Posted on 01/27/2004 8:08:04 AM PST by blam
'Your forefathers were not Neanderthals'
January 26 2004 at 02:30PM
By Maggie Fox
Washington - You may think your grandparents act like Neanderthals, but United States researchers said on Monday they had strong evidence that modern humans are not descended from them.
A computer analysis of the skulls of modern humans, Neanderthals, monkeys and apes shows that we are substantially different, physically, from those early humans.
New York University paleoanthropologist Katerina Harvati said Neanderthals should be considered a separate species from Homo sapiens, and not just a sub-species.
"We interpret the evidence presented here as supporting the view that Neanderthals represent an extinct human species and therefore refute the regional continuity model for Europe," she and colleagues wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Some anthropologists believe that Neanderthals, who went extinct 30 000 years ago, may have at least contributed to the ancestry of modern Europeans.
There is strong evidence that Homo sapiens neanderthalis, as they are known scientifically, interacted with the more modern Cro-Magnons, who eventually displaced them. Cro-Magnons are the ancestors of modern humans, Homo sapiens sapiens.
Some research has suggested they may have interbred to a limited degree, although this is hotly disputed in anthropological circles.
At least one study that looked at fragments of Neanderthal DNA suggested any Neanderthal-Cro-Magnon offspring did not add to the modern gene pool.
Harvati and colleagues combined modern computer technology and the tried-and-true method of determining species that uses physical comparisons.
They examined the skulls of modern humans and Neanderthals and 11 existing species of non-human primates including chimpanzees, gorillas and baboons.
They measured 15 standard skull and face landmarks and used 3-D analysis to superimpose each one on the other.
"From these data, we were able to determine how much variation living primate species generally accommodate, as well as measure how different two primate species that are closely related can be," Harvati said in a statement.
Their computer analyses showed that the differences measured between modern humans and Neanderthals were significantly greater than those found between subspecies of living monkeys and apes.
You can find modern men who will screw sheep, goats, and whatever else doesn't run away too fast. I'm sure there were couplings if the two kinds co-existed in the same territory for any length of time
Strawman. Evolution simply means "change." There is no predisposition to either complexity or simplicity.
One of these days we'll encounter a creationist who actually knows what he's talking about...
It has been experience that most do think this way, but you're right evolution as a theory of life on this planent does not necessarily consider the origin of life. However, surely you're familiar theories advancing life from per-biotic chemcials? Is this not also "chemical evolution"?
Atheism means disebelief in or the denial of the existence of a god or gods. Following your logic, any scientific theory that doesn't explicitly mention God is therefore atheistic.
Correct, atheistic in the sense, that the God of the Bible is not considered.
Creationists accuse evolution of denying the existence of God even though evolution never sets out to determine the existence of God, one way or the other.
Classical evolution may have no bone to pick with God, but, for all practical purposes, you tell me what happens - people use evolution as a means with which to deny a loving Creator. Evolution DOES deny the God of the Bible. Maybe another god, or aliens, or universal life force can fit with a person's belief of origins and evolution, but not the God of the Bible
Evolution cannot be blamed for things that are in no way tied to the theory.
It is evolution's fault that people deny God? Nope. However, is evolution used as a basis to deny a Creator? Yes. So for all practical purposes . . . you do the math. People make their own choices, it is, IMHO, rather unfortunate the science has created an idea that God does not have to exist for life to exist.
And here I was trying to have a serious discussion :-)
Ah, but I was acquitted.....
Ironically, many creationists celebrate whenever some more junk DNA is found to have a function after all, because it proves that "God don't make junk".
OTOH, large stretches of noncoding DNA are compatible with evolution: When a gene duplicates and gets re-inserted into the genome, it goes in somewhere pretty much at random. There's certainly nothing that prevents it from getting inserted in the middle of an existing gene. When this happens, the original gene us usually completely disrupted, which is hardly ever a good thing.
But if the duplicated gene gets inserted in the middle of junk, then its insertion doesn't disrupt any existing gene, and it's free to mutate into something that can "find another job to do" in the cell without first killing the organism.
Because of this, it's advantageous for a species to have lots of junk DNA. Macroevolution via gene duplication & modification probably couldn't ever get off the ground without it.
I don't think so. There are Venus Figures that date back to Neanderthal times but no indication who did them.
Some of what was once labeled "junk" was found to have a real function; however, much of the junk, is just that, junk, no use, it sits in the genome contributing nothing to the organism.
OTOH, large stretches of noncoding DNA are compatible with evolution: When a gene duplicates and gets re-inserted into the genome, it goes in somewhere pretty much at random. There's certainly nothing that prevents it from getting inserted in the middle of an existing gene. When this happens, the original gene us usually completely disrupted, which is hardly ever a good thing.
It's also compatible with the degeneration of a perfect creation.
But if the duplicated gene gets inserted in the middle of junk, then its insertion doesn't disrupt any existing gene, and it's free to mutate into something that can "find another job to do" in the cell without first killing the organism.
This is a "cute" idea, but there is nothing that has been objectively seen since the dawn of genetic science that suggests this ever happens. Although, you are free to your conjecture, it is not entirely impossible, just highly improbable. I'm sure Vegas would be happy to give you odds on that one.
Because of this, it's advantageous for a species to have lots of junk DNA. Macroevolution via gene duplication & modification probably couldn't ever get off the ground without it.
If you say so :-)
Oh! Well I'm glad we cleared that up . . .
To date, no creationist anyone on the earth has ever made a scientific claim.
If I can agree that creation science is more religion than science, can you agree that evolution science is the same?
We cannot observe either in action.
We cannot recreate either in a controlled environment for testing.
A belief in evolution requires at least as much faith as a belief in creation.
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