62 replies to this topic

[LivingLife]

Long post warning.

I decided to start this topic as there are questions of how it all started and stuff pertaining to race, culture and language.

The general consensus of evolution is that it is a fact (unless you are a f'tard creationist) but there are many simple questions as to diversity and the races and languages. One of the most common memes out there is the genome project that traced back ancestry to a primordial eve called Lucy and what I like to term the Out of Africa (OOA) model. While I do not dispute their findings I do dispute the conclusions many tend to assert from this little factoid of evolution. Rather than debate this model, I will offer an alternative personal hypothesis.

The typical linear understanding of origins and evolution goes something like this;

Primordial soup, Abiogenesis, Evolution, Extinction, Primordial Man, Us.

Evolution is NOT linear by any means. The typical charts we see of the ascent of man is a mere snapshot in the very long process it has taken us to get to where we are today.


There are a few humorous renditions of this chart. What this chart does not explain is the diversity in humans and while we share common DNA to the most, there are slight variations giving us alternate skin tones, hair types, eye colours and facial features.

The old harsh African sun = black people is FUCKING BULLSHIT!!!!!!

I live in Africa and NO the sun here does not appear any more harsher than in other parts of the world.

Briefly, we do know (sort of) that the Pangea explanation for the continents is plausible, the models seem to suggest that once upon a time all land masses were one. For the purpose of this exercise, I am going to pretend that did not happen.

Starting at the primordial soup which of course likely happened as the oceans were still forming, simple cellular lifeforms evolved from base elements/molecules or whatever it was back then. This would have been happening all over the planet right?

Whatever the radiation or other external influences were, this would have been consistent to the planet as it rotated and had day night cycles.

The model I propose is one of multiple origins of abiogenesis and the same out of the sea critters coming onto land and evolving further. In time these multiple branches of origins would die out or follow similar paths in natural selection to the point where similar outcomes as observed by folk in different continents not quite looking the same but being able to interbreed.

This model would explain the diversity in races and languages as they appear today, even if today's population has been tainted with mixed breeding of races. At the risk of sounding racist, it would also explain the predominance of the white folk over others in technological development.

Technology did not emanate OOA. Before claiming Egypt as part of Africa, that is fine but that is a Mediterranean culture more than a Sub Saharan one.

When the white settlers came to Sub Saharan Africa, the wheel had not been discovered - so we are told. that was a mere 400+ years ago. That is not even a drop in a bucket as far as evolutionary time is concerned and not a real deal breaker when it comes to intelligence per se. What we do see in recent history, the black man has advantages over the white man as they were forcibly migrated as slaves and for other reasons. Evidence of this is very apparent when one looks at the colour of folk on the podiums at the Olympics for track events. The inverse is true for the swimming events.

Now if black folk were the originals, why did they lose the obvious physical advantage of speed, usually better muscle tone (not gangsta rappers), why are they not better than white folk technology wise? Why if they migrated to Europe did the same technological development not also not happen in Africa (and other places) What advantage was there if black folk became white folk in Europe over time?

This holds true for Eskimos and South American Indians plus the Native folk of North America. Maybe not black folk but dark skinned.

If there was a parallel development from similar origins, there is no reason why the evolution would not reach a similar outcome.

Let us leave humans out of the mix for a bit.

When we examine animal species in various continents, we find animals unique to regions. Few people are gonna suggest that these also originated in Africa and migrated to become different critters. Australia is a prime example of how the fauna evolved slightly differently there as opposed to other continents. The Bison of North America really do not seem to be the same as buffalo in Africa - similar yes.

What about the woolly mammoth, the Indian and African elephants, three continents, three different outcomes but similar.

We know that it is possible to mate a donkey and a horse to get a mule, mules cannot reproduce. It is the same for lions and tigers, they can spawn sterile offspring called a liger. This is about as far as my genetics acumen goes. It is probably more complex but if interbreeding of splits in a family of felines is possible, why not in humans and their predecessors? It has been suggested that some of us still have Neanderthal genes (4% IIRC) and so something happened that led to something being able to replicate.

What we have not been able to observe or record is would the Sub Saharan African eventually have discovered the wheel. Artefacts suggest that they did learn to harness the power of fire, melt metals and make arrowheads and stuff like that, it was probably a matter of time before they would figure out steam and water had a useful mechanical purpose. Through assimilation, they have adapted to the white man's technology and in many cases become even leaders in their own right in their assimilated cultures.

