"Right turn, Clyde." dj
On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 2:24 PM, deripsni<[email protected]> wrote: > > I guess this means that we swung off a different type of tree huh? > Either way, you've come a long way baby! You're not a redhead > perchance are you? > > On Jul 22, 2:21 pm, Chris Jenkins <[email protected]> wrote: >> From another list I'm on...chimps may not be our closest relative after all? >> >> From the Pittsburgh-Tribune Review. Anyone interested in a pdf of the >> original article please let me know. John Grehan >> *Pitt anthropologist argues humans more like orangutans than chimps* >> A University of Pittsburgh anthropologist argues in a paper published today >> that humans most likely share a common ancestor with orangutans, and not >> chimpanzees, which is the prevailing belief. >> >> Jeffrey H. Schwartz hopes the paper will get researchers to practice >> fundamental science and question some assumptions. >> "What I'll be happy with is if people actually think out of the box and >> consider alternative theories of human relationships with apes," Schwartz >> said Wednesday in a phone interview from Zagreb, Croatia. >> >> He concedes it won't happen overnight, but the paper in the Journal of >> Biogeography that he co-authored could help, said Schwartz, who's the >> president of the World Academy of Art and Science. >> >> "We've done the analysis," said John Grehan, who is the paper's other >> co-author, director of science at the Buffalo Museum in New York and a >> research associate at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. >> >> Jeffrey L. Boore, an adjunct biology professor at the University of >> California-Berkeley who specializes in interpretive genome sequences, said >> he knows of no strong reason to discount the DNA studies that have >> demonstrated chimps and gorillas are more closely related to humans than >> orangutans. >> >> "The overwhelming majority of those studies have given very strong support >> to excluding orangutans from the human-chimp-gorilla group," said Boore, >> who's also CEO of Genome Project Solutions, Inc., in Hercules, Calif. >> >> "If people disagree with it, they need to put out their evidence and let it >> go back and forth," said Grehan, an entomologist who also studies the origin >> and evolution of animals and plants. "But I think a lot of people are >> incapable of dealing with it." >> >> That's because for years most of the scientific community accepted DNA >> analyses that suggest humans are most closely related to chimps, Schwartz >> and Grehan said. >> >> But an examination of fossil and other evidence shows humans and orangutans >> share 28 features -- including reproductive systems, tooth structures and >> mouth palates, the scientists say. >> >> Schwartz and Grehan write in their paper that humans share only two features >> with chimpanzees and seven with gorillas. >> "In science, you must integrate the fossil record with the living record," >> Grehan said. "That's what we've done." >> They propose a scenario that explains the migration of the human-orangutan >> common ancestor from Southeast Asia, where modern orangutans are from. >> >> The molecular evidence that scientists commonly cite to demonstrate the link >> between humans and chimps is flawed, Schwartz said. >> >> "Only 2 percent of the entire human genome can be verified," he said. "But >> people are saying that chimps and humans share 98 percent of some portion of >> that 2 percent to make their case." >> >> That's not good science, said Malte Ebach, a paleontologist at Arizona State >> University's International Institute for Species Exploration, who, like >> Grehan, studies the origin and evolution of animals and plants. >> >> "People think DNA data is better because they perceive it as technologically >> superior and more progressive," Ebach said. "But technology doesn't make >> data better." >> >> Schwartz proposed his human-orangutan theory in 1982. He wrote the book, >> "The Red Ape: Orangutans and Human Origins," in 1986 that expanded on those >> ideas. In 2005, Schwartz published and revised an updated version of the >> book. >> >> The work was ignored as molecular studies came out that showed the >> similarity between chimps and humans. >> Grehan said alternative views should not be dismissed when a theory becomes >> so accepted. >> During the mid-20th century, scientists so fervently disagreed with Barbara >> McClintock's theory that genes could move along a chromosome that she >> stopped publishing, Grehan said. In 1983, McClintock won a Nobel Prize for >> her research in "jumping genes." >> >> Subscription options and archives >> available:http://listserv.buffalo.edu/archives/anthro-l.html > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. 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