Human Evolution

[cdowis]

A few reflections about human evolution.

 

There was no first human.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4ClZROoyNM

Edited September 6, 2013 by cdowis

[cdowis]

Dawkins implies that human evolution is a tree.  It is not a tree, but a bush.

 

 

 

That we and the extinct hominins are somehow related and that we and the apes, both living and extinct, are also somehow related is accepted by anthropologists and biologists everywhere. Yet the exact nature of our evolutionary relationships has been the subject of debate and investigation since the great British naturalist Charles Darwin published his monumental books On the Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871). Darwin never claimed, as some of his Victorian contemporaries insisted he had, that “man was descended from the apes,” and modern scientists would view such a statement as a useless simplification—just as they would dismiss any popular notions that a certain extinct species is the “missing link” between man and the apes. There is theoretically, however, a common ancestor that existed millions of years ago. This ancestral species does not constitute a “missing link” along a lineage but rather a node for divergence into separate lineages. This ancient primate has not been identified and may never be known with certainty, because fossil relationships are unclear even within the human lineage, which is more recent. In fact, the human “family tree” may be better described as a “family bush,” within which it is impossible to connect a full chronological series of species, leading to Homo sapiens, that experts can agree upon.

Encyclopaedia Britannica

 

In other words:

 

 

Human Family Tree Now a Tangled, Messy Bush

 

For anthropology students 30 years ago, learning human evolution was a breeze. It went from Australopithecus to Homo habilis to Homo erectus to various Homo sapiens. It was a straight shot that one could learn in a few minutes late at night while cramming for an exam.

But in the late 1970s, we entered a golden age of human fossil discoveries that has repeatedly punched holes in the naive idea that our evolution would be that clear, clean, and straight.

+++++

Although paleoanthropologsts have assumed that habilis evolved into erectus, it looks like these creatures spent time together on the shores of Lake Tanganika.

The big news, then, is that these very different fossils are being hung on the human family tree on separate branches but at the same height. And once again, we have to reconsider the path of human evolution.

But should we be all that surprised?

We want the first bipedal humans to stay out of the trees, but their curved hand bones suggest they spent time swinging in the canopy like apes; we want brain size to increase in lock step with tool use, but tools appear before big brains; we want an orderly diaspora out of Africa and across the globe by culturally armed early humans, but it looks like people kept leaving all the time in fits and starts that don’t correlate with anything; and we want the last 200,000 years of human evolution, the time when modern Homo sapiens appeared, to make some kind of sense, but it doesn't.

http://www.livescience.com/7376-human-family-tree-tangled-messy-bush.html

Edited September 6, 2013 by cdowis

[thesometimesaint]

Variations on the same theme.

[cdowis]

I guess my point is that when I went to school, there was a nice picture of the evolution of man, each one gradually evolving into the next stage.  Now that is no longer the case, and Dawkins attempting to defend the indefensible -- that there is no first human (homo sapiens).  He is attempting to defend evolution by gradual stages, like sliding into home base.

 

His example of the infant becoming a toddler merely demonstrates that you can prove anything with an analogy.  In reality, the analogy would indicate that evolution is not an "analog" creature, but a discrete individual, or "digital".

[thesometimesaint]

I guess my point is that when I went to school, there was a nice picture of the evolution of man, each one gradually evolving into the next stage.  Now that is no longer the case, and Dawkins attempting to defend the indefensible -- that there is no first human (homo sapiens).  He is attempting to defend evolution by gradual stages, like sliding into home base.

 

His example of the infant becoming a toddler merely demonstrates that you can prove anything with an analogy.  In reality, the analogy would indicate that evolution is not an "analog" creature, but a discrete individual, or "digital".

 

There has always been debate of the exact path that evolution took. A good place to see it has been in the discussions on the role of Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis had in the evolution of Homo Sapiens Sapiens(us).

[cdowis]

yep, human dna got corrupted with neanderthal dna.  This may have had the effect of reducing the life span of the early humans from 1000 years.

[thesometimesaint]

yep, human dna got corrupted with neanderthal dna.  This may have had the effect of reducing the life span of the early humans from 1000 years.

