Evolution answers

[Jrrarglblarg]

Modern Africans do not have any Neanderthal DNA.

Kinda hard to cross breed species that are not co-located. CroMagnons migrating OUT of Africa encountered preexisting Neandertal populations in the middle east and eastern Europe. Those are the places we've found evidence of contemporaneous contact. Those are the places the gene pools are thought to have crossed.

And no, I don't think rape was involved. Given natural tendencies in primate behaviour I suspect long winter nights with dark caves, warm beds and piles of fermenting fruit in the corner were involved. Followed in the springtime by a certain kind of embarrassed foot-shuffling and "maybe I'll call you sometime."

Then a certain number of disgruntled fathers in the autumn determined to keep a better eye on their daughters, and not let the H. s. s. stay overnight with them any more.

 

[justintime]

We are. It's only a handful of crackpots muddying the waters for those, like you, who consider a debate forum a substitute for education.

To quote an old professor of mine, "Because the last member of the species died." Why they DECLINED is another question entirely, but likely involves competition with humans.

Genetic studies indicate yes.

Why would humans murder their partners. They interbred with neanderthals, remember. The neanderthals had larger brain cavities and were physically stronger. If anything humans would have succumbed.

Because interbreeding occurred in populations of anotomically modern humans that left Africa.

There is nothing that suggests it was the anatomically modern humans that left Africa. If you look at modern Africans they are certifiably anatomically enhanced.

It is, for various reasons I've explained to you before.

I just raised the question here.

No, we have a very good understanding of it. We're learning new details, is all--and you are confusing learning new details with discarding the whole theoretical structure, quite dishonestly.

You are replacing faulty reasoning with new data, just as they did after holding on to the false assumption neanderthals were apes from early fossil misreadings.

This is a lie, read as intended (humans ARE apes, so it's not technically untrue--but it's akin to saying "Someone confused an F-150 with a pickup truck", and it's obvious that you don't understand taxonomy).

That is a deliberate attempt to distort. Neanderthals were identified as apes and not humans because their fossils were thought to resembled knuckle walking apes. Later they were classified as humans after scientists realized their mistake. Calling humans apes is just as ridiculous calling apes humans. Only scientists struggle to tell the difference.

None of this is true.

Funny how you have to lie to make it appear so.

When scientists lie it is a mistake. When the public exposed the mistake made by scientists they are accused of lying. These double standards are why scientific fraud is so prevalent in the scientific community, but are passed off as scientists misconduct and errors.

 

[jimbob]

Kinda hard to cross breed species that are not co-located. CroMagnons migrating OUT of Africa encountered preexisting Neandertal populations in the middle east and eastern Europe. Those are the places we've found evidence of contemporaneous contact. Those are the places the gene pools are thought to have crossed.

And no, I don't think rape was involved. Given natural tendencies in primate behaviour I suspect long winter nights with dark caves, warm beds and piles of fermenting fruit in the corner were involved. Followed in the springtime by a certain kind of embarrassed foot-shuffling and "maybe I'll call you sometime."

Then a certain number of disgruntled fathers in the autumn determined to keep a better eye on their daughters, and not let the H. s. s. stay overnight with them any more.

I was going to ask about that.

Also about how did the Neanderthals manage to rape chimpanzees from a different continent unless they were *really* well endowed.

But I thought it would be wasted.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

Why would humans murder their partners. They interbred with neanderthals, remember. The neanderthals had larger brain cavities and were physically stronger. If anything humans would have succumbed.

CroMagnon and Neandertal populations came into contact in limited areas and for limited times. So limited, in fact, that even cohabitation much less copulation is still a bone of contention (so to speak) among the scientists who actually study this.

CroMagnons and Neandertals could hardly be called "partners" in any usable sense. Any positive contact between populations was an anomaly; the normal mode of populations competing for the same resources is competitive, with one side able to utilize the resource base better than the other. Neandertals used a toolkit that was not changed for the entire fossil record of the species. CroMagnon innovation in tool making, clothing and habitation rapidly outpaced the Neandertals. Even in historial times we can see that populations with superior technology quickly overwhelm populations without.

