I noticed that you did not answer which of the four scenarios best fits how you believe we got here. Non-committal?

Here's a new one. Start with a tadpole and explain metamorphism into a frog from purely evolutionary means. Or take flight in four groups and explain how it naturally happend.

"Abandon religion. Abandon Evil-utionism."

Regards,
Zukester

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[arminw]

.....and that it is "dangerous" -- with evidence......

If someone has been taught his whole life and truly truly believes his great-great-xxxxx grandparents were animals or even came from a rock, is it really all that surprising when such an "animal" goes on a rampage with a gun and murders a bunch of his fellow animals in the high school? Columbine, anyone?

Is it surprising if someone like Hitler thought he could help evolution by eliminating what he considered undesirable subhuman mis-evolved specimens by gassing 6 million of them?

Is it really so surprising that our society has declared living babies in the womb as mere tissue and eliminated about 40 million since that court edict became law?

If humans are nothing more than a cosmic evolutionary accident, then humans are not valuable and murder is only a societal convention rather than a affront to the sanctity of life and to the God who created life.

Need more evidence?

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[arminw]

.....We have lots and lots of good evidence for all of those things.....

Pure BS. Fossils are a cornerstone of the evolutionary religion. Their very existence is evidence against evolution. Nobody has ever made a fossil nor explained how one can be made over time. Time is an enemy that destroys living matter before a fossil can form. No fossils are being made today nor has anyone EVER seen one formed in nature. The same goes for coal and oil. The salt content of the oceans is far to low, for the earth to be as old as the evolutionists claim. The moon still recedes from the earth a little each year. That means it should have at some point been close enough to be broken to pieces by earth's gravity and/or both bodies destroyed each other, IF it were true that the earth and moon are billions of years old. The rate of recession would have been much greater in the past than today. There is plenty of other evidence against evolutionary theory.

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[Corporate Troll]

They are called astrologist's and physicists.

*cough* *cough* Astrology vs. Astronomy... *cough*

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[Dimensio]

If someone has been taught his whole life and truly truly believes his great-great-xxxxx grandparents were animals

As humans are animals, this is not a false claim. Are you suggesting that we lie?

or even came from a rock,

Please cite someone who has seriously suggested that the theory of evolution postulates that humans "came from a rock".

is it really all that surprising when such an "animal" goes on a rampage with a gun and murders a bunch of his fellow animals in the high school?

Non-sequitur. Why would believing that a distant relative was an animal -- which, even for all human relatives, is true as humans are biologically classified as animals -- or believing, for reasons that you have yet to logically explain, that human descent involved rocks logically lead to committing mass murder with a firearm?

Columbine, anyone?

Please demonstrate that the Columbine massacre was a result of the killers accepting that human ancestors were animals (which, as I have explained, is true because humans are classified as animals) or a belief that some of their ancestors were rocks. You are, at the moment, speculating without evidence. Explain the millions who understand and accept that humans are animals who do not go on killing sprees. Explain how your appeal to -- thus far undemonstrated -- consequence is not a logical fallacy.

Is it surprising if someone like Hitler thought he could help evolution by eliminating what he considered undesirable subhuman mis-evolved specimens by gassing 6 million of them?

Please demonstrate that Hitler believed that he was "helping" evolution. Note that evolution cannot be "helped", as such would imply a goal, which evolution does not have. That is academic, however, as you have yet to demonstrate that Hitler actually based his beliefs and practices on the theory of evolution. Note that merely asserting that Hitler based his ideology on the theory of evolution is not actually evidence that Hitler based his ideology on the theory of evolution.

Is it really so surprising that our society has declared living babies in the womb as mere tissue and eliminated about 40 million since that court edict became law?

Please demonstrate that this is a result of the theory of evolution.

If humans are nothing more than a cosmic evolutionary accident, then humans are not valuable and murder is only a societal convention rather than a affront to the sanctity of life and to the God who created life.

The theory of evolution does not state that humans are "nothing more than a cosmic evolutionary accident". You are attacking a strawman, and you are not even providing a logical connection to the alleged consequences of your strawman.

Need more evidence?

"More evidence" would imply that you have presented some evidence already. You have not. You have cited certain events and claimed, without evidence, that the theory of evolution or acceptance of the fact that humans are animals or acceptance of the strawman that human origins involved rocks is somehow responsible for those events. Your entire argument is the logical fallacy of appeal to consequence and it is grounded in a strawman of the theory of evolution. Your attempt to conflate evolution with the claim that humans are an "accident" suggests either that you do not actually understand the theory of evolution or that you are a liar.

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[arminw]

.....You are attacking a strawman,......

No I am not. Evolution is man's attempt to explain our origins by means of impersonal probabilistic processes not involving any sort of thought process and activity of mind. There are two opposing world views. One is that there is a governing mind behind our universe and the other is that everything happened and still happens by chance.

Evolution is NOT science, but a philosophical system that attempts to answer, without reference to God, the four most important questions any thinking human will seek an answer to.

1), Who am I? 2), Where did I come from? 3), Why am I here? 4), Where am I going after I die?

1. Evolutionists says that you are not a special creation carefully and thoughtfully made by God, but only a cleverly arranged by chance set of chemicals.

2. Evolutionists teach that life began in a broth of minerals washed down from the rocks of the earth. According to that, you DID come from a rock. God says you are a product of His love and thought, specially constructed with care.

3). Evolutionists say that your only purpose is to survive and reproduce. God says you are made for loving interaction and fellowship with your creator, now and forever.

4), Evolutionists teach that you get recycled into a worm or tree after death or simply go out of existence. The conservation laws plainly show that NOTHING goes out of existence, but only change form. God says that you will face Him and give an account for the way you have lived.

If everything is only a cosmic happenstance without God, then all morals and ethics are only nice conventions that may be observed if it is convenient. Hitler and other tyrants believed that and the Columbine killer idolized Hitler. The foundations of communism is evolution philosophy.

The teachings of the Bible and evolution are both religious. You can choose which to BELIEVE.

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[Dimensio]

No I am not. Evolution is man's attempt to explain our origins by means of impersonal probabilistic processes not involving any sort of thought process and activity of mind.

The theory of evolution is an attempt to explain extant biodiversity as a result of natural selection across multiple, different environments creating genetic isolation over time. Your explanation of evolution is wholly unsupported and false.

There are two opposing world views. One is that there is a governing mind behind our universe and the other is that everything happened and still happens by chance.

You have established a false dichotomy. The abscence of "a governing mind" is not always "chance". There exist deterministic systems with no intelligent input creating the output.

Evolution is NOT science, but a philosophical system that attempts to answer, without reference to God, the four most important questions any thinking human will seek an answer to.

Declaring that evolution is "NOT" science does not actually demonstrate that the theory of evolution is not science. Noting that the theory of evolution does not reference God is meaningless; as science does not address the supernatural, nothing in science references God.

1), Who am I? 2), Where did I come from? 3), Why am I here? 4), Where am I going after I die?

This is false. The theory of evolution addresses only 2, and then only with respect to biological ancestry. 1 and 3 are addressed (though, again, only with respect to biology) by biological science in general. 4 is not addressed by science at all, apart from the explanation of the physical process of decomposition.

I suggest that you obtain your information on the subject of evolution from sources other than creationists. Frequently, either they do not know about the subject, or they do not mind passing on false information.

1. Evolutionists says that you are not a special creation carefully and thoughtfully made by God, but only a cleverly arranged by chance set of chemicals.

This is a false generalization. The theory of evolution says nothing regarding divine origins, and as such cannot rule out the possibility of a God ultimately being responsible for human existence. Moreover, the theory of evolution does not claim that "chance" is responsible for the emergence of new species. Not all who accept evolution make the above claim, and the above claim is not derived from the theory of evolution. It is clear that you have not actually studied the subject on which you are speaking.

2. Evolutionists teach that life began in a broth of minerals washed down from the rocks of the earth. According to that, you DID come from a rock. God says you are a product of His love and thought, specially constructed with care.

This is false. "Evolutionists" as a whole do not have a single, universal explanation for life origins. The theory of evolution does not address the ultimate origin of life. The theory of evolution can only address events that occur after life is extant. As such, it is impossible for the theory of evolution to make any statements about where or how "life began". Again, you have demonstrated that you have not actually studied the theory of evolution.

Also, your allegation of a statement from God is unsourced. Please demonstrate that God did actually say what you claim that God said.

3). Evolutionists say that your only purpose is to survive and reproduce. God says you are made for loving interaction and fellowship with your creator, now and forever.

This is another false generalization. "Evolutionists" are not a uniform collective with a single viewpoint on the human purpose. The theory of evolution is merely descriptive; it cannot be used to derive "purpose". Any "purpose" that humans have, either collectively or as individuals, must be derived from something other than the theory of evolution. Your statement once more shows that you have not actually studied

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[arminw]

....number of statements about the theory of evolution....

Maybe its not the theory itself so much rather than its philosophical underpinnings and implications. It tries explain the incredible design of nature without a designer. It is plainly evident that life is too complex to have just happened without some thought and planning. Nobody would say that a computer or TV set did not have a designer. Yet evolutionists will attribute the orders of magnitude more complex brain as having come to be without thought and planning. Any man made machine also requires maintenance. Evolutionists deny the possible existence of a mind that made and sustains everything.

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[Dimensio]

Maybe its not the theory itself so much rather than its philosophical underpinnings and implications.

You have yet to demonstrate that anything that you have asserted is a "philosophical underpinning" or "implication" of the theory of evolution.

It tries explain the incredible design of nature without a designer.

The theory of evolution attempts to address extant biodiversity based upon observations of extant life and evidence left behind by previously extant life. You have yet to demonstrate the presence of "design", thus your claim of "incredible design" is unsupported. The theory of evolution, like all theories, is a conclusion drawn from observations. Your suggestion that it resulted from a starting goal of an explanation that did not involve a designer is false; the theory references no "designer" because there is no evidence for such within the scope of observations that make up the theory, not because those who have authored and added to the theory sought to create an explanation that did not involve a designer.

It is plainly evident that life is too complex to have just happened without some thought and planning.

Claiming that something is "plainly evident" is not evidence that said thing is actually "plainly evident". Asserting a claim to be "plainly evident" is not a substitute for providing evidence.

Nobody would say that a computer or TV set did not have a designer.

This is a false analogy.

. Yet evolutionists will attribute the orders of magnitude more complex brain as having come to be without thought and planning.

As a human brain does not come into existence through the same processes by which televisions and computers come into existence, your analogy is invalid.

Any man made machine also requires maintenance.

This is not relevant.

Evolutionists deny the possible existence of a mind that made and sustains everything.

You are again making a sweeping generalization. You are asserting that all who accept evolution are of the same mindset. Your assumption is demonstratably false; either you are completely ignorant of the subject on which you speak, in which case nothing that you say on the subject can be considered credible, or you are lying, in which case nothing that you say on any subject can be considered credible.

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[plunge]

Again, it's hard to tell if you are serious of if you are putting me on for fun.

Everything about the formation of fossils is in accord with what we know of the physical sciences, and in fact we DO have lots of examples of relatively "modern" fossils in various states of mineralization. Heck, in some places, we have entire beds of dead creatures fossilizing right on top of each other year after year.

Again, most of the claims you folks make seem to rely on near total ignorance of what the evidence is for things like fossils is or what's out there. You even seem to think that fossils are generally composed of living material, which they are not. So you've pretty much admitted that a) you have no idea what you are talking about... but b) you aren't about to let a little thing like a complete lack of knowledge about what you are talking about stop you from drawing conclusions!

"The salt content of the oceans is far to low, for the earth to be as old as the evolutionists claim. "

This is an old Morris argument: it's based on a false model of the interaction of salt in the ocean that simply ignores processes that remove salt. You can make anything sound ridiculous if you simply ignore or misrepresent whole swaths of evidence. You might as well argue that rain is impossible because clouds should just evaporate and distribute evenly in the atmosphere. That's just as silly and ignorant.

"The moon still recedes from the earth a little each year."

Again, this is just another goofy argument that's been debunked a million times. It's almost embarrassing that you fall for this stuff, because it shows that you basically are satisfied to read a bunch of creationist claims without spending any time checking to see whether they actually make any sense. Not a single astronomer I've ever read thinks this argument has any merit, but I guess they must all be part of the same vast conspiracy to cover up what you alone understand.

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[plunge]

"Your declaring that you had or have evidence is, well, not convincing."

The convincing part is that the evidence is there: you only have to go out and look. You've already basically admitted that you haven't. I've looked at all the evidence, and I've formed my own opinion. You, I don't think actually are aware of the evidence, or even how science works in the first place. THAT is why you are unconvincing.

"When one has actual evidence, they present it."

Or they just point out that its out there to look at, if you're actually interested. There are countless good resources with which you can learn about the subject. But I don't think you are interested, are you? You're basically asking me to sit you down and teach you basic biology and then work from there. That actually might be sort of fun, but since you seem more interested in ranting and raving, I very much doubt you'd listen to anything I have to say.

It's true that the mere number of informed people who agree with me doesn't prove anything by itself. But there are good reasons WHY those informed people agree with me, and in this case that's because your ideas don't pass the laugh test. You don't have to take my word for it, but figuring this out is going to involve you doing the hard work of learning about the subject: not just waiting for a slashdot post to inform you.

"Thus far in history, to date, there has never bee a scrap of unambiguous evidence discovered which can not be explained by a Creator."

This is just a pointless claim. A hypothetical Creator could do anything, leave ANY sort of evidence at all. That makes that proposition untestable: and as outside the realm of science as the claim that the universe began yesterday (complete with our false memories of a past long before it).

What we DO have is evidence that points unambiguously to a particular set of conclusions. If you want to argue that this is all a grand trick by some universal trickster to just fool us all, okay, but so what? That doesn't change what the evidence says. Try going into a court of law and arguing that the defendant was framed by a demon who snapped his fingers and made all the blood, DNA, and physical evidence for the murder appear in a puff of smoke. See how long it takes you to get laughed out of court. It's the exact same principle.

"NOTHING happens by accident. Simple as that. Called a LAW, not a theory."

Really? Which law is that? Is it a law of chemistry? Biology? Physics?

And did you really just embarrass yourself by implying that laws are contrasted with theories? Do you not understand that theories often encompass laws, and do not, in fact "turn into" laws at any point?

"I can defend my statement that evolutionism is useless, unproductive deadly, dangerous and purely religious."

