Posted on 09/08/2006 7:50:32 PM PDT by blam
GGG Ping.
Makes sense to me.
I'd rather be the 'odd man out' in this situation.
Doesn't the dominant dictate the main?
Doubt this will ever get legs. Too... original.
Odd, that they are still arguing about bones, instead of DNA.
And if you don't believe us, just ask us.
I saw this earlier and have been thinking about it much of the day.
This seems to be one of those areas where scientists are challenging their own previous assumptions to see if there might be better interpretations.
The jury is still out and the fossils will remain the same no matter what. These folks are arguing about the best way to interpret the data.
Don't know how this debate will turn out, and don't have a strong opinion either way.
It does coincide with some of the ideas I was exposed to in grad school some (unspecified) years/decades ago. That idea suggested progress from early to late erectus in four areas of the world, with Neanderthal being late European erectus. If that is the case, then modern humans could indeed be a side branch.
That would support the idea that modern humans were genetically engineered by ET's.
Why else would we be the offshoot??
Diggity
Well sure!
Neanderthals look a lot more like apes than men do.
We're clearly the odd ones here.
The most interesting article I ever read on this suggested that what the article called "neotony" is the key. (Forgive me, but I read the article at least 15 years ago, can't remember the source, and probably don't even have the term "neotony" exactly right. So, this is from memory and probably filled with error.)
Adult human beings show the facial and physical traits of being essentially large babies. We are not so strong, we are "softer" and "bigger eyed", etc. What is characteristics of babies is that they are extremely malleable, and all of their neural pathways are open. They play a lot and learn a lot. With most animals, the onset of adulthood changes that, and hardens the playful cub into an instinctive killing machine. The childhood learning window is closed. New learning is largely foreclosed, at least at the rate of the young.
With humans, something went haywire in the genetic makeup, and the thing that makes babies minds so absortive remained partially open for human adults. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, but you CAN teach a middle-aged man new things. Adult humans don't have the strength of any of the other apes, proportionally. We're weak and soft and babylike. But we're infinitely more trainable and capable of learning. Now, to be precise, the article suggested that our physical features are not the CAUSE of our difference, but rather the sort of "birth defect" from the genetic accident. The apes grow up, but we don't fully. Our genes don't let us go to full homo erectus ape-like adulthood. We stay juvenile, adolescent...soft, and weak, and not anywhere close to reaching the full strength and power and coordination that our ape-like bodies ought to be able to attain. Given our size and muscles, we really SHOULD be much stronger than chimps...practically as strong as gorillas. But we're really weaklings, runts, physically stunted and retarded - our genetic flaw. But what a flaw! Because the same defect that didn't let the body grow to full ape-like prowess ALSO didn't let the mind close and the neural pathways hardwire into instinct. Our brains remained more babylike, more juvenile, and capable of massive absorption of information, like all young animals.
That brainpower of course proved more than a tradeoff for the physical weakness. Not one chimp yet has ever thought to pick up a rock and bash the attacking lion on the head, and even if one did, none of the other chimps watching him actually beat a lion would learn one damned thing from it.
There is a snow monkey in Japan that rolls snowballs and stands on them, but in all the hundreds of years men have been living with and around these monkeys, and studying them, nobody has ever seen even one of them get the idea to pick up the snowball and have a snowball fight. You can't teach and old dog new tricks.
Well, actually you CAN. One of the points in the article was that domestic dogs ALSO show the neotony effect as compared to wolves. Wolves look a lot like dogs, especially in their adolescence, but then they grow up. Dogs are weaker, and have those big eyes and soft faces, and inveterate playfulness. They are smarter than wolves too: you can domesticate them easily and naturally. Take a wolf cub, and it will be domesticated...until it hits adolescence...then those neural pathways go hardwired and you'll be living with a wild animal anyway. It might tolerate you as its friend, but it ain't going to fetch or be generically playful with other humans. You'll have a wolf that is selectively tame, to you, but never domesticated. Dogs can be trained to be mean, but it takes training. They aren't INFINITELY trainable...it really is hard to teach an old dog new tricks, but even an old dog can be taught some things. Because dogs have that same neotony fault. Dogs are wolves who had a genetic defect that didn't let them grow up all the way, but left them capable of absorbing more, left them soft, malleable, and able to be friendly. Humans are apes with a similar genetic defect. The symbiosis between these two species is due to that glimmer of openness and capability to learn that comes from being genetically condemned to never quite grow up.
It's a nice story.
And it has a plausible ring to it.
Huh? What are you talking about? Anthropologists use both DNA and "bones." Comparing the presence of random mitochondrial mutations in human and chimpanzee mt-DNA for example yields a date for a common ancestor that's remarkably close to what fossils alone indicate.
Looking at DNA from extinct species is more difficult, because it tends to decompose rapidly. However, some Neanderthal DNA does exist, and there are a great many researchers studying it at the present time.
That is a very interesting theory.
Deliberate ignorance is such a sad thing to witness.
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