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"Out of Africa" Theory Called Into Question By Originator
Amiga Trombone writes "Christopher Stringer is one of the world's foremost paleoanthropologists. He is a founder and most powerful advocate of the leading theory concerning our evolution: Recent African Origin or 'Out of Africa.' He now calls the theory into question: 'I'm thinking a lot about species concepts as applied to humans, about the "Out of Africa" model, and also looking back into Africa itself. I think the idea that modern humans originated in Africa is still a sound concept. Behaviorally and physically, we began our story there, but I've come around to thinking that it wasn't a simple origin. Twenty years ago, I would have argued that our species evolved in one place, maybe in East Africa or South Africa. There was a period of time in just one place where a small population of humans became modern, physically and behaviourally. Isolated and perhaps stressed by climate change, this drove a rapid and punctuational origin for our species. Now I don't think it was that simple, either within or outside of Africa.'"
I don't care what they say. It was a good movie.
Where do Texans fit in all this?
From TFA:
But we're having to re-evaluate [the Out-of-Africa model] now because genetic data suggest that the modern humans who came out of Africa about 60,000 years ago probably interbred with Neanderthals, first of all, and then some of them later on interbred with another group of people called the Denisovans, over in south eastern Asia.
Nice to see some theory re-evaluation in practice. It is the only way to reach the truth.
The problem with pinpointing human origins is we keep digging where 1) human remains are close to the surface, making them easy to dig up, with yearly rains washing away more and more making it even easier, and 2) the conditions for fossilization are highly salient. We very well could have come from environs where fossilization processes are nearly impossible, leaving no trace of our ancestors.
We also like to dig where early humans leave behind stone tools. We don't dig where humans uses wood tools, because they fossilize way less often. It's hard to study what's not left behind! However, it's probable more humans used wood tools earlier and longer.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
Reality is more complex than humans just appearing in one location in Africa? That doesn't really question ANYTHING about the theory, but instead just suggests a refinement. This is essentially a non-story that only acts as fuel for dumb creationists who don't read more than a headline.
Like every other part of science and history, no matter how simple the subject appears at first the more you dig into it the more complex it gets?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
on humans and it showed them coming in on space ships.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
The news story is dated 11/12/11. It's nearly a year old.
For someone to publicly challenge their own theories takes considerable stature.
Pro tip:
Phrases like "the earth is trying defend itself" and "starving the earth of resources" put you in the crazies column.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Please, make yourself part of the solution.
(In other news, the population growth has been slowing for decades and we will top out just below 10 billion. We've also been able to increase food production as well as general health faster than population growth over the same amount of time. But hey, why let facts stand in the way of your chosen extremism?)
Because they bring out the GNAA and similar trolls. There is nothing nerd-worthy about this. Slashdot is complete shit now, and should be removed from the internet.
This is one of the reasons I hated Biology as a subject. The best definition I ever got for 'species' was a set of organisms that could interbreed and produce fertile offspring. This guy reminds us "remember, that's not always the case". So, if that's not the definition of species, what is? Poke and prod any Zoology professor long enough and he'll finally say "that's just the way it is, so just memorize it". There's no logical process defined for assigning organisms a place in our taxonomy. The only answer is "They guy credited with finding these arbitrarily decided that it belonged in this phylum, genus, etc" (I forgot the orders because, like I said, it's all arbitrary anyway). There is no sure-fire way to decide whether 2 organisms belong to the same species (much less any more generic taxon) because the reproduce with fertile offspring test is not necessarily the answer. It then comes down to "Well, they look different and they act different enough that I now officially say so". Bah. Is anything that arbitrary truly a science?
A species is rarely singular, like a line or even like a river. It's more as if there was a continuum, like a flooded plain, and what we see is mainly determined by our own narrow views of organisms (or their remains) in spatial, temporal or cognitive terms. Simple things like the fact that wolves and coyotes are so close genetically that they should be called one species. Or many large cats. Or earlier subspecies of humans.
Paleontologists only see the world as if it was lit up by small flashbulbs every now and then. Yes we've seen a lot of snapshots but how much is that compared to billions of years of evolution all over the Earth?
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Pro tip:
Phrases like "the earth is trying defend itself" and "starving the earth of resources" put you in the crazies column.