Even if the populations didn't go to war the CroMagnons would rapidly replace the Neandertals just by eating more and better food and out-populating them in the areas where they were competing.

 

[justintime]

CroMagnon and Neandertal populations came into contact in limited areas and for limited times. So limited, in fact, that even cohabitation much less copulation is still a bone of contention (so to speak) among the scientists who actually study this. CroMagnons and Neandertals could hardly be called "partners" in any usable sense. Any positive contact between populations was an anomaly; the normal mode of populations competing for the same resources is competitive, with one side able to utilize the resource base better than the other. Neandertals used a toolkit that was not changed for the entire fossil record of the species. CroMagnon innovation in tool making, clothing and habitation rapidly outpaced the Neandertals. Even in historial times we can see that populations with superior technology quickly overwhelm populations without.

Even if the populations didn't go to war the CroMagnons would rapidly replace the Neandertals just by eating more and better food and out-populating them in the areas where they were competing.

So when are scientists going to take a more scientific approach by resolving all the issues surrounding their research before publishing it and passing it off as a theory. If they cannot get neanderthals right who were around as recently as 30,000 years ago. None of the older stuff makes any sense and should all be suspect.

 

[dasmiller]

Why would humans murder their partners.

Are you at all familiar with human history?

To be more complete, of course Dinwar didn't say "murder," he said "competition," and ApolloGnomon discussed that.

But . . . seriously . . . you can't imagine that humans would murder members of another group?

 

[turingtest]

If scientists cannot be certain about Neanderthals who lived and went extinct some 45,000 years ago. How can they be certain of anything going beyond that time?

1. Why did they go extinct? Did they interbreed with humans? Why do we have traces of neanderthal genes in only non-African human genome. Modern Africans do not have any Neanderthal DNA.

Evolutionists toss around numbers like millions and millions of years like it is well within their purview to understand evolutionary development during those periods. But something as recent as 45,000 years ago the neanderthals are barely understood.

In fact early neanderthal fossils were mistakenly identified as an ape and the belief held for a over a 100 years till it was discovered the specimens bones were badly diseased and deformed, that is was actually human and not an ape and the records corrected.

There are no evolution answers....just guesses.

Absolutely right, Justin. Why can't science be more like religion, and claim to be certain of the answers to everything*?

*Except the one thing that religion is about- "god works in mysterious ways" is the ultimate cop-out for a method of "thought" whose absolute certainty shouldn't need.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

It's called science, not religion. Science has no obligation to get the whole story right and stop. Science has an obligation to ask questions and pay attention to the answers. Sometimes an answer based on limited data is changed later when new data comes into play. For instance, the first Neandertal found had strange posture, so Neanderals were drawn as hunched over, bow-legged and walking like gorillas. That individual was later found to have been suffering from rickets, and other fossils show normal upright posture like we use.

 

[Dinwar]

Why would humans murder their partners. They interbred with neanderthals, remember.

And the Irish and British interbred. Just because two groups include members that interbreed, doesn't mean they won't kill each other. Today if someone is killed the most likely person to be guilty of it is their lover.

There is nothing that suggests it was the anatomically modern humans that left Africa.

The term "anotomically modern human" has specific meaning in archaeology, anthropology, and all other relevant fields. If you don't know the meaning of the term, you don't know enough to participate in this conversation in a meaningful way.

I just raised the question here.

Dishonestly. It has already been addressed, to raise it again is intended to hide that fact.

You are replacing faulty reasoning with new data, just as they did after holding on to the false assumption neanderthals were apes from early fossil misreadings.

You've demonstrated that you have no idea what we're doing. You've done nothing but spread misinformation, lie, and distort the truth about this topic since you started.