I doubt it. I don't even see much evidence that you even understand the basics of evolutionary theory, much less back up what seem to be purely tactical accusations about it being "religious."

"I noticed that you did not answer which of the four scenarios best fits how you believe we got here. Non-committal?"

Your question doesn't even make sense. We don't know, and may never be able to know, anything relevant to the question of how the universe began, or even if it ever began. We don't have any evidence about the matter, and any discussion about what is "more likely" is pointless: all of the physical laws we are familiar with come from observations of things WITHIN the universe: we have no idea what sort of conditions restrict or are involved with the universe itself.

And of course, that question has nothing at all to do with evolution in the first place.

"Here's a new one. Start with a tadpole and explain metamorphism into a frog from purely evolutionary means."

Tadpoles do not evolve into frogs. Did you mean to ask how things like distinct and different life stages for organisms evolved?

"Or take flight in four groups and explain how it naturall

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[arminw]

....that simply ignores processes that remove salt.....

There are some processes that may remove salt, but they have never been demonstrated to remove anywhere near as much salt and enter the oceans. It is conjectured that these processes remove salt as fast as it is deposited, and that the oceans have reached equilibrium in their salt load. This removal mechanism has however not been observed and measured to be actually happening. Science is about actual measurements, not conjectures of mechanisms or even educated guesses. People and that includes scientists INTERPRET the facts according to their world view. There MUST be a mechanism to remove salt, since our theory is that the earth is xx billions of years old. No such salt removal mechanism as actually been observed in action, so one is conjectured to exist.

It is a fact that the moon is still receding from the earth about 2.5 cm each year. It has been and can be measured accurately today by lasers. This recession is interpreted to be caused by tidal losses. Maybe that is right. However if that recession has been going on at this rate for 4 billion years, the evolutionary interpreters tell us the moon is old, then the moon would have been 100,000 km closer to earth than today. Even if that process remained linear over that entire time, the moon would have been almost 25% closer to earth than now. Few things are linear in nature. Gravity and tidal losses would have been higher and the rate of recession is less now than it would have been then. The math gets complicated, by exactly how much faster the moon may have receded from earth. It is highly unlikely that the rate of recession was ever LESS than what we observe today. Nobody knows for sure how the earth got is moon. Some conjecture that it was ripped out of the still nearly molten earth, others conjecture that it condensed from gas, just as earth and the other planets and captured by earth's gravity.

The plain fact is we just don't know exactly how things were in the past. There was only one witness, the one who did it. Witnesses can never prove anything. Witnesses only testify. God testifies that he did it. Nobody else was there to witness creation. We as the jury, can choose to believe any witness, including God or not.

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[arminw]

.....As a human brain does not come into existence through the same processes........

I never said a thing about any processes. However processes do not just happen, but involve thought and planning. These are activities of mind. My analogy IS valid. Nobody would theorize that a computer or TV came without involving a mind, yet many do theorize that the brain did. It matters not what the processes are, but the thought behind whatever the processes may be.

Evolution is the attempt to theorize how what we observe and measure in nature came to be without reference to anyone's thought or planning. Anyone who can look at the incredible ingenuity of some of the navigation systems of birds, such as the Golden Plover, for example, and NOT stand in awe of the software engineer who programmed all that ability into a tiny bird brain, must not WANT to believe in God pretty desperately.

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[smaddox]

Haha, thanks... I always have to correct people who mix the two up, and somehow I fell into the same trap.

Re:Only confusing the stupid ones

[Corporate Troll]

You're welcome. I pretty much thought you simply mixed them up. It is indeed a common mistake.

Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now my wife can tell everyone she's married to a black man!

At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[Bob-taro]

... before you start bashing them, okay? I believe in intelligent design, but I don't see that this post has much to do with it. Those of us who believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis obviously don't believe that humans came from multiple sources, we believe all humans descended from one couple. However, even if you could conclusively prove that all humanity came from one population - that doesn't disprove evolution (which is probably why you didn't immediately get the ID crowd all posting "see! see! we were right!". In fact, I'd think that even from an evolutionists POV, the chance of a species evolving independently from multiple populations is low.

Now if someone said they'd proven that humans couldn't have evolved from one population, I might be inclined to look at their findings more closely.

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[east coast]

Those of us who believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis obviously don't believe that humans came from multiple sources, we believe all humans descended from one couple.

Quote me where it says this in the bible.

Now, I'm not a Christian but I do not bash the believers out there but on the argument of ID and giving the benefit of the doubt I think that there is a lot of room for other humans being created without being mentioned in the bible.

To follow what little I know of the bible Adam and Eve had two sons, one murders the other. Where is the female(s) needed to carry on the race?

I think if there is any validity to the Christian mythology of ID that there will also need to be the allowance for God to have created multiple people from "nothing" to provide us with our current makeup of genetics. This isn't to say they couldn't all be in the same geological area either.

Ultimately I don't think this study does enough to give either side of this debate absolute validity. Unless, perhaps, there is something that actually says that there is only Adam and Eve and everything else came from the natural order. Too much has been assumed to be true from the bible that simply isn't stated and I think the idea of Adam and Eve being the only humans created by God is one of them.

But again, I'm not a Christian so I won't brow beat you with your own religion.

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[Aladrin]

Good points. I'm an evolutionist, and I find it sad that you are unlikely to be modded up on this. (Against the group-think and all that.)

When I read the article, the first thing I thought was 'I thought we could all agree on this?' That's the 1 big (important) thing the ID and Evo people agree on: We came from a single source.

Of course, I still haven't ruled out that possibility that evolution is controlled by God. It kind of muddies things a bit.

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[jollyreaper]

before you start bashing them, okay? I believe in intelligent design, but I don't see that this post has much to do with it. Those of us who believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis obviously don't believe that humans came from multiple sources, we believe all humans descended from one couple. This can be scientifically disproven. Start with one breeding pair of the animal of your choice (say, lab rats for convenience), allow them to interbreed. See how many generations you can go before the mice get all hillbilly.

Furthermore, the Bible contradicts itself. You start with Adam and Eve. Cain and Able come next. Cain kills Able, then is told he has to dwell in a distant land. He is afraid of being killed by others who discover his crime. What others? There's only three people on the planet! Unless he was thinking of the nephelim who saw our babes were hotness incarnate and so slept with them and gave rise to the giants.

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[DarenN]

I remember hearing that it's been proven genetically that there is one common male ancestor and one common female ancestor for humans. the problem was, they were about 100,000 years apart.

It was on television, so no reference.

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[Anonymous Coward]

So where does the plural "babes" suddenly come from? Seeing as there was only supposed to be one - Eve.

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[LnxRocks]

I have to reply to this...too many miconceptions.
1) The Bible rarely lists daughters in geneologies so absence is not suprising.
2) I do not believe the Bible gives any indication of when the Cain and Abel incident took place (Adam lived for 960 years according to Scripture) - plenty of time to have a sunstantial population.
3) The Bible indicates that Adam and Eve had sons and daughters(unamed) Cain and Abel were likely named due to their story. We do not know where they fell chronologically.

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[Anonymous Coward]

"But again, I'm not a Christian so I won't brow beat you with your own religion."

Before you think you can "brow beat" someone you have to be able to understand what is "core" and what is not; what is philisophical debate (a meta discussion of the "how") and what isn't. You also make the fatal mistake of thinking everyone who is Christian believes the same things; especially in regards to things that are of little core importance.

"....according to the opinions of the above mentioned exegetes and theologians, it results that Revelation and Dogma say nothing directly concerning Monogenism or Polygenism, neither in favour nor against them. Besides, these scientific hypotheses are per se outside the field of Revelation. Within this context, different combinations of the scientific theory of evolution are therefore hypothetically possible or compatible with the doctrine." - Roberto Masi

See the "Polygenism" section.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_and_the_Rom an_Catholic_Church

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[Anonymous Coward]

What about 'Gods' from the sky?

After all:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
        -- Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961 (Clarke's third law)

See also:

Zecharia Sitchin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zecharia_Sitchin

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It was on television,

Ah, it must be true then.

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[ardent99]

When I read the article, the first thing I thought was 'I thought we could all agree on this?' That's the 1 big (important) thing the ID and Evo people agree on: We came from a single source.

Maybe I'm being picky, but I think that is an oversimplification that is too conciliatory between the two positions, and isn't technically correct. Evolutionists, being scientists, think that there are many possible explanations, some of which are more likely than others given the evidence known at the moment, and which may change over time as more is learned. ID people think there is one explanation, it will never change, and it has nothing to do with evidence, it has to do with belief, and specifically discounts physical evidence.

Your statement saying that the two groups agree on that point is like looking at two ships whose paths crossed at sea, and saying they were on the same course at that point. In reality they may never have even seen each other.

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[truckaxle]

Those of us who believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis obviously don't believe that humans came from multiple sources, we believe all humans descended from one couple.

An astute reader would have noted that "all hebrews (ie god chosen people) descended from one couple" Cane was afraid of the "others" out there and that "they" will try to kill him.

If you believe the literal Genesis interpretation (and it amazes me that people still believe in bronze-age myths) then you would support the multi-origin points theory.

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[Bob-taro]

This can be scientifically disproven. Start with one breeding pair of the animal of your choice (say, lab rats for convenience), allow them to interbreed. See how many generations you can go before the mice get all hillbilly. That proves nothing. Just because you can't make something happen again doesn't mean it couldn't ever have happened. That's like saying YOU couldn't have been born because you can pair up any man and woman you please, and they won't give birth to an exact replica of YOU. And just because the mice are "all hillbilly" doesn't mean you couldn't get a viable population going. Maybe we're "all hillbilly" compared to the first humans. (:^B

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[geekoid]

"Those of us who believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis obviously don't believe that humans came from multiple sources, "

well, literal interpretation of Genesis means you have to believe conflicting creation stories.

So :
a) You have no idea what the word literal means, or;

b) You haven't actually read the Bible(most people haven't. By most, I mean everyone who thinks its a literal work.)

c) You are crazy

Genesis is a Jewish myth, I suggest you talk to a Rabbi about it.

OTOH Most believer of any faith don't know there own theology. Evolution is a perfectly accept within Catholic doctrine, but most catholics don't know that, and that includes many priests.

Personally, I don't care what you believe as long as you don't use it to effect anyone else.

"ID crowd all posting "see! see! we were right!". "
I agree with you here, those people are troll, idiots, or both.

"Now if someone said they'd proven that humans couldn't have evolved from one population, I might be inclined to look at their findings more closely."
You believe in something with no facts to back to up at all, why would this fact suddenly matter?

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[KingKiki217]

From Genesis 4:

13 Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me."

There were clearly other people on the Earth at this point; who else would Cain be worried about killing him?
Anyway, here's the story of Cain and Abel, if you'd like to read it; many people haven't.

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[KingKiki217]

I have Wikipedias for you:
Y-chromosomal Adam
Mitochondrial Eve

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[The One and Only]

Why would evolution be controlled by God? That would imply that God didn't do a good enough job of creating evolution in the first place.

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[Dimensio]

That proves nothing. Just because you can't make something happen again doesn't mean it couldn't ever have happened. That's like saying YOU couldn't have been born because you can pair up any man and woman you please, and they won't give birth to an exact replica of YOU.

False analogy.

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Genesis 5:4

"After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters."

Reading Genesis 4 and 5 will probably shed a lot of light on this little discussion. You can even do it from the convenience of your favorite web browser!

Re: At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[Black Parrot]

However, even if you could conclusively prove that all humanity came from one population - that doesn't disprove evolution (which is probably why you didn't immediately get the ID crowd all posting "see! see! we were right!". Actually, the Discovery Institute's Casey Luskin is doing that right now, on the topic of junk DNA.

He's about as wrong as he can be, but that never gave pause to anyone affiliated with the Discovery Institute.

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[Bob-taro]

False analogy. What's wrong with it?

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[Dimensio]

You are comparing a general event of genetic defects resulting from inbreeding over time with a single event of a specific individual emerging at a specific time.

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[Bob-taro]

You are comparing a general event of genetic defects resulting from inbreeding over time with a single event of a specific individual emerging at a specific time. But that was the exact point I was trying to make. Okay, maybe the analogy wasn't so good, but my whole point was that just saying inbreeding generally produces genetic defects doesn't prove that a specific group of organisms could not have all descended from a single set of parents. You would have to have some way of proving that inbreeding always produces too many defects for a population to continue, and I do not believe that is the case. Given your criticism of my analogy (comparing a general effect to a specific occurrence), I expect you would agree with that.

Re:At least wait for the ID people to post ...

[Dimensio]

One of the axioms of science is that the fundamental properties of the universe do not change over time. If you cannot demonstrate that the properties of genetic degredation from inbreeding do not apply under a set of specific circumstances, there is no reason to seriously consider the suggestion of descent of a massive population from two individuals absent any other evidence for the claim.

Copy and Paste the Article here, please

[BayaWeaver]

If you have full access perhaps you can paste the text here? I'd just like to read the text for now. Don't need the diagrams and pictures, if any. It's a Letter, so it isn't very long.

Define 'humans' please...

[12357bd]

All is good and right, but... Define 'humans' please...

Re:Define 'humans' please...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hairless chimpanzee that walks on two legs and is intelligent enough to destroy it's own environment.

I have to go with logic for now

[Bagggy]

While I realize that there is not yet any conclusive evidence whether single-origin or multiple-origin evolution of homo sapien sapiens is correct, I have to say that logically single-origin seems more feasible.

It just seems to me a hard to believe idea that somehow we evolved to have the exact same set of genetic make up in multiple places at once. Is there any other creature that's done this? If our genetic make up is the same that mustn't we all be from the same origin?

I also sort of feel like multiple origin evolution for our species seems to insinuate that our "race" is more significantr because we evolved in different areas, which is a slippery slope to racism.

Re:I have to go with logic for now

[MightyMartian]

I think you've created a bit of a strawman of the Multiregional Theory. It still says that all humans originated in Africa, but that some modern populations outside of Africa evolved from H. erectus ancestors, and that some of those ethno-racial features that we find in modern populations have very deep roots. But the theory also states that there was gene flow between these populations, so that none became reproductively isolated. The charge that it can lead to racism is one some members of the OoA crowd will make, though I don't think that the multiregional hypothesis necessarily means that at all.

Re:I have to go with logic for now

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's the logic that has always bothered me.