But you'd still be qualified to be Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
I thought mixing of genes produces even more diversity. The same diversity you are arguing for but arguing against the process that produces this diversity. What makes you think that evolution of species (or growing diversity) will stop if we mix these genes. Its a scientific fact for preservation of animal species that the more diversified genes its representative animals have, more chances of survival the specie has. Even a simple experiment from Mendal (if you know who he was) proved that mixing of same two genes twice doesn't produce same result both the times. In simple terms it increases diversity (or differences in your language).
Huh?
I think your tinfoil hat is too tight, restricting blood flow to your brain.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Everyone knows climate change has been going on since the big bang. Doesn't mean that it isn't influenced by humans and it certainly doesn't dispute the fact that it is of concern to modern society. If anything the fact that we have been victims of climate change for millenia reinforces the idea that we should do all we can to research its causes and possible ways to mitigate or adapt to it.
Sure, go on making such jokes all the way to the doom of the permanent enslavement of your genome.
Nice counter argument by the way.
Protip: Crazies aren't going to pay attention to pro tips. ;)
And anyone who thinks the Earth could possibly become like the moon simply because we consume too much, marks themselves as someone not worth bothering with.
Well mangling "theory" and "fact" in your first sentence shows that you're not too familiar with the scientific method. I should have stopped reading at that point.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Ah, I see: no reason for you to present any valid counter arguments because of an assumption of yours regarding the first sentence?
It has been presented as fact to the general public. It is also used as fact in justifying policies and rejecting any question of such policies. It has ever been but a theory. That is what the first sentence says. No mangling involved.
Wasn't the Earth hotter in dinosaur time when there was 24% Oxygen in the atmosphere?
Why has the out of africa THEORY been presented as fact despite the growing evidence against it? Why have all other theories been so violently opposed?
Simple reason!
...
My mod points just expired. Can someone mod this guy and all children down (including my own post).
To mitigate the poster's obvious paranoia I would like to offer the following explanation as to why his post is misleading and inaccurate and should be modded down in the interests of keeping facts at the forefront of discussion and leaving knee-jerk dogmatism and prejudice to the thousands of other websites dedicated to them.
1. The writer of the above post clearly didn't read the article (yes I know he is not the only one) and seems to have missed the fact that the author, and all other respected paleontologists, clearly believe that we are in fact all one species. It is referred to in the article as 'modern human'. The entire post hinges on the misguided idea that someone in the world who has studied the subject and knows what he is talking about believes that 'foreigners' are a different species from 'us'. This is not the case. 'Us' of course in this case meaning caucasian Europeans.
2. The post is in essence a diatribe against a world wide government conspiracy trying to achieve in his words 'the genocide of the European species'. When I talk about conspiracies that involve multiple world governments I generally get modded down on the grounds that world governments are't organised enough and hate each other too much to perpetrate real conspiracies together. While i disagree with that in general with regard to small groups of nations I think this particular theory has far less evidence and is far more unlikely than any I have suggested.
3. The main justification of the points of view put forward is that the phrase 'Out of Africa' is somehow a lie. As the leading expert in the article states modern humans did in fact originate in Africa, it is not a lie, it is not even disputed by any serious paleontologists (to my knowledge). The new modifications to the theory proposed here suggest no reason to change the name of the theory. What the article says is that our species interbred with other types of prehistoric humans, far in the past, and that traces of their DNA exist in ours to prove it. The slashdot headline might be partly to blame for the confusion here.
4. At the time of posting he has +1, I know the quality of slashdot has declined as the number of users has increased but as someone with mod points you have a small amount of control over this. Take a little pride in the site and make sure someone who posts personal opinions as uninformed and lazily researched as this are far from those gentle impressionable readers who come here for reliable information. If this poster is not trolling he as at least far enough from reality that a troll moderation is called for, especially given that there is no downmod for lies or misinformation.
Hey... dumb ass creationist.... you better hold onto something....I think the THEORY of gravity might be wrong.
Humans love to categorize. Square and round things go together. Things with four legs vs things with six legs go together. Same basic principle.
Of course, in practice, there is a continuum, stretching from specimen to specimen, and also back in time. But sometimes it's convenient to draw lines to limit your area of study.
