Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (3196)	11/7/2000 1:27:22 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

Homo Sapiens were reduced to 10,000 individuals. [Edit: I should add that fossilization is such a rare process that it would be difficult to assess numbers. What I meant was that over millions of years hominid precursors were leaving behind fossils. I presume this meant they were able to reproduce and were, therefore "doing okay". ] Yes, but we had already started to evolve intelligence by then. Scientific American had an article on the family structure of Homo species. Our linear, generational thinking regarding Homo evolution is not a very accurate portrayal of our lineage. The current thought is that there were wave after wave of migrations from Africa. Each of these had no reproductive barrier with other hominids. If only the smart apes survived, then I could embrace your argument more completely. The fact is that there were habitats in Africa where apes lived, and continue to live on diets that could keep humans alive. They all suffered from the effects of global climate changes but only H. sapiens seems to have solved it through rapid changes to the brain that facilitated culture and multigenerational knowledge. There are not many examples of unique solutions to evolutionary pressures. Only certain animals have attempted to survive by the use of increased brain power and it was never done in exclusion to some other remarkable attribute such as size or flight. For our size many things are not proportioned right. Our brains are but one example. Strangely enough, our reproductive organs are another. This is not a particularly good strategy to solve the problems that we faced it would seem. Over the millennia, most species have used other methods (such as migration) to cope with environmental stressors. Staying in one place and "trying to figure it out" is a questionable strategy that ultimately failed: ergo, the multiple migrations OUT of Africa. The speed of the evolution is remarkable compared to every other species, especially those that have used brain size and intelligence to survive: certain birds, elephants, cetaceans and maybe octopi and squid, to name a few. None of these evolved quickly like the H. sapiens did.