Scientists Look To Europe As Evolutionary Seat

University Of Toront ^ | 19 February 2002 | Staff

[PatrickHenry]

A bit of the famous "list-o-links" (so the creationists don't get to start each new thread from ground zero).

01: Site that debunks virtually all of creationism's fallacies. Excellent resource.
02: Creation "Science" Debunked.
03: Creationi sm and Pseudo Science. Familiar cartoon then lots of links.
04: The SKEPTIC annotated bibliography. Amazingly great meta-site!
05: The Evidence for Human Evolution. For the "no evidence" crowd.
06: Massi ve mega-site with thousands of links on evolution, creationism, young earth, etc..
07: Another amazing site full of links debunking creationism.
08: Creationism and Pseudo Science. Great cartoon!
09: Glenn R. Morton's site about creationism's fallacies. Another jennyp contribution.
11: Is Evolution Science?. Successful PREDICTIONS of evolution (Moonman62).
12: Five Major Misconceptions about Evolution. On point and well-written.
13: Frequently Asked But Never Answered Questions. A creationist nightmare!
14: DARWIN, FULL TEXT OF HIS WRITINGS. The original ee-voe-lou-shunist.

The foregoing was just a tiny sample. So that everyone will have access to the accumulated "Creationism vs. Evolution" threads which have previously appeared on FreeRepublic, plus links to hundreds of sites with a vast amount of information on this topic, here's Junior's massive work, available for all to review: The Ultimate Creation vs. Evolution Resource [ver 15].

[PatrickHenry]

Ping.

[ThinkPlease]

Interesting concept. Hope to see more along this line of thought.

[Mike K]

I knew it, dang white men just wanna' own everything! [/sarcasm]

[VadeRetro]

Now you're going to get it from the "My granfather wasn't no monkey" bunch.

[Jonathon Spectre]

Hmm, I'm afraid I'm going to have to say something controversial that far too many knee-jerk jerk-offs will simply dismiss as "racist". However, I have to say it.

Many years ago, humankind began in Africa. These earliest humans spread out in all directions, and some of them ended up in Europe. Over the course of a few thousand years, these European versions of the human changed, and became substantially different than any other humans. They built ships, sailed the seas, discovered fundamental truths about the universe they lived in, created the discipline of science that has so enriched and improved all our lives. And one day, thousands of years later, they returned to Africa.

What did they find there? A culture in many ways as advanced as their own, as would be discovered in the Far East? A "great" religion, as would be the case with the Mohammedans of the Middle East? No. They discovered the inhabitants still living in primitive barbarism, jumping up and down and eating each other. Of COURSE Europe was where evolution flowered. How anyone can look at human history and not immediately and instinctively know this is beyond me.

Please, feel free to discuss. :) I'll look back in on this thread tonight and see how many hysterical denunciations I manage to attract. Oh, and by the way, I'm NOT a racist. I don't care what color you are, what country you come from, or what fairy tale you believe in so long as you don't want to use the power of the state to make me live like you do. That's why I like FREE Republic so much.

[WL-law]

I'd like to hear you expound your theory to account for the fact that, 3000 years ago, the Greeks evolved at an astounding rate, and then evolution slowed down for a millenium after the Greeks-Romans. In your view, who were the Greeks, and why did this evolution occur is such a disjointed, non-linear way?

[eno_]

Amen!

The real answer to human origins may have unpleasant results for the "were all equal" crowd. First, the genetic similarity is found to have ignored the fact some genes matter more and some matter not at all. Then it develops that the "Neanderthals died out" theory may not be right. We'll soon see just how much our tendentious left wants to "celebrate diversity."

[Senator_Blutarski]

Thank you for posting what many fear to state. When viewed with an open mind, it is very hard to draw a conclusion other than the one you have suggested.

The facts are a hard master, which is why liberals are so loath to confront them. But on the highly charged subject of race most of the world (both conservative and liberal) has forbidden the logical examination of the evidence. The evidence leads to some very uncomfortable conclusions.

[cracker]

I suggest you read Jared Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel for an explanation of why you are so VERY VERY VERY wrong. And yes, you are a racist.

[balrog666]

the fact that, 3000 years ago, the Greeks evolved at an astounding rate...

What the hell are you smoking? And do you have any more of it?

[cracker]

Actually, it does refute his thesis. Diamond argues that all humans are equal in their potential to create advanced societies - that race is irrelevant. Diamond explains the observed differences in the advancement or progress of differing human societies up to the year 1500 (and by extension, to the present) as being a product of different environments: geographical, climatological, ecological, and otherwise. Differences in initial environmental conditions led to wide variation in final outcomes, and skin pigmentation or facial structure were not factors.

[Grut]

Native Africans are more specialized for bipedal locomotion than any other group (i.e. relatively longer legs, shorter arms, bigger feet, narrower hips on women which makes them more agile). Also, their skull construction is stronger since the intracranial fosse knit completely in adults. I doubt these advantages would be selected out by evolution, so the likely source of the physical differences between Blacks and Whites is that they evolved away from us.

[Grut]

Lemme rephrase that last line: it's not so much that they evolved away from us as it is that we did not evolve as far from a common ancestor as they did.

[AndrewC]

re-writing the book on the history of great apes and humans, arguing that most of their evolutionary development took place in Eurasia, not Africa.
Begun says that the great apes flourished in Eurasia and that their lineage leading to the African apes and humans - Dryopithecus - migrated south from Europe or Western Asia into Africa, where populations diverged into the lines leading towards great apes, gorillas and chimps (chimpanzees and bonobos). One of those lines eventually evolved into the ancestors of humans about six million years ago.

I do not see how the first appearance allows the conclusion expressed in the first statement above. I also do not see how great apes can flourish before their lineage migrates and diverges into lines leading towards great apes. Further, why was this assertion not accepted when first proposed by László Kordos in January 2000.---

New results of Hominoid research in the Carpathian Basin

The combination of RUD-200 and other specimens of Dryopithecus from Hungary,France and Spain provides evidence of an African great ape morphology of the palate,mid-face,orbital region,neurocranium and craniofacial hafting,lending substantial support to the hypothesis of European origin of the African ape and human clade.

Finally, why is there no substantiation to “the earliest-known great ape fossil, broadly ancestral to all living great apes and humans” What is it, a tooth?

[PatrickHenry]

They discovered the inhabitants still living in primitive barbarism, jumping up and down and eating each other. Of COURSE Europe was where evolution flowered. How anyone can look at human history and not immediately and instinctively know this is beyond me.

I think you have confused the flowering of Western culture with the biological evolution of the human species. No doubt, we in the West were among the first to begin making serious intellectual and technological progress. But it wasn't too long ago that our own ancestors were just as primitive as those living elsewhere. Yet we are the same species. Our cultures are vastly unequal, of course.

[WL-law]

I suggest you read Jared Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel for an explanation

I've read it, and his theory represents a contorted, complex, sometimes self-contradictory attempt to present an 'alternative' explanation of the disparate results of Western civilization versus 'other cultures'. My review: nice try but not convincing.