Thursday 4 July 2013

Human origins: Are we hybrids?

http://www.macroevolution.net/human-origins.html
Chimpanzeein the specific case of humans, if the two assumptions made thus far are correct (i.e., (1) that humans actually are hybrids, and (2) that the chimpanzee actually is one of our two parents), then a list of traits distinguishing human beings from chimpanzees should describe the other parent involved in the cross. And by applying this sort of methodology, I have in fact succeeded in narrowing things down to a particular candidate. Keep reading and I'll explain.
an amusing experiment: at lunch today the boys and I used their electronic 20-questions toy to deduce the extra-hominid source of our human anomalies by answering the toy with those anomalous qualities and letting it guess the animal. It reached the same startling conclusion as this paper.