When I look back in my family timeline, I'm related to more and more people; eg, I have two parents, who each have two parents, and so on.

Yet when I look back in the world family timeline, there's fewer and fewer people; eg, there's a lot more people on the planet now than there was before.

So logically...there's more people needed to make me, *and* there's less people to make them from.

Re:I have to go with logic for now

[Bagggy]

This may be a silly question, but what is OoA?

I think I see what you are saying though. I don't agree that it means that at all either, but unfortunately there are most likely people that would try to use multi-origin evolution as a scapegoat or justification for racism.

Re:I have to go with logic for now

[MightyMartian]

This may be a silly question, but what is OoA?

Sorry, Out of Africa.

I think I see what you are saying though. I don't agree that it means that at all either, but unfortunately there are most likely people that would try to use multi-origin evolution as a scapegoat or justification for racism.

I find those types who condemn human evolutionary theory as racist because it states our ancestors came from Africa are exhibiting racism themselves by suggesting that an African origin somehow means some races are inferior.

The Out of Africa crowd, on the other hand, are simply trying to bash their opponents by making the link between multiregional origins and racism. It's an unfair charge, and an unnecessary one, as the growing body of evidence is pretty much relegating the theory to the dustbin. All the molecular and fossil evidence suggests that modern humans are incredibly young, no more than about 150,000 years old, and that there is a distinct lack of genetic diversity, particularly with populations outside of sub-Saharan Africa, that runs counter to what one would expect for multiregional origins.

Re:I have to go with logic for now

[Bagggy]

Most definitely on all points.

I hope you are not saying that I meant that African origin would indicate any kind of inferiority. That was not at all what I meant and not at all part of my thought process, I'm more worried that others might think such a thing. And multi-origin theory is not out of the question either, but I'm still sticking to single origin and Africa seems to be the most viable origin for us right now.

Re:I have to go with logic for now

[rothic]

That was not at all what I meant and not at all part of my thought process, I'm more worried that others might think such a thing

The truth is whatever the truth happens to be. Whether or not people use some concept to support political notions that are unpopular does not imply in any way that the particular concept isn't factual.

On another note, when a particular development (e.g. the current state of human existence) has competing theories of how said development occurred (e.g. out-of-Africa vs. multiple-origin), the actual truth tends to be that both have a basis in fact. In may very well be the case that the major component of human genetic heritage is from a single original line and it may also be the case that our genetics have been modified in various ways through contact with very near-modern (reproductively compatible) Homo Erectus populations that moved out prior to Homo Sapiens. In any case, racists will still find plenty of reasons to be racists, so we might as well attempt to understand our origins without pre-examining all of the potential political outcomes of that knowledge, and we most definitely should not be entertaining one theory over another because of a potential political outcome. The truth is the truth, period.

Re: I have to go with logic for now

[Black Parrot]

It just seems to me a hard to believe idea that somehow we evolved to have the exact same set of genetic make up in multiple places at once. I think the idea was that the various branches were still mutually fertile, and there has been a lot of cross-breeding to share stuff around.

However, I think the MO hypothesis depended on a lot of ignorance about genetics. Back when it was reasonable to think that modern Europeans had a lot of Neandertal ancestry, the MO hypothesis would have almost been a necessity. But the huge accumulation of genetic information over the last couple of decades - not just this specific study - has essentially killed it.

There are a few holdouts, just as there are a few "birds are not dinosaurs" holdouts, but they're dying breeds.

People think Christians can't be scientists...

[Peter Trepan]

...but in fact, we hope this research will tell us which race received the Mark of Cain.

I bet it's those pagan Eskimo savages.

Re:People think Christians can't be scientists...

[Seedy2]

I continues to amuse me that no has come to realize that the Mark of Cain is simply white skin. (i.e. albinism)
What other kind of mark would be instantly recognizable from a distance from any direction?

Re: People think Christians can't be scientists...

[Black Parrot]

They can. Only creationists (from multiple religions, btw) can't deal with science, and only a subset of those.

Probably the majority of scientists in the USA are Christians, and presumable most of them believe that the Christian god created the universe. They just don't feel that they have to abandon rationality (like the idiots at most creationist advocacy organizations) or honesty (like con artists from the Discovery Institute) in order to hold to their religion.

Why do you repeat such nonsense?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Unless you're Catholic. ;)"

Concerning biological evolution, the Church does not have an official position on whether various life forms developed over the course of time. However, it says that, if they did develop, then they did so under the impetus and guidance of God, and their ultimate creation must be ascribed to him.

Concerning human evolution, the Church has a more definite teaching. It allows for the possibility that man's body developed from previous biological forms, under God's guidance, but it insists on the special creation of his soul. ...it has not infallibly defined whether the world was created only a few thousand years ago or whether it was created several billion years ago

- http://www.catholic.com/

Re:Why do you repeat such nonsense?

[alta]

Well, the ;) meant I was joking.

And the unless you're Cathlic was about the previous statment "open for interpretation." What I was tought was: way back when, Catholics were not allowed to interpret the Bible. That was the Pope's job. The peasants couldn't even read the latin, so that kept it the job of the clergy. This was one of MANY reasons for the protestant reformation. http://www.gotquestions.org/Protestant-Reformation .html (paragraph 2)

I know that's no longer the case, and may not have been as true as was taught.

But anyway, I was just poking a little fun.

Anyway, glad to see another Christian (assuming again, damn) on /.

Mutant apes :)

[benhocking]

We're not monkeys, we're apes, and pretty damn great ones, at that.

Read your own link, dumbass.

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Knight et al. (2003) Y-haplogroup A, the most diverse or oldest-diverging Y haplogroup transmitted purely by patrilineal descent, is today present in various Khoisan tribes at frequencies of 12-44%, and the other Y-haplogroups present have been formed by recent admixture of Bantu male lineages E3a (18-54%), and in some tribes, noticeable Pygmy traces are visible (B2b). The Khoisan also show the largest genetic diversity in matrilineally transmitted mtDNA of all human populations.

From a single source!

[Orig_Club_Soda]

That's just what it says in the Bible!

Re:From a single source!

[BJD3]

From a single source! Did they use compile switch??

Re:From a single source!

[Orig_Club_Soda]

No, it was like a series of tubes...

MY muslim friend could have told you that

[oliverthered]

and that white people come from adam and eve who were made from mud, and black people came from monkies.

This may sound like a troll, but it's what she actually thinks.

Re:MY muslim friend could have told you that

[aevans]

And it's actually such simpleton racism that motivates these academic multi-evolutionists. They presuppose whites and blacks shouldn't be married and then try to claim that they can't possibly produce offspring, therefore the union must be unholy, and then go home to their "domestic partner" and complain the the Jews are Nazis because some hook-nosed TA (who happens to be Italian) was making out with the Aryan co-ed sitting in the front row of his required lecture they'd been fantasizing about.

Re:MY muslim friend could have told you that

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment makes absolutely no sense, and leaves me believing that you are more disturbed than the racists you are attempting to pillory.

Re:MY muslim friend could have told you that

[Anonymous Coward]

Either your comment's incorrect or your friend's messed up.

Muslims believe that ALL human beings decent from Adam and Eve, and that race and lineage do not make one person superior to another. The only thing that can make one person superior is the doing of good deeds, all other criteria are considered irrelevant.

Maybe you should ask your friend to learn a bit more about her faith.

Overreactions

[paladinwannabe2]

Maybe it's just me, but I would classify the Khoisan peoples as black. I could classify their skin tone as a 'lovely, dark mahogany color' but black is simpler, and usually even idiots know what you're talking about. Since you don't seem to, I'll list some possible reasons why:
1. You don't know what Khosians look like, and assumed that just because whites and blacks decended from them, that they must be a light brown color.
2. You think that calling someone 'black' is offensive. Instead you use words like 'African American', because you assume they were descended from Africans, just like every other human alive. Or perhaps you avoid all descriptive words, including 'tall', 'red-headed', 'overweight', and 'intelligent' because you think it's offensive to point out difference between individuals.
3. Perhaps Jesse Jackson is your role model. "Ignoring differences in race and sex is racism and sexism!" -J. Jackson

I know it's hard to fit common sense into your politically correct view of the world, but deal with it.

Apes, dagnabit, apes!

[benhocking]

Your explanation is great, except for two things: (1) those were apes (common ancestors of chimpanzees, bonobos, and us), and not monkeys, and (2) the common ancestor is no more - we on the other hand, have also remained apes.

Re:Apes, dagnabit, apes!

[Belacgod]

Apes, monkeys...I'm a layman and can't tell the difference.

So it really went: There were some apes in the jungle. Some left for the grasslands and became humans. The others stayed in the jungle and became monkeys or died out. Later on, some humans returned to the jungle, but didn't wipe out the monkeys, because their population didn't expand sufficiently.

That's how it went?

Who's over-reacting.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you see the world through your own idealogically distorted racialist views, you can't handle the truth.

Q: who's making the assumptions? A: You. How the fuck did you come up with your #2 point? WTF? You're sick.

Fact: the Khoisan do not consider themselves Bantu.

Quoting Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton can't get you out of your ignorance.

IBM Genographic anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/

Who cares what you think.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Maybe it's just me, but I would classify the Khoisan peoples as black."

Yeah, but you're stupid, and they don't consider themselves black, so who gives a fuck what you think.

I know it's hard for you to believe that no one gives a fuck about opinion, but deal with it.

Wrong

[ylikone]

Humans didn't evolve FROM apes... humans evolved from a long line of common parent types to both human and apes. Those types have gone extinct long ago.

Re:Wrong

[Belacgod]

I think you're missing the whole "This is a 30-second summary meant to address one particular common misconception about human evolution" thing.

Re:Wrong

[aevans]

Remember the search for the missing link? They thought it was Piltdown man, but when it turned out to be a hoax they said that the link must be further back. Now we shuttle around a bunch of sacred plaster piltdown skulls and wax and nylon reproductions with a few shards of bone in holy boxes to museums and cathedrals and try to keep quiet about the "missing link"

Re:Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

See? You're all arguing!

NO ONE HAS THE ANSWER!

Re:Wrong

[Dimensio]

Remember the search for the missing link? They thought it was Piltdown man, but when it turned out to be a hoax they said that the link must be further back

I am curious. Do you have an arugment that is not a dishonest strawman?

Closer

[benhocking]

The apes did not become monkeys, however. They became other apes (bonobos and chimpanzees). Apes (including us), monkeys, and lemurs are all primates. However, apes and monkeys are no more the same thing than chimpanzees and humans are.

Also, the whole grasslands thing is only one hypothesis. There are others. (I'm not saying the grasslands hypothesis is wrong, mind you.)

We may just be...

[Anonymous Coward]

We may just be a screwed up v. 0.1 evolutionary protoype of gods, left in the African desert to be finished up by the hot sun, lions and depressing perspective of hopeless future. But then it turns out that we were not screwed up as badly as the original estimate was - and here we go, a few thousands years later slashdotting our mind and craving for v.1.0. as if any of this mattered at all.

I'd really expect the truth to be more like...

[3seas]

... we were in part genetically influenced by what we call alien life. Not in just one place on this planet.
Perhaps the real questions are regarding time lines and why evidence either exist or does not. Rate of deterioration under what conditions?

This whole Darwin vs. god vs. intelligent design is all rather silly.

Its like right to life vs. freedom of choice. Want to know the truth about that? Ask a starving child!

Likewise, the evolution of conscious beings is probably a mix of Darwin, god (the right conditions existing - father physics and mother nature) and intelligent design, even though intelligence can sometimes be stupid (selective breading and external intelligence influence)

Anyone who wants to divide what actually is, is looking to create a problem that doesn't really exist.

Re:I'd really expect the truth to be more like...

[Tablizer]

This whole Darwin vs. god vs. intelligent design is all rather silly. Its like right to life vs. freedom of choice. Want to know the truth about that? Ask a starving child!

The starving child will support whatever diety, priest, professor, or bum gives him food.

Huh?

[yo man]

Since when were Hispanic and Indian Americans referred to as being "of African descent"? Doh!

Minor correction

[benhocking]

Humans evolved from a long line of common parent types to both human and other apes.

Answering a question with a question...

[benhocking]

(and one that is sure to generate its own flamewar)
If Java is based on C++, why does C++ still exist?

Alternatives from Other Sources

[DynaSoar]

Many peoples insist they originated in their native location.
There are genetic groupings that indicate some of them were isolated human populations for quite some time.
Evolution includes parallel evolution for disparate species, but more so for evolution of a single species at different locations.,
Something originated in Africa. Humans have a single ancestral line.

It is worth considering a hypothesis that not humans, but the forerunners of humans, were those who migrated from a African origin, and evolved in parallel at different locations. Petroglyphs in North America appear to predate the African diaspora of 80ky ago. Neanderthals made cave markings. Proto-humans on this continent would probably have done the same.

On the other hand, the oldest existing historical mythology in North America, that of the Hopi, specifically state separating from the Africans (and Asians) prior to their move to this continent. This was accomplished > 35ky ago, prior to the Bering Land Bridge. As a scientist I rely on evidence, and logic when evidence is not forthcoming. But as someone with ancestors that have lived here a lot longer than 500 years, I don't dishonor their word and do consider that it might be at least as valid as the evidence and logic.

Re: Alternatives from Other Sources

[Black Parrot]

Many peoples insist they originated in their native location.
There are genetic groupings that indicate some of them were isolated human populations for quite some time.
Evolution includes parallel evolution for disparate species, but more so for evolution of a single species at different locations. Parallel evolution, in the way biologists use the term, does not result in a unified species. E.g., you can say that bats' and birds' wings are the result of parallel evolution, but a bat isn't a bird and a bird isn't a bat.

Petroglyphs in North America appear to predate the African diaspora of 80ky ago. Cite?

As a scientist I rely on evidence, and logic when evidence is not forthcoming. What's your field and specialty?

Re: Alternatives from Other Sources

[DynaSoar]

> Parallel evolution, in the way biologists use the term, does not result in a unified species. E.g., you can say that bats' and birds' wings are the result of parallel evolution, but a bat isn't a bird and a bird isn't a bat.

I realized I was using the term in a non-standard way. I do believe, however, that a species can differentiate although not speciate due to strong genetic pressure to develop in a certain way, and they do so despite different niches. Consider what we call races as being what we call breeds in other animals, and some of these differentiate due to locale and not directed breeding. They are not speciated because they can still interbreed.