So where we were as a species 500 years ago, the rules changed and now we are adapting the environment to us rather than us to it.

OK that is more or less my preamble and I will expand further on it if there is interest in pursuing this line of thinking.

Note:
I am only using white and black folk as that is really the only two cultures I have intimate knowledge about. I am not a racist.

[Adam5]

"live in Africa and NO the sun here does not appear any more harsher than in other parts of the world."

Hi LivingLife, the latitude of northern europe receives insufficient UV for vitimin D synthesis.

But it is uniquely warm enough because of the gulf stream weather due to a grain based diet lacking vitamin D.

Thats why we evolved about 6000 years ago, so are pink and have depigmented eyes and hair

cheers, Adam

[LivingLife]

Adam we have dark skinned folk in the Arctic circle. In SA we have the kingdom of Lesotho which gets snow every year and high altitudes. The folk there are black and they have been there a very long time too.

The indigenous bushman in SA are a very light brown skinned people and they live in semi desert conditions. They are as far south in Africa as one can almost go.

Had they migrated from central Africa to a Med climate similar to the ME, why still brown with frizzy hair. Their language is very clicky. Some have assimilated.

IOW they should be like the Semitic people of the ME but they are still different and still noticeably with typical black features. Likewise, if the OOA migration took place, the changes in Aus, India are not explained. The Asian folk are smaller and have definite differing eye features.

This is why the OOA model does not work for me even though it seem plausible.

I have not been everywhere in Europe but when I arrived in Amsterdam one August, I nearly died of the heat. See I live at 5000+ and the winters here are dry and frigging cold. My house is 11 Deg C at present INDOORS (we do not use heaters) and even in summer, the nights are still cold enough to require blankets to keep warm. At this altitude, you do not tan, you burn w/o serious UV blockers. At the coast, folk are generally darker there, less UV.

Where I grew up as a kid, the altitude was about 3500' and I used to frolic in the sun all day in summer and not once did I burn, just got a mild tan.

When I see these answers made up, compare it to my personal observations and experiences, they do not add up.

However, if one assumes a separate/parallel path for European evolution as I suggested, your answer can work but still does not explain dark skinned folk in say Alaska.

The skin colour is anyway the least of my worries as the physical differences are more quizzing. Why do Asians have very different facial features and are pretty much white as far as skin tone goes?

In this respect, I doubt we had a common ancestry of one linear line. Multiply these lines and then it starts to make sense.

[Kaiser01]

Are you saying that different branches of human had more than one line of descent?

[Kaiser01]

I think it is possible that there were several lines of basic life from abiogenesis. for example in Mono lake they believe that the DNA in side the bacteria there could use arsenic rather than phosphorus in their DNA chains. I think it would be interesting if there where origins of life that had nothing to do with DNA and had another form of genetics but died out because it wasn't suited for fast adaptation unlike DNA.

[LivingLife]

Are you saying that different branches of human had more than one line of descent?

Not just humans, but animals too. We are after all just animals.

This is a new pet theory of mine because I think we gave all been taught in linear terms as that is the easiest way to convey knowledge - sequentialism.

If we look at the extinct woolly mammoth, did it originate in Africa, migrate north and grow hair or was it a product of a different chain of events leading to its form.

Note:
I am not fact checking any of this, this is just for a discussion w/o too much detailed science to keep it simple.

[LivingLife]

Thought this was funny

[Kaiser01]

I think the idea is interesting but im slightly skeptical, the chances of the woolly mammoth, Colombian mammoth and african elephant developing from different lines and being so similar in the gene pool seems too improbable.

Also in the gene pool wouldn't we see larger gaps in the human genome? And more phenotype differences?

Im all for the idea if you could prove it though, does away with the creationist none sense of everything being descended from 16,000 animal "kinds."

Edited by Kaiser01, 28 June 2012 - 09:18 AM.

[Vigile]

Are you saying that different branches of human had more than one line of descent?

Not just humans, but animals too. We are after all just animals.

Those with a stronger background than I will have to defend this, but it's my understanding that the DNA record in no way supports or allows for something like this.

There are some humans that have more common DNA with Neanderthals, but all humans share the same basic genome.

[VacuumFlux]

I wouldn't be surprised if abiogenesis happened in more than one place. But even if it did, look at the microbes we've got today and they share genes like crazy. They're not limited to their own species like the animal kingdom is. Microbes also breed quickly, and there's wind and tides to carry them around... I figure the early earth would have gotten covered in similar-ish life rather quickly and kept sharing DNA enough to continue to be somewhat compatible. So I tend to think of early life as being more of a global thing.

