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Wow. From Nature: There are no easy answers in human evolution

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Here.

A new piece of the puzzle is reported this week on Nature’s website: a partial skull found in Manot Cave in northern Israel that has been dated to around 55,000 years ago (I. Hershkovitz et al. Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature14134; 2015) and page 541). The skull, which has a distinctive ‘bun’-shaped occipital bone (the lower-back region), resembles those of modern humans found in Europe, dating to the Upper Palaeolithic starting around 50,000 years ago.

Where does the find fit in? Beware simple answers, and, indeed, simple questions. There is a temptation when discussing human evolution to reconstruct it as a narrative, in which successive species evolved to be more like us, and the more like us they became, the more likely they were to migrate to other parts of the world and replace pre-existing forms.

So the evolutionary psychologists will be serving us coffee next?

Actually there are probably truths, just not simple answers.

See also: The Science Fictions series at your fingertips (human evolution)

Comments
Until someone figures out what makes a human a human there won't be any answers about human evolution other than today's humans are different than humans of 100 years ago (genetic mods and all).Joe
February 4, 2015
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Hey, I know that this isn't related to humans, but I found this and it seemed legit so I thought I'd try to get some more information from all of you that are much smarter than I am. This is about a sea slug that has taken genes from algae and at the bottom it says this means they could evolve each generation. http://blog.mbl.edu/?p=3285MrCollins
February 3, 2015
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FYI: Scientists discover organism that hasn't evolved for more than 2 BILLION yearsHeartlander
February 3, 2015
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The supposed evidence for human evolution is far weaker than many people realize. I touched on that evidence, or lack thereof, here: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/christians-should-be-eradicated/#comment-545788bornagain77
February 2, 2015
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