Orangutans and human originsHumans have a larger number of features that are uniquely shared with orangutans than with any other living ape. Schwartz (1984) proposed that humans are more closely related to orangutans than to chimpanzees - a model that contradicts the greater genetic similarity of base pair sequences in humans and chimpanzees.
Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz
Department of Anthropology
University of Pittsburgh
The view presented here is that genetic similarity of base pair sequences is not a necessary measure of phylogenetic relationship and that morphology continues to exist as an independently reliable source of information on evolutionary relationships. The orangutan model presents a conundrum for biological systematics over how to chose between morphological and genetic evidence when they are in conflict.Higher Primates May Have Asian RootResearchers working in southern Asia have discovered 40-million-year-old fossil teeth and jaw fragments that, in their view, support the controversial notion that anthropoids originated in Asia. The find in Myanmar represents a new species, Bahinia pondaungensis, in the anthropoid group, which includes monkeys, apes, and humans, reports a team led by anthropologist Jean-Jacques Jaeger of UniversitÈ Montpellier-II in France. The teeth show key similarities to those of Eosimias, a 45-million-year-old fossil creature from China that may also have been an early anthropoid (SN: 11/11/95, p. 309)... Jaeger and his coworkers view their new find as evidence for a much earlier origin of anthropoids in Asia, perhaps 55 million to 60 million years ago. In November 1998, the researchers recovered two fragmentary upper jaws and a broken lower jaw, each retaining a number of teeth, belonging to Bahinia. The same excavation level yielded the lower jaw of a previously identified species known as Amphipithecus. Jaegerís group views Amphipithecus as a more anatomically advanced anthropoid that lived at the same time as Bahinia.
by B. Bower
Science News
October 16, 1999The Scars of Evolution"The most remarkable aspect of Todaro's discovery emerged when he examined Homo Sapiens for the 'baboon marker'. It was not there... Todaro drew one firm conclusion. 'The ancestors of man did not develop in a geographical area where they would have been in contact with the baboon. I would argue that the data we are presenting imply a non-African origin of man millions of years ago.'"
by Elaine Morgan
Odd how these studies and the expeditions finding new species all seem to have this common thread: either they, or their area, is a suddenly 'threatened as never before' species or habitat.
Oil palm plantations? Find 50+ new species living there!
"Global Warming" threatening Antarctic ice shelves? Quick; let's find a few dozen new species dependent on them!
It is no coincidence that most of said expeditions & studies are funded by aggressive, agenda-driven environmental organizations...though their motives are pure and unquentionable, since they don't take money from the evil petro-agro-chemical industrial complex.