 

Or maybe it was the other way around. We corrupted their DNA so they died out sooner.

[Freedom]

Evolution does not occur in jumps but in agonizingly slow processes. Adam is the first man, but not necessarily the first genetic man. Abraham is considered our father, but he is no more our father than his apostate dad was our father. He is our father in terms of the covenant. If I win a gold tournament, I come in first. This does not mean that I played first, or finished first, or even played the fastest. My placement of first is one of importance not time.

 

People are looking for the missing link but the fail to realize that even of these early humans we have a tiny sample. In many cases we do not even have one complete skeleton, often we only have 2 or 3 examples. Also, these proto-humans are not necessarily early humans, but another branch that did not survive.

 

I am not saying I fully embrace evolution, but it is the only working theory we have to explain the fossil record and it has nothing to do with Adam and Eve or the plan of salvation, just as thermodynamics has nothing do to with the nature of the Godhead.

[thesometimesaint]

Evolution does not occur in jumps but in agonizingly slow processes. Adam is the first man, but not necessarily the first genetic man. Abraham is considered our father, but he is no more our father than his apostate dad was our father. He is our father in terms of the covenant. If I win a gold tournament, I come in first. This does not mean that I played first, or finished first, or even played the fastest. My placement of first is one of importance not time.

 

People are looking for the missing link but the fail to realize that even of these early humans we have a tiny sample. In many cases we do not even have one complete skeleton, often we only have 2 or 3 examples. Also, these proto-humans are not necessarily early humans, but another branch that did not survive.

 

I am not saying I fully embrace evolution, but it is the only working theory we have to explain the fossil record and it has nothing to do with Adam and Eve or the plan of salvation, just as thermodynamics has nothing do to with the nature of the Godhead.

 

Lucy is pretty complete. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_%28Australopithecus%29

 

What we know of thermodynamics tends to argue against a God. OTOH we don't know very much at all.

[cdowis]

The key phrase in your post is "working theory" --  when we don't know......  we pretend to know.

 

It leads us to some interesting insights if we just move forward as if we actually knew what we are doing.

Edited September 6, 2013 by cdowis

[Freedom]

Lucy is pretty complete. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_%28Australopithecus%29

 

What we know of thermodynamics tends to argue against a God. OTOH we don't know very much at all.

I wouldn't consider 40% pretty complete. Concerning scientific theory, that was my point. Theology is not science.

[thesometimesaint]

The actual percentage isn't all that important. It is what bones we do have that counts. Lucy existed; we have a reasonable extrapolation for what she looked like, based on what her skeletal remains we do have;  Whether she is an actual progenitor of our species seems reasonable to me.

 

While I expect that someday that there will be no difference between science and theology. That day clearly isn't today.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

I guess my point is that when I went to school, there was a nice picture of the evolution of man, each one gradually evolving into the next stage.  Now that is no longer the case, and Dawkins attempting to defend the indefensible -- that there is no first human (homo sapiens).  He is attempting to defend evolution by gradual stages, like sliding into home base.

This statement makes no sense.  We still have our own family tree. Dawkins is absolutely correct that identifying the first homo sapiens is as impossible as identifying the exact nanosecand that a baby becomes a toddler.  All the bush theory says is that in our family tree there was interbreeding occasionally between different subspecies of the genus homo at various points along your family tree.  Evolution is still a very gradual process.  Your genetic material is still just a combination of chromosomes from your mother and chromosomes from your father plus about 60 mutations per generation. Nothing about understanding the evolutionary tree as a bush invalidates anything that Dawkins said in that video.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

yep, human dna got corrupted with neanderthal dna.  This may have had the effect of reducing the life span of the early humans from 1000 years.

 

Makes you wonder why sub-saharan Africans don't live to be 1,000 then doesn't it. http://news.discovery.com/human/evolution/neanderthals-modern-human-121101.htm

[ERayR]

Evolution does not occur in jumps but in agonizingly slow processes. Adam is the first man, but not necessarily the first genetic man. Abraham is considered our father, but he is no more our father than his apostate dad was our father. He is our father in terms of the covenant. If I win a gold tournament, I come in first. This does not mean that I played first, or finished first, or even played the fastest. My placement of first is one of importance not time.