> Cite?

[re: petroglyphs] I can't find the web site. It was about tracing various "missing" cultures such as Mississipian by their glyphs back through the Hopi to the Anasazi and beyond. There were pictures of some that were dated between 80ky and 95ky. It was pointed out to me by Chief Joe Chasing Horse (Lakota). He was producing a "speaking book" (audio recording of stories, supplimented by graphics in a paper book) on prehistoric astronomy under a NASA grant. I don't know the state of that project. I'm thinking the Hopi cultural preservation program would have it.

> What's your field and specialty?

My field is cognitive science, primarily neurophysiology and neurochemistry. The line in "Thank You For Smoking" that said "Why they've just found that smoking can offset Parkinson's disease," referred to a project I worked on. The chemistry people found the substance, and I proved it was working in peoples' brains.

My specialty is methodology, designing experiments and/or data analysis techniques examining time series data. This has led me to contribute to work in ecology, paleontology, solar physics, transonic aerodynamic turbulence, and so forth. I've developed nonlinear and fractional dimension statistical techniques and contributed to work in the philosophy of science being extended by complex dynamic systems theory. For fun, I'm a rocket scientist, but then you don't have to be a brain scientist to be a rocket scientist.

My "training" in the history of ancient peoples on this continent is cultural, but I've always sought evidence to support it. There seems to be a pattern of selective attention paid to physical evidence as to whether it supports the few favorite theories developed by people with no training in the history. There's far more evidence than there are theories to fit it into, and more valid theories with support than there are taught to students in the field.

Re: Alternatives from Other Sources

[truckaxle]

There were pictures of some that were dated between 80ky and 95ky. It was pointed out to me by Chief Joe Chasing Horse (Lakota). He was producing a "speaking book" (audio recording of stories, supplemented by graphics in a paper book) on prehistoric astronomy under a NASA grant.

That is absolutely not correct. Chief Joe needs do more research. This earliest markings anywhere in the new world are less than 12k years old. The earliest in the old world are only less than 30k years old (Chauvet Cave for exmample).

oblig chem bros reference

[oneiron]

It began in Africa-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca-ca.. .

HUMANS DIDN*T EVOLVE

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm NO! Humans did not evolve! God created humans just lyk he created the heavens and the Earth, get it right !!

Believe in Christ, our savior!!

Christ by highest heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord!

Firefox 2.0

[benhocking]

(To pollar oposits using each other rederick to make their point)

Man, I really hate to do this, but I have to point out that Firefox 2.0 has spellcheck built in.
(The words you were looking for are: polar, opposites, and rhetoric.)

stupidity supports racism

[datapharmer]

Yes, and because blue M&Ms were made after brown ones they taste better too. First, to support racism there would need to be, well, races. Lack of actual genetic races aside Homo sapiens that evolved in Africa were subjected to evolutionary forces the same way the ones who migrated out of Africa were. All Homo sapiens continue to be subjected to so some degree of evolutionary shaping (cancer anyone?). Just because some people left Africa does not mean that they progressed faster from an evolutionary standpoint, just that it was more noticeable (skin color, hair, size, etc). Finally, saying that Homo sapiens that left Africa are better than ones who stayed because of evolution is silly; by that measure Chimpanzees who remain in Africa are better than all of us because they are evolving faster genetically. Genetic evolution is a sign that the species is adapting to just survive... if you look at successful species like turtles they change very little over a very long time, so if you want to play racist then the ones who left are the weak ones... but that just shows the absurdity of your argument. Go take a biological anthropology class, it would do you some good.

Re:stupidity supports racism

[kayditty]

oh, please. don't call him on being stupid, but call him for being wrong (if he is). it could very well be that black people aren't as intelligent, and there is nothing wrong with that. the fact that I may even believe that (I don't) doesn't make me racist, either. racism means I believe a race (or races) is inferior to another race, and, unless I think that the race is any less useful because of their lower intelligence, then I would hardly call any such position "racist." hell, even if I took it one step further and really thought black people were the scourge of the earth, then that's not necessarily a bad thing.

it's not something I would do! but what's wrong with being racist, exactly? as long as you don't go around killing people - so what? and if you do go around killing people because you don't like their race, it's no different from killing anyone else for any other reason. all reasons for killing people are pretty stupid, when you think about it. I'm tired of this politically correct anti-racist bullshit. if someone actually reasons through to an opinion that one race is inferior or superior in different ways than another, then what exactly is wrong with that? if someone takes that to an extreme -- thinking we should eliminate the other race(s), then I can see why you might call that stupid, but, so long as they don't do it, what business is it of yours?

I'm not saying you can't discuss it or wish they would change their minds. I just don't see why you have to be so presumptuous and pretentious about it. I honestly don't even know how you can claim that no one is racist, going by what seems to be your (and most others') definition of the word. isn't it a fact that the races _ARE_ different? and isn't it a proven fact that races DO HAVE DIFFERENT ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES? doesn't that mean that anyone who is "racist" (to a lesser degree than what most people consider racism, but still pretty much fits your itchy-trigger-finger, liberal-agenda firing off of the word) in your mind is actually scientifically correct? I only really care about what's true. that may be hard for you to accept or understand (me thinking that, or the truth itself), but that's the way things are.

if our strongest emotions can be reduced to the simplest of chemical reactions, then does that make us any less interesting? I don't think so. I think it enhances the concept of what humans really are. It's amazing. So if the truth is that some races have differing abilities, does that make them any less useful or interesting, or does it make the other races any more useful or interesting? Not necessarily. But if you want to talk about each race in terms of those differences, then I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. Even if you want to extend this to something like breeding outside of your own "race." If you don't want to, that seems perfectly fine to me, and makes some sort of sense (we probably are all of the same species -- I guess that's pretty well accepted -- but we may wish to pass on different kinds of genetic traits to our children, and isn't it true that the various species of butterfly, for instance (and I may be wrong), recognize their mates by aesthetic properties such as color?

It isn't a bad thing, necessarily. While I think that chiding people (let alone wanting to harm them) for intermarrying is dumb, you definitely have the right to choose with whom you wish to partner, and you definitely have the right to discuss that idea freely. I'm fearful that our free speech is being eroded by all of these politically correct puppets trying to legislate "hate speech" laws and that sort of thing. And racism in the west largely comprises white people not treating black people with the kind of carefulness that you would ideally exhibit in the presence of an all-knowing god. I'm sorry, but it's true, and it's fucking ridiculous. I can make fun of whomever the fuck I want, and in whatever capacity I want, and I can damn well get away with it. Thank the founding fathers. Stop shitting on their gr

old news?

[mrcvp]

They said that on NGC 2 years ago. What took theys guys so long?

Because there really was just one source

[Moraelin]

A bit off-topic, I know, but what often puzzles me is that all living things basically work with the same chemistry. All have DNA, and there are many proteins that are physically very similar between different species, even between animals and plants. This leads me to conclude that all life must have come form one ancestor that materialized somewhere on the planet.

Yes, and that ancestor is a very simple RNA-based bacterium. And this evolved into DNA-based simple bacteria. Then bacteria which included other simple and ultra-specialized bacteria (cloroplasts and mitochondria). Which evolved into simple multi-celular life forms like sponges and extremely simple worms (hardly more than essentially an elongated torus whose surface was a bacterial film.) Which further evolved into more and more complex stuff.

And some figured out how to eat the others. E.g., fungi evolved to take another cell apart for food. And then some of those managed to, well, more or less do agriculture with other bacteria: the lichen are more or less a combination of a fungus and a bacteria, where the fungus traps the bacteria and helps fixate water and minerals for it, then scoop the food the bacteria produced. Or sometimes just destroy and eat those bacteria for food.

So there you already see the early split between plants and animals: one branch of the fork relied on photosynthesis to produce its own food and energy, using solar energy for it, and the other branch of the fork evolved to be basically parasites on the first one. Whether literally parasites eating the live plants (mostly plankton and algae at that point), or eating the corpses.

But before that fork, they evolved from the same ancestor, hence why they're still similar inside.

And from there it was often a race between species, driven by natural selection. E.g., the lignin based plants of the carboniferous era had a major temporary advantage, in that bacteria and fungi didn't yet exist which could digest this adaptation. However, that also applied to dead plants, which is why there's so much coal left from that age (and gave the age its name.) There simply was noone around which could eat a dead plant. But then bacteria evolved that could take apart lignin and celulosis. And then some animals evolved compartmented stomachs where they could store such bacteria so they could eat plants. (Don't think just literally animals. Some insects, e.g., termites, do exactly the same.)

And so on, an so forth, branching wildly ever since, and punctuated by some extinctions that trimmed the tree.

But, yes, once you trace all the branches back, it all leads to that first primitive bacterium. That's why it's all so similar at a chemistry level. Each step was a tweak of what already existed. Each step evolved more complex proteins, or just different proteins, and more specialized roles, but it was still based on the same reactions that worked before.

E.g., it still had enzymes which copied a strand of RNA, between a "START" and an "END" marker, to a protein. Even in DNA based cells, it's still not that horribly different: there's just an extra step of transcribing the DNA to RNA, so then you can transcribe the RNA to a protein. (As to why that more complicated mechanism evolved by natural selection: because breaking a single strand of DNA, for example by radiation or some chemicals, can still be fixed, while the same break in RNA means cell death. So the DNA based mutants were hideously more survivable than their RNA based ancestors.) Anyway, we essentially we still use the same mechanism of producing the proteins as that original proto-bacterium ancestor.

Where did that original bacterium come from? Well, probably from something even simpler. A bacterium is nothing more than a drop of sea water with a membrane. It makes it easier to keep the contents isolated from the rest of the world, much like a test tube does. But ultimately you just have some reactions in liquid water inside. So probably some chemica

Re:Because there really was just one source

[squiggleslash]

Never get moderation privileges these days, so here's a reply that you can take as virtual moderation of "+1 Awesome."

Re:Because there really was just one source

[wikinerd]

life evolved exactly once. No more and (obviously) no less. Why not more than once? maybe it's just a freakin' improbable event.

Perhaps several different biochemistries developed, with one becoming too successful and displacing others.

Re:Because there really was just one source

[arminw]

.....relied on photosynthesis to produce its own food and energy....

You speak so glibly and voluminously about the mechanisms of life, as if you or anybody else really understands it. Photosynthesis is still not understood and has never been duplicated from non-living matter. It is still a mystery exactly how a photon of just the right energy is captured and used to stitch together the basic atoms of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.
The photon energy has to closely match the binding energies of the atoms involved. The spectrum of the sun, as filtered by the atmosphere, matches those energies remarkably well. This spectrum correspondence between the sun and the life on earth is one of the many parameters that have to be "just so", in order to have a useable energy source.

It is conceivable, that once here life could have "evolved" though even that requires quite a bit of imagination and a lot of assumptions (belief). The probability that the conditions for life and life itself are NOT the result of careful thought and planning is astronomically small.

A stupid question, seriously

[Anonymous Coward]

This may be a stupid question and someone may know the simple answer.

Okay, let's assume, we all originated from Africa. I may be wrong, but that might suggest that we were all a single "black?" race at the beginning. But is it possible to evolve into "white", "yellow", etc. from "black"?
If you look at chidren of interracial marriages, they tend to carry very visibly the characteristics of different races - can these racial traces "evaporate" over the time and somehow evolve into separate races?

Re: A stupid question, seriously

[Black Parrot]

Okay, let's assume, we all originated from Africa. I may be wrong, but that might suggest that we were all a single "black?" race at the beginning. But is it possible to evolve into "white", "yellow", etc. from "black"?
If you look at chidren of interracial marriages, they tend to carry very visibly the characteristics of different races - can these racial traces "evaporate" over the time and somehow evolve into separate races? Due to selective pressures a human population will evolve to an appropriate skin pigmentation for its latitude over a few thousand years (say 5K-20K). We can see it in the results of historical and late prehistorical population movements: the more recent the move, the less well the population fit the typical pigmentation for the latitude. There was a great article on this in Scientific American a few years ago, with lots of maps and photographs. It may be worth trying to find in your library.

Interesting points, poor grasp of english

[paladinwannabe2]

Scientists, as you point out, often have a 'religious' view of certain theories. We saw it back when the Big Bang theory was first proposed; the scientists of the day saw it as 'thinly veiled creationism'. What drives science forward, though, is when you have two groups of fanatics screaming at each other, the non-fanatics generally cluster to the side with the better arguments and better evidence. That's why the Big Bang theory is now taught in schools, and the various steady state theories are discarded, as are most of the 'Big Crunch' ideas.

Anyway, as far as your 4 theories go:
1. The Universe came into existence completely from nothing, by itself. There was nothing, then everything over time. Start with nothing & work forward.
I believe that Hawkings is actually espousing this idea. It seems highly unlikely to me, since it violates the First Law of Thermodynamics, without which all Chemistry, Physics, and Biology is meaningless.
2. The Universe always existed
Seems highly unlikely, given that a) the universe is expanding with no sign of collapsing and b) the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
3. The Universe is an illusion
Possible, but a pointless theory. Even if true, the universe behind the illusion still has to follow one of the other 3 possibilities (but #1 and #2 might be possible in a universe with different laws)
4. The Universe was created.
Almost certainly the case, the question is just by what. Perhaps another universe is unaffected by the Second and/or First law of Thermodynamics, and our universe was created there as an experiment/toy/prop. Perhaps our Universe was born from a black hole in another universe- and the black holes in our universe are also creating more universes. God creating this universe seems at least as likely as anything else, but that merely tells us he's insanely smart and/or powerful. He may care about our universe, but not care about us.

Our best science tells us that we can't know how the universe was created. Unless we get the opportunity to witness another Big Bang or talk to God, it seems likely we will never even have that good of an idea.

Re:Interesting points, poor grasp of english

[zukester]

Then we simply need to stop telling the kids that we DO know. The kids do not hear that it is impossible, they do not hear it is religion, belief, or anything other than fact.

I know how we got here, which has nothing to do with science-but that does not make it fals, either. Because I know the only ONE who did it and was there.

Intelligence is all around us and has no natural origin. Design is all around us and has no natural origin. Nothing comes from nothing. Can I prove this to anyone? Not one soul unless they want to be "proven to". But it is a fact.

