Posted on 08/12/2009 11:42:29 AM PDT by decimon
They have found that a gene in modern humans that makes some people dislike a bitter chemical called phenylthiocarbamide, or PTC, was also present in Neanderthals hundreds of thousands of years ago.
The scientists made the discovery after recovering and sequencing a fragment of the TAS2R38 gene taken from 48,000-year-old Neanderthal bones found at a site in El Sidron, in northern Spain, they said in a report released Wednesday by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).
"This indicates that variation in bitter taste perception predates the divergence of the lineages leading to Neanderthals and modern humans," they said.
Substances similar to PTC give a bitter taste to green vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, broccoli and cabbage as well as some fruits.
But they are also present in some poisonous plants, so having a distaste for it makes evolutionary sense.
"The sense of bitter taste protects us from ingesting toxic substances," the report said.
(Excerpt) Read more at physorg.com ...
Bitter harvest ping.
Sweet tooth?
That describes broccoli to a 'T'.
Humans and neanderthals are unrelated. The neanderthal has been ruled out as a plausible ancestor for modern man simply and precisely because the genetic gulf is too wide and the genetic gap between us and anything preceeding the neanderthal would have been wider. There is precisely nothing on this planet which we could be descended from via anything resembling evolution.
There has never been any "divergence of the lineages leading to Neanderthals and modern humans" and any similarities between us and neanderthals amount to similar design principles having been used.
Ecoli scare.
They've never seen a two year old in action.
"Don't become an archeologist, little girl. You'll just grow up to brush the teeth of old monsters." < /Simpsons >
There was no such thing as Brussel Sprouts, Cauliflower or Broccoli around when there were Neanderthals. These (and others) were all developed from the wild English cabbage plant in recent times.
Rereading, I see they don't claim there were such vegetables then. Those are just examples of plants carrying the bitter chemical.
What were the cultivators thinking? Maybe it was a way to sell more butter or cheese, or as cheap pig food.
The whole world knows a little kid’s reaction to alcohol and tobacco is correct; why would anybody think that same kid’s reaction to green vegetables was wrong??
Did you ever have any doubts?
If I understand you correctly, you seem to be under the impression that the article is saying that homo-sapiens descended from neandethals.
Without addressing what appears to be your skeptisism in the theory of evolution, that's not what the article said. Its saying (and this is the currently accepted view among evolution believers (of which I am one)) that homo-sapiens and neanderthals each diverged from a common line of ancensters, a third undetermined clasification of hominid, not one from the other.
Yep, that's me, spelling champ. sigh.
Anyways, reading over my post (which I obviously didn't do enough of before posting) I see that my statement regarding a third undetermined classification of hominid implies that there were no human species between the common ancestral species of homo-sapiens and neanderthals. I don't believe that has yet be determined one way or the other.
That’s not what I claimed. What I DID claim is that “too remote to be descended from” is a transitive relationship, i.e. that if the neanderthal is too remote for us to be descended from (he is), then so is anything further back in history.
Huh? Why?
If the proposition doesn’t seem obvious enough on the face of it, try looking at pictures of the so-called common ancestor (”archaic homo sapiens”). A neanderthal in a white shirt and tie would get funny looks in NYC in daylight but people wouldn’t turn tail and run. The archaic homo sapiens.... everybody would run.
YEah......SOOOOOOOOOOO different.

Too different to even be related in any manner.
You'd have to come up with some new hominid BETWEEN modern man and the neanderthal in both time and morphology:
But the works and remains of such a creature, had it ever existed, would be all over the place and easy to find. Standard theory has the neanderthal dying out 30K years ago and HIS works and remains are easy to find, and Gunnar Heinsohn has the end of the neanderthal more like about 4500 years ago.
I wouldn’t argue that Man descended directly from Neanderthal......but to say that they are soooooooooo different to make the assumption that they could not have co-evolved from the same common ancestor is not based on much more than the belief that Man walked with dinosaurs is.
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Thanks decimon.To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.The Neandertal EnigmaFrayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127] |
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Neanderthal DNA is generally described as about halfway between ours and that of a chimpanzee.No, it isn't. That's just some creationist stupidity that I'd not seen pop up on FR in a very long time.
"The sense of bitter taste protects us from ingesting toxic substances," the report said.That's a fact.
hmmm, maybe I should find new friends?
They always say it was an accident, but I'm starting to have my doubts.
I suggest neanderthals. They won't poison you and they're good bowlers.
Neanderthal DNA is generally described as about halfway between ours and that of a chimpanzee.
No, it isn't. That's just some creationist stupidity that I'd not seen pop up on FR in a very long time.
