"Out of Africa" theory: a done deal

You have done nothing here but obfuscate the facts, either maliciously or out of igorance. You simlply do not know what you are talking about.

http://www.exn.ca/Stories/2001/04/26/53.asp

 

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Again, you don't know what you are tallkng about. The date of the article and bones for that matter are irrelevant. Did 2+2=4 in 2001? What matters is their mtDNA and the fact they are human.

 

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As far as anyone can establish, there are no consistent differences in height among genetic groups of humans - aside from unusual and limited pockets of pigmies and the like, all humans seem to be about the same height genetically.

The skin color differences are not consistent genetically either - not all melanistic skin has the same genetic basis. Very light skin seems to have one genetic basis, and to be associated with remarkably variable eye color and lactose tolerance - not much else.

The eye shape is one small feature - the epicanthul fold, a modification of the eyelid setup - and is essentially trivial. All human eyes are the same shape (and size, structure, light adaptation, etc) by group.

Neither skin color nor eye shape is any more significant than hair color, genetically. Genetically established height differences between large groups of humans apparently don't exist.

 

The problem BELLS is that dating the evidence and claiming that the newest is the most accurate is not really wise to do. Look at the old popular mechhanics articles from the 70s and you will see that present day humans will also make mistakes.

Even the title of this thread is misleading and somewhat contradictory. How can a theory ever be a done deal? yet subconsciously he included the word THEORY.

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Pygmies

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. Evolution and multi-regional migration fit better together, the reasons why should be fairly obvious.

What your doing is fitting a theory around some fairly obvious facts. At least i find them obvious.

 

Are you claiming i incorrectly perceived racism in Dr Lou's post and am therefore less advanced? Did you even read the post i replied to?

Aboriginals are not more primitive. Pointing out that aboriginals are inferior despite the fact they are not still seems like racism to me.

The claim was aboriginals are less advanced not that they are simply different.

 

I have a unique theory of human perception, which easily explains many different things that more standard cognitive sciences "emergent" POV can not. It also offers a new explaination of the cause of the "Out of Africa" event and specifically why a very small group (and their desendents) killed off all the others they came into contact with through out the world, such as Neandethals.

I have posted it several times. Most recently at:

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=1294496&postcount=52

I hope you will find the time to read all - follow the logic and evidence presented in support of my "Perception is by a real time simulation" theory. This verson is mainly concerned with "free will." - My theory offers a way in which "free will" does not require any miracle - i.e. can be consistent with the body being controlled by physical/chenical processes that alone (no "soul" or "human spirit" modifying these laws) determine the firing of every nerve in the brain etc.

If you lack time to read all and your main interest is in what I suggest is the Out of Africa cause, perhaps you can just skim read to point (3)'s second paragraph; then back track, as needed, to gain better understandng of what is stated here.

 

I believe there is still either conflicting or unresolved information. Most of the reports I've seen show that mitochondrial-Eve [m-Eve; the mother of us all] is dated to about 120,000 to 150,000 years ago, but with no place location. Yet we're talking about the "out of Africa" sojourn of only 50,000 to 70,000 years ago. And, what we have is evidence that that sojourn arose near the Middle East, and from there spread eastward including settling of Australia about 50,000 years ago by one tribe of that group [and then becoming isolated at the end of the ice-age flooding the land bridges].

Where do we have the evidence for time period from 120,000 years ago to 70,000 years ago? Could it not be that m-Eve arose in the middle east, and then about 70,000 years ago bands moved westward into Africa, and others eastward to Asia and Australia?

I believe there is still too much missing information to form firm conclusions as to where m-Eve arose, even if we know about the eastward migration of peoples circa 50,000 years ago. I would welcome someone providing me with more information about that.

 

True, we haven't found H. Sapiens in the middle east prior to the eastward spread. I'm just saying that doesn't mean that H. Sapiens wasn't there yet; it could mean we just haven't found the evidence yet. It could be that the best fossil evidence is now underwater due to the ice-age melt-down, and essentially inaccesible until we start doing more SCUBA exploration.

