Real Clear Science on what if there were genuinely separate human species?

But, but, but, there is a genuinely separate human species. They're called Democrats... *badda bing* jstanley01

Z: Linnaeus classified humans with the great apes then primates based on physical characteristics without regard to ancestral relationships. Zachriel

WD, it's a shame my Ape brothers and sisters don't know better. Still dumb as they were back then. "Stop calling your new stepbrother stupid" my mom used to tell me. Right, like he even knew what I was talking about. ppolish

PPolish, And now we know better. wd400

Apes moved in with my family back in the 1960's. What a disaster. Smelled worse than my friend Carl. That is stinky believe you me:( http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hominoid_taxonomy#History_of_hominoid_taxonomy ppolish

Linnaeus classified humans with the great apes then primates based on physical characteristics without regard to ancestral relationships.

He knew there weren't any ancestral relationships between humans and other primates. Joe

WD, when I was born Hominids were grouped into two families: 1) Sapien, Neanderthal, Erectus etc in Hominidae. 2) All other hominids were in Pongidea. Born that way. Not ashamed. Proud. ppolish

Linnaeus classified humans with the great apes then primates based on physical characteristics without regard to ancestral relationships. Zachriel

ppolish, Here is the phylogeny of primates, which is no seriously contested by anyone (except I guess YECs and these nuts). Which node on this tree leads to all the great apes (gorillas, chimps, orangs) but not humans? Which one leads to all the lesser apes (gibbons) great apes and not humans? There isn't one, so as long as we follow the rules of modern taxonomy, if we want ape or "great ape" to mean something it has to include us. wd400

as to this comment in the article linked in the OP:

"Homo sapiens has grown so accustomed to being the only human species that it's hard for us to conceive of any other possibility. Our lack of brothers and sisters makes it easier to imagine that we are the epitome of creation, and that a chasm separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom." http://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2015/02/25/what_if_other_human_species_survived_109102.html

Actually, the chasm is real not imagined. This following recent paper, by leading researchers in the area, was emphatic on that point:

Leading Evolutionary Scientists Admit We Have No Evolutionary Explanation of Human Language - December 19, 2014 Excerpt: Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,, (Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, "The mystery of language evolution," Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 5:401 (May 7, 2014).) It's difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/leading_evoluti092141.html

It is also interesting to note that the three Rs, reading, writing, and arithmetic, i.e. this unique ability to process information, are the very first things to be taught to children when they enter elementary school. And yet, strangely, it is this information processing, i.e. reading, writing, and arithmetic, that is now found to be foundational to life:

Signature in the Cell by Stephen Meyer - video clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVkdQhNdzHU

As well, as if that was not 'spooky' enough to give a person goosebumps, information, not material, is also now found to be foundational to physical reality itself:

"it from bit” Every “it”— every particle, every field of force, even the space-time continuum itself derives its function, its meaning, its very existence entirely—even if in some contexts indirectly—from the apparatus-elicited answers to yes-or-no questions, binary choices, bits. “It from bit” symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has a bottom—a very deep bottom, in most instances, an immaterial source and explanation, that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment—evoked responses, in short all matter and all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and this is a participatory universe." – Princeton University physicist John Wheeler (1911–2008) (Wheeler, John A. (1990), “Information, physics, quantum: The search for links”, in W. Zurek, Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information (Redwood City, California: Addison-Wesley)) Why the Quantum? It from Bit? A Participatory Universe? Excerpt: In conclusion, it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows. Thence the question why nature appears quantized is simply a consequence of the fact that information itself is quantized by necessity. It might even be fair to observe that the concept that information is fundamental is very old knowledge of humanity, witness for example the beginning of gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word." Anton Zeilinger - a leading expert in quantum teleportation: http://www.metanexus.net/archive/ultimate_reality/zeilinger.pdf Quantum physics just got less complicated - Dec. 19, 2014 Excerpt: Patrick Coles, Jedrzej Kaniewski, and Stephanie Wehner,,, found that 'wave-particle duality' is simply the quantum 'uncertainty principle' in disguise, reducing two mysteries to one.,,, "The connection between uncertainty and wave-particle duality comes out very naturally when you consider them as questions about what information you can gain about a system. Our result highlights the power of thinking about physics from the perspective of information,",,, http://phys.org/news/2014-12-quantum-physics-complicated.html

