[blam]

I could accept this. It does not conflict with my favorite theory of 'multiregionalism.' (Wolpoff)

[blam]

FYI.

[Publius6961]

Sure glad that this version of the report doesn't drift into the ignorant hyperbole of anything being "proven" by this new discovery.

[Junior]

Bump.

[smolensk]

So...what went wrong later?

[blam]

Fossil Skull Fuels Debate Over Human Origins

[irish_links]

The subject material is very intriguing to me. By my way of thinking, the author is syntactically dancing around the unspoken issue of "what happened to the neanderthal?" Surely, this is the other "species" that is being referred to when the topic of homo sapiens' single species of ancestor is brought up. The author seems to conclude that the Neanderthal, a proto-human with brain capacity that was, I believe, the equal or superior of our own, was not a linear evolutionary ancestor of Homo sapiens. So what does that have to do with the price of eggs? You may ask. If one is skeptical about the accepted view of human evolution (I am), it might be significant. The traditional view requires that one conclude that two completely genetically-distinct primate strands arose that had all the principal characteristics of humans, including the use of tools and the development of art and cosmology. One of them disappeared without a trace. The other evolved into Homo sapiens. Now, to me this seems highly improbable. It suggests that the evolutionary process of becoming human is relatively commonplace in nature. Heck, it happened twice simultaneously in different parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. And, these simultaneous processes were quite brief, requiring only a few hundred thousand years. It seems to me, that if this evolutionary process was as simple as this one would have observed the development of other species of primates with critical human characteristics in the last hundred thousand years or so. But we haven't. Only Homo sapiens have language, art, true self reflection and cognition. How can this be? Could it be part of some intelligent design? Prey, tell.

[RightWhale]

At some point, some say, there is a single ancestor. I never thought this was necessary. The Adam allegory makes vague sense on the literal level until you get to the part where Cain went to live with the people in the next valley over. People got feet, they can go anywhere, mingle, trade pottery and throwing sticks.

[bmwcyle]

It was a single creator.