Once you get up to something as complex as vertebrates, though, there'd have to be fairly recent common ancestors for DNA sharing to be possible. It would be highly unlikely for vertebrates to evolve separately in isolated locations, then evolve from simple vertebrates into humanoid form separately, much less be able to have viable, fertile offspring. But I would not be too surprised if the different races of humans had a last common ancestor that wasn't a homo sapiens-sapiens, or that each race is a mix of homo sapiens-sapiens plus close relatives like the neandertals.

[LivingLife]

Why would multiple origins not end up with similar DNA? Assuming all things being more or less equal and assuming this transpired on the 5 continents as we now know them, there is nothing stopping all "five" strings of origin from arriving at the same "conclusion" as we see it today.

These evolution discussions invariably stick with the linear aspect/mindset and the genome project came to the OOA conclusion which IMO is flawed.

The migration model fails as the humans would not be really open to explore beyond certain boundaries; had they found a niche within a certain environment until they perhaps had no more berries to pick, small game to hunt. That migration would be the entire tribe or village. They would not necessarily be leaving anyone behind other than perhaps the frail and elderly. I am trying to think of this in real rudimentary terms and not in terms of explorers.

There was a movie I watched that had this concept of sending out explorers beyond the end of their world and they then came back. This was to fulfil some prophetic destiny of finding a lost father that had been captured as a slave. That of course was fiction.

Migration today is pretty hard even with the conveniences we have. Back then, unless an area was destroyed by fire or other natural disaster, they would not need to move. People tend to return to areas of previous volcanic activity or other natural disasters.

Migration took thousands or millions of years to happen? Then we must almost assume a model not much different to the Genesis narrative of the garden of Eden and assume nothing happened anywhere else on the planet until migration brought the critters and people there. Really the OOA model has simply moved the origins of the GoE south a bit and used central Africa as the starting point. Genetically speaking, we know a pair cannot start a race or species off. Shallow gene pools have dire consequences.

The Pangæa model suggests the continents started drifting apart and there were already critters alive then. If this is the case, then why do we not see identical animals on all 5 continents? I believe in the Pangæa model as we have the evidence in tectonics.

The annual migration of animals in the Serengeti is not an exodus to other parts of Africa, it is pretty localised and cyclic. The only animals that naturally migrate very long distances are birds. Even that is limited to a few species. Doves don't migrate. In my yard, there are four distinct species of doves living in my conifer trees that I have noticed.

In America you have alligators and we have crocs. Not sure what they are in Aus (and other places) and how these are similar. Ever watched crocs in RL? They are not that energetic.

What I am saying is that there does seem to be a trend of multiplicity of evolutionary threads on different continents when observing the animals. There are some commonalities and there are definitely a lot of unique animals to each continent. Is it only environment?

Nivek has shared pics of his backyard and so have I and guess what they seem very similar topography wise. You guys have the Grand Canyon, we have Blyde River Canyon, they are in all continents and seem to be in the same or similar strata, only the origins differ slightly. The environments are not really that different on a cursory level at least.

[Adam5]

The Pangæa model suggests the continents started drifting apart and there were already critters alive then. If this is the case, then why do we not see identical animals on all 5 continents? I believe in the Pangæa model as we have the evidence in tectonics.

The continents drifted apart millions of years ago. They move at the speed finger-nails grow. This is why Madagascar and Australia have unique biodiversity.

I think with DNA scientists have a much more accurate idea of our origins.

[Vigile]

Why would multiple origins not end up with similar DNA?

How would they share DNA?

Only species extremely closely related can mate and reproduce. Something that evolved along a second evolutionary tree would be further separated than flora and fauna.

[Kaiser01]

[LivingLife]

Why would multiple origins not end up with similar DNA?

How would they share DNA?

Only species extremely closely related can mate and reproduce. Something that evolved along a second evolutionary tree would be further separated than flora and fauna.

This is the part of the argument that makes no sense to me. If the origins were identical(ish) whatever caused mutations be it a radiation burst or an impact of a huge meteor, the effects would be universal. I am talking of near cataclysmic events.

The current model suggests abiogenesis and then a linear model to what we have been able to track with the genome project. That proves evolution and common ancestry (to a point).

There seems no reason to suggest multiple origins arriving at similar outcomes. Whatever caused DNA to turn off or on certain markers would be in all these near identical threads.