Thus, whereas the atheist doesn't have one shred of evidence that unguided 'material' processes can create non-trivial functional information in life, the Theist, because life, and even reality itself, are both information theoretic in their basis, and because humans possess this unique ability to understand, create, and communicate information, is strongly supported in his belief that he is made in the image of God: Verses and Music:

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and that life was the Light of men. Casting Crowns - The Word Is Alive https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9itgOBAxSc

supplemental note:

Conversations with William Dembski--The Thesis of Being as Communion - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYAsaU9IvnI

bornagain77

wd400:

In modern taxonomy groups are defined by their shared ancestors.

There isn't any evidence that humans have a non-human ancestor. Joe

That's how taxonomy works? Homo define how it works. "Great" Apes & "Lesser" Apes a recent Homo made distinction. So many changes have been made in last few decades. Homo change mind. Homo can make "Great" Homo and "Lesser" Homo split apart and above the Apes. Homo smart. Would make sense scientifically actually. Homo Science. ppolish

It's not about splitting or lumping. If there's a taxonomic group that contains chimps and gibbons it must also contain humans. That's just how trees (and therefore taxonomy) works. wd400

There should be no great apes, WD400. Great Homos, Apes, Monkeys, Primates, Mammal, Animal. Splitting, not Lumping. ppolish

of related note: "In biology, cladistics (originally called phylogenetic systematics) is a taxonomical technique for arranging organisms according to how they branch in the evolutionary tree of life." per Rational Wiki Cladistics, by presupposing the conclusion of common ancestry into its premises, is shamelessly abused by Darwinists to infer relationships between groups that never existed: A One-Man Clade – David Berlinski – July 18, 2013 Excerpt: The relationship between cladistics and Darwin's theory of evolution is thus one of independent origin but convergent confusion. "Phylogenetic systematics," the entomologist Michael Schmitt remarks, "relies on the theory of evolution." To the extent that the theory of evolution relies on phylogenetic systematics, the disciplines resemble two biologists dropped from a great height and clutching at one another in mid-air. Tight fit, major fail.7 No wonder that Schmidt is eager to affirm that "phylogenetics does not claim to prove or explain evolution whatsoever."8 If this is so, a skeptic might be excused for asking what it does prove or might explain? http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/07/a_one_man_clade074601.html Cladistics Made Easy: Why an Arcane Field of Study Fails to Upset Steve Meyer's Argument for Intelligent Design Stephen Meyer - Responding to Critics: Matzke Part 1 - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY2B76JbMQ4 Stephen Meyer - Responding to Critics: Matzke Part 2 - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZWw18b3nHo Responding to Critics: Matzke Part 3 - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77XappzJh1k Stephen Meyer explains why the use of cladistic analysis -- stem groups, crown groups, cladograms, ghost lineages -- fails to satisfy. "In order to compensate for missing fossils, we have to postulate more missing fossils. So I don't think that this really solves the problem of the missing fossils. I think it actually accentuates it." Stephen Meyer bornagain77

Yep, we are not Great Apes. We are Homo. Like our extinct Neanderthal and Erectus brothers and sisters. In modern taxonomy groups are defined by their shared ancestors. So, if the term great ape means something in taxonomy then all Homo species, including ours, are great apes, monkeys (again, if that term means something taxonomically), primates, mammals and animals. wd400

I would also, besides the incongruent fossil record, like to point out that although the supposed genetic evidence for human evolution is often presented with great fanfare as if it were conclusive proof that humans evolved from some ape-like creature, the reality of the matter is far different. Dr. Stephen Meyer puts the situation like this:

