The concept of species is a construct of language.
Yet if I take a penguin and an aardvark, they just won't breed. Reality must have something to do with it, surely.
3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia
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Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia
#22Why does it have to be only one ancestor ape, and not several that evolved human-like features simultaneously in the same environment? We have Neanderthal DNA, that we inherited through interbreeding. Why can't both we and the Neanderthals be descendent from a varied group of very similar apes that interbred as well? Isn't this the most likely scenario? Sometimes I think scientists fall for the same simplistic patter…
>Sometimes I think scientists fall for the same simplistic patterns of thinking that the men on the street fall for every day.
Practising scientists are loath to speculate without good evidence; it lays them open to criticism by peers, and damages their credibility with reviewers. Unfortunately this means that there is often a lot of inertia that slows the change of focus and means that there is some waste as the wrong work gets done (work that is known to be irrelevant by most of the community, but passes review). On the other hand this reticence does mean that there is less flailing around and hype than you see in other areas - such as business IT fads (Big Data, ML, AI, Serverless, Microservices...)
Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia
#23Why does it have to be only one ancestor ape, and not several that evolved human-like features simultaneously in the same environment? We have Neanderthal DNA, that we inherited through interbreeding. Why can't both we and the Neanderthals be descendent from a varied group of very similar apes that interbred as well? Isn't this the most likely scenario? Sometimes I think scientists fall for the same simplistic patter…
HN is such an amazing community. Where else could you find commenters that know better than the scientists authoring the Nature article in question, and can then identify exactly why their own thinking is so much deeper than of most other people?
> Where else could you find commenters that know better than the scientists authoring the Nature article in question,
They don't know better, they try to understand better. Why not?
Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
HN is such an amazing community. Where else could you find commenters that know better than the scientists authoring the Nature article in question, and can then identify exactly why their own thinking is so much deeper than of most other people?
> Where else could you find commenters that know better than the scientists authoring the Nature article in question, They don't know better, they try to understand better. Why not?
When someone talks about how "scientists fall for the same simplistic patterns of thinking that the men on the street fall for every day", while explaining how "in fact reality is much more complex than that", does it feel like they're humbly trying to better understand the world?
To me it sounds like someone who clearly has a deeper understanding of the topic than those scientists. And I love that.
Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia
#25The concept of species is a construct of language.
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Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia
#26Regarding the multiple human ancestors aspect, here is an diagram of human species or groups if you want to avoid the "what is a species discussion" : https://imgur.com/a/AfrYjqF
It is from a recent symposium [1] on human evolution
The vertical axis is the age. The horizontal axis represent the geographical spread and the color represents the continent.
We can see multiples things:
- Disregard the 2010, it is indeed up-to-date. These past few years new bars have been added regularly.
- A single homo species is a new development and is an exception and not the rule
- Not only did different species live at the same time they sometimes lived in the same places
- There is no edges between the groups to represent ancestors as a simple "single ancestor" link is not easy to establish.
[1] https://www.college-de-france.fr/media/jean-jacques-hublin/U...
Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia
#27Why does it have to be only one ancestor ape, and not several that evolved human-like features simultaneously in the same environment? We have Neanderthal DNA, that we inherited through interbreeding. Why can't both we and the Neanderthals be descendent from a varied group of very similar apes that interbred as well? Isn't this the most likely scenario? Sometimes I think scientists fall for the same simplistic patter…
>Sometimes I think scientists fall for the same simplistic patterns of thinking that the men on the street fall for every day.
From the article:
>The term "missing link" drives anthropologists crazy when they hear anyone, especially journalists, use it to describe a fossil that is part-ape and part-human.
>Indeed Dr Henry Gee, a senior editor at Nature, once threatened to "rip my liver out and eat it with onions, borlotti beans and a glass of claret" if I did so when reporting a previous discovery.
>There are many reasons for Henry's irritation, but chief among them is the recognition that there are many links in the chain of human evolution and most if not nearly all of them are still missing.
Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia
#28The whole idea that humans have evolved from apes is something so stupid that I still cannot digest since the first day I heard of it in primary school. But besides the bone structure, we do have some resemblance, especially the impaired brain functionality to actually believe that shit.
Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia
#29The whole idea that humans have evolved from apes is something so stupid that I still cannot digest since the first day I heard of it in primary school. But besides the bone structure, we do have some resemblance, especially the impaired brain functionality to actually believe that shit.
What happened then?
Re: 3.8M-year-old skull of an early ape-like human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia
#30The whole idea that humans have evolved from apes is something so stupid that I still cannot digest since the first day I heard of it in primary school. But besides the bone structure, we do have some resemblance, especially the impaired brain functionality to actually believe that shit.
Careful with that crimethink, only one kind of skepticism is allowed lest you be unpersoned.