I've never seen that on any sort of a creationist source since most creationists would like to believe in a 6K year old Earth; I see it on science sites e.g.:
Neandertals are almost exactly halfway between the chimpanzee and modern humans...
Again most creationists I speak with appear to think or at least want to think that the neanderthal was simply another race of modern humans, wjhich is clearly not what the evidence indicates. The neanderthal involved a species difference from us and not merely a racial or sub-species difference.
What I find interesting is the amount of stuff that’s called *creationist stupidity* that was taught as science at one time.
Examples are vestigial organs, junk DNA, most mutations are harmful, .....
There’s even the issue of frauds like Piltdown Man that evos keep bragging that scientists proved were a fraud, which creationists never believed was authentic in the first place.
Scientists/evos shouldn’t be so quick to disparage creationists for promoting the belief (which they don’t do anyway) of things that were taught as science at one time.
If there is any blame it belongs on the scientists who taught it to a whole generation of kids in public schools as science in the first place. Then they wonder why stuff that scientists have changed their position on is still circulating? It isn’t creationists fault.
Clearly the scientific community is remiss for not getting the word out better.
But then that would entail scientists admitting that they were wrong.....
The creationist politicians (because that’s what the “discussion” is about, politics) make a bunch of false claims about Darwinism etc, with a small leavening of stuff like what you said.
The Darwinists et al make a bunch of false claims about their own beliefs (denying of course that their beliefs *are* beliefs), with a small leavening of the creationist stupidities, which are numerous.
Many people are creationists — they believe in God, and believe that the universe was created — but don’t regard themselves as such because they don’t fit in with this or that flavor of creationism.
For the record, I am myself a creationist because the universe is so obviously a creation.
That’s pretty reasonable. There are a handful of things which prevent me from being a 6K-year-Earth style literal creationist, including Venus which is ballpark for a 6K year age estimate and does not resemble Earth or Mars at all, and the neanderthal which I would GUESS was some sort of a proto-human lord of some previous creation, prior to Adam and Eve. Like I say, without a time machine, all anybody could do with that sort of thing is guess.
==That’s just some creationist stupidity that I’d not seen pop up on FR in a very long time.
Awfully provocative, SunkenCiv. It would appear by the tone of your reply that you believe that creation science is synonymous with stupidity. Can you please supply specific examples to back up your allegation so we can get to the bottom of just who is (and who is not) stupid. You can start with Neanderthals, if you please.
It’s not provocative at all — Neanderthal isn’t halfway between human and chimp. Claiming otherwise is in fact something creationists cling to, the same way Virchow (probably the originator of the first campaign to dump on Neanderthal fossils) clung to a series of escalating false claims.
Here’s something perhaps you hadn’t read, even though it’s in the same thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2314370/posts?page=29#29
Well said. One 20th c translation of the Bible shows no definite article in the first sentence, i.e., “In a beginning” instead of the usual “in the beginning”.
That can arise from being translated into and out of languages which don’t use articles. When you have six or more declension cases, you don’t need articles....
It was calling creationists stupid that I found provocative. I’m still waiting for you to cite specific examples so we can get to the bottom of who is (and who is not) stupid. And since you called creationists stupid in relation to Neanderthals, let us begin right there. Please be specific, and be sure to cite your sources.
Did you read the links in wendy's post 27?
Why are you seeming to lay at the feet of the creationists this concept that Neanderthals are halfway between chimps and humans when it started with the scientists?
It wouldn't make sense for creationists to *cling* to it because in general, creationists don't believe that man evolved from some ape like ancestor to begin with, so Neanderthal couldn't possibly be half way between chimp and man. It just might be more similar to man than chimp, but it can't be halfway between something (chimp) and nothing (since man didn't evolve).
The neanderthal DNA findings do more (much more) damage to evolutionism than they do to any other religion including Christianity. The findings totally break the chain. There is nothing on this planet which modern man could have evolved from; you’d need some new hominid closer to us in both time and form than the neanderthal and that creature, had he ever existed, would be very easy to find.
” youd need some new hominid closer to us in both time and form than the neanderthal and that creature, had he ever existed, would be very easy to find.
—Neandertals overlapped with homo sapiens the entire time they were here. And the fossils are easy to find - they are found throughout europe, africa, and asia.
Both Neandertals and Homo sapiens probably split from Homo heidelbergensis.
Neandertals were never really viewed as an ancestor of Homo sapiens, since Neandertals are no older than Homo sapiens. The question has been whether Neandertals and Homo sapiens interbred, and whether Neandertals should be viewed as fully Homo sapiens (which is what I’ve always seen Creationists argue - this is probably the first time I’ve seen otherwise), or whether they should be seen as a sub-species, or maybe even as an entirely separate species.