That is a deliberate attempt to distort.

No. It is the facts of the situation. If you don't like it, that's too bad--the facts are not up for debate.

Neanderthals were identified as apes and not humans because their fossils were thought to resembled knuckle walking apes. Later they were classified as humans after scientists realized their mistake.

You've provided no evidence to suggest this is true. MY evidence comes from "Evolution, Time, and Man" and "Darwin's Century", two scholarly textbooks on this exact topic. Both disagree with your interpretation.

Calling humans apes is just as ridiculous calling apes humans.

No. "Ape" is a vernacular term for the scientific term Hominoidea. The vernacular term is paraphyletic--it excludes, for no biologically valid reason, humans from the rest of the apes. I'm a strict phylogenist--the species decending from a common ancestor, and ALL such species, form clades. Thus, "ape" is the vernacular for the clade Hominoidea, which means all humans are apes but not all apes are humans. This is no different than saying "All F-150s are pickup trucks, but not all pickup trucks are F-150s".

When scientists lie it is a mistake. When the public exposed the mistake made by scientists they are accused of lying.

No. When scientists lie it's fraud and their careers are ruined. We've explained that repeatedly to you. You have yet to point out any real mistakes made by scientists; when I accuse you of lying, it's because you have deliberately stated false information. There is no double standard; there is only the fact that you refuse to confine yourself to rational discourse.

Any positive contact between populations was an anomaly; the normal mode of populations competing for the same resources is competitive, with one side able to utilize the resource base better than the other.

While this may be true with modern humans, it's not true with other organisms. What normally happens is resource partitioning--each group focuses on what they do best, and avoids competition. Competition is very expensive; after all, you may lose. So it's reserved for when there are no other options. This resource partitioning may have consequences equally dramatic to those of competition--see killer whale diets through time for an example--but it is never the less a different process (though the difference is, admitedly, subtle, particularly since we're discussing predominant trends and, as ever in biology, exceptions prove the rule more than rules do).

What typically happens when humans move into a new area is that pre-existing predators shift their food sources. Humans eat the biggest stuff around, pretty much in every situation; so predators of that big stuff eat slightly smaller stuff. This can easily drive some predators to extinction--predators adapted to hunting megafauna simply aren't that good at hunting rabbits and lizards. A saber-tooth cat will lose to a fox every time when the competition is "Who can eat enough voles to survive?" That said, it's not competition with humans, strictly speaking, that causes the extinction--it's competition necessitated by avoidance of humans.

I'm not sure how Neanderthals would react. On the one hand, it makes sense to try to eat things humans don't (and for humans to eat things Neanderthals don't), since you're less likely to end up with a spear in the belly that way. On the other, we're talking the genus Homo here, and there's every indication that we tend to dislike interlopers.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

I'm not sure how Neanderthals would react. On the one hand, it makes sense to try to eat things humans don't (and for humans to eat things Neanderthals don't), since you're less likely to end up with a spear in the belly that way. On the other, we're talking the genus Homo here, and there's every indication that we tend to dislike interlopers.

CroMags and Neandertals would have been, mostly, hunting the same things. The Neandertal toolkit and archaeological record do not suggest they were particularly adaptable to change in diet; even if all the Elk in a valley were killed off the CroMags would still be able to find small game but indications suggest the Neandertals didn't hunt rabbits or eat frogs. The final hold-out population in France seems to have starved off in an area with abundant coastal fishing.

 

[Dinwar]

CroMags and Neandertals would have been, mostly, hunting the same things.

The problem is, "the same things" means a large variety of herbivorous megafauna. Elk, bovids, cervids, equids, camelids, etc. Until the loss of that megafauna (well, until it reduced significant and the numbers of humans+Neanderthals increased sufficiently) resource partitioning among the herbivorous megafauna still seems to be a viable solution, at least to me.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

The problem is, "the same things" means a large variety of herbivorous megafauna. Elk, bovids, cervids, equids, camelids, etc. Until the loss of that megafauna (well, until it reduced significant and the numbers of humans+Neanderthals increased sufficiently) resource partitioning among the herbivorous megafauna still seems to be a viable solution, at least to me.

