Re: DISCOVER/Neanderthal/Homo Sap.
H. M. Hubey (hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu)
4 Sep 1995 21:55:54 -0400
herwin@gmu.edu (Harry Erwin) writes:
>The evidence with regard to the Neanderthals is that in areas of
>population overlap (early in Israel, late in Western Europe), we don't see
>intermediates.
Well, as far as I remember Trinkaus and Wolpoff [for sure
Wolpoff since he said so clearly] that there are intermediates
and that the Neanderthals and moderns are the same species.
The fact that people with PHDs in the same field, trained in
the same methods can look at the same fossils and can come
to directly opposite conclusions is disconcerting. And there
doesn't seem to be anything else except eyeballing bones.
>Artificial selection works fine. We do get preservation of deleterious
>mutations (i.e., premature convergence), and we often run up against the
>problem of lack of suitable variants later in the breeding process.
So would congenital defects(!) among modern humans, say being
born with no-chins, cleft-palates, large heads etc be evidence
for Neanderthal partial descent or should they simply get
chalked up to bizzare,inexplicable and unrelated accidents.
--
Regards, Mark
http://www.smns.montclair.edu/~hubey
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