Posted on 09/03/2011 6:15:38 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Sharing the results of a massive, worldwide study, geneticist Svante Pääbo shows the DNA proof that early humans mated with Neanderthals after we moved out of Africa. (Yes, many of us have Neanderthal DNA.) He also shows how a tiny bone from a baby finger was enough to identify a whole new humanoid species. Svante Pääbo explores human genetic evolution by analyzing DNA extracted from ancient sources, including mummies, an Ice Age hunter and the bone fragments of Neanderthals.
(Excerpt) Read more at exchangemagazine.com ...
Thanks!
Defending evolution is pretty stupid, given the lack of fossil evidence.
(’: I stand corrected. :’)
IOW, you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about, but you do keep talking.
Back in the good old days when they were piddling around trying to fit bones together it was hard to get a good fit so you could figure out hair color. Now we know the Neanderthals had red hair, and if you think that's a problem ..... well, it's not a problem. There are 200 million people in this world with red hair and even more with mixed colored hair and they don't think it's funny at all. So, if you want to laugh and joke about it watch your back. They are lurking around night and day ready to fly into a rage, flash those blue/green eyes and use whatever is handy as a cudgel.
It was good for the Neanderthals to be redheads. Life was tough back in the day.
(NOTE DNA researchers say it was a different gene than the modern gene for red hair, but the principle is the same ~ and there's a reason the saber toothed tigers are gone).
So you have fossil evidence for transition from one species to another, across the animal kingdom.
That should be rich, there’s lots of folk who’d like to see that.
Why’d they go to all the trouble to invent crazy theories to explain the lack of a fossil record.
Is the fact that the red hair gene is different a new finding?
The first time I ever saw the proposition that Neanderthals and homo sapiens had interbred, part of the evidence presented was that both Neanderthals and modern humans have members with red hair. I'll admit that I was not convinced by the argument; it's completely possible for color pigments in different species to arise independently. (With the new genetic evidence, I'm still on the fence about the whole thing; if Neanderthals and homo sapiens were interbreeding, then they weren't different species.)
Don’t you know that all fossils are transitional?
Begging the question is so easy that even a Neanderthal can do it...
Don’t you know that all fossils are transitional?
Begging the question is so easy that even a Neanderthal can do it...
Unfortunately, with DNA evidence on people long dead, you have much the same problem as the old bone-splicers of old - which is that modern investigators are piecing together disparate pieces of evidence to make them fit the picture that has already been pre-determined. In other words, the evidence tends to be made to fit the theory, instead of the other way around.
Why’d they go to all the trouble to invent crazy theories to explain the lack of a fossil record.
Of course, it was the plethora of such evidence that led to the formulation of the theory of evolution. Without the abundant evidence, I doubt anyone would have come up with such a theory... or else, it would have been relegated to crackpotdom, much like those shows I see on the history channel featuring "experts" explaining their "theories" that life on Earth was seeded by extraterrestrials.
DNA is the new standard because the fossil ‘record’ didn’t work out. It will take a few years for ‘science’ to figure out that DNA doesn’t support evolution either, but never fear, there will be a new standard by then with lots of wiggle-room that just happens to support evolution.
But, that's a different issue. There's NO REASON to think of the Neanderthal as a different species ~ more like a different "race" I am sure.
One hypothesis about how they survived the Northern climate during SEVERAL ice ages is that they had twins in every pregnancy. That kicked their reproductive rate up to match the need.
That probably gave them four active mammaries.
Again, we digress. I'm still POd at the dentist for busting through that bony plate the first time I had Novocaine. It hurt.
The evidence fits the theory because the theory is just that good.
It also has great predictive power; without the theory of evolution to use as a guide, I'm not sure how we would use evidence collected about, e.g., a metabolic pathway in one species to make predictions about a similar metabolic pathway in a different species.
Of course. That's why Chapter 6 of Origins was titled "Absence or Rarity of Transitional Varieties" and Chapter 10 of Origins was titled "On the Imperfection of the Geological Record".
Now there's an argument against 'natural selection'...
We are usually not identical copies of each other. DNA is probably a far more complex chemical than we realize. There are probably super computers in there coded in a way we do not yet understand ~ and presumably they work in very small dimensions using quantum processes. What those processes might tap into is unknowable at present.
It is tempting to think DNA is linked to a great universal overmind ~ which enables it to not only be all things to all men, but also to be all men, all critters, all living things anywhere, under virtually all conditions.
Let's see. Metabolic pathways between dog and wolf, similar. Metabolic pathways between dog and fungus, dissimilar.
Yep, where would we be without 'evolution' to help us solve the deep questions of life...
Well, the thing is, people tend to treat DNA as if it were some sort of magic wand that answers all questions. It's not. DNA is merely a piece of evidence, just like fossilised bones are pieces of evidence.
The trick comes in how people choose to interpret the evidence. Evolutionists often choose to do so circularly.
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