While true in an ideal sense, that's not taking into account the use of overhunting as a tool of war (Bison, anyone?) and assumes both parties are equally capable of dividing the resource base. Indications are that Neandertals became, if anything, more conservative over time rather than experimenting with new food. CroMagnons left archaeological evidence of immense capacity for innovation and abstract thinking that is absent from Neandertal finds.

 

[Dinwar]

While true in an ideal sense, that's not taking into account the use of overhunting as a tool of war

True enough. Denial of resources would certainly alter the situation in ways I hadn't considered.

and assumes both parties are equally capable of dividing the resource base.

Not necessarily. One group can be marginalized to a minimally tollerable existence; the only requirement is that interaction with the competing species needs to be worse than the effects of resource partitioning. I'm not saying that both Neanderthals and human would be comfortable via resource partitioning; I'm merely saying that it would seem to suggest they should have both survived.

Indications are that Neandertals became, if anything, more conservative over time rather than experimenting with new food.

That's another factor. I accept a version of the overkill hypothesis; clearly humans are good at wiping out prey. If the predators can't adapt, they tend to die out. Saber-toothed cats were more specialized than wolves, and died out, while wolves survived (and some groups--which later became dogs--positively thrived). Attempting to cling to old ways during a major ecological shift is just about the best way to ensure your species doesn't survive that I can think of.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

Attempting to cling to old ways during a major ecological shift is just about the best way to ensure your species doesn't survive that I can think of.

Segue to a global warming comment? Just kidding.

 

[Dinwar]

Segue to a global warming comment? Just kidding.

No, I was just speculating on faunal turnover and traits of organisms that tend to survive mass extinctions particularly well. Anotomically modern humans seem to have most of those traist. Neanderthals apparently lacked some.

 

[CapelDodger]

You need to wean yourself from ludicrous, pseudo-scientific ********, icebear.

No offence, but that's a bit nannyish. icebear clearly gets by thus unweaned; his need may be quite the opposite. Ludicrous pseudo-scientific batshootery is popular enough that it must satisfy something.

We should leave icebear to his own needs and I'm sure icebear will do the same for us.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

Also keep in mind that Neandertals never had very high populations and that their genetic diversity appears to be pretty low. They never got out of Europe and western Eurasia, which is crazy because H. habilis and H. erectus managed to get all the way to China with less sophisticated tools.

 

[aggle-rithm]

No, I think his joke was a subtle slam on the "perfect banana = goddidit" argument and slap at anti-gmo by equivocating selective crop breeding with gene splicing.

Geez, dude. Get a cup of coffee or something.

It was supposed to be a commentary on global warming. Guess I'd better work on my writing skills.

 

[CapelDodger]

The problem is, "the same things" means a large variety of herbivorous megafauna. Elk, bovids, cervids, equids, camelids, etc. Until the loss of that megafauna (well, until it reduced significant and the numbers of humans+Neanderthals increased sufficiently) resource partitioning among the herbivorous megafauna still seems to be a viable solution, at least to me.

For modern humans this would have to be a deliberate partition. I can imagine how it could be maintained, through taboos and quasi-religious strictures, but it's difficult to see how (or why) it would be arrived at. If it's tasty we'll eat it; you guys go find your own.

It was never going to turn out well.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

In fact early neanderthal fossils were mistakenly identified as an ape and the belief held for a over a 100 years till it was discovered the specimens bones were badly diseased and deformed, that is was actually human and not an ape and the records corrected.

Sheez. That's not a fact, that's a lie. In fact they were classified as human as soon as someone first looked at them. And within 100 years of their initial discovery further fossils associated with sophisticated tools had been found.