I love how that crap is modded insightful.
To date, the evidence is growing for the Out of Africa theory. TFA is about the argument on whether humans have spread from Africa once and everywhere, essentially "already evolved", or whether they have spread in several different waves separated by intervals of tens of thousands of years (and possibly even hundreds), and then those waves had some parallel evolution and separately interbred with some other branches of Homo, and later reintegrated through migration, each bringing its own unique set of genes to our common pool.
Scientifically, the entire humanity today is a single species, regardless of whether there were multiple waves, or just one. Also, all evidence we have to date shows that all modern humans owe most their genome to hominids originating from in Africa.
The dates don't match my own research into plate tectonics and ocean levels at around 130,000 years ago the only time a few peruvian ruins that have docks for boats that are now 12 miles inland and 2 miles up the mountain side could have had water .....
IF the out of africa theory is correct then its impossible that these ruins exist and someone for a reason has been lying.
LYING i tell ya....there is more evidence a whole city form 12000 - 11000 years back in peru that had no forts , no army , no weapons and traded as far away as brazil , japan etc. FROM the objects found that was derived that civilization was founded on trade not war.
Why would anyone bother crafting a fully reasoned counter argument if you fail to provide any real argument to begin with? All I see is you masturbating over thinly-veiled bigotry and conspiracy theories.
What "growing evidence"?
What other theories? (Multiregional origin has been pretty solidly debunked by genetics as far as I can tell...)
What "violent" opposition?
And for everything after the first line, I think you need to start by answering the simple question of "Who are 'they'?" Scientists? Liberals? Jews? Reptilians? From there, we're going to need a LOT more information and justification for your wild claims. From the tone and the bit about "justifying the genocide of the European species", you're frankly just coming off as a typical white supremacist with a persecution complex.
We appreciate you creating a new account just to talk to us, but we'd rather you go back to stormfront or whatever the fuck.
are you a troll?
In case that wasn't clear enough:
For someone who complains about evidence, you have provided exactly NONE of it.
thats why he got put on a stake.....
As a biologist, I'd say you've hit the nail on the head. There's probably no such thing as a species as a discrete entity, and the reason we have about 57 different species concepts is that they're all differing models for categorically explaining a continuous phenomenon that otherwise defies enumeration. But like other models, they're fantastically useful in some respects, and we keep them around for those purposes. When species concepts start to break down, we start talking about things like gene trees, or population dynamics, depending on the level of precision required. Even those things are models, but models that are useful for the level of question we're asking.
At its root, the only things that really 'exist' are probably genes, which struggle for existence in communities of other genes, trying to replicate themselves as much as possible because the ones who don't aren't around anymore. But working purely with genes, and nothing else, needlessly complicates a great many things.
> Phrases like "the earth is trying defend itself" and "starving the earth of resources" put you in the crazies column.
For the record, I do not agree with you, which might not mean much, admittedly.
Also, I use such figures of style and don't think I'm crazy (but again, many crazies think they're normal).
And furthermore, "pro" should be used sparingly -- not because it's cool -- but because some of us (me included) automatically read/hear "lame" when "pro" is mentioned. It looks like another incompetent someone hired and put to do some awful job like PR. Sorry, all the pros and PR people in the room...
Ah, one last thing: 5, Insightful? I don't think so. But that's democracy and its typical consequence. Like e.g. Bush.
While I find myself uncomfortable with reading the GP, I find the concept of the earth defending itself appropriate, though needlessly anthropomorphized. I like to think the earth has an immune system. Life occupies many shapes and sizes. Who is to say we are not analogous to cells within the confines of the earth?
I suspect I am crazy, regardless of my thoughts on this subject. At least I think straight jackets sexy.
The In to Africa theory would have the origin in Euro-Asia, with migration into Africa whenever ice ages occurred. This fits the evidence in Africa just as good as the Out of Africa theory and it does not have to explain why niggers never could do shit (which would be vital if they migrated). But it's not a falsifiable theory, any evidence would have been swept away by the ice.
I thought about it a little more. The traditional species concept is probably a holdover from a pre-scientific era, basically a biblical concept.
