[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.

[ellery]

I thought there had been recent evidence that Neanderthals interbred with Homo Sapiens (essentially, we assimilated them)?

[Godebert]

"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. "

Nonsense. Both the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens have a comnmon rootstock in Homo erectus. The debate among scientists is wether or not there was some interbreeding between the populations. The Neanderthals left plenty of traces, and new fossils and artifacts are discovered every year.