[blam]

I'm still not convinced.

[blam]

The Neanderthal Theory

[Gerasimov]

so once again we have a HUGE gap in the fossil record making it impossible to make any credible case for macro evolution...

What will they do without Neanderthal to look back on? Are we now missing two links?

[BlueLancer]

"Your forefathers were not Neanderthals"

Then, again, they never met my Grandfather ... (rimshot) ...

[Restore]

[OXENinFLA]

Since when did all of us become Neanderthals? (Aside from the Judges Ted Kennedy point out to us)

Aren't we Homo-sapiens and didn't Neanderthals become extinct around the last Ice age?

[tpaine]

blam wrote:
I'm still not convinced.

_____________________________________


Measuring a limited number of skulls, then using those statistics to do 'computer models'... Bah, -- garbage in, garbage out..

There seems to be a bit too much political pressure behind the out of africa theory..

[Revolting cat!]

Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!

[pabianice]

Doesn't explain the existance of Liberals...

[CholeraJoe]

A computer analysis of the skulls of modern humans, Neanderthals, monkeys and apes shows that we are substantially different, physically, from those early humans.

Isn't this how Hitler got started?

[realpatriot71]

I'm still not convinced.

Have you seen the actual evidence? Most of the fossil evidence for "pre-humans" won't even cover a coffee table, and yet the paleoanthropologists wants everyone to buy "hook, line, and sinker" that these bits and pieces respresent evidence of human evolution. Now we have a computer saying that monkey bones look closer to human to these bones, AND that the DNA doesn't look right and you still won't let it go?

Interesting . . .

[11th Earl of Mar]

But the Neanderthal link does look a little stronger after listening to the Howard Dean "I have a scream" speech.

[Modernman]

They examined the skulls of modern humans and Neanderthals and 11 existing species of non-human primates including chimpanzees, gorillas and baboons

Isn't this phrenology?

[petuniasevan]

Know what I find really amazing? Someone goes out to the Great Rift Valley, digs around in an old riverbed, and finds a bit of hominid skeleton. Maybe a femur.

Then 1/2 mile away along that riverbed another researcher finds a hominid jawbone.

And a third researcher 1/4 mile the other way finds some finger bones.

Soon there is a paper out mentioning the "widely scattered remains" of a [specific name] hominid from a dry riverbed. An illustration shows the various bones and the missing pieces. Theories are put forth concerning the creature's demise.


Okay, how are these guys so SURE that these are fossils from the SAME creature? Answer: They're not sure. But it sure looks good on paper. Keeps those grants coming!

[Agnes Heep]

It's ridiculous to try to base this kind of conclusion on morphology alone. There are so many variations within the current human species that any number of individuals might pass for "neanderthals." And the way I learned it, speciation has to do with the ability to interbreed and produce offspring. That can be affected by a lot of factors, but I doubt very seriously if skull morphology is one of them.

[PatrickHenry]

PING. [This ping list is for the evolution side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. FReepmail me to be added or dropped.]

[PatrickHenry]

Human Ancestors

[TMSuchman]

I don't know about the rest of you, but my ansetors[sp] came from the Garden of Eden!

[ZULU]

These researchers are fogetting they are injecting personal bias into the study.

If there were intelligent squids and they were studying Neaderthals and modern humans, its very possible that using the same kind of data, but viewing these subjects from an unbiased perspective, they would conclude the similarities between the two were so much greater than any apparent differences that they could justifiably be termed subspecies. In all other organisms, subspecies can and do interbreed and create viable, fertile offspring.

[Physicist]

The issue of whether Neanderthals did or did not contribute to the gene pool as it exists now is not exactly the same question as whether they should be considered a separate species. If the last Yanomami indian dies next year, they will have contributed nothing to future gene pools, but they're still the same species.

The question of whether the Neanderthals were a separate species is really a moot one. We define species by the (arbitrary) standard of whether members from two populations can produce viable offspring, but that's not something you can apply to extinct populations. The only answerable question is whether every individual can be unambiguously assigned to one population or the other, based upon morphology. But my understanding is that that's been the case for a long time.

[biblewonk]

Evolution is as old as the bible. It was idolatry then and it is idolatry now.