Potentially Big News On The Human Evolution Front

[Minimalist]

Fundies will run shrieking for their bibles but that just makes it easier for the adults to talk.

http://www.newsweek.com/archaeology-skul...man-710973

Ancient Hominin Skull From China Suggests Humans Didn't Evolve Just From African Ancestors

“In a real sense we are talking about a multiregional population, connected recurrently by migration and genetic exchanges,” John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison told New Scientist.

And nary a word about Adam and fucking Eve!

[Aroura]

Uh, I want to comment on how cool this discovery, but since you've couched it in anti religion, I feel like this thread will end up being about that, instead of focusing the interesting science.

[Catholic_Lady]

An interesting tid bit I learned in biology class back in the day....

Caucasians evolved to have a higher bridge of the nose with the tip pointed more downward because we were living around a lot of water. Having our noses that way helps to keep water from going up our nostrils when we are swimming. Also, our lighter skin color was evolved from being in a place that had less sun. We needed the lighter skin to absorb more vitamin d, because with darker skin you absorb less of it.

Makes sense when you think of blacks mostly coming from Africa where it's dry and very sunny vs Caucasians mostly coming from Europe where it's cloudy and has a lot of water.

[popeyespappy]

More data for the evolutionary web...

[Brian37]

An interesting tid bit I learned in biology class back in the day....

Caucasians evolved to have a higher bridge of the nose with the tip pointed more downward because we were living around a lot of water. Having our noses that way helps to keep water from going up our nostrils when we are swimming. Also, our lighter skin color was evolved from being in a place that had less sun. We needed the lighter skin to absorb more vitamin d, because with darker skin you absorb less of it.

Makes sense when you think of blacks mostly coming from Africa where it's dry and very sunny vs Caucasians mostly coming from Europe where it's cloudy and has a lot of water.

I cannot understand how you can accept modern science rightfully, but still think an old book of mythology explains anything in modern terms. I feel the same way when Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists try to square modern science with old writings too. 

1. The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
2. God, The Failed Hypothesis, Victor Stenger
3. The New Atheism, Victor Stenger

I was an atheist long before I read those books, but because of the science in them, the combo of those three gave me a much more solid picture of where our species evolution, including our universal traits come from, our empathy, our cruelty, but especially our false perceptions. 

If you accept the science then you should not cherry pick what it says when it conflicts with your own wishes. 

We are an outcome of natural processes, like all other life, we are not a product made by an invisible magical factory owner.

[Catholic_Lady]

An interesting tid bit I learned in biology class back in the day....

Caucasians evolved to have a higher bridge of the nose with the tip pointed more downward because we were living around a lot of water. Having our noses that way helps to keep water from going up our nostrils when we are swimming. Also, our lighter skin color was evolved from being in a place that had less sun. We needed the lighter skin to absorb more vitamin d, because with darker skin you absorb less of it.

Makes sense when you think of blacks mostly coming from Africa where it's dry and very sunny vs Caucasians mostly coming from Europe where it's cloudy and has a lot of water.

I cannot understand how you can accept modern science rightfully, but still think an old book of mythology explains anything in modern terms. I feel the same way when Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists try to square modern science with old writings too. 

1. The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
2. God, The Failed Hypothesis, Victor Stenger
3. The New Atheism, Victor Stenger

I was an atheist long before I read those books, but because of the science in them, the combo of those three gave me a much more solid picture of where our species evolution, including our universal traits come from, our empathy, our cruelty, but especially our false perceptions. 

If you accept the science then you should not cherry pick what it says when it conflicts with your own wishes. 

We are an outcome of natural processes, like all other life, we are not a product made by an invisible magical factory owner.

Most of us do.

It's reasonable to believe things evolved to be what they are currently, and we have evidence of it. But I still think it's unlikely that the first thing to ever have existed just popped into existence from nothing. Hence my belief in something that is not bound by the laws of nature. This opens up the possibility that the first thing to ever have existed isnt bound by time, didn't need an origin for which it came from, and could be infinite/always have existed.

