The Evolutionary History of Humans

Hi, everyone. I have spent several days studying human evolution from Homo habilis all the way to Homo sapien. The purpose of this extensive studying was to try and pinpoint what our next evolutionary stage may hold, and when it may occur.

The five species in which we will be discussing are:
H. habilis
H. erectus
H. heidelbergensis
H. neanderthalensis
H. sapien

Homo habilis

Homo habilis first appeared around 2.3 million years ago, and are the first and oldest species under the genus Homo. They thrived on Earth for approximately 1 million years. They were possibly the first species to begin to use tools. In appearance, H. habilis were very much like chimpanzees, although they were bipedal hominids.

Homo erectus

Homo erectus is the longest surviving species under the genus Homo, thriving for about 1.675 million years. They appeared approximately 1.3 million years ago and disappeared around 325,000 years ago. They differ from H. habilis in that they were much more human looking, and they lived in small Hunter-Gatherer societies. It is believed that they could not formulate spoken language, though their communication was more sophisticated than chimpanzees'. H. erectus were the first species to hunt in coordinated groups, and also the first to care for their wounded and sick. Findings in Indonesia indicate that H. erectus may have had seafaring capability.

Homo heidelbergensis

This is what most people imagine when someone says the word "caveman". Even the cavemen portrayed in the popular television commercials are reconstructions of H. heidelbergensis. They were one evolutionary generation away from Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens. H. heidelbergensis was separated into two populations by what most people refer to as the "Ice Age", which was actually the last glacial period. One population was separated into Europe, while the other was in Africa. The European population became Homo neanderthalensis, while the African population became Homo sapiens.

Homo neanderthalensis

As already mentioned, Neanderthals were the species that evolved in Europe. Neanderthals were closer to humans in appearance and skills than any other species. Their language is speculated, but some believe that they used a "musical" language. It is confirmed that they contained the FOXP2 gene, which plays an important part in the ability to communicate with verbal language. Neanderthals coexisted with humans for over 200,000 years. It is believed that humans killed them off. Big surprise there.

Homo sapien

Ah, yes. Modern human beings. We use spoken language and complex tools. H. sapien stands out from all other species due to the exponentially rapid advance of technology. After H. neanderthalensis went extinct, we seemed to have flourished. Over 90% of our entire existence thus far was prehistoric. Within only 10% of our existence, we have achieved technological advances that are incomparable with former advances. Whereas former advances were evolutionarily significant (use of tools, language, social structure), our advances in the last 30,000 years have only been technologically significant. The evolution of our species has shifted from genetic alterations to technological advances. We solve everything with technology. This is the crucial stage at which our species hangs between life and death. Our technology will either destroy us or preserve us. Humans will not evolve until we are past this stage. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will progress into what Michio Kaku calls a Type 1 Civilization. That will be our next evolutionary step. Following the pattern of former evolutionary advances between our ancestors, we will advance our language to a new level, as well as our social structure. This may possibly mean telepathic communication and a much more empathic society. By emapthic society I mean a natural understanding of one another, complete destruction of racism and social classes, and universal acceptance of any differences. Genetic evolution may also play a part, causing us to become invulnerable to many diseases and have prolonged life, though this would probably come about through external means (scientific advances).

In conclusion, I do not believe we as humans are on the threshold of some inevitable "awakening" where everyone is going to become extra-dimensional beings. That would be cool, but it doesn't follow logical thinking. Evolution doesn't just happen. Natural selection takes it course, as well as genetic changes. We are indeed living in exciting times. I think we may be as close as 100 years away from a Type 1 Civilization. After that, evolution may be stimulated to occur due to a new environment: other planets. It depends on what the powers that be allow to happen...

Sources
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...
www.sciencemag.org...
en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...
www.worldcat.org...
mkaku.org...

Edit:
Added source for Neanderthal "musical" language.

Edit 2:
Revised a few things.

[edit on 4/22/2010 by OrphenFire]

[edit on 4/22/2010 by OrphenFire]

Heres a possibility of how the HUMAN BRAIN GLOBAL NETWoRK SYSTEM WORKS:


www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by OrphenFire


well as you know evolution is a slow process, so id have to say we would evolve eventually maybe into a race with massive brainpower homo sapiens sapiens sapiens(very very very wise human beings)? psychichs and such? doesnt sound very likeley though with todays society....

or we may devolve in some sense
our physichal bodies will slowly get weaker and weaker, but our minds will get stronger and stronger as we grow more and more dependent on technology

No Australopithecus?