I agree that the evidence is suggestive that H. sapiens arose in Africa - but I don't believe we can say with definiteness. It is my understanding that a lot more time is spent looking for hominid fossils in Africa [because it is quite a good place to find them] than other places. However, that might not be quite so true nowadays. In any event, H. erectus and other pre-humans migrated out of somewhere [Africa? - most likely I believe], since we find their fossils in Asia, etc.; and H. neanderthalis is all over Europe and the middle east. Perhaps H. Sapiens evolved from an earlier H. neanderthalis somewhere in the middle east. I don't believe we have enough information to be definitive about this yet, but certainly feel free to point me to information conclusively showing where H. sapiens' m-Eve arose.

 

They aren't. In particular, the remarkable genetic uniformity of the human species is difficult to explain with a multi-regional theory of evolutionary origin.

The only thing explained better by multi-regional origin is the rapid wide spread - and people just tend to underestimate the rate of travel of hunting nomadic humans, I think. A thousand years at twenty miles a year takes you all the way around Asia and over to Australia. And they probably had boats.

 

Can you steer me to some evidence for this early date for m-Eve? I thought all we really know about her is that she had at least two daughters (Simple logic - if she had only one then that one would be m-Eve, and not her mother. i.e. by definition, m-eve is the most recent female we can call our common great, great,...grand mother.)

Because the human population has gone thru some rough times in the last 120,000 years I find it surprizing that the most recent common mother of us all would be so far back in the past. Hence my request for support for that POV.

As an example of what a "rough period" can do, consider the tiger. Quite recently (compared to even 50K BP) the tigers almost went extent. The result of this is that they are very highly inbred and have not had time to develope significant genetic variation. - This has one benefit for them in the modern medical age - organ transplants between tigers are never rejected. They are all very closely related. (I am speaking of the common type you see in zoos - there are branches of the tiger family which are significant different. Not as much is known about them, but I suspect they too are highly inbred as the population are small.)

 

I find it interesting, or at least worth commenting on, that there is so much concern about the LOCATION from which the explosion of one small group of our ancestors occurred.

If the many different lines of research had concluded that that location was the French Mediterranean coastal area (instead of central Africa) I strongly doubt there would be as many people suggesting alternative locations and even the highly unlikely possibility of multiple origins that just happened to have evolved with essentially the same genetics. (I.e. I believe there is a lot of unconscious racism hidden in much of this controversy.)

For me, the location is not even a very interesting question, compared to the question of WHY did it* happen. I have provided an answer** to that question, but it just accidently fell out of my extensive studies of how humans process information about the environment that comes to them via the interaction of light with retinal cells. - I.e. how is the 3D perception of the world achieved.
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* "It" is the explosion that lasted only 10 or 20 thousand years and essentially eliminated all of the other humanoid forms, which had waxed and waned for many millions of years without any one becoming dominate in that much longer period. I.e. Why this sudden "instability" that allow one group to dominate so quickly after much longer period of mutual co-existence with only slow changes?

**For my answer, See:
http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.ph...6&postcount=52
Especially first two paragraphs of proof point(3).

 

Because of the Toba Event reducing humanity to just a couple thousand pairs worldwide, we are all very inbred from that time on at least - including Africa.

 

That is a very valid point. Certainly, linguists do have reason to be interested in where various goups were at various times that are not reflecting hidden biases as I suggested might be the main origin of the interest in LOCATION for the out of Africa event. (I still tend to think that those who reject the overwheling and diverse evidence for the African origins of modern man, do have this hidden bias. Typically such strong irrational rejection of diverse evidence all reaching the same conclusion is due to a bias of some sort.)

I am also under the impression that linguists were among the first, if not the first, to conclude that man came from Africa. - i.e. did it long before any genetic analysis tools existed to come to the same conclusion. I even seem to recall that the historic development of words "wagon" and "water" played a large part in this conclusion. Is my memory correct?