When evolutionist claim they KNOW anything at all from the distant, pre-recorded past, they lie when they call it science. It is dogma and religion, since they were not there. They can not know, do not know and need to tell the children that "340,000,00 years ago during the age of fishes" is their religious viewpoint, which thing I would have no problem telling them, as long as it is not in a science class, because it is a religious statement.

But dogma? Insisting evolutionism is a fact because "most true scientists believe in it"? It is hypocrisy, like calling James Baker or Jimmy Swaggart a thieves (which they are) and then opening your own church (Church of Darwin) and collecting millions to spouse your religion (public schools, universities, PBS)

Darwinism requires so much more blind faith and evolutionists are simply afraid of being mocked for rejecting the religon. So they redefine science as "naturalism" (a religion)

You look at design and call it "by chance" and then call it science? Then you are a liar. Call it religion, for what it is.

Regards, Over and out.
Zukester

Re:Interesting points, poor grasp of english

[arminw]

.....or talk to God......

Or that God could talk to us and tell us as much about it as He thinks we need to know about it. That is what the Bible claims to be, a message from God.

Re: Interesting points, poor grasp of english

[Black Parrot]

What drives science forward, though, is when you have two groups of fanatics screaming at each other, the non-fanatics generally cluster to the side with the better arguments and better evidence. That's why the Big Bang theory is now taught in schools, and the various steady state theories are discarded, as are most of the 'Big Crunch' ideas. Fanatics came up with the idea of the big bang? That's going to be news to lots of cosmologists.

Unless we get the opportunity to witness another Big Bang or talk to God, it seems likely we will never even have that good of an idea. I see lots of people who talk to God on the evening news, always in the segment about some horrid crime. I wouldn't recommend it as a method for understanding reality.

Re: Interesting points, poor grasp of english

[Black Parrot]

Intelligence is all around us and has no natural origin. Can you justify that belief?

Design is all around us and has no natural origin. Can you justify that belief?

Nothing comes from nothing. Can you justify that belief?

You look at design and call it "by chance" and then call it science? Scientists rarely attribute things to chance. Their entire purpose is to find explanations for stuff.

Re:Interesting points, poor grasp of english

[truckaxle]

That is what the Bible claims to be, a message from God.

No it doesn't. Find me were it says the specific collection of books that we call the bible are from God? OBTW several "sacred writings" make the very same claim.

Re:Interesting points, poor grasp of english

[arminw]

....Find me were it says the specific collection of books that we call the bible are from God?......

The writers of the Bible constantly quoted God.

Contrasted with other often ambiguous sacred and even secular writings, the Bible is very definite and to the point. Over 400 times, the construct "Thus saith the Lord" is found in the Old Testament as consistently recorded for us by its writers throughout the centuries.

Phrases beginning with "Truly I say to you...." are recorded over 50 times as utterances of Jesus. You can choose to classify these as repeated lies, foolish irrationalities, or you can believe them. Jesus claimed to be God. If that claim is true, we'd do well to listen and heed His words.

When you quote someone verbatim in writing and that person never said anything like that, you can be sued for libel. God won't sue you, but will hold everybody accountable for their words and actions. If those writers back then or anybody today claims God said this or that and it is NOT true, they will be in big trouble.

If on the other hand what those witnesses did tell is the truth and quoted God verbatim, anybody who refuses to believe them will be in hot water with God. When someone tells you something repeatedly and you don't believe and act upon that information you are in effect calling that person a liar or of no value.

We humans are all like someone floating down a river we don't know in a small boat. Someone at the shore yells out that there is a 200 foot cataract a few miles down river. If you don't believe that message, and act accordingly by getting to the river bank, whose fault will it be as you are swept to your death over the edge? It is usually safer to assume someone is telling the you the truth and find out later it was a lie than the other way round.

adam & eve

[Anonymous Coward]

So where did Adam and Eve come in? The church will never stand for this.

Re:Do this mean...

[uglydog]

Why are all these posts being modded troll? "Porch Monkey 4 life... It's okay, We're takin' it back..." is a quote from the movie Clerks 2. And the "apology" for the original post was modded troll as well. It was an apology!

Re:Huh? - did you read?

[bogaboga]

Have we been wrong all along by addressing non-white/Hispanic or Indian Americans as "Americans of African decent?"

Read that quote again (emphasis mine), and tell us whether you'd still post the comment you posted. If you would, I give up, my lord!

So was Fahrakkan right?

[Anonymous Coward]

Us Whiteys are the result of a genetic experiment gone bad by ancient Negro scientists?

Re:Do this mean...

[techpawn]

Well, kings to you for getting the refrence! The mod system on /. is like a woman. It might love you one second and then slap you the next and expect you to know why. Sometimes though you just have to hold your breath, make the Kevin Smith joke and wait to get smacked.

Re:The Out of Africa theory supports racism

[datapharmer]

Primitive Tribes: Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Celts
Geniuses: George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, Toni Morrison
Imbalance: If your culture had the technology it needs to be successful there is no need to improve GENETICALLY. A great deal of traditional African medicines are still being explored because they work and We Westerners don't know why.

No more troll food after this.

Normally I don't respond to AC's but......

[Chineseyes]

Normally I don't respond to AC's but you do realize that Asian and Africa are the #1 and #2 continents in terms of total population? You do also realize that the majority of their populations are of a fairly tan to brown complexion right? Given the greater mobility due to technology (thank you great white inventor of everything overlords), baring some sort of race fueled genocide the world population will eventually be fairly uh brown.

I know, VERY scary thought hide under your couch, form a hate group, colonize mars and make it white only because "the blacks" are coming, they are reproducing at a rate that would make rabbits feel inadequate, and they are coming for your pure white mothers, daughters, and aunts!!!!

FEAR!!
FEAR I SAY THE WORLD IS AT AN END!!!

Oops

[tsa]

I meant: Maybe there are other planets where there really are MANY different forms of life, all based on different chemistries.

You care, apparently

[paladinwannabe2]

We care about each other's opinions just enough to make fun of them. It's not like the Khoi or the San refer to themselves as Khoisan, either. These labels are for our benefit, not theirs. Of course, it's not like the rest of your post makes sense- almost everyone cares about the opinions some people have, even if they don't care about yours or mine. I don't expect you to care about my opinion, but I certainly believe it's more valuable than yours.

You are!

[paladinwannabe2]

Since you're using the word 'racialist' I can only assume you're the same racialist idiot that I replied to earlier. According to Wikipedia, "Racialism refers to the belief in the existence and significance of racial categories." Your emphasis on classifying the Khoi and San people into "Khoisan" and the Bantu into "Negroid" races implies that you think these racial categories are somehow significant. I think you meant to call me 'racist', which implies that I think some races are better than others. 'Racialist' just means you think there are significant differences between races, not what those differences are. 'Black', meanwhile, is just a non-technical term used to refer to skin color, and its usage is widely understood, even by most idiots. You're clearly a well educated idiot, though, since most idiots don't even know big words like 'Khoisan' or 'Bantu'.

Also, I love the way you make points. I can do that too!
Fact: Germans don't consider themselves Irish.
Fact: The Moon is not made of Cheese.
Fact: You're arguing against points no one is making.

I'm not even sure what point you're trying to make, but whatever it is, you're doing a bad job of it. As far as I can tell, you're arguing that using the term 'black' to describe people is somehow 'racialist'. I think that calling someone 'black' is as insulting as calling them 'red-headed'... that is to say, not insulting at all. I try to care about race as little as possible, and see most of those who obsess over classifying themselves and others as 'Bantu' or 'Aryan' or 'Native American' or 'Indian-but-in-a-higher-caste-than-those-other-Ind ians' as idiots. Guess where that means I classify you?

Re:You are!

[zxnos]

so long as you dont add 'articulate' or 'step-child' respectivly to those two you are good to go...

Re:Huh? - did you read?

[yo man]

>Have we been wrong all along by addressing non-white/Hispanic or Indian Americans as "Americans of African decent?"
>
>Read that quote again (emphasis mine), and tell us whether you'd still post the comment you posted. If you would, I give up, my lord!
Yes I would! Abstract what you wrote as "addressing all non-X/Y or Z as A". The way any normal person would parse this is to assume that the subject here is the category of things either non-X, Y, or Z, which collectively have the characteristic A. I see what you were trying to say, but that's not what you wrote, at least not using the standard grammar the rest of the world uses

Family Reunion!

[Easy2RememberNick]

Khartoum Holiday Inn July 2008, family reunion.

  Bring some potato salad, drinks and your own chair.

A new gender-neutral pronoun!

[Anonymous Coward]

"His(her/its) actions are commendable..."

hmmm....Hisherits...Hershisits... Hershey's!

Great, so we're all related...

[whopub]

Just what I needed, 6.6 billion more names on my xmas list.

Re:Great, so we're all related...

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, send the fruitcake to Ethiopia.

That is a problem with most schools

[paladinwannabe2]

When teachers teach something, they don't say "Here is our best understanding of what this means, and here are some other theories." Instead they say "This is what this means." It's much easier to teach something if there is only one right answer. Students aren't taught critical thinking until high school or college (if ever). I do think that life would be much better if all the fanatics (whether they are scientists, gamers, politicians, or clergy) would realize they might be wrong and discuss evidence for and against reasonably, but based on the last 1,000 years of history that's not likely.

Re:That is a problem with most schools

[zukester]

Origins is not necessary to teach in school. Any scientific discipline (bar NONE) can be taught sans origins, K-College.

Origins is down the hall, under "philosophy". Origins is what we derive meaning to life from.

Science is dissecting frogs, studyng bird songs, studying flight, the mating of various animals, inventing new plastics. None of which has to do with origins. True science is what anyone can not worry about ageeeing on, since it is not based upon theory.

Studying the makeup of an amoeba is far different from telling kids, blindly, "this PRIMITIVE(false), single-celled creature evolved from a primordial soup some 3 billion years ago"...which is a religious statement and belongs down the hall in philosophy class.

With Darwinism, the kids are cheated out of science and meaning.

Zukester

Re:That is a problem with most schools

[plunge]

You don't seem to understand what science is at all: your understanding of "theory" is a common and very basic misunderstanding that really casts doubt on pretty much everything you have to say. All of science ultimately involves theorizing, and by theorizing we mean constructing larger scale explanations of phenomena, not, as you seem to imply, speculation.

I also don't know what you think you mean by "Origins" (capitalized) but science studies things like the origins of various species and ultimately of life precisely because there is testable evidence regarding the question.

Biologists do not think that modern amoeba are primitive, so I'm not sure why you are accusing them of doing so.

Re:That is a problem with most schools

[arminw]

....All of science ultimately involves theorizing,.....

That's right and just fine. Why then is the THEORY of evolution presented as fact in our high school text books? Why is the THEORY of intelligent design not given equal time? It is because evolution is NOT science, but a religion. You don't expect the Q'ran to be taught in a catholic sunday school class do you? So why should religious evolutionists teach intelligent design or creationism in their so called "science classes"?

Re:That is a problem with most schools

[plunge]

"That's right and just fine. Why then is the THEORY of evolution presented as fact in our high school text books?"

Seriously, are you joking? This is such a basic and common misunderstanding that I'm STILL shocked to see it come up time and time again.

Scientific "theory" is not the opposite of facts. Theories in science are COMPOSED of facts (and laws, and and so on). Theories NEVER "become" facts: not even theories that are 100% deductively proven (like, for instance Number Theory). This is just a basic and honestly sort of embarrassing confusion of terminology on your part. "Theory" is not a measurement of certainty. If you think it is, then you need to go back and learn some more about science first.

"Why is the THEORY of intelligent design not given equal time?"

Because ID doesn't have a scientific theory: it doesn't even have a testable set of core claims to begin with, much less have any supporting evidence. You might as well ask why astrology isn't given equal time, or why Harry Potter spells aren't given equal time in science class, or Lord of the Rings history isn't taught in history class.

"It is because evolution is NOT science, but a religion."

So, wait: your explanation for why a basically untestable and ultimately religious idea isn't taught in science class is that OTHER parts of science are religious? Really? Are you kidding me? Forget the pot calling the kettle black, the pot is calling the porcelain black here.

"You don't expect the Q'ran to be taught in a catholic sunday school class do you? So why should religious evolutionists teach intelligent design or creationism in their so called "science classes"?"

You are the one accusing evolution of being a religion. But an accusation doesn't make it true, and in this case, the accusation is false.

Again, the reason ID isn't taught in science class is because a) it's not testable, even in theory and b) it's basically in practice just a bunch of warmed over creationist arguments meant to advance religion, and the whole point of public education is that it has to be religiously neutral.

Re:That is a problem with most schools

[arminw]

......Scientific "theory" is not the opposite of facts.......

Scientific theory is someone's interpretations of observations and measurements. Only the latter are science and factual, repeatable evidence. Figuring out what these measurements mean is theory and is based on the opinion and world view of the interpreter. This is especially true, because theories of origins, more than other things are based on the world view of the interpreter

We find fossils virtually everywhere. That is science, and that is factual evidence. Anyone can go and find fossils. Nobody has ever made a fossil or seen one form. Theorizing how these fossils came to be is just that, theory and opinions, not science. Evolutionists theorize that fossils were made over large periods of time, gradually, millions of years ago. Creationists tell us that fossils were the result of a great cataclysm, a world wide flood. Both of these views are theories, interpretations of the observational fact of fossils. The discovery and cataloging of fossils is science, Interpreting how they were made is belief, based on the world view of the interpreter.

There are also underlying assumptions, beliefs based on world view. One is the uinformitarian idea that nothing in changes all that much over time. The other is that there were, in the past dramatic discontinuities in certain aspects of nature. There is no way can say for sure than nothing, like for instance certain "constants" of nature are truly invariant over time.

If any scientific facts are interpreted, than all such interpretations should be given equal time.

Re:That is a problem with most schools

[arminw]

......Scientific "theory" is not the opposite of facts.......

Scientific theory is someone's interpretations of observations and measurements. Only the latter are science and factual, repeatable evidence. Figuring out what these measurements mean is theory and is based on the opinion and world view of the interpreter. This is especially true, because theories of origins, more than other things are based on the world view of the interpreter

We find fossils virtually everywhere. That is science, and that is factual evidence. Anyone can go and find fossils. Nobody has ever made a fossil or seen one form. Theorizing how these fossils came to be is just that, theory and opinions, not science. Evolutionists theorize that fossils were made over large periods of time, as sediments on the bottom of oceans and lakes, gradually, millions of years ago. Creationists tell us that fossils were the result of a great cataclysm, a world wide flood. Both of these views are theories, interpretations of the observational fact of fossils. The discovery and cataloging of fossils is science, Interpreting how they were made is belief, based on the world view of the interpreter.