[Brian37]

I cannot understand how you can accept modern science rightfully, but still think an old book of mythology explains anything in modern terms. I feel the same way when Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists try to square modern science with old writings too. 

1. The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
2. God, The Failed Hypothesis, Victor Stenger
3. The New Atheism, Victor Stenger

I was an atheist long before I read those books, but because of the science in them, the combo of those three gave me a much more solid picture of where our species evolution, including our universal traits come from, our empathy, our cruelty, but especially our false perceptions. 

If you accept the science then you should not cherry pick what it says when it conflicts with your own wishes. 

We are an outcome of natural processes, like all other life, we are not a product made by an invisible magical factory owner.

Most of us do.

It's reasonable to believe things evolved to be what they are currently, and we have evidence of it. But I still think it's unlikely that the first thing to ever have existed just popped into existence from nothing. Hence my belief in something that is not bound by the laws of nature. This opens up the possibility that the first thing to ever have existed isnt bound by time, didn't need an origin for which it came from, and could be infinite/always have existed.

Nobody is claiming there was a "first life", that is your mistake. There was an era of early conditions that allowed for multiple amino acids to form. Much like there is no one cloud you can single out that starts a hurricane, but conditions based on MULTIPLE factors that lead to countless clouds forming a hurricane leading to countless raindrops.

I find it funny that you cherry pick that everything needs a cause, but when we ask you if that is the cause then your own God would also have to be subject to that. 

But, if your God doesn't need a cause, it would seem far easier to say that the universe wouldn't need a super cognition as a cause.

Otherwise, you are stuck with infinite regress in that your God would need an even more complex cognition to start it, then that more complex cognition would need an even more complex cognition to cause it.

Point is, you cant assert that everything needs a cause then say your own God doesn't.

I'd say the natural reason humans claim deities/God/god/gods/supernatural, isn't that those things are real, but humans buy them because they reflect their own emotions, desires, narcissism, and fear of being finite.

If you accept evolution as why, as you said in your prior post, and I agree, humans evolved to look different, then you also have to accept that same evolution made cockroaches and bacteria, and cancer, and the flu which changes every year. 

Funny how no other species on this planet has religion or gods. Maybe it would be better for you not to be frightened by reality, or being finite. If you can accept that cockroaches don't have a super natural being they pray to, and they are far older than humans and far more successful, what makes you think there is any magical being helping humans?

I am not telling you life is not worth living nor would I want you to kill yourself, I like you. I am saying you don't need a cosmic sky hero to act as a gap answer. 

You live fine without believing in Allah, or Vishnu, and I am sure moose don't pray to Bullwinkle either.

[LadyForCamus]

[quote='Brian37' pid='1660178' dateline='1511194781']

I cannot understand how you can accept modern science rightfully, but still think an old book of mythology explains anything in modern terms. I feel the same way when Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists try to square modern science with old writings too. 

1. The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
2. God, The Failed Hypothesis, Victor Stenger
3. The New Atheism, Victor Stenger

I was an atheist long before I read those books, but because of the science in them, the combo of those three gave me a much more solid picture of where our species evolution, including our universal traits come from, our empathy, our cruelty, but especially our false perceptions. 

If you accept the science then you should not cherry pick what it says when it conflicts with your own wishes. 

We are an outcome of natural processes, like all other life, we are not a product made by an invisible magical factory owner.

This opens up the possibility that the first thing to ever have existed isnt bound by time, didn't need an origin for which it came from, and could be infinite/always have existed.

And why couldn't that just be the cosmos?  If you're willing to accept that a god could have those attributes, why couldn't our universe have them?  The problem begins when we start asserting other things on top of those qualities, such as agency, will, desires, a plan, and an ability to interact with existence while remaining physically undetectable.

[Whateverist]

But did you also see this headline?

New research reveals modern humans more closely related to spider monkeys than to young earth Christians.

I think it might be true!

[Edwardo Piet]

This is very interesting to me because I'm already aware that, since the human genome was mapped, at least if you trace most people's DNA all the way back the descent is African. I wonder which peoples would trace back to elsewhere.