Help needed. Human evolution.

[Deep Sea Isopod]

OK, I have an ongoing debate with someone who can't quite grasp the Out of Africa theory.
He understands that hominids evolved from African apes, but thinks the apes moved to Europe or China then evolved into humans there.
He also thinks sapiens evolved from neanderthals.

Now, I pointed out "mitochondrial eve" and mtDNA from here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/neanderthals/mtdna.html
And told him we didn't evolve from neanderthals.

Response:

Really - you're sure about that are you ? - modern day Africans didn't evolve from Neanderthals, that's not to say that no-one else did.

Peking man predates your woman by half a billion years, there is no reason at all why that pescies in china did not evolve like the same species in africa.

However Europeans have up to 4% of their DNA, coming from neanderthals - so we are not from a process purely of evolution, but of hybridisation.

So this means that I share 96% of my DNA with modern africans and 95% of my DNA with a chimp. That 1% makes a hell of a difference.

Peking man predates your woman by half a billion years, there is no reason at all why that species in china did not evolve like the same species in africa.

How you think a hominid can walk out of africa and find its way to china over millenia - yet somehow think that because that hominid is in a different location to the same hominid left in Africa - it couldn't have possibly evolved is nonsense

Is there anything that will shut him up?


The bit about Peking man comes from an earlier part of the debate:

Firstly. "Theory". (wiki) The word theory, when used by scientists, refers to an explanation of reality that has been thoroughly tested so that most scientists agree on it.
As in Theory of Evolution, Atomic theory, Theory of Relativity, Gravitational theory, etc.
All proven and accepted "theories"

What needs to be explained about Neanderthals? Homo Sapiens did not evolve from them. They are a separate lineage. They share a common ancestor with us though.
Oldest Homo sapien skull was found in Kibish, Ethiopia.

a new study of the 1967 fossil site indicates the earliest known members of our species, Homo sapiens, roamed Africa about 195,000 years ago.

There is no doubt that H. sapiens evolved in Africa.

Now stop being a bunch of science denying creationists!

How unfortunate that Peking man has been now been dated as 770,000 years old. Predating those in Africa by some margin.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009- ... 002058.htm

Peking man is Homo erectus. Turkana boy (also Homo erectus) predates Peking man by nearly 1million years, and was found in East Africa.
http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo/homo_2.htm

The oldest known Homo erectus date to nearly 2 million years ago in East Africa. This strongly suggests that Homo erectus originated there. In 1984, Richard Leakey's team working at Nariokotome on the western side of Lake Turkana found a nearly complete Homo erectus skeleton of a 12 year old boy dating to 1.6 million years ago. It was named the "Turkana Boy."

[Thinking Aloud]

However Europeans have up to 4% of their DNA, coming from neanderthals - so we are not from a process purely of evolution, but of hybridisation.

So this means that I share 96% of my DNA with modern africans

I really don't know if the neanderthal stat is true, however I don't think the assumption he then makes follows.

[Deep Sea Isopod]

However Europeans have up to 4% of their DNA, coming from neanderthals - so we are not from a process purely of evolution, but of hybridisation.

So this means that I share 96% of my DNA with modern africans

I really don't know if the neanderthal stat is true, however I don't think the assumption he then makes follows.

Isn't there something about we share 50% of our DNA with bananas?

[Thinking Aloud]

However Europeans have up to 4% of their DNA, coming from neanderthals - so we are not from a process purely of evolution, but of hybridisation.

So this means that I share 96% of my DNA with modern africans

I really don't know if the neanderthal stat is true, however I don't think the assumption he then makes follows.

Isn't there something about we share 50% of our DNA with bananas?

That's kind of what I mean - even if 30% of our DNA is shared with lichen, we can still share 100% of our DNA with the rest of the species. (Speaks the ignoramus on these things - it's undoubtedly more complicated than that!) But I'd wager that you don't just take away the percentage in common with X and say the rest is in common with Y.

[Deep Sea Isopod]

This is how I answered his post:-

.
Really - you're sure about that are you ? - modern day Africans didn't evolve from Neanderthals,

If any cross breeding went on between sapiens and neanderthals (still under debate), this doesn't mean we "evolved" from them.

However Europeans have up to 4% of their DNA, coming from neanderthals - so we are not from a process purely of evolution, but of hybridisation.

So this means that I share 96% of my DNA with modern africans and 95% of my DNA with a chimp. That 1% makes a hell of a difference.

We also share 50% of our DNA with banana's.
60% of our DNA with Fruit Fly's.
40 % of our DAN with a cabbage.
99% of our DNA with every other human on the planet.
http://www.thingsyoudontneedtoknow.com/dnabananas.html

Peking man predates your woman by half a billion years, there is no reason at all why that species in china did not evolve like the same species in africa.

I've already pointed out that Peking man was Homo erectus, and the oldest Homo erectus was found in Africa. We are all conected to "Mitochondrial Eve", also found in Africa.
Now, if erectus left Africa for China and sapiens evolved there and went back to Africa, then we would find a trail of humans returning to Africa, like we have found a trail heading for China.

