Europe was the birthplace of mankind, not Africa, scientists find

[Puupi]

There really, really isn't.

The only way there'd be a missing link would be if we didn't know that they were related and it turned out they were. Which.. we know they are through various traits. Nothing is missing to link them together; fine-tuning of what changed where is not revealed for very few traits, but it's not a missing link. That term is both outdated and annoying, as well as showcasing not an insignificant amount of ignorance.

Just took a look at homo naledi in wikipedia and it says they've dated this year the remnants at around 300k years old. *poof* there goes the 2,5 million year old homo apparently.
I hadn't heard of this recent dating.

[Deleted]

There are differences in bones between the different races in humans too. We can tell each other apart just by looking at the other.

The skeletal structure differs. I know this and I know the article that was published. Not the appearance. The bone density is slightly, I repeat, slightly different in people originating from africa. This has absolutely no impact on the looks of the homo sapiens sapiens. Every other claim couldnt be verified.

People who make this into a race thing, are oblivious at best. People who post pictures with different skulls who say "They are totally different!" are too.

[Vanyali]

Just took a look at homo naledi in wikipedia and it says they've dated this year the remnants at around 300k years old. *poof* there goes the 2,5 million year old homo apparently.
I hadn't heard of this recent dating.

That has fuck-all to do with missing link crap.

Homo naledi is also seen as an offshoot of homo, which makes it join... oh, probably a hundred, other offshoots that didn't make it. Homo had a shitton of variation, and they're not all ancestors of sapiens, nor even related save in the vaguest sense (your great-great-great-grandma's aunt's daughter's child in relation to you, for example) to sapiens. Stating that there's one that was around later than we thought isn't a "missing link" even if you insisted on using such loaded terms.

[Puupi]

The entire concept of a "missing link" is garbage science, to begin with. Unless we have fossil records of literally every single individual in a person's ancestry, there are "missing links". It doesn't mean the connections between evolutionary forms aren't understood.

It's like the nonsense about "transitional fossils". That's not a thing. A fish doesn't just go "oh, I should grow legs and lungs and live on land" and give birth to lizards. We have "transitional" forms, and they're all around us. Critters like lungfish, for instance. Whether they died out or not had to do with their success as a species themselves. Every species is in "transition" from what came before it, to whatever it will branch into afterward. It's all "transitional".

Well it's not garbage science entirely if you have an australopithecus and a homo - and you know they are related. Their physical features are so vastly different - obviously there is a missing link there somewhere. Some kind of a specimen that is something between those two.

[Puupi]

That has fuck-all to do with missing link crap.

It doesn't, just a thing I noticed when I took a look what wikipedia says about homo naledi. It means it most definitely isn't a missing link, because of the dating.

[Vanyali]

Well it's not garbage science entirely if you have an australopithecus and a homo - and you know they are related. Their physical features are so vastly different - obviously there is a missing link there somewhere. Some kind of a specimen that is something between those two.

https://books.google.com/books?id=c0...page&q&f=false


Look on page 176.

What you're saying is that since we don't have the clown with a big nose AND big feet there's a missing link in that evolutionary tree because we can't ~know~ there wasn't something else between them.

It's bullshit. It's pseudo-science pushed to try to discredit evolution because there will always be one feature that "wasn't there before!" so "clearly something is missing and everything is wrong!"

- - - Updated - - -

It doesn't, just a thing I noticed when I took a look what wikipedia says about homo naledi. It means it most definitely isn't a missing link, because of the dating.

It also says homo naledi is likely to be a relic population that changed because it was tiny and isolated, meaning it could be homo sapiens sapiens naledi. Just like florensis ended up being due completely to isolation on a small island rather than a "missing link" of any kind.

[kenthovind]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2...ientists-find/



So um.. this is probably going to piss some people off. I'm genuinely surprised by this too though. It's interesting to see what scientists are still digging up. A lot of history books, specifically what kids are taught are going to have to be rewritten now to teach this. I would assume that most people know that early humans had their start in Africa but this does change a lot.

We did not evolve from apes.

Zero evidence of macro evolution, dating techniques are vodoo science and don't work and never will. Frilled sharks disprove evolution.

[Heldamon]

The monkeymen that started from Greece didn't evolve much, we have them even today. Trust me, I'm from Greece.

[Puupi]

It's bullshit. It's pseudo-science pushed to try to discredit evolution because there will always be one feature that "wasn't there before!" so "clearly something is missing and everything is wrong!"

lol what. You are clearly misinterpreting what I'm saying and thinking you are arguing with a creationist or something.

It also says homo naledi is likely to be a relic population that changed because it was tiny and isolated, meaning it could be homo sapiens sapiens naledi. Just like florensis ended up being due completely to isolation on a small island rather than a "missing link" of any kind.

Of course now that it has been dated to 300k years old and not 2,5 million.

[Vanyali]

lol what. You are clearly misinterpreting what I'm saying and thinking you are arguing with a creationist or something.


Of course now that it has been dated to 300k years old and not 2,5 million.

No, I'm pointing out where your term came from, why it's so loaded, and why everyone else in the thread has attempted to point out why you continuing to use "missing link" invalidates your arguments. It's a pseudoscience term. Period. End of. There is no scientific point where "missing link" is an acceptable way to describe any part of evolutionary arguments unless it's someone saying casually "yeah, that new find linked two lineages together we thought were separate, guess it was the missing link!". No one hunts for missing links.

Naledi is also far from being reliably dated, and could still be 1mil+ years. It's also, upon closer inspection, not even a sapiens branch, let alone part of the trunk; it's more closely linked to erector or habilis, which would predate sapiens. Which is, again, not uncommon for a relic population.