The places like Madagascar and Australia are essentially huge islands. Temperate climates here allowed for lets say an uninterrupted evolution whereas say North America and Europe had the ice age(s) problem to contend with. We do not have the same problem as the northern hemisphere where you are "attached" to the north pole. If there were ice ages in "recent history" (evolution timescale) the distance from Aus to the South Pole is too huge to form an ice bridge. Antarctica they are still discovering new species albeit tiny water critters. This may explain the higher biodiversity in Africa. I wanted to mention that the bigger the "island" if we can for arguments sake consider Africa an island and compare to Madagascar and Aus, Africa allowed for more as there was less competition for natural resources/space.

I am merely trying to get away from another GoE scenario which the OOA model really is suggesting.

The Pangaea model also does not address the diversity across continents. Africa is big but so too is the Americas. We can pretty much prove evolution when we pick a species and focus only on that species.

Let us take fresh water fish.

Why do we not have piranha in Africa and why does America not have Tiger fish? South America has a similar but not identical type.

Trying not to get too technical, taking freshwater fish and their distribution, would that not suggest a multiple thread origins? We seem to arrive here also with similar outcomes. I was told that water birds can distribute fish eggs which would explain migration over shortish distances but not sure if that is folklore or true.

If it all originated from water initially, it stands to reason, this was not localised to a certain region. We have critters evolving at volcano smokers in deep ocean which is probably as close to an origins window as we can get.

I need to get my retired biologist buddy on this thread as he is far more clued up than me, we usually play tag debating creationists.

Anyways, I have more thoughts on this but have no desire to try and prove it as valid, just plausible.

[Vigile]

This is the part of the argument that makes no sense to me. If the origins were identical(ish) whatever caused mutations be it a radiation burst or an impact of a huge meteor, the effects would be universal.

Again, someone better with the details will have to better defend this, but it's my understanding that the odds would be astronomically against such an identical outcome. It would be something akin to two separate lotteries coming up with the same numbers time and again millions of times.

You do realize we can trace back something like 65% of our DNA that identically matches every living species on the planet? It would be numerically impossible for this to occur without common ancestry.

Better I don't dig myself any deeper here. Perhaps Hans or BAA can step in and address this better than I.

[Ouroboros]

I think with DNA scientists have a much more accurate idea of our origins.

They do. It can be tracked by checking genetic markers. The markers are usually dormant genes or synonymous codon variations (which are rare occurrences). Two persons with an A1 allele are more likely closer related than to an A2 allele.

Here's a great webpage with the migration of mankind (Journey of mankind). Most of this has been verified by markers, artifacts, and fossils.

[LivingLife]

This is the part of the argument that makes no sense to me. If the origins were identical(ish) whatever caused mutations be it a radiation burst or an impact of a huge meteor, the effects would be universal.

Again, someone better with the details will have to better defend this, but it's my understanding that the odds would be astronomically against such an identical outcome. It would be something akin to two separate lotteries coming up with the same numbers time and again millions of times.

Why would the odds be high if the abiogenesis led to simplistic DNA then more complex, all being influenced by the exact same external influences like radiation or whatever caused the mutations? To me it is logical to extrapolate multiple points of origins.

You do realize we can trace back something like 65% of our DNA that identically matches every living species on the planet? It would be numerically impossible for this to occur without common ancestry.

That would work in my "hypothesis" too. Unless we have a defining moment in time when something gave birth to a singularity of DNA and all else developed from there. It is not like a lottery. Evolution is vehemently opposed as random chance by those in the know and this kinda fits in with the creationists argument of the tornado/junkyard - 747. It is NOT how evolution works.

I am not arguing against evolution. It is a fact. The problem with this is that abiogenesis and evolution are treated as separate sciences which leaves a huge gap for godz and creationists play this card frequently.

Any time you approach origins of evolution from a singularity, you really have just a jazzed up Garden of Eden. Evolution deals with how life evolved "after it all started". It is this starting point that is left unaddressed.

The Lenski experiment has dealt with oodles of generations of evolving E coli and thousands of distinct observable changes over 20 odd years. (that is about how much I know from forum discussions) On wiki if you are interested.

With Hans' suggestion (link not there BTW) it seems that the OOA model has been accepted as the defacto answer. It still does not answer the questions from the OP. It is frigging easy to imagine migration of men as we are able to walk say 20 miles a day w/o breaking a sweat.