I believe our evolution has stopped, it'll all be brains evolving, and maybe having our intestines and back problems weeded out, other than that, we make the world fit to how we are, not the other way anymore!

I'm not sure how much more evolving the human race is going to do, as we tend to remove the natural selection/survival of the fittest thing nowadays.

However, i suppose the most likely candidates in my opinion would be improved immune systems, higher resistance to toxins and UV radiation or something to do with enhanced communication abailities along the lines of the Greg Bear book Darwins Radio.

I could expand on some of these if anyones interested

You never know...we could be "driven" to evolution due to another species evolving or something and causing a threat...physically or mentally?

Yeah maybe our minds will get stronger and stronger....and we'll evetually go kaboom

Evolution just doesn't work, Mutations have never worked for the benefit of anything other than germs and bacteria. No mutations in human's have helped them to better survive. It is commonly believed that "lucy" now may have had a mutation in her skull that caused different growth patterns in her skull in which scientist first thought her to be the missing link. When in actuality this mutation probably killed her. Human's actually disprove evolution because were not evolving but devolving and we are the prominate speci. However If evolution were true I would like to have atleast one eye in the back of my head, that would be useful.


The human penis crushes any thoughts on evolution. We are not the largest great ape. Then why did we get a bigger one than the Gorrilla who has a almost impossible time mating

Just a thought

I am not in total agreement about evolution, rather I believe in a creator who may or may not have used evolution in the creation of mankind. But from what I understand of evolution it is a response to enviromental challenges (selection of the fittest) and since we now have controlled our enviroment and are at the top of the food chain instead of being part of it. I would imagine that our physical evolution is at an end, whether we can evolve further mentally is the question, can we develop telepathy or telekinesis or teleportation when we can accomplish most of those skills by use of our technology?

Originally posted by OrphenFire
The purpose of this extensive studying was to try and pinpoint what our next evolutionary stage may hold, and when it may occur.

Thank you for putting out such a carefully planned and helpful summary of what science is telling us about past evolution;

On the subject of "next evolutionary stage", though...
Surely the whole point of evolutionary theory is that evolution is seen as response to environment. Modifications prosper because they're beneficial in new environmental circumstances. How can we try to predict future evolution without being able to predict future environment?

It is possible that our physical evolution has halted, due to our environment being controlled by us verses us being controlled by it. Natural selection played its part in putting humans at the top, so really there is nowhere to go but down.

I tend to believe that our exponential development of technology has replaced evolution for humans. Humans are becoming more and more connected to technology, to a point where we almost cannot live without it.

To the gentleman that claims mutations are never helpful: you are only partially correct. It is true that the vast majority of mutations are harmful to the specimen, but there are rare occasions when a mutation is advantageous. For instance, the mutation in the FOXP2 gene is what gave humans spoken language (Source).

Also, the ability to consume dairy products is the result of a mutation which obviously is beneficial. I will need to look up the source.

reply to post by Republican08


I decided to focus on the genus Homo.

reply to post by Loken68


evolution just doesnt work? nonesense we are proof it does work!

homo erectus, neanderthal, homo antecessor, homo rhodesinesis, homo habilis, the list goes on.

if some god or other entity created man in his current state, then who are all these other guys?

reply to post by ashanu90


Star for you!

maybe they are here because god needed a bit of practise first?....i always needed a few tries whenever i made anything from plasticine...

Question: If natural selection/survival of the fittest is a natural process how is it that humans can decide to go against nature? That doesn't seem to fit. Also, not pertaining to the first question but if natural selection is supposed to choose between two species naturally, why are we not losing species at an exponential rate? In fact, according to that theory we shouldn't have all the species we have today; some 2 million is the number I hear plus ones not yet identified.

It seems like natural selection isn't doing it's job if we have that many species alive on the planet. Also, if we evolved from a unicellular organism then where does natural selection/survival of the fittest fit in? It can't operate with just one choice since it needs two to make a selection from. That's not to mention the problem where it figured out how to develop it's own genotype and what genes to turn on and off and eventually develop into the phenotype (what you can physically see).