[Endus]

Well it's not garbage science entirely if you have an australopithecus and a homo - and you know they are related. Their physical features are so vastly different - obviously there is a missing link there somewhere. Some kind of a specimen that is something between those two.

It's bullshit pseudoscience. The whole concept of discrete species is itself an oversimplification, and evolution does not proceed by a sudden shift from one generation to the next. It's a slow drift (albeit one where the rate and degree of drift can vary considerably). In stable environments, a single species will tend to diversify into multiple offshoots, or develop a significant internal diversity of form (like what we've done with dogs, through selective breeding). And then some even will occur with puts pressure on that species group, and some will survive, others won't, and when you repeat that over millions of years, you get evolution.

The "missing link" is nonsense. ALL fossils are "transitional fossils". There will ALWAYS be "missing links", because we don't have the bodies of literally every creature that has ever lived. That isn't anything that calls evolutionary theory into question.

We did not evolve from apes.

Zero evidence of macro evolution, dating techniques are vodoo science and don't work and never will. Frilled sharks disprove evolution.

This is nonsense. Not only is there huge amounts of evidence backing macroevolution, we've seen it happen under laboratory conditions.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html
http://evolutionlist.blogspot.ca/200...-evidence.html

I am curious, though, how frilled sharks "disprove" evolution. I'm sure you think it's because they're similar to much older shark forms, and have survived relatively unchanged? That doesn't disprove evolution, it proves that frilled sharks have survived and continued to prosper across hundreds of millions of years. That frilled sharks exist alongside all the other forms of sharks is pretty massive evidence as to how thoroughly wrong you are.

[Caerule]

This is such a weird discussion.

We already know Homo Sapiens came from Africa. But we also know they weren't the first hominids. Neanderthals. Homo Erectus or whatever. There were other human times. And what they seem to have in common is that every time there was one successful more adaptive branch of pre-humans, they spread out widely. Only to then be displaced by the next group that had new tricks up its sleeves.

The problem with these new finds is that the presence of a pre-human fossil somewhere, does not mean it evolved there. As you see with a ton of these pre-humans, they often spread out far. Only to then get replaced when another fitter variant entered the area.

To prove we evolved somewhere, you need more than one variant in one place. You need to track what came before, and came after, in the direct line of gene transfer, and the locations of that through time. Then you can track the path of our race's origins.

It's a puzzle we're only slowly finding pieces off. But for now, there's a pretty decent consensus about the picture that's starting to emerge.

[want my Slimjim]

Why would it piss anyone off? Much of the modern world was started and shaped by Europeans. There are humans then there is mankind. Europe is where mankind was born.

[Swizzington]

No we are not even from this planet. Makes no sense. We either come from space or other dimensions.

How do you figure that?

[Collegeguy]

I don't think this would be wildly accepted unless they have a lot more. That's too little to go on for that conclusion. It throws too much evidence on it's head that shows the contrary. Sounds more like someone is trying too hard.

The more likely explanation might be that during the cataclysm and rapid climate change in the Mediterranean that caused the Sahara desert to go from rain forest to wasteland, and in effect giving birth to much of the need for adaptation that humans thrive off of, some of the early versions escaped of course went toward Europe. Exodus of Africa already makes this assumption many times. There wasn't just one exodus. Even then it could have been in and out multiple times.

[Puupi]

No, I'm pointing out where your term came from, why it's so loaded, and why everyone else in the thread
has attempted to point out why you continuing to use "missing link" invalidates your arguments.

Everyone = you and Endus.

And what arguments? What have I argued?

It's a pseudoscience term. Period. End of. There is no scientific point where "missing link" is an acceptable way to describe any part of evolutionary arguments unless it's someone saying casually "yeah, that new find linked two lineages together we thought were separate, guess it was the missing link!". No one hunts for missing links.

Oh yes they do. People are eager to find a specimen that says "hey this is half austrolopithecus and half homo". Not to prove evolution, but to find the first homo.

It's bullshit pseudoscience. The whole concept of discrete species is itself an oversimplification, and evolution does not proceed by a sudden shift from one generation to the next. It's a slow drift (albeit one where the rate and degree of drift can vary considerably).

Exactly, which is all the more reason for the likelihood of finding a specimen that fills the gap between austrolopithecus and homo.

In stable environments, a single species will tend to diversify into multiple offshoots, or develop a significant internal diversity of form (like what we've done with dogs, through selective breeding). And then some even will occur with puts pressure on that species group, and some will survive, others won't, and when you repeat that over millions of years, you get evolution.

The "missing link" is nonsense. ALL fossils are "transitional fossils". There will ALWAYS be "missing links", because we don't have the bodies of literally every creature that has ever lived.

Of course there will always be missing links. But this link between austrolopithecus and homo is more interesting than the others.

That isn't anything that calls evolutionary theory into question.

Well who has questioned evolutionary theory here? Not me, that's for sure. It's quite something that you even bring it up.

[Grimbold21]

Obviously, this thread is meant to trigger Shinra

[Super Kami Dende]

Not really surprising to me to be honest.

[Illuminance]

Revolutionary scientific discoveries

Published in PLoS One

Choose one of the above

[Mihalik]

It doesn't matter if people are upset or not, facts are facts. I long suspected this. The "fertile crescent" can be a little unforgiving weather wise, it didn't make sense to me that mankind would have been born there (unless we lost adaptions through evolution we previously had). I also think that this latest evidence is not the end of the story either.

I do not actually think we will ever find enough scientific evidence to know exactly were we originated, but each piece is a little closer to solving the puzzle.

As someone already mentioned the Fertile Crescent has nothing to do with Homo Sapiens evolutionary origins, the Fertile Crescent was an area where agriculture and civilization spread from. Also the climate of the Fertile Crescent has actually gotten worse while the climate of Europe got better in the past 15000-12000 years.