The neanderthal was too far from us for us to be descended from him and Heidelbergensis was further. DNA tests would show that; it seemingly hasn’t occurred to anybody that dna tests on Heidelbergensis materials would be possible.
“The neanderthal was too far from us for us to be descended from him and Heidelbergensis was further.”
—I think you’re misunderstanding what is meant when scientists say that Neandertals are not our ancestors. They don’t mean that in the sense that Neandertals did not give rise to Homo sapiens - that part is already clear since the Neandertal species is no older than our species. What they mean is that if one had a family tree going back 30, 40, 50 thousands years ago, you won’t find any great granparents where one is a Neandertal and the other a Cro-Magnon.
So what it currently looks like from the dna evidence, is that when the Homo sapien and Neandertal lineages split (presumably from Homo heidelbergensis), the two lineages stayed split and didn’t interbreed. Thus the dna evidence currently backs those that argue that Neandertals should be categorized as a separate species, or at least a subspecies.
The point is, the mtDNA sample from Homo Heidelbergensis (thought to be an antecedent of Neandertal) was so tiny that it told literally nothing, it was a GIGO study. Regarding breaking the chain, there is no chain to break, those 1990s results could do nothing and did nothing to the evolution model of human descent.
Here is a good YEC summary for Neanderthals being fully human; that is, that they descended from the same biblical human kind (as opposed to the evo-notion that they are a separate species that branched off before we became fully human):
http://creation.com/national-geographic-unveils-wilma-the-neandertal-lady
Why are you seeming to lay at the feet of the creationists this concept that Neanderthals are halfway between chimps and humans when it started with the scientists?Creationists cherry-pick scientific studies and/or misinterpret or misrepresent them. I've never claimed otherwise.
in general, creationists don't believe that man evolved from some ape like ancestor to begin with, so Neanderthal couldn't possibly be half way between chimp and man. It just might be more similar to man than chimp, but it can't be halfway between something (chimp) and nothing (since man didn't evolve).That doesn't make any sense -- the mtDNA of living humans was used in the comparison with the Homo Heidelbergensis mtDNA. Basically by saying "nothing (since man didn't evolve)" you are saying that there are no living humans.
I don’t know too much about Virchow. I just looked him up, and all the accounts I have (albeit) skimmed through claim he is regarded as a great anatomist and the “father of pathology.” Is there a reason why you keep going out of your way to associate his name with stupidity or nuttiness?
If creationists are “clinging”, then they are clinging to the obvious...namely, the Temple of Darwin still hasn’t found any transitionals after all these years. And that includes Neanderthals, which are proving to be fully human, just as creation scientists predicted.
How far back does the "Man" "kind" go? All the way back to Homo habilis?
Your paper started out with a falsehood....that Neanderthal's brain was bigger. Sapien's brain is, on average, 5 cubic inches larger.
From a biblical perspective, Neanderthals were descendants of Adam and Eve.
Where in the Bible does it say "Adam begat neanderthal?" or ANYTHING like neanderthal? I see, in Genesis, Cain BUILT A CITY...that is not neanderthal behavior. So Man went form "building cities" to living as primitives that could only make a spear and an animal skin shelter?
(warmer water, most of it from beneath the ground, provided the energy for the extra precipitation needed to get massive volumes of water out of the oceans and up onto the continents as huge sheets of ice)
This guy doesn't know squat about the formation of massive ice sheets.......and that is not the claim of the Bible. The waters receded, they did not create massive ice sheets.
The walls of caves are made up of rock with mostly marine fossils deposited by the Flood, so they are clearly post-Flood humans
False conclusion and baseless nonsense. Why would MARINE animals die from a flood? Or if they didn't...how exactly did Noah keep all these marine animals alive on the Ark? Shark? Whale? Clams? Octopus? Hint: marine animals would not have died...so they would not have fossilized FROM the Flood. Can't say I see that part in Genesis.
Carl Wieland obviously knows just enough "science" to be dangerous.....but not enough to make a valid argument to those that have the ability to think past the baseless claims and false conclusions.
That’s easy. The Bible says that God created each kind to reproduce after itself. Thus, any species that are capable of interbreeding with another species (whether in the wild, or in the lab) descended from the same created kind.
It doesn’t say that Adam begat Neanderthal. It says that Adam and Eve begat human beings. And since the Neanderthal were fully human, they obviously descended from Adam and Eve.
And you might want to read a little more about creationist theort with respect to the (one and only) ice age before attempting to insert your other foot in your mouth. I’m not saying your mouth isn’t big enough, but why go to all the trouble when you’re just going to have to pull them out again?
As for the marine animals deposited in the cave walls, if the world is only 6-10 thousand years old, how else do you suppose they got there if not for Noah’s flood?
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