Just some holes in evolution that don't make sense. It was thought to be a tree like structure but then it got switched to a lawn type structure; if one were to map everything out for a visual presentation. Even evolutionists said that when "evolution" sped up that things just appeared out of nowhere.
Maybe I just lack understanding, as logical as evolution sounds.

How we had water without an ozone is beyond me. If the suns rays hit the water, oceans I assume, then the Hydrogen and Oxygen would split. We all know ozone is O3 so you see the problem that lies there.

Also amino acids (i.e. aspartic acid, glutamic acid, asparagine and glutamine), which all have nitrogen (NH2 not N2) in them, which would need to have come from ammonia (NH3) in the atmosphere, speaking of a primitive earth, that need a specific environment to form under. Now the same goes for DNA which also has nitrogen in it but to get the ring structures to form in these you need Hydrogen Sulfide. So with that said, there is no nitrogen in the atmosphere and just the sulfide at the bottom and for the amino acids you need ammonia in the atmosphere but there is no nitrogen. But if you want the sugars to form in DNA (Deoxyribose - anything ending with ose is sugar basic stuff) you can't have ammonia in the air. Big problem, you need totally different conditions for everything to happen.

So to get the molecules to form and get the structure we see in DNA, macromolecules, is infinitely small because it has never been done. Why, do you ask? Because you need enzymes to do this and so how do you get an enzyme to form when you need an enzyme to do what you want to do in the first place? That is, form DNA.


[edit on 4-5-2010 by novastrike81]

[edit on 4-5-2010 by novastrike81]

Originally posted by novastrike81
Question: If natural selection/survival of the fittest is a natural process how is it that humans can decide to go against nature? That doesn't seem to fit.

Why should it not be able to go against nature? As with most critics of evolution (Not that I say you are a critic, just stating a point), you don't seem to grasp the evolutionary aspect in the long run! If we continue with this random madness we are currently taking against nature, in the very long run, the planet will be uninhabitabel, and we'll simply die out.

Also, not pertaining to the first question but if natural selection is supposed to choose between two species naturally, why are we not losing species at an exponential rate?

That is not how evolution work. It doesn't select one species over another, quite the contrary. If there's room for two different species, ie. two different niches, then they survive. But, if their niches overlap significantly, then they might kill of each other.

In fact, according to that theory we shouldn't have all the species we have today; some 2 million is the number I hear plus ones not yet identified.

Total number of estimated species on the planet is somewhere between 7 and 100 million.

It seems like natural selection isn't doing it's job if we have that many species alive on the planet. Also, if we evolved from a single eukaryote cell then where does natural selection fit in?

It seems like you don't really get the hang of evolution. I'd recommend lending a good book about it at the library..

Just some holes in evolution that don't make sense. It was thought to be a tree like structure but then it got switched to a lawn type structure; if one were to map everything out for a visual presentation.

Those are just visual representation of the structure of life! They are merely pictures to give you a hang of what it is all about.

Even evolutionists said that when "evolution" sped up that things just appeared out of nowhere.

They don't appear out of nowhere, but yes evolution can speed up randomly. Imagine the first fish that went on land - It suddenly had space and niches to evolve into a gazillion different directions, and that is what it did. On the other hand, in its old habitat, every niche was already filled, not allowing for much evolvement.

Originally posted by Thain Esh Kelch
Why should it not be able to go against nature? As with most critics of evolution (Not that I say you are a critic, just stating a point), you don't seem to grasp the evolutionary aspect in the long run! If we continue with this random madness we are currently taking against nature, in the very long run, the planet will be uninhabitabel, and we'll simply die out.

Was just asking; it's just an example give like if you had a fat man and a skinny man and a lion started chasing both of them who would lose? The fat man, but that doesn't mean the species goes extinct cause they were both human. This is survival of the fittest. I understand evolution happens at the phenotype and everything on the genotype is by chance through mutation.

I'm here to learn; not create indifference or cause emotional uprising. Yes I could easily Google but then again I read one thing that says it's right and another that contradicts it. I figure I may as well come to a forum and get a broader horizon. Then again, I wish everything were so easy.

[edit on 4-5-2010 by novastrike81]