‘Now one more problem as far as the generation of information. It turns out that you don’t only need information to build genes and proteins, it turns out to build Body-Plans you need higher levels of information; Higher order assembly instructions. DNA codes for the building of proteins, but proteins must be arranged into distinctive circuitry to form distinctive cell types. Cell types have to be arranged into tissues. Tissues have to be arranged into organs. Organs and tissues must be specifically arranged to generate whole new Body-Plans, distinctive arrangements of those body parts. We now know that DNA alone is not responsible for those higher orders of organization. DNA codes for proteins, but by itself it does not insure that proteins, cell types, tissues, organs, will all be arranged in the body. And what that means is that the Body-Plan morphogenesis, as it is called, depends upon information that is not encoded on DNA. Which means you can mutate DNA indefinitely. 80 million years, 100 million years, til the cows come home. It doesn’t matter, because in the best case you are just going to find a new protein some place out there in that vast combinatorial sequence space. You are not, by mutating DNA alone, going to generate higher order structures that are necessary to building a body plan. So what we can conclude from that is that the neo-Darwinian mechanism is grossly inadequate to explain the origin of information necessary to build new genes and proteins, and it is also grossly inadequate to explain the origination of novel biological form.’ Stephen Meyer - (excerpt taken from Meyer/Sternberg vs. Shermer/Prothero debate - 2009) - Functional Proteins and Information for Body Plans - video https://vimeo.com/91322260

as to Dr. Meyer's comment here,,,

"you can mutate DNA indefinitely. 80 million years, 100 million years, til the cows come home. It doesn’t matter,,,You are not, by mutating DNA alone, going to generate higher order structures that are necessary to building a body plan."

,,,the following studies are of interest,,,

Response to John Wise – October 2010 Excerpt: A technique called “saturation mutagenesis”1,2 has been used to produce every possible developmental mutation in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster),3,4,5 roundworms (Caenorhabditis elegans),6,7 and zebrafish (Danio rerio),8,9,10 and the same technique is now being applied to mice (Mus musculus).11,12 None of the evidence from these and numerous other studies of developmental mutations supports the neo-Darwinian dogma that DNA mutations can lead to new organs or body plans–because none of the observed developmental mutations benefit the organism. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/10/response_to_john_wise038811.html

These are certainly not the results that were expected from the 'bottom up' Darwinian framework! But why are mutations to DNA so impotent as to the generation of new body plans? Dr. Meyer explains why in this excerpt from Darwin's Doubt:

"These different sources of epigenetic information in embryonic cells pose an enormous challenge to the sufficiency of the neo-Darwinian mechanism. According to neo-Darwinism, new information, form, and structure arise from natural selection acting on random mutations arising at a very low level within the biological hierarchy—within the genetic text. Yet both body-plan formation during embryological development and major morphological innovation during the history of life depend upon a specificity of arrangement at a much higher level of the organizational hierarchy, a level that DNA alone does not determine. If DNA isn’t wholly responsible for the way an embryo develops—for body-plan morphogenesis—then DNA sequences can mutate indefinitely and still not produce a new body plan, regardless of the amount of time and the number of mutational trials available to the evolutionary process. Genetic mutations are simply the wrong tool for the job at hand." Stephen Meyer - Darwin's Doubt (p. 281) https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/epigenetics/epigenetics-why-it-is-a-problem-for-darwinism/ Darwin's Doubt narrated by Paul Giem - The Origin of Body Plans - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLHDSWJBW3DNUaMy2xdaup5ROw3u0_mK8t&v=rLl6wrqd1e0&feature=player_detailpage#t=290

Dr. Jonathan Wells has also done extensive research in this area:

Body Plans Are Not Mapped-Out by the DNA - Jonathan Wells - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meR8Hk5q_EM Peer-Reviewed Paper: Development Needs Ontogenetic Information that Cannot Arise from Neo-Darwinian Mechanisms - Casey Luskin - June 2, 2014 Excerpt: Jonathan Wells has published a new peer-reviewed scientific paper in the journal BIO-Complexity, "Membrane Patterns Carry Ontogenetic Information That Is Specified Independently of DNA." With over 400 citations to the technical literature, this well-researched and well-documented article shows that embryogenesis depends on crucial sources of information that exist outside of the DNA. This ontogenetic information guides the development of an organism, but because it is derived from sources outside of the DNA, it cannot be produced by mutations in DNA. Wells concludes that because the neo-Darwinian model of evolution claims that variation is produced by DNA mutations, neo-Darwinism cannot account for the origin of epigenetic and ontogenetic information that exists outside of DNA. (Read more here:) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/06/peer-reviewed_p_2086201.html

In fact, completely contrary to 'bottom up' neo-Darwinian thought, it is found that 'it's the organism controlling the DNA, not the DNA controlling the organism'.

