On Oct 27, 2006, at 10:15 AM, Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote: >> I'm quite convinced that we have got most of the history/evolution of >> humans wrong. We've made great, sweeping statements based on a >> ridiculously small amount of evidence. And we've ignored evidence >> when it doesn't fit our preconceptions. > > Yeah. Douglas Adams got it right. We are the descendants of telephone > sanitizers, middle managers and cuticle adorners stranded on this > rock intentionally to rid civilization of their superfluity.
Well, that's pretty unlikely. My comment was serious. I think we are obviously of earthly origin because our DNA is so close to apes, particularly chimps and bonobos. I just think the time scale in the usual evolutionary tree is all wrong. I think modern humans are much older than current theories propose. There are anomalous fossils that would indicate this. We're told modern humans appeared a couple hundred thousand years ago. I think that number needs another zero at minimum. Last week we learned from Neanderthal DNA that the Neanderthals were much closer to chimps than we are. I've thought for some time that the standard reconstructions of Neanderthals "humanize" them far too much, and more likely they were covered with hair like apes. Maybe more detailed analysis of their DNA will confirm this. Bob -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
