Neanderthals are considered homo sapiens' cousin, not predecessor. Homo sapiens is man that occupies its own genus and species classification.
Actually there is no evolution of man as such, there is evolution of life out of which one temporary product happens to be what we call homo sapiens.
Discussing reality with one who has not shown to have a tenuous grip is most certainly a waste of time. Why would you be interested in facts of evolution where, in another thread, you applaud the future opening of a creationist museum? I would have to ask then, which of the two of these threads was created to push buttons?
About a hundred years ago, people believe homo sapiens evolved from neanderthals, for at least 20 years we've known this not to be true, you seemingly understand this hence why i was confused as to the apparent underlying implication in a few of your posts that some people still believe they are our predecessors, but we have that out of the way now. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! There are several homonid species, most likely linked in some way, off the top of my head i recall homo neanderthalensis and homo sapiens share the common ancestor homo heidelbergensis, going back from that we have homo ergaster and homo erectus, i forget which one we are related to and which one branches off, if we go back further you'll find australopithecus afarensis and australopithecus africanus(about 4 million years ago). It should be quite easy to search for a tree of human evolution which shows how we can roughly trace back our ancestry almost 6 million years, the tree would show many branches off leading to dead ends.
One survivor and 16 missfits in 5 million years -- not very good adaptation. I can only conclude that mankind is a dead end if he can not control the environment that "created" him. Pretty depressing.
hehe, survive what? the end of the universe (if it comes)? this planet? solar system? survive the collision between Milky way galaxy and Andromeda galaxy? there are a lot of things to survive and some things we have survived it's all in our hands, laws of nature and chance (or luck)
I'd say its pretty good adaptation, across 5 million years a species has managed to evolve sufficiently to still exist in some way through trying different variations of which some survived longer than others and, although now different to its original form it continues, for how much longer, we'll find out.
The only reason that billions of people are able to survive on earth today is because of the development of animal husbandry and agriculture, which defined the transition to the Neolithic Era. We produce food rather than hunting and gathering only the food that already exists in nature. Our ancestors were at the mercy of the seasons and could only consume the edible plants they found and the animals they were able to chase down and kill. There isn't enough naturally occurring food on earth to feed even half a billion people. I don't know where you got that 5,000 population figure. A bit of googling shows that the lowest estimate of the total world population in 10,000BCE, the dawn of the Neolithic Era, was one million and it could have been as high as ten million. Humans were not direct competitors with the other apes. It's an arguable hypothesis that the earliest hominids came down out of the trees precisely to get away from the growing competition for the poor nutrition provided by the herbivorous/insectivorous simian diet. None of them could possibly have been thinking of outcompeting the giant grazing mammals of the savannah for the even poorer nutrition provided by raw, unrefined, unhybridized grasses and leaves. No, they almost certainly saw the other mammals as sources of a high-protein meat diet, rather than as competition. It's been persuasively suggested that the hominids didn't stop when they reached the ground, but walked over to the nearest lake. The "Aquatic Ape Theory" has been discussed on SciForums at great length. It is much easier to compete with lower-energy cold-blooded aquatic animals, especially gill-breathers who take in far less oxygen to metabolize. Mammals and birds invariably rule when they migrate into an aquatic environment, from otters and ducks to polar bears and seagulls to seals and puffins to cetaceans and penguins. Warm-blooded air breathers are the kings of the water. After developing a digestive system better suited to a high-protein diet, and developing hunting skills, perhaps then the hominids climbed back out to declare themselves kings of thte savannah. Woody, you need to do some of your own research before you start posting. Many of the errors you've made here could have been corrected in half an hour of serious googling, without having to take any classes or even go to a library. Some of the information that has eluded you is even right here on SciForums. This is SciForums. We are all scientists here. That means we do our own research, even if it's secondary or tertiary research.
Fraggle Rocker said: I don't know where you got the 5,000 figure either because I said 50,000 -- pay attention. But homo sapiens was estimated to go as low as 10,000 at one time. Odviously, but the world is a big place, and I don't picture a lot of hominids killing each other to extinction -- it seems they would have more important things to do like providing shelter, hunting, etc. errors such as what -- asking for man's immediate predecessor -- like there isn't one or something? Well maybe I over did it then, because I spent longer than that. I'm having no luck at all finding a genetic predecessor to man -- can you help me here? Heidelberg man is the closest and it was discovered over 80 years ago. Nothing new since then?
woody: Most hominids never got out of africa (I think) and lived in relatively small areas (compared to "with such a big world", and there's competition for game, space, etc. Humans are very savage to the out-group if you hadn't noticed. 6.5 billion our ancestors were savannah uh... dwellers..., other apes are forest dwellers. two different environments, different food sources, etc.
Alpha Wolf said How about babboons? They live in the savannah -- competition is tough out there too -- lions and such. Homo Sapiens have no problem living in the woods again, and would probably prefer it, being they are such slow runners.
What's "singularity"? What are you asking here? You want DNA from an extinct species? How so? No they don't. Whatever gave you the idea they do? I don't understand your point here, either. Please explain.
Nice pic. Strong religious beliefs and illusion that GOD will save us all will definately hasten our extinction. Look at war videos, they all die in millions praying GOD for help. Its just a matter of time when we will die in billions.
I have heard that human brain has increased by 100grams in past 1000 or some years; its possible that humans have an incremental brain gene, ie. brain gene may mutate such that at each generation brain will be slightly bigger. Sorry, thats my theory.
If the brain gets too big, communications between different parts of it become slower and brain starts to lose on its' processing capacity thus a decrease in intelligence. According to a research done by french neurologists our brain can not get much bigger than it is now.