There are also underlying assumptions, beliefs based on world view. One is the uinformitarian idea that nothing in changes all that much over time. Radioactivity dating is based on the assumption(belief) that certain constants, in this case, Planck's constant has always been the same as it is today. There is evidence that h as changed dramatically over time, making such assumptions unwarranted.

  The other assumption (belief) is that there were, in the past dramatic discontinuities in certain aspects of nature. There is no way anyone can say for sure that nothing, like for instance certain "constants" of nature, are truly invariant over time. There is evidence that certain so called constants are variables throughout their existence.

If any scientific facts are interpreted, than all such interpretations should be given equal time. Right now, the evolutionary interpretation of the facts is given almost exclusive coverage at taxpayers expense in our schools. Other opinions are actively suppressed and ridiculed.

Re:That is a problem with most schools

[plunge]

No, I'm afraid not. In science, the word theory refers to the idea that many different concepts are all combined to form an explanation for something. You keep trying to pretend that it has something to do with speculation or interpretation, and it does not. That's not how it works.

We CAN talk about how we might interpret various facts. But that discussion is not, in science, merely a matter of personal preferences: in science, we go and test the evidence to figure out which interpretations are supported by the evidence and which are not.

You also keep insisting that we need to "see" things, as if with eyeballs. This is simply wrong. What we need is evidence. All of the evidence is consistent with the mainstream idea of fossil formation (and, in fact, in this case, you happen to be just plain wrong in any case: we can and do observe the formation of fossils in every stage of the process).

The idea (not interpretation) that fossils were made rapidly very recently does not fit the evidence. It goes against everything we have learned about chemistry. It is inconsistent with a large number of very different sorts of physical findings from all over the world (physical findings that instead all converge and fit with the one and only "interpretation" that does explain and fit with all the evidence).

Why you are correct that there are certain basic assumptions about natural consistency, these assumptions are no different than the ones you make when you assume that your bed is made of matresses and not solar plasma, and so it is safe to lie upon night after night without fear of yourself being set on fire. You are welcome to reject those basic assumptions of the uniformity of natural laws, but at the cost that you cannot from that point on even pretend that this messageboard exists or that your keyboard might not turn into a snake the next time you touch it. In short, you can only get away from those assumptions by basically eradicating all knowledge, not JUST the knowledge you for religious reasons do not like.

Furthermore, we can in fact test many of these assumptions in limited ways against, again, the evidence. If the rate of nuclear decay were once much higher, for instance, it would be immediately apparently because of the much higher degrees of latent radiation in everything around us as well as the extreme damage this would have caused all sorts of things.

Re:That is a problem with most schools

[arminw]

.....form an explanation for something. ....

If you look up the meaning of the word explanation here:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/explanation

you will see that this term includes to provide an interpretation for a mystery.

(.....that fossils were made rapidly.....)

There is no way anyone knows of, whereby a fossil can be made slowly. Today, when a living organism dies, it DECAYS. It never makes a fossil. To prevent decay, all agents that cause such decay must be eliminated. That means decay causing organisms must be killed or inactivated very quickly after death and oxygen must be excluded almost immediately. Slow burial in sediments doesn't work. Nobody has EVER made a fossil, using any conceivable slow evolutionary mechanism. Maybe you have some information on how it is possible to make a fossil today by a slow extended process over time.

Fossilization always involves water in that fossils are found in sedimentary formations only. A sudden destructive burial of the large variety of living things, while yet alive, under miles of mud and silt, in a cataclysmic flood of rushing water fits the evidence of fossils. The immense pressure and resultant heat killed micro-organisms that cause decay and exclude oxygen. A slow burial over a long time doesn't.

(.....these assumptions are no different than the ones you make when you assume that your bed is made of matresses ....)

However, I can test such assumptions EXPERIMENTALLY by lying down on one to see if they are valid. There is NO way to test some of the assumptions of evolutionists. It is science to make assumptions that can be tested by observation. Religious assumptions (beliefs) and evolutionary beliefs cannot be tested. That's why they are both only beliefs. The assumption that nothing ever changes (such as some natural "constants") cannot be tested experimentally. We do have evidence that most of nature is dynamic, not an unchanging static. Assuming that fossils were made "somehow", but not being able to make one by any theorized process is not science but faith.

(..... If the rate of nuclear decay were once much higher, ......)

You are forgetting that energy conservation laws would prevent this. For example, a larger Planck's constant h in the past would reduce atomic cross sections. You can think of h being a sort of damping factor for the vibrations of atoms. This means the likelihood of an emitted particle from dissipating its energy within a given amount of matter would decrease. Even today, an atom is mostly empty space. With a larger h it would in effect be even emptier. Also, the now rather big, slow moving, destructive flying fragments of radioactive decay would instead be smaller, moving much faster. Thus energy conservation laws would not be violated and atomic binding forces would not change. In combination with the smaller cross section of atoms, radioactivity fragments, such as gamma rays are effectively smaller, moving faster and therefore would have very little interaction with matter on that account as well. There are particles called neutrinos still today, which go through the whole earth and never interact with a single atom. With a much larger h, other particles, such as gamma rays from radioactivity and radiation from space would behave in a similar fashion as neutrinos still do.

A two dimensional analogy would be a chain link fence and some chicken wire fencing. If you would shoot marble sized steel balls at the chicken wire you would have a certain chance of each ball breaking a wire, ultimately destroying the whole fence. Now if shot BB's at a larger chain link fence sized wire mesh, each of them moving correspondingly faster in order to carry the same energy as each ball did, the probability of damaging the fence would be comparatively small.

On the atomic level, this means for example, that genetic DNA damage by a

Re:That is a problem with most schools

[plunge]

Look, you're just so full of falsehoods and ignorance of what you are talking about that it's hard to know where to start, or if its even worth the effort. You're simply all wrong on fossils: you have no idea what you are talking about. I have no doubt that you've been fed a bunch of BS by creationists and are just regurgitating it back to me, rather than you outright lying, but the effect is the same. Nothing about fossils is in the least consistent with flood geology.

"However, I can test such assumptions EXPERIMENTALLY by lying down on one to see if they are valid. "

No, you can't, not in that case, because the test is about past experience being uniform with the present. No amount of testing can ever establish that, and yet you act and live as if the past were real and evidence of past events is real. It's only when you decide that the clear evidence isn't in accord with your religious beliefs that you raise a fuss about it.

Re:That is a problem with most schools

[arminw]

....Look, you're just so full of falsehoods and ignorance...

If you could, you'd tell me how to make a fossil or cite someone who did make one. You KNOW you can't and neither can anyone who believes the evolutionary fairytale.

(....the test is about past experience being uniform....)

No, it is an experiment I repeat every night in the PRESENT, not the past. So far nothing unusual has happened. I usually sleep fine each night unless I ate too much for dinner.

If you want to know WHY evolution is a fairy tale, look here if you dare.

http://www.fhrsporthorses.com/rock-time.htm

If this gets you angry, it is only because deep down you know it's true. Lies never bother people nearly as much as truth they don't WANT to hear and accept.

When people run out of reason, they resort to personal attacks, such as you have.

Re:That is a problem with most schools

[plunge]

"If you could, you'd tell me how to make a fossil or cite someone who did make one. You KNOW you can't and neither can anyone who believes the evolutionary fairytale."

I've already pointed out things like diatoms, which fossilize in succesive beds, right to this day. I've already noted that we find fossils in all steps of the process of mineralization. I've already pointed out that your original discussion of fossils demonstrated that you were ignorant of how fossilization worked, meaning that your claim that it could not was fatally undermined (how can you know it can't work if you don't even understand how it is claimed to work?) You ask for cites, but of course the whole point is that you can go to nearly any chemist, biologist or other expert, or any textbook and journal you want all the evidence for my position. Heck, wikipedia even has a decent article on the subject. I don't need to rely to links to crackpot websites.

"No, it is an experiment I repeat every night in the PRESENT, not the past. So far nothing unusual has happened. I usually sleep fine each night unless I ate too much for dinner."

But the present never demonstrates anything about the future unless you assume the uniformity of the basic interactions of material reality. And you do: implicitly. In fact, you wouldn't have any reason at all to risk lying down on your bed unless you implicitly assumed it. You wouldn't have any cause for treating pretty much any knowledge of the world at all that relies on past evidence or experience as real. Again, without the assumption of uniformity, you really have no grounds at all to believe the universe even existed two seconds ago, much less last night.

"When people run out of reason, they resort to personal attacks, such as you have."

A far more plausible alternative is that when people of reason are confronted with those that have no respect for reason, logic, evidence, or argument, they are exasperated.

Re:That is a problem with most schools

[arminw]

..... Again, without the assumption of uniformity.....

I never said that NOTHING is constant. Some thing change rapidly, some slowly, some a little and some not at all. This is especially applicable if large periods of time, millions and even billions of years are considered. Therefore, if I assume something is constant, I should check that assumption. If it is not possible to check it, then it must be taken on faith, like a religion. If someone slept on that mattress for thousands of years, the material it is made of would likely have crumbled to dust before then, but it will likely be OK for the short human life time. The quest for origins is about the past, not the future.

(....things like diatoms....)

Diatoms have mineral skeletons, like many sea shells and snails. Finding a shell like that somewhere is NOT a fossil. Don't confuse mineral shells of certain creatures with fossils. They are much different.

Upon your suggestion, I looked up fossils on wikipedia, where it says among other things:

"Fossils may also consist of the marks left behind by the organism while it was alive, such as the footprint or faeces (feces) of a reptile."

"Fossil sites with exceptional preservation -- sometimes including preserved soft tissues -- are known as Lagerstätten. These formations may have resulted from carcass burial in an anoxic environment with minimal bacteria, thus delaying decomposition."

"Paleobiologists have studied the frozen flesh of prehistoric mammoths, and the preserved muscle tissue of archosaurs."

You tell me how a pile of reptile s**t can be preserved in sediment by any slow process. Do an experiment (science). Take some of your excrement and figure out how you can make it into a fossil. Maybe you can get expert on fossils to help you. If that grosses you out, try to fossilize your footprint.

You tell me how a slow burial over time could eliminate decay and oxidation of soft tissues. Only a quick death, immediate preservation by burial, such as caused by a sudden cataclysm could make fossils out of the soft tissues. Notice the phrase "may have resulted". That means nobody knows a plausible mechanism by which the result came about, but are guessing.

You tell me how the mammoths and archsaurs could be preserved by anything OTHER than an overwhelming, sudden catastrophe. Some of these frozen mammoths were found still chewing their last bite of food. They died very suddenly and whatever killed them instantly, also preserved their bodies.

The earth bears the scars of asteroid impacts, evidence of overflowing waters and other marks of a violent past. There is evidence that there is several times as much water trapped in the mantle of the earth, than in all the oceans. Even today, if the earth were smooth, the planet would be nothing but water about a mile deep.

Re:That is a problem with most schools

[plunge]

"I never said that NOTHING is constant."

But you can't just assume the things are constant that you want and ignore those you don't. The fact is that multiple independent means of measure do things like establish the old age of the earth, and all of these things are consistent with chemistry and direct extrapolations from everything we see in the present, within our own time span. You're the one trying to introduce evidenceless claims about how all of these things varied.

"You tell me how a pile of reptile s**t can be preserved in sediment by any slow process. "

That's exactly the point: you don't need me to tell you. You yourself can go and LEARN about how it can happen: the resources to learn this are widely available. Heck, most scientists are pretty nice people: you can actually even email them right off their department websites and they'll be happy to explain. You aren't willing to listen learn, or care. That's the rub.

People have done these experiments: people have looked at the evidence. It's all out there to look at and read.

"You tell me how a slow burial over time could eliminate decay and oxidation of soft tissues. "

Not all fossil burials are slow: there is no one single process by which fossilization occurs. Soft tissues are very rarely preserved unless the conditions are exactly right, and indeed it isn't the soft tissues that are actually themselves preserved, as I keep trying to tell you, and as you keep failing to understand.

"You tell me how the mammoths and archsaurs could be preserved by anything OTHER than an overwhelming, sudden catastrophe."

First of all, the majority of the mammoths that have been found are not preserved intact, and none are without signs of pre-freeze decay and/or predation. There are clearly many different causes of death for the mammoths we have, and even different methods of mummification. Yet again, you are just repeating a one or two line creationist claim without having any real idea about the subject you are discussing (the "food still in its mouth" thing is a dead giveaway).

You really are going to Gish gallop with one after another of these quick creationist tropes, aren't you? On to asteriods. What's next, the amount of dust on the moon?

Happy news for mankind, it should say "we" instead

[id3as]

Being a cosmopolitan and an internationalist without very clear identity, it is very useful and practical, since now I can say "we" with much more confidence.

Home sapiens?

[ari_j]

Dude, you spelled Homer Sapiens wrong.

I Originalated!

[Anonymous Coward]

And SO DID YOU!!!!

mod parent up

[rhendershot]

I wish I had mod points to give you. I think you make several important points:
- science is of the proven
- scientists also deal with the unproven (theory)
- the unproven often has corollarial unproven context (eg. amoeba isA primitive)
- the sum of context (ie. evolution, darwinism, etc.) is often indistinguishable from faith

Definately something to think about. thanks.

Re:mod parent up

[Dimensio]

- science is of the proven

Nothing in science is ever proven. Your statement demonstrates that you do not understand science.

- the sum of context (ie. evolution, darwinism, etc.) is often indistinguishable from faith

Only to those who have done no research, or to those who are willfully ignorant. Or to those who are liars, like zukester.

Re:mod parent up

[plunge]

Now, if only you could translate those "points" into coherent English, then we might even be able to have a discussion.

Re:mod parent up

[arminw]

....Nothing in science is ever proven.....

If you left out the word 'science' you would be more correct. However in true science there is REPEATABLE evidence. You can repeatedly stick your finger into a live light socket and repeatedly convince yourself about a certain fact concerning electricity. Until we have a time machine, there is no way to go back to the beginning or any other time before the present and do some experiments or observations. All we can do until then, stuck in the present, is make certain assumptions (beliefs) about the past and then trot out 'evidence' that supports these assumptions and vehemently try to suppress any evidence that is refutes these basic assumptions (belief).