Ask an Embryologist: Genomic Mosaicism - Jonathan Wells - February 23, 2015 Excerpt: humans have a "few thousand" different cell types. Here is my simple question: Does the DNA sequence in one cell type differ from the sequence in another cell type in the same person?,,, The simple answer is: We now know that there is considerable variation in DNA sequences among tissues, and even among cells in the same tissue. It's called genomic mosaicism. In the early days of developmental genetics, some people thought that parts of the embryo became different from each other because they acquired different pieces of the DNA from the fertilized egg. That theory was abandoned,,, ,,,(then) "genomic equivalence" -- the idea that all the cells of an organism (with a few exceptions, such as cells of the immune system) contain the same DNA -- became the accepted view. I taught genomic equivalence for many years. A few years ago, however, everything changed. With the development of more sophisticated techniques and the sampling of more tissues and cells, it became clear that genetic mosaicism is common. I now know as an embryologist,,,Tissues and cells, as they differentiate, modify their DNA to suit their needs. It's the organism controlling the DNA, not the DNA controlling the organism. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/02/ask_an_embryolo093851.html What Do Organisms Mean? Stephen L. Talbott - Winter 2011 Excerpt: Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin once described how you can excise the developing limb bud from an amphibian embryo, shake the cells loose from each other, allow them to reaggregate into a random lump, and then replace the lump in the embryo. A normal leg develops. Somehow the form of the limb as a whole is the ruling factor, redefining the parts according to the larger pattern. Lewontin went on to remark: "Unlike a machine whose totality is created by the juxtaposition of bits and pieces with different functions and properties, the bits and pieces of a developing organism seem to come into existence as a consequence of their spatial position at critical moments in the embryo’s development. Such an object is less like a machine than it is like a language whose elements... take unique meaning from their context.[3]",,, http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/what-do-organisms-mean

Verse and Music:

Psalm 139:14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. THE GREATEST GIFT – Yancy - music video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHGVud2Qfa4

bornagain77

Of related interest: The fossil record is not nearly as conducive to Darwinian story telling as many people have been led to believe: “We have all seen the canonical parade of apes, each one becoming more human. We know that, as a depiction of evolution, this line-up is tosh (i.e. nonsense). Yet we cling to it. Ideas of what human evolution ought to have been like still colour our debates.” Henry Gee, editor of Nature (478, 6 October 2011, page 34, doi:10.1038/478034a), Evolution of the Genus Homo - Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences - Tattersall, Schwartz, May 2009 Excerpt: "Definition of the genus Homo is almost as fraught as the definition of Homo sapiens. We look at the evidence for “early Homo,” finding little morphological basis for extending our genus to any of the 2.5–1.6-myr-old fossil forms assigned to “early Homo” or Homo habilis/rudolfensis." http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.earth.031208.100202 Has Science Shown That We Evolved from Ape-like Creatures? by Casey Luskin - Fall 2013 (useful references at the end of the article) Excerpt: A closer look at the literature shows that hominin fossils generally fall into one of two categories—ape-like species or human-like species (of the genus Homo)—and that there is a large, unbridged gap between them. Despite the claims of many evolutionary paleoanthropologists, the fragmented hominin fossil record does not document the evolution of humans from ape-like precursors. In fact, scientists are quite sharply divided over who or what our human ancestors even were. Newly discovered fossils are often initially presented to the public with great enthusiasm and fanfare, but once cooler heads prevail, their status as human evolutionary ancestors is invariably called into question. - http://salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo26-science-faith/has-science-shown-that-we-evolved-from-ape-like-creatures.php Skull "Rewrites" Story of Human Evolution -- Again - Casey Luskin - October 22, 2013 Excerpt: "There is a big gap in the fossil record," Zollikofer told NBC News. "I would put a question mark there. Of course it would be nice to say this was the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and us, but we simply don't know." - http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/10/skull_rewrites_078221.html “A number of hominid crania are known from sites in eastern and southern Africa in the 400- to 200-thousand-year range, but none of them looks like a close antecedent of the anatomically distinctive Homo sapiens…Even allowing for the poor record we have of our close extinct kin, Homo sapiens appears as distinctive and unprecedented…there is certainly no evidence to support the notion that we gradually became who we inherently are over an extended period, in either the physical or the intellectual sense.” Dr. Ian Tattersall: – paleoanthropologist – emeritus curator of the American Museum of Natural History – (Masters of the Planet, 2012) Man is indeed as unique, as different from all other animals, as had been traditionally claimed by theologians and philosophers. Evolutionist Ernst Mayr (What Evolution Is. 2001) In the following podcasts, Casey Luskin, speaking at a recent Science and Human Origins conference, discusses why the fossil evidence doesn’t support the claim that humans evolved from ape-like precursors. 2014 - podcast - Casey Luskin - On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 1 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us/ podcast - Casey Luskin - On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 2 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us-pt-2/ podcast - Casey Luskin - On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 3 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us-pt-3/ podcast - Casey Luskin - On Human Origins: What the Fossils Tell Us, part 4 http://www.discovery.org/multimedia/audio/2014/12/on-human-origins-what-the-fossils-tell-us-pt-4/ Human/Ape Common Ancestry: Following the Evidence - Casey Luskin - June 2011 Excerpt: So the researchers constructed an evolutionary tree based on 129 skull and tooth measurements for living hominoids, including gorillas, chimpanzees, orangutans and humans, and did the same with 62 measurements recorded on Old World monkeys, including baboons, mangabeys and macaques. They also drew upon published molecular phylogenies. At the outset, Wood and Collard assumed the molecular evidence was correct. “There were so many different lines of genetic evidence pointing in one direction,” Collard explains. But no matter how the computer analysis was run, the molecular and morphological trees could not be made to match15 (see figure, below). Collard says this casts grave doubt on the reliability of using morphological evidence to determine the fine details of evolutionary trees for higher primates. “It is saying it is positively misleading,” he says. The abstract of the pair’s paper stated provocatively that “existing phylogenetic hypotheses about human evolution are unlikely to be reliable”.[10] http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/following_the_evidence_where_i047161.html#comment-9266481 bornagain77