 

People are looking for the missing link but the fail to realize that even of these early humans we have a tiny sample. In many cases we do not even have one complete skeleton, often we only have 2 or 3 examples. Also, these proto-humans are not necessarily early humans, but another branch that did not survive.

 

I am not saying I fully embrace evolution, but it is the only working theory we have to explain the fossil record and it has nothing to do with Adam and Eve or the plan of salvation, just as thermodynamics has nothing do to with the nature of the Godhead.

 

Don't tell me that macro-evolution relies on skimpy evidence, guesswork and, of all things, faith.  Oh please say it isn't so.

[strappinglad]

I recall ( can't CFR ) the Leakeys saying that with all the fossils found to date , they were either fully human or fully ape. Is it possible that the real common ancestor of man and ape was a bacteria?

[BCSpace]

All Dawkins is doing is illustrating that evolution says everything is created after it's own kind which is what the doctrine teaches.  However, theologically, we can say definitely that there was a first man as defined in the Gospel sense, a physical body paired which a literal spirit child of God.

 

One begins to see how very perfectly Evolution fits with the LDS doctrine of the creation.

[halconero]

yep, human dna got corrupted with neanderthal dna.  This may have had the effect of reducing the life span of the early humans from 1000 years.

 

The proper term for "corrupted" would be recombined.

 

Besides, any organism that can procreate with another and produce fertile offspring is considered the same species as its sexual partner. The increasing amount of evidence that Neanderthals and Early Homo Sapiens interbred suggests that they are, in fact, the same species, what we would call "human." 

 

There is little to no evidence that early humans lived ~1000 years.

[halconero]

I recall ( can't CFR ) the Leakeys saying that with all the fossils found to date , they were either fully human or fully ape. Is it possible that the real common ancestor of man and ape was a bacteria?

 

I know you can't CFR...but I really wish you could...

 

Sigh...

 

Humans are apes already. Any fossil found to be "fully human" would by definition also be "fully ape."

[mfbukowski]

He speaks of "myth" vs "reality as science teaches it"

 

Hopelessly simpleminded!  Doesn't he know that science now teaches things that have reversed previous positions and it will all happen again?

 

Doesn't he know that paradigms change?  Doesn't he know that it is ALL "myth" or "theory"?

 

The poor man really needs to take Philosophy of Science 101.  It's laughable.

[ERayR]

All Dawkins is doing is illustrating that evolution says everything is created after it's own kind which is what the doctrine teaches.  However, theologically, we can say definitely that there was a first man as defined in the Gospel sense, a physical body paired which a literal spirit child of God.

 

One begins to see how very perfectly Evolution fits with the LDS doctrine of the creation.

 

Not really.

[Brian 2.0]

The key phrase in your post is "working theory" --  when we don't know......  we pretend to know.

Do you have a different "working theory" to explain the fossil record and speciation that has more scientific evidence to back it up than the "working theory" of evolution?

[thesometimesaint]

A theory always works until it doesn't.   Few here would doubt the germ theory of disease, or the theory of gravity. But for some reason can't come to terms with the theory of evolution.

[Freedom]

The actual percentage isn't all that important. It is what bones we do have that counts. Lucy existed; we have a reasonable extrapolation for what she looked like, based on what her skeletal remains we do have;  Whether she is an actual progenitor of our species seems reasonable to me.

 

While I expect that someday that there will be no difference between science and theology. That day clearly isn't today.

My point is that the record is so incomplete. Those demanding the 'missing link' or the evidence of the steady progression from ameba to humans are being quite unreasonable. Of the millions of primates that predated us we have perhaps a dozen samples.  

[Freedom]

Do you have a different "working theory" to explain the fossil record and speciation that has more scientific evidence to back it up than the "working theory" of evolution?

The argument from silence is always much easier to defend then the argument of evidence it seems. The simple that is provide is 'God' but of course there is no evidence in the scriptures that God had any involvement other than at the start. If they say species were introduced by God over time, then they have to provide the doctrinal support to justify such a stand. This is where they become silent.