If God did it, it's a species. If man did it or if it was observable how it came to be then it's not a species. Hence wolf and coyote are different species, while dobermann and chihuahua aren't.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
All I really have to say.
(Not intended to be sarcastic. This kind of thing is always cool.)
I don't have a problem with anthropomorphism. The way I figure it, we're primates that exhibit behaviors, social and anti-social, seen in many other species.
Observing reflections of ourselves throughout nature seems appropriate and accurate.
Eartj will remain for a lot longer than the human race will... we are merelly destroying ourselves, not the planet we live in
The ecosystem will simply find another way to live one, and florish once we are gone
"life is a joke, and someone is laughing at me"
Being actually somewhat familiar with both the old "Out of Africa" theory, as well the new evidence for breeding with Neandertals and Denisovans (and having read this particular article), I have to say: this is blowing things out of proportion. Evidence suggests that today's modern humans did in fact evolve from a relatively small group of people (I've seen estimates in the 5-20,000 range) that, you know, came out of Africa about 200,000 years ago. That these people, on their migration, interbred in some places with Neandertals and in others with Denisovans, and presumably in some places with both, shouldn't be surprising. (Sleeping with the locals seems to be a long tradition in human exploration.) But the maximal genetic contribution from either species is only something like 1-4% depending on which human population you're talking about. That's not enough to really support the sort of long-term regional continuity (aka "multiregional evolution" or "polycentrism") that is (was) the competing theory. Instead it just makes us "Out of Africa" humans who happened to breed with something else along the way.
look at the data you have and formulate a theory. Collect more data. Modify your theory. SCIENCE!!
I'm impressed that the expected racist garbage only came relatively late in this thread.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I've been reading recently about psychopaths and I've been struck by the primitiveness of their mental makeup, their personalities. It is almost as if they are more animal than modern human, having less of the intense social motivations that define the modern human and more of the egocentric animal motivations that must have been part of the personalities of our evolutionary precursors. It seems to me that the 1% of the population that is psychopathic is a throwback or a living fossil. It seems as if a human personality from hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of years ago is attached to a modern level of intelligence. I'm wondering if the DNA contribution mentioned in the article in EDGE linked to in this slashdot article may not be somehow responsible for part of the spectrum of human personality and behavior. Recent brain scans (I've read) seem to indicate a weaker connection between the frontal lobes of the human brain and the limbic system responsible for human emotion and even fear. It may be responsible for the lack of empathy and conscience in the psychopath. Is this damage, or is it merely the physical manifestation of an earlier brain contained in our genetic structure? When three out of four children in a family are normal and one is a psychopath are we seeing a genetic combination that creates in part a slightly more primitive brain? Read Dr. Robert Hare Phd. on psychopathy ( "Without Conscience," "Snakes in Suits") for insight into this fascinating "personality disorder." He does not make the point and is not responsible in any way for the point I am making above connecting psychopathy and the genetic contributions of primitive anscestors. Further, I am not an expert in either genetics or psychology.
E Proelio Veritas.
Woohoo! You're going to have every liberal on slashdot waving his hankie and screaming "RAAAAACISSSST!!" in no time! Popcorn, anyone?
Obviously, they have never heard that "Out of Africa" was coined by Scipio Africanus. Fortunately for the author his estate cannot collect damages. (Or was it a Trademark?)
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
Pro tip:
Phrases like "the earth is trying defend itself" and "starving the earth of resources" put you in the crazies column.
Well, I just call it dumbing it down. Yes we know the earth isnt literally defending itself like a cute little soldier. But the consequence of us taking more than we put in is our own death one way or another, and only an idiot won't accept that.
In ancient times, the Conquering King said to the Conquered King "Look, my troops are burning your city to the ground!" The Conquered King retorted "Look, your troops are burning YOUR city to the ground!"
I think the original had Croesus (Mr "As rich as ...") playing Conquered, but the story is probably older than that.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
would mod you up if i could, but since i made so many typo's in my post i hope no one else does it :)
"life is a joke, and someone is laughing at me"
...I also have a theory of evolution and this Africa affair seems just too sloppy and biased toward, ah! Americanity? It seems my model is much deepe,r but it is still incompletely expressed and only partially published online.