How you think a hominid can walk out of africa and find its way to china over millenia - yet somehow think that because that hominid is in a different location to the same hominid left in Africa - it couldn't have possibly evolved is nonsense.

Because we are all connected to "Mitochondrial Eve" from Africa.

You might be interested in watching The Incredible Human Journey, if only for Dr Alice Roberts .
The "Out of Africa" theory is the common scientific consensus.
If you know any different, please present your evidence for peer review.
I look forward to reading about it in New Scientist magazine.

[mistermack]

It's hard to make out exactly what he's arguing, but as far as I can see, you're both making some errors.
Firstly, he's making a distinction between evolution and "hybridization". I'm not aware of any such distinction. Evolution is full of these so-called hybridization events. It's an important part of the process.

But, if we have neanderthal genes, we certainly evolved from them, partly. I have to agree with that.
But he's totally wrong when he says that we share only 96% of our dna with modern africans. You don't just subract the 4% we are supposed to share with Neanderthals. It doesn't work like that at all.
The true figure would be more like 99.9% in common with modern Africans.

As far as the mitochondrial "Eve" is concerned, this tends to give a false impression. It's our mitochondrial dna that is directly descended from this individual. The rest of our dna is descended from a multitude of individuals which were alive at the same time. So "Eve" isn't an exclusive female ancestor from that time.
A huge number of the females which were alive at the time would have passed on their nuclear dna, but sometimes only through male offspring, so their mdna didn't get passed on.
People get the idea that Eve was the sole female that we descended from. That's entirely wrong. She's the sole female that our MDNA is descended from.

So, to labour the point a bit, ALL of your mdna comes from Eve, but all of the rest of your dna comes from the other females and males who were alive at the same time. So she really isn't a "sole female ancestor".

This means that if you could go back to the time of Eve, and all of your ancestors were clearly marked, you would find that Eve was just one of many thousands of them, and a small number of them would be Neanderthals, both male and female.

So the "out of Africa" theory is almost certainly correct, but it doesn't mean that 100% of our dna came out of Africa in that wave.

[Tero]

I already covered this in Tero Report years ago

Lagos, Nigeria -- Kunle Musumi, 32, want to marry someone with Neanderthal genes. The mechanical engineer thinks he has skills that will allow him to emigrate to the USA. "I think Neanderthal genes would be good for my lineage, but I find white people unattractive. Therefore I will travel to the USA and find a pretty lady, perhaps a little on the heavy side like my mother. Since American blacks are already mixed up with the European whites, we will pick up the genes there."

[Coito ergo sum]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzuKlZf1 ... ture=feedu[/youtube]

[egbert]

Isn't there something about we share 50% of our DNA with bananas?

You're thinking of Seth....

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Isn't there something about we share 50% of our DNA with bananas?

You're thinking of Seth....

[Sisifo]

As far as I know, the latest mithocondrial study dismisses any genetic ancestry of modern humans to neardentals. In 1997 the university of munich extracted DNA from the original Neardental and concluded that it was different from anything alive, and that there was no connection with modern humans.

And the genetic studies agree as much as science can, into a modern out of Africa theory, of no more than 100.000 years. The prior waves are regarded as evolutionary dead-ends. There are exceptions, like the Mungo Man, who shows some connection to the Java Man, but after I checked, scientist are convinced that Modern Out of Africa is 95% true, with some rarities.

[GenesForLife]

You might be interested in watching The Incredible Human Journey, if only for Dr Alice Roberts .
The "Out of Africa" theory is the common scientific consensus.
If you know any different, please present your evidence for peer review.
I look forward to reading about it in New Scientist magazine.

My emphasis.

[GenesForLife]

[mistermack]

As far as I know, the latest mithocondrial study dismisses any genetic ancestry of modern humans to neardentals. In 1997 the university of munich extracted DNA from the original Neardental and concluded that it was different from anything alive, and that there was no connection with modern humans.

And the genetic studies agree as much as science can, into a modern out of Africa theory, of no more than 100.000 years. The prior waves are regarded as evolutionary dead-ends. There are exceptions, like the Mungo Man, who shows some connection to the Java Man, but after I checked, scientist are convinced that Modern Out of Africa is 95% true, with some rarities.

There must be more to it than that.
It's absolutely obvious that no Neanderthal MDNA survives, if all of the mitochondrial dna in existence originated from one female in Africa about 200,000 years ago.
The main split with the ancestors of Neanderthals is estimated at 500,000 years ago.

But just because no Neanderthal MITOCHONDRIAL dna survives, that doesn't mean that their dna is extinct. Their Nuclear dna is alive and well, and about four percent of your nuclear dna is from Neanderthals.

It's easy to see how the MDNA of Neanderthals died out, as it would have to be passed down in an unbroken mother-to-daughter chain, and as soon as a female dies without a surviving daughter, that particular chain is broken. Her nuclear dna lives on in her sons, but her MDNA stops dead.

So a study of Mitochondrial dna tells us nothing about our relatedness to Neanderthals.

[hackenslash]

She is a treasure, to be sure.