Evolution of Humans

Prerunner05
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Evolution of Humans

Hey everybody,

 

I have a few questions that I need answered for an article i'm writing.

If you could please reply with the most generally accepted beliefs that would be great.

 

How long have homo sapiens been around?
     Have all the Homo's had the same or similar sex organs as we do today? same sex drive, not just to reproduce, but pleasure as well?  (I understand if these are unanswerable)

 How many fossils of these different homo-types are there?  Hundreds? Thousands? Millions?

 

How many years have humans been around? 

 

 

 


Prerunner05
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also, was their brain

also, was their brain capacity pretty similar?  I mean, were all of the homo's in a sense "king of the jungle"?


deludedgod
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How long have homo sapiens

How long have homo sapiens been around?

Humans diverged from their most recent Homonid ancestor through cladogenesis split 200,000 years ago in Rift Valley

Have all the Homo's had the same or similar sex organs as we do today? same sex drive, not just to reproduce, but pleasure as well? (I understand if these are unanswerable)

It is a consistent feature of all mammals to have a sex drive with similiar sex organs (all females have mammary glands). And yes, in terms of endocrines, sex is believed to be pleasurable for them as well.

How many fossils of these different homo-types are there? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions?

Hell, no! Most of the fossils we have found are incomplete scraps. An arm here, an elbow there. We have found a few complete skeletons of our Hominid ancestors, and they are worth more than their weight in gold. {I don't think your list is complete. I counted 14, but I believe there are 22 known Hominids}

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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deludedgod
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also, was their brain

also, was their brain capacity pretty similar? I mean, were all of the homo's in a sense "king of the jungle"?

They are believed to be fairly intelligent, especially Neanderthals. However, the key feature of human evolution is steady improvement in brain function, both in size and in mechanism (for instance, a critical mutation that seperates us from Homo neanderthalis occurs on a tiny genetic region called HAR1 believed to influence the phospholipid sheathing that improves neural conduction in embryonic development).

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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Prerunner05
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so is it even rational to

so is it even rational to conclude that there were over one hundred of these homo's walking around 3 million years ago?

 

Also, from what i read, if i understand correctly,  The difference in our brains today and their brains back then is very little? 


deludedgod
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so is it even rational to

so is it even rational to conclude that there were over one hundred of these homo's walking around 3 million years ago?

Dude, almost no dead animals are fossilized. The process is incredibly rare. And even when animals are fossilized, it is even rarer that we find them. Almost all animal remains are converted into organic waste (oil and coal), and dissolve under anoxic silt. We are extremely lucky to have any fossils at all.

 Also, from what i read, if i understand correctly,  The difference in our brains today and their brains back then is very little?

Yes. 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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Iruka Naminori
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There are some videos in

There are some videos in the video section that might help, too:

http://www.rationalresponders.com/videos

The Neanderthals especially fascinate me.  Their brains were slightly larger than those of anatomically modern humans (Cro Magnon), but were arranged differently.  The frontal lobes weren't as robust.

You might check out Homo floriensis, a diminutive version of H. erectus and the recent find of a baby Australopithecus afarensis.  I wish I knew more. Smiling

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LeftofLarry
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a great resource, as I've

a great resource, as I've posted in the past

http://www.becominghuman.org

 


lpetrich
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Given what ape sex organs

Given what ape sex organs are like, theirs were likely very similar to ours.
But the important question is how interfertile they were. That can be a difficult question to answer without a *lot* of fossils, so we can see if there is any clear evidence of a fossil hybrid.


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Hominidae hybrids are a

Hominidae hybrids are a romantic notion, but not especially likely, and certainly not supported by what we have found in DNA extracted from neanderthal and modern sapien fossils. Neanderthals and modern humans likely had a common ancestor around 600,000-700,000 years ago. Comparative genomic studies done by Svante Pääbo and others has pretty much established, as far as I'm concerned, that neanderthals and sapiens did not mix.

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world. - Richard Dawkins

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