As soon as you think you have the answer, go back to some other less mobile critter. I mentioned crocs and alligators earlier. They are not that mobile. Can we breed a croc and alligator? They seem to be possibly survivors of the dino age? I seriously doubt ancient man had them as pets. Their lineage must exceed that of man.

Someone posted an illustration of the advent of man in periods.

....................................................................................................

The red dot is man. What came before was a huge gap in our knowledge and we really only have snippets of the puzzle. Hell we are still discovering new species daily so it is not like we already know everything there is to know.

I think we are conditioned to think linearly and sequentially. It is akin to me not having a clue to string theory and multiverses.

Brain fried, be back tomorrow.

[Vigile]

Why would the odds be high if the abiogenesis led to simplistic DNA then more complex,

Because the number of possible outcomes are virtually infinite. Two different biological trees would have noticeably diverged even given identical evolutionary pressures simply due to the number of possible outcomes that can be passed on from one generation to the next in terms of mutations, dominant alleles, etc. I don't have a strong enough grasp of this to explain it better. I have a student's understanding of the subject and the details were erased by the electro magnetic field around the threshold of the door to my bio class on the day I walked away from my final exam.

[LivingLife]

Why would the odds be high if the abiogenesis led to simplistic DNA then more complex,

Because the number of possible outcomes are virtually infinite.

In this thread it has already been pointed out that we share DNA with 65% of all things. I know this yet are we to assume that from a singularity plants, fish, apes, reptiles all evolved?

That makes no sense.

Two different biological trees would have noticeably diverged even given identical evolutionary pressures simply due to the number of possible outcomes that can be passed on from one generation to the next in terms of mutations, dominant alleles, etc. I don't have a strong enough grasp of this to explain it better. I have a student's understanding of the subject and the details were erased by the electro magnetic field around the threshold of the door to my bio class on the day I walked away from my final exam.

Again the argument presented here looks like the the whole evolution is one of random chance and as you stated earlier akin to a lottery. The folk in the know do not hold that view and neither do I. (BTW my knowledge is also very limited)

Whatever caused the DNA strings to form and have the markers form and result in different critters, to suggest that there were not multiple instances of abiogenesis leading to similar outcomes is in my opinion a way of arguing a "creation event" just w/o a god in the mix. Not every thread survived. Extinctions came about as the "end product" was not able to adapt.

For example, if we accept the extinction of dinos due to a near cataclysmic meteor hit placing the planet in a cloud that would affect simple photosynthesis, resulting in less oxygen, and dinos and big insects dying out as a result. From that devastation, something did survive OR there was a reboot. Survival seems plausible with the birds from dino origins. We have fossils suggesting this. It would seem some reptiles survived, birds became smaller etc.

Insects have very short lifespans but they lay eggs that hatch and then through a process of metamorphosis (for some) become the final product. Insects became smaller over time as the oxygen levels decreased.

Then came the mammals which is where we all fit in. Was that a reboot? We kinda all agree, man and dinos did not coexist, was there a critter from that age mammals evolved from? It is also posited that critters returned to the sea, whales, dolphins etc. are mammals. That is kinda hard for me to accept considering the depths these critters dive to, lung capacity, water pressure etc. Sure it could have been a slow process but I hardly see a land based mammal going back to the water when it had already evolved land based survival attributes. I think the idea that they are a result of an independent thread that evolved mammalian traits is more logical yet we share not only DNA but also similar rib cage with dolphins (see wiki)

The number of known species is now in the order of 1.9M that is a huge diversity and growing daily; grew 6.3% in three years.

When you look at isolated comparisons like dolphins and humans two very different species and IMO origins that are NOT common yet with similar DNA, the concept of multiple threads of origins starts to make sense. From what I have read, there is no hard code for DNA and why it should exist. Perhaps the commonality is merely coincidental. However in the case of apes, well we are apes and the matches a hell of a lot closer.

When I did biology at school, DNA was merely touched on and was then still a relatively new science. I dropped biology in Gr 9 and moved to Physics with Chem so I do not know if the senior classes went deeper with it. I did look recently at the curriculum and still, evolution is not a very big topic and came out as 1 in 30 topics.

Perhaps the classification of families of critters should actually have humans as a family. No one has race questions when it come to the different types of apes or felines or dogs. All of these posit a common ancestor with branches away from the common ancestor.

Add an S to common ancestor and then you have my model, common ancestorS. All we would need to prove this is another Lucy in China or Russia. Probably not in our lifetimes.