Therefore indeed, the study of origins is philosophy, religion, a world view, not science.

Re:mod parent up

[Dimensio]

However in true science there is REPEATABLE evidence.

This is irrelevant. Repetition of an event does not amount to scientific proof. It only results in a larger sampling of data points from which conclusions may be drawn.

Until we have a time machine, there is no way to go back to the beginning or any other time before the present and do some experiments or observations.

To what manner of "experiments" do you refer? Also, are you unaware of the current observations used in support of the theory of evolution?

All we can do until then, stuck in the present, is make certain assumptions (beliefs) about the past and then trot out 'evidence' that supports these assumptions

Evidence is discovered in DNA and the fossil record. It is not "trotted out", it is published. If you wish to take issue with the currently presented evidence, then do so. Thus far you have badmouthed the entire field of study without offering any evidence that you even understand the arguments used in support of the theory of evolution.

and vehemently try to suppress any evidence that is refutes these basic assumptions (belief).

Please provide evidence of any vehement supression. Be specific.

Therefore indeed, the study of origins is philosophy, religion, a world view, not science.

You have, thus far, provided no evidence to support your assertions, nor even any evidence that you have actually researched the subject on which you speak.

Re:mod parent up

[arminw]

....without offering any evidence .....

A major tenet of evolution is that of immense age. There is evidence that the universe and earth are not nearly as old as theorized. Here are some evidences:

To assert that some object is N number of years old there has to be some sort of evidence of a reliable clock that has been ticking uniformly for all that time and there has to be some evidence that associates the clock with that object.

Scientists must assume (believe) that the ticks of certain clocks (radioactivity, tree rings, ice cores, deposition of minerals, magnetization, rate of erosion, movement etc.) are 1) equally spaced over time and 2) can be tied to time as defined by the motion of the earth around the sun (years). There is no way anyone can KNOW whether these uniformitarian assumptions (beliefs) are true. There is evidence for some rather catastrophic sudden events in the past.

There are clearly layers of ice covering Greenland. The assumption (belief) is that these are deposited at the rate of one layer annually. So they count the layers and based on the annual assumption, the bottom of the ice is hundreds of thousands years or even millions of years old.

Some aircraft that had crash landed there in WW2 were discovered after 42 years under 263 feet of ice. This glacial ice was compressed into several distinct layers per foot. This shows that these layers are NOT annual cycles, but simply periods of warmer and colder weather. Thus this evidence shows that the assumption about the annual nature of these layers is wrong. Therefore, these layers cannot be equated to years.

Scientists have determined that roughly 400 million tons of minerals are deposited yearly into the world's oceans. Today's mineral content (mostly NaCl) is less than 4%. At today's rate, IF it were really true that the earth is over a billion years old the water of the sea should be totally saturated with minerals. At the present rate, the salt content corresponds to around only 4000 years worth of accumulation. This corresponds to about the time of the biblical flood. This is evidence that the earth is not billions of years old, but still doesn't PROVE it, since we have no way of knowing whether the rate of mineral addition has always been constant. There also could have been a mechanism to remove minerals from the water, although so far nobody has come forward with a plausible mechanism.

The fact that there are still comets in existence, even though their lifetime is only in the ten of thousands of years at most, shows that the solar system is not billions of years old.

The moon moves away from the earth a little each year. If the moon were billions of years old, it would have been destructively close for both bodies long before then.

At the present rate of erosion, Niagara Falls should have long ago disappeared into lake Erie, if they were millions of years old.

If you want more evidence, I could give it to you.

Re:mod parent up

[Dimensio]

There are clearly layers of ice covering Greenland. The assumption (belief) is that these are deposited at the rate of one layer annually. So they count the layers and based on the annual assumption, the bottom of the ice is hundreds of thousands years or even millions of years old.

Some aircraft that had crash landed there in WW2 were discovered after 42 years under 263 feet of ice. This glacial ice was compressed into several distinct layers per foot. This shows that these layers are NOT annual cycles, but simply periods of warmer and colder weather. Thus this evidence shows that the assumption about the annual nature of these layers is wrong. Therefore, these layers cannot be equated to years.

Addressed here. Ice cores are not dated by thickness.

Scientists have determined that roughly 400 million tons of minerals are deposited yearly into the world's oceans. Today's mineral content (mostly NaCl) is less than 4%. At today's rate, IF it were really true that the earth is over a billion years old the water of the sea should be totally saturated with minerals. At the present rate, the salt content corresponds to around only 4000 years worth of accumulation.

Addressed here.

This corresponds to about the time of the biblical flood.

Unless you count aluminium, which gives an age coresponding to 100 years ago.

This is evidence that the earth is not billions of years old, but still doesn't PROVE it, since we have no way of knowing whether the rate of mineral addition has always been constant. There also could have been a mechanism to remove minerals from the water, although so far nobody has come forward with a plausible mechanism.

You mean like runoff?

The fact that there are still comets in existence, even though their lifetime is only in the ten of thousands of years at most, shows that the solar system is not billions of years old.

Are you suggesting that new comets can never come into existence?

The moon moves away from the earth a little each year. If the moon were billions of years old, it would have been destructively close for both bodies long before then.

Sure, if you don't understand gravity.

At the present rate of erosion, Niagara Falls should have long ago disappeared into lake Erie, if
they were millions of years old.

The age of Niagra Falls is not the age of the earth.

If you want more evidence, I could give it to you.

Do you have any that do not confuse the age of things on the earth with the age of the earth itself? By your Niagra Falls-type reasoning, the earth can be no older than 29 years, because I have only existed for that long.

Re:mod parent up

[arminw]

....Are you suggesting that new comets......

The so call Oort clout is a fictional mathematical construct that has never been shown to exist. Science is about measurements and observations, not fictional, dubious math based on assumptions. So until they actually observe this Oort cloud, the evidence stands

(....Sure, if you don't understand gravity.....)

Whatever the detailed equations may be, taking account that the earth and moon are not point sources, the fact is that the forces and losses get larger as the bodies are closer, not smaller. Therefore in the past, the rate at which the moon receded must have been greater. So the evidence stands.

( salt content)

The known mechanisms for salt removal are insufficient for an equilibrium between input and output of salt. There is a detailed report here:

http://tccsa.tc/articles/ocean_sodium.html

again the evidence stands

(...The age of Niagra Falls is not the age of the earth....)

So the rocks under and around the falls are really old, like the earth, but the falls themselves are young? It seems they should all be the same age. maybe that evidence can be doubted.

Jupiter and Saturn radiate more heat than they get from the sun. If they were billions of years old, they would have cooled off by now to equilibrium. Radioactivity would have decayed by now also if these planets were billion of years old.

Ancient astronomers records tell us that Sirius was red, redder than Mars. Yet today Sirius is a white star. Is that an indication that stellar evolution proceeds much faster then thought? Don't tell me that ancient astronomers were mistaken in their star identification. They were actually quite advanced even though they had no telescopes yet.

The conservation laws of physics contradict evolutionary theory.

Re:mod parent up

[Dimensio]

The so call Oort clout is a fictional mathematical construct that has never been shown to exist. Science is about measurements and observations, not fictional, dubious math based on assumptions. So until they actually observe this Oort cloud, the evidence stands

What evidence -- that allegedly "stands" -- have you that new comets can never form, then?

The known mechanisms for salt removal are insufficient for an equilibrium between input and output of salt. There is a detailed report here:

http://tccsa.tc/articles/ocean_sodium.html

Already addressed.

Do you even look to see if your claims haven't been rebutted already?

Whatever the detailed equations may be, taking account that the earth and moon are not point sources, the fact is that the forces and losses get larger as the bodies are closer, not smaller. Therefore in the past, the rate at which the moon receded must have been greater. So the evidence stands.

I notice that you do not actually address any of the content of the referenced article.

So the rocks under and around the falls are really old, like the earth, but the falls themselves are young? It seems they should all be the same age. maybe that evidence can be doubted.

Yes. The falls were formed by erosion which exposed ancient rocks. Have you actually looked at the geological conclusions of the Falls, or are you just parroting creationist claims without critical examination?

Remember: creationist literature has a specific agenda: the conclusions must correspond with Biblical literalism. Despite what creationists sources will dishonestly claim about a deliberat attempt to remove "God" from the picture, real scientists form conclusions based on the actual facts, not a preassumed conclusion.

Jupiter and Saturn radiate more heat than they get from the sun. If they were billions of years old, they would have cooled off by now to equilibrium. Radioactivity would have decayed by now also if these planets were billion of years old.

You really haven't done any research, have you?

Ancient astronomers records tell us that Sirius was red, redder than Mars. Yet today Sirius is a white star. Is that an indication that stellar evolution proceeds much faster then thought? Don't tell me that ancient astronomers were mistaken in their star identification. They were actually quite advanced even though they had no telescopes yet.

You should not crib notes from Hovind. He is a known liar (and a tax dodger).

Re:mod parent up

[rhendershot]

Nothing in science is ever proven.

Surely you are joking. Uncertainty moving toward certainty. At some point along that line most reasonable people will agree a thing is "proven". Don't pick nits on a post that primarily thanked another user for having caused a light in my own mind to shine for a moment.

Zukester got blasted on his use of theory but Theory obeys falsification. Inductive Theory models like origins are highly falsifiable. It always makes me chuckle when I hear the phrase "though the Theory has a few minor contradictions that aren't predicted by it, the Theory is still accepted..." In my line of work that's called a bug and is considered to be a problem.

The interesting thing I found in the OP was uncertainty moving toward certainty moving toward uncertainty. The meta models like evolution/age/origin are built on highly predictive models but also on a fair amount of assumption.

Unlike Zukester I'm not a creationist (per se), nor ID. I pretty much accept that there's an evolutionary developmental component and the world is pretty darned old. Whether humankind originated from one mutation and spread around the world, multiple mutations that cross bread, independent compatible mutations, or some other scenario is unprovable. Any prediction made on such a Theory is unlikely to be resolved in human life scale. And by definition it cannot make predictions about current human population due to its prime component of random change.

Like Zukester I would question having Evolution/Age/Origin posited to my kids as fact, unquestionable and inviolate. Especially since, aside from the Three R's, I think critical thinking is a crucial skill needed to be learned in childhood. Teaching these meta models as Fact makes for easy testing, but works against reasoning and curiosity.

Re:mod parent up

[rhendershot]

Here ya go: coherent english

Why was this posted?

[glitch23]

I fail to see why information like this is posted on Slashdot. 99% of the users of this site already believe in evolution so it isn't like this is necessary to convince them (like trying to kill something that has already died) and the other 1% aren't going to be convinced by a little bit of "research" that someone has done. Maybe these posts are like the posts for MS-related content: they are seeds for flame wars only.

Re:Why was this posted?

[catdevnull]

If you think about it, a thinking creationist might argue that this supports creation more than evolution--a genetic "Adam and Eve," if you will. Maybe the Judeo-Christian creation story is not so literal--if you leave room for the possibility of "something "creating the universe as we know it. Maybe it's chance that we evolved? Perhaps the truth is somewhere between?

Science is nothing more than the process of discovering what's already there--and we have a long way to go before we can declare anything is 100% certain.

I'm not taking sides--I just think it's interesting to an open-minded spectator.

Re:Why was this posted?

[glitch23]

Maybe it's chance that we evolved?

For the Judeo-Christian we didn't evolve at all but were created as human and stayed human.

Science is nothing more than the process of discovering what's already there--and we have a long way to go before we can declare anything is 100% certain.

Tell that to those who believe evolution is 100% true (not to mention textbooks which treat evolution as gospel) and berate (to put it nicely) those who disagree.

Re:Why was this posted?

[catdevnull]

I think it's dangerous to think in absolutes--for atheists and believers alike. We humans are far too limited in our understanding of the universe and/or God to be certain of anything. That doesn't mean you can't have faith in whatever--it just means you shouldn't poo-poo everyone else who thinks differently.

Re:Why was this posted?

[glitch23]

I think it's dangerous to think in absolutes--for atheists and believers alike. We humans are far too limited in our understanding of the universe and/or God to be certain of anything. That doesn't mean you can't have faith in whatever--it just means you shouldn't poo-poo everyone else who thinks differently.

Since you responded to me I'll say that you are preaching to the choir. You need to be able to explain your reasoning to the rest of the people on this site who make various derogatory comments towards religious people when there are scientific articles submitted regarding topics that believers and non-believers typically argue over. The believers don't make derogatory comments to non-believers because that isn't their nature but the non-believers, by their very nature, don't mind mocking believers.

Re:The Out of Africa theory supports racism

[MightyMartian]

There are no more primitive white tribes, and I can't imagine what you were thinking citing anglos and saxons when they've built the most technologically-proficient nations on Earth. I can only suppose you just lost context completely again in your scramble to make a counterpoint.

Just about every innovation to be found among Europeans came from elsewhere. Animal husbandry, forging metal, agriculture, writing and large-scale societies are imports brought by invaders. The level of Germanic society when compared with the settled societies to be found in North Africa at the same time is laughable. It's even more laughable when you compare the more ancient civilizations like Sumeria and Egypt to their counterparts in Europe.

Nothing should cloud the accomplishments of European civilization, but let's be blunt, it was all built, as so much is, on the backs of giants.

Africa was also home to some rather spectacular civilizations, in the sub-Saharan regions as well as the north. The Portugese ran into much more than you seem to think, but you're deep ignorance of history and of culture makes you see things through that false and moronic view the Victorians held to for that brief period when the British Empire ruled a good chunk of the planet.

Journey of Man

[MrMunkey]

I thought this was already known through work by Spencer Wells in his book The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey. I believe that PBS also has a video of the subject here. It was quite interesting, and at least seemed like it was based on solid ground.

What about the fake apemen?

[BD Star! (Score 6)]

Piltdown man
A tooth of a pig drawn into an apeman!
A lie and a fake 5 years by 1927.

Nebraska man
A lie and a fake for 40 years.
By then everyone in the world thought they were from apes.
How did it take 40 years for the scientific community to find it was a clumsy fake?

Javaman (homo erectus)
Discovered by Dr Dubois and he himself declared in 1938 that it was just a monkey (gibbon).
He had found human skulls in the same stratum did not tell anyone for 30 years!
A lie and a fake. He eventually renounced the javaman as a fraud himself.