From the article I link to (Great Ape Debate); "The great apes are our closest extant relatives, and it is incredibly important to study, protect, and conserve them. However, we can’t use their title as closest extant relatives as a strategic rhetorical device to emphasize similarity." Yep, we are not Great Apes. We are Homo. Like our extinct Neanderthal and Erectus brothers and sisters. ppolish

I agree with this idea that if Neanderthal and Erectus survived to this day "It would be difficult for taxonomists to lump two or more human species in with the great apes. The differences would be far too striking." http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/02/13/the-great-ape-taxonomy-debate/ ppolish

Sapien complexions run from very pale to very dark and a lot in between. Is it common to assume Neanderthal and Erectus had less variation in skin colors, and skewed towards darker? Were there "white" Neanderthals and "black" Neanderthals? ppolish

Yes, all non-Africans have Neanderthal DNA. It’s where we got red hair I don't think this last bit is true. At least some neanderthals probably had red hair, as they have mutations in the same gene as causes red hair in modern humans. But the particular allele is different than either the European or Melanesian red hair alleles, so it appears to have evolved at least three times in Homo. wd400

“Isn’t part of the modern genome closely related to the Neanderthal’s ?” THis is a good illustration of why it doesn't make much sense to talk about "the" modern genome. People with only recent African ancestry don't derive any of their genomes from Neanderthal introgression. People with entirely non-African ancestry in the last ~100k years have around 4% "neanderthal DNA". But the neanderthal sequences I carry are different than the neanderthal sequences another European or Asian might carry (it's not that a region of the genome is neanderthal derived in all people, so much as some neanderthal-derived variants are still floating around in human populations). So, some of some modern genomes come from neanderthals. It's interesting that that proption doesn't appear to be greater in populations are thought to have lived along side Neanderthals (e.g. Europeans), which suggests interbreeding was relatively rare and early in the Out of Africa expansion. wd400

"Isn’t part of the modern genome closely related to the Neanderthal’s ?" Yes, all non-Africans have Neanderthal DNA. It's where we got red hair. They weren't too diverged as they had only relatively recently split off from Heidelbergensis CHartsil

News: They would have had little sexual interest in one another. My guess, sexual interest is directly proportional to opportunity And even if a Neanderthal Romeo and a Sapiens Juliet fell in love, they could not produce fertile children, because the genetic gulf separating the two populations was already unbridgeable. Isn't part of the modern genome closely related to the Neanderthal's ? velikovskys

I think it's worth pointing out that, while Neanderthals had larger brains, they were arguably less encephalized. CHartsil