Peking man
Dr. black discovered it, a tooth and some ashes.
Soon after human remains were found mixed with animal remains. The animal remains were the food of the humans.
Hey but they wanted an apeman! so they grabbed bits of both and made Peking Man!

1972
Richard Leaky
Found a skull that supposedly blew evolution out of the water by 2.5 million years. The only thing left was
Ramapithecus. Just some fragments of jaw bones and some teeth. The same size and shape as a babboon in Ethiopia.

It never has been found and it never will be found a creature that is more than brute and less than human.
Also there is such little evidence for apemen that the amount would not be accepted in any other field of science.

And there's plenty more scientific evidence for the non-existenance of evolution!

(I know this is not what you like to hear, so just score me nothing as usual. Thanks)

Re:The Out of Africa theory supports racism

[Tatarize]

Um. Lets go with no. First off, genetically speaking, there's not really any races. There are different traits which tend to group in different areas where they are more important. There's no exclusive genes. The fact, is over the ages, Africa has again and again produced new hominids which pretty well took over the other regions again and again. Most advancements in evolution don't originate from "ideal environments" and if you think Africa is "ideal" you're an idiot. Oh, and as a really odd side note, your stupid racism is actually more Multi-Regional than Out of Africa.

Re:The Out of Africa theory supports racism

[walnutmon]

Oh, and calling someone whose arguments you can't sensibly rebut a troll and then slinking away, tail-'tween-legs, only confirms that you've completely lost this argument. Regardless of what moderators label my posts, my intent has never been to provoke anyone. The fact that one can't express a genuine opinion on race without being censored, insulted or otherwise derided only indicates the narrow corridor of permissible thought here - and diminishes the impact of anyone who might happen to disagree with me, as their opinion will clearly be the socially-acceptable one.

That doesn't make it truth, though.

I don't particularly think that I agree that the parent "troll" is completely correct... however, his arguments are somewhat thought provoking, and I am still awaiting someone to give a valid response as oppossed to throwing around the racist card, common guys, we are better than that here, aren't we?

Plus, black people can't beat you up over the internet. That, was a joke.

Re:The Out of Africa theory supports racism

[Anonymous Coward]

White Power/"Aryan" Supremacy attempts at scientific racism are clownish - the data used to deride other groups as inferior only puts them 3rd or 4th down the list, behind various semitic and Asian peoples.

Which is not to say they're necessarily wrong about the hereditary lineages they target... but they certainly aren't "supreme".

Homo Erectus

[Tablizer]

Homo Erectus is one of the most amazing and successful of the pre-humans. It had been around far longer than humans have up to now (humans probably did him in), and it spread all over the Eastern continent. Erectus likely invented stone-tipped spears. The name "erectus" is a bit misleading. At the time it was named, it was the earliest known upright-walking homanid. But several other and far earlier upright species have since been found.

Oddly enough, uprightness seems to have nothing to do with brain-size, for the first upright homanids (way before erectus) were otherwise very chimplike in design. Thus, uprightness probably had very little to do with tool making, as was first theorized. Perhaps it evolved in an isolated group of apes whose forest "island" dwindled over time, forcing them to spend more time on the savana plains. However, plains alone don't see to be reason enough for uprightness, and thus the mystery remains. One theory is that uprightness allowed parents to carry food back to children, who hid in the safety of trees.

Re: Homo Erectus

[Black Parrot]

However, plains alone don't see to be reason enough for uprightness, and thus the mystery remains. One theory is that uprightness allowed parents to carry food back to children, who hid in the safety of trees. The latest Scientific American reports observations of Ourangs walking upright in the forest canopy, leading some to speculate that the basics of bipedalism preceded our permanent descent from the trees.

Unfortunately it's just a short note, not a full article.

Re: Homo Erectus

[Tablizer]

It is not so much the act of walking upright, but rather having hips built for it. Orang's are still not built for doing it long-term.

Re:Do this mean...

[Tablizer]

Just replying to state that I am not trying to be racist and that this was just a feeble attempt at humor. I don't see why this ought to be offensive, but since it is modded flamebait, I thought I'd clear the air.

I happens to us all. I've had jokes with mild hints of racism get mega-slammed by moderators also. Don't take it personally. Ironically, one eventually came back from -1 to get a 5.

It's not all about selection

[ardle]

The really interesting thing for me is the feedback mechanism that tells genes what traits might be useful in your children: Epigenetics

And it had astronomically many tries

[Moraelin]

I already said that life had to hit an incredibly improbable jackpot to appear, in the second half of the message, so I'm not sure who you're arguing with. Admittedly, it was a very long message, so I can't fault anyone for giving up.

That said,

1. While chlorophyll does match that spectrum well, the original photosynthesis was done by cyanobacteria, which _don't_ match that spectrum too well. So there you go, a less perfect solution was perfectly viable too, and the better solution appeared later.

So give me a break with the "too many things had to be just perfect" ID speech. Non-perfect partial solutions exist everywhere. Cyanobacteria themselves didn't disappear even after better tuned plants appeared, and are still around. They still exist and even specialized fungi exist which form lichen with the less efficient photosynthesizing bacteria. So you don't even have to guess or look at fossils there. The partial solution and intermediary step still exists.

2. I'm not sure if perfectly adapted to an atmosphere of oxygen, which is what we have now, is the same as perfectly adapted to an atmosphere of methane, which is what life started with. The argument that everything had to be designed just perfect isn't very believable, when you look at the fact that conditions were different in the first place, and changed _massively_ in the meantime.

3. "Astronomically small" chances happen eventually, if you have astronomically high populations and astronomically high time. When you have populations of trillions of trillions of bacteria, suffering mutations all the time, over a billion years, eventually one _will_ hit jackpot. Especially RNA based bacteria suffered a hideously high rate of mutations, and diverged very very fast in all directions.

As they say, "if you're one in a million, there are six thousand just like you". _That_ is how large populations and small chances work.

Let me give you an even more improbable example. Rolling 20 dice and rolling all sixes is incredibly improbable, in fact, 1 chance in 3,656,158,440,062,976. But if you had a billion people rolling dice once a second, it would only take on the average 3.6 million seconds or 1000 hours for that to happen. That's a little over a month. And when dealing with bacteria, a billion of them is actually an incredibly low population.

Re:And it had astronomically many tries

[arminw]

......"Astronomically small" chances happen eventually......

It seems that way if you are only dealing with billions of even trillions. The mechanics of life are vastly more intricate than all of physics. Yet even the physical CONDITIONS required for the possibility of life to start are so many and so precise, that the chance of this happening is 20 orders of magnitude smaller than the estimated number of subatomic particles in the known universe.

Even the chance of getting from the "big bang" to the proper conditions where there could be such a planet as ours is unimaginably tiny by non-directed processes.

If you would look at all the physics parameters and ratios needed for there to even be a planet like earth, you would come up with about a one chance in 10^-24 of all stars might have a planet that could sustain life. Half of all stars are eliminated from having a planet like ours simply by the fact that they are too close together or too far apart.

The proton is exactly 1836 times the mass of an electron. If that ratio were even a little larger or smaller, the formation of molecules could not happen. The force of gravity in relation to the other forces has to be exactly right. Otherwise there could not be elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. The electromagnetic force that holds electrons and the nuclei of atoms together has to be right. If you statistically analyze all the parameters that have to be right, it comes up with numbers far exceeding any imagined probabilities that evolutionary theory can come up with. This is just what someone would have to do just to come up with the CONDITIONS needed to have life anywhere in the universe.

When you get into the complexities of living systems the probabilities get into exponents with three to 5 digits. The probability of a 747 coming into existence by the action of a tornado in a junk yard is many orders of magnitude greater than the probability of an amoeba coming into existence by any known probabilistic processes. A "simple cell" is far more complex than any system or device man has ever devised.

Evolution only works on one level. That is because life forms are engineered to be able to adapt and change according to need. This ability has limits that no amount of time can overcome. A worm will never become a bird, a cat never evolve into a dog. Natural selection may allow a bird to change its beak in order to be able to crack tougher seeds. Darwin observed this and it still happens. Moths may evolve different lighter of darker colorings, but they will always by moths. Extrapolating this ability to change into the evolutionary dogmas as taught in schools today is not science, but religion.

Re:The Out of Africa theory supports racism

[Arterion]

I'm with you on this one. I'd like to see a serious rebuttal without just dismissing it out-of-hand as racism.

Dutch stand-up comedian

[Errtu76]

There's a comedian who has a nice sketch about this:

The first man, comes from Africa! So in origin, we are all African! It's just that at some point in time there was a little group who said "hey, we're gonna see what's out there, you know check out the place and see if there's something going on there. Are you coming?" And the other group was like "uh no, don't feel like it, we stay here." And that's okay, i don't care, and they do what they want to do, but afterward don't go complaining like "we're so hungryyyyyyy!!!

Re:The Out of Africa theory supports racism

[KudyardRipling]

[sarcastichumourstart]

Sensors indicate the presence of {goatees, bowties, tabloids, meat pies, fists in the air and trouble everywhere}.

[sarcastichumourend]

Re:Do this mean...

[vigmeister]

Hehe... in retrospect, I guess this wasn't mild, but I don't quite see the racism:) I watched a bunch of south park last night and I am not worried about turning into a racist asshole anymore :))

Cheers!

Re:The Out of Africa theory supports racism

[leonem]

A possible rebuttal:

I've read an account of the development of early civilisations which stresses almost the opposite explanation. The mediterranean basin is an easier place to grow food (if not hunt/gather), leading to more sedentary leisure time, thus more pondering, thus more technological developments, thus even more leisure time and so on. Consider: the Egyptians relied on a uniquely ideal environment around the Nile.

An analogy could be made with Britain and the industrial revolution. Success was not driven by hardship and necessity, but by ideal environmental conditions (rivers and coastline) for developing manufacturing and naval industries.

It is possible that the initial impetus to move from hunter-gatherer to arable farmer was driven by greater need in cooler climes, but then again how would one survive long enough to work out how to farm if the envrionment didn't provide enough food to live at least several years? (I suppose simply storing autumnal wild foods might do, actually).

Anyway, I don't think the 'forced to be inventive' thing can be a complete explanation, as even if it were briefly true, the necessity of invention ended the moment agrarian society was established, and that was thousands of years ago at least.

Wrong, actually

[Moraelin]

Wrong, actually. Not in an interesting way either, since you rehash the same canned ID stuff we've all heard before. Let's just say that just because you don't know, or refuse to acknowledge, what we base those theories on, doesn't make them religion. Just because you refuse to acknowledge the long string of fossils that _do_ illustrate all the intermediate steps from worm to fish to lizard to bird, doesn't mean that that evidence doesn't exist.

ID as a whole is essentially an Argument From Ignorance fallacy. They don't know, or refuse to acknowledge, the existing evidence to the contrary, therefore their doctrine must be true. Pretty sad, and an indication of intellectual dishonesty too, but otherwise worthless. Like all fallacies, it fails to actually prove anything.

If anything, it makes it somewhat funny to see someone accusing science of being dogma, when their own whole theory is based on block-headed outright refusing to acknowledge any evidence that doesn't support their theory. No, science isn't the dogma there. Science, for better or worse, accepts proofs to the contrary. A lot of classifications were cheerfully changed when evidence to the contrary became available. Wake me up when ID can say at least the same. _Then_ it will have earned the right to call others dogmatic.

Anyway...

1. That the physics parameters had to be just right, well, that much is obvious. If carbon didn't have an excited state at exactly the right energy, no star would be able to produce anything above helium, for example.

Essentially we don't know why the universe's constants are what they are. That much is true.

That doesn't imply that life was designed though. _If_ there's a God, we don't need him to explain anything past setting those constants. Did some God set those constants just right? Maybe. But that doesn't automatically make him the designer of life too. Life is perfectly possible and capable to evolve on its own, given those constants.

There's just nothing to imply that _if_ a God exists, he _must_ be like the Bible God, carefully designing all forms of life himself. It could be just a physicist God who set the basic constants so chains of Carbon can form, and watched what happens from there. Or maybe trillions of trillions of universes exist (created or not), and ours just happened to be the one with the right constants. Maybe the whole exercise is God's college assignment to calculate the right constants for a universe where life can evolve, but doesn't involve actually designing any life form personally. Or a number of other imaginable deities.

So, so far, this actually fails to be an argument for ID _of_ _life_.

2. As I was saying, just because you refuse to acknowledge the evidence, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. We have the fossils, and in some cases living fossils, for the intermediate steps of just that: a worm evolved into a fish, a fish evolved into a lizard, the lizard evolved into a two legged dinosaur, and that one evolved into a bird.

There is no guess work involved, and no religion. All the steps from fish to dinosaur are very much available for all to see. Some fish still live which are adapted to survive out of water, or even to move (crudely) across land. The evolution to lizard is also there. The adaptation to have the legs under the body instead of sideways like the crocodiles is also very well illustrated in the fossil record. Raising itself on two legs is just a minor adaptation (hence, I'm under the impression it would be acceptable even by you.) From there we have Velociraptors and a bunch of other dinosaur which are almost identical to large chicken in their skeleton structure. And there are pressed fossils of some which show feathers.

So basically exactly what you dismiss as impossible, is what we have plenty of intermediate steps to prove that just that happened. The worm evolved into a bird.

Incidentally the same applies to cats and dogs. Although

Re:Wrong, actually

[arminw]

....It's like a chemical CPU that executes whatever code you give it. If you give it the DNA code for a bird, it creates bird, if you give it the DNA code for a bird, it creates a bird.......

Exactly, and where does an electronic CPU get its code? If you can show that any code originates in anything OTHER than a mind, involving thought I might believe you. If you can show how DOS code can increase in complexity and evolve into VISTA without the activity of a programmer's mind, I'll believe you. If you can show how the blueprints for an oxcart can change into the instructions for an automobile I'll believe you. If you can show how the code for the construction of a bacterium can change into the program needed to construct a human, without the mind of a superb software designer, I'll believe you.

All code ALWAYS comes ONLY from a thinking mind. It matters not whether this code is for a computer or for the DNS transcription processors in living systems. Nobody has ever shown otherwise for either.

Who the fanatics are is relative

[paladinwannabe2]

The people who opposed the Big Bang theory saw the people promoting it as fanatic nutjobs. (This was pretty much everyone at first, as evidence accumulated, though, more and more people went to the Big Bang camp). Now we consider them to be the fanatic nutjobs! It's all on where you're standing.