Were the first humans black or white?

[Aonghus G. Friedhold]

At first we would've been white, when we first lost the hair that protected us from the sun. As we lost the fur, we turned darker, and when we ventured north, we had to get lighter again because dark skin is less efficient in drawing vitamin d from the sun, and in northern climates there is less sun, so we had to become lighter so we'd still get the D we needed.

[Saxon wårolord]

Genetics confirm the Out of Africa theory anyway.

[Helm]

Why so serious?

[Augment]

[Helm]

Notice how modern humans colonised Australia well before Europe. Though that could be something to do with the neanderthals.

[Valiant Champion]

White humans (caucasoids) came from Orangutans.

[Lysimachus]

White humans (caucasoids) came from Orangutans.

Oh boy...

...my mates at school are gonna love it when I tell 'em this

[Copperknickers II]

Notice how modern humans colonised Australia well before Europe. Though that could be something to do with the neanderthals.

Probably not, they just didn't like the cold and wanted to stick to the coasts.

[Valiant Champion]

Oh boy...

...my mates at school are gonna love it when I tell 'em this

source

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...s-related.html

[Adar]

source

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...s-related.html

The article actually suggest that all humans are more closely related to orangutans than to chimps, not just caucasians.

Furthermore, according to the logic presented by the authors. An Audi A5 is more closely related to a Trabant than to a Audi A4 due to obvious physical similarities like the fact that the Audi A5 and Trabant have 2 doors. What they have done is that they have selected some similarities between orangutans and humans and then made huge conclusions based on the fact that humans and chimpanzees doesn't share those particular traits.

The article also states this

"Wacky Idea"
"There are actually very few [physical] features linking chimps and humans," noted the Natural History Museum's Andrews. "The case for that is based almost entirely on molecular evidence."
And those molecular studies are flawed, Schwartz and Grehan say, because of the high likelihood that the data includes broadly shared DNA traits.
"When you're doing a really rigorous analysis of relationships, you don't just stop at the potential demonstration of similarity," Schwartz said. "You have to distinguish between features that are widely shared [among many species] and those that are more uniquely shared."
In addition, Schwartz notes, the most cited studies are largely based on the so-called coding region of the genome, which makes up just 2 to 3 percent of an animal's DNA.
Scientists are referring to this tiny part of the genome when they say humans and chimps are so similar, he said.
But other studies that focus on non-coding regions also consistently support a human-chimp link, counters Carel van Schaik of the Anthropological Institute and Museum at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.
"A study that reaches a very different conclusion [from the genetic evidence] must explain why these molecular studies are wrong," van Schaik, who also serves as a consultant to the conservation group Borneo Orangutan Survival UK, said in an email.
"Of course, orangutans are very human-like in many respects, but so are chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas … ."
Anthropologist Nick Newton-Fisher, of the University of Kent in the U.K., described the human evolutionary path implied by the new study as a "wacky idea."
"Given the weight of evidence from the genetics," he said, he would be reluctant to accept the new findings.

[Jexiel]

White humans (caucasoids) came from Orangutans.

How would you account for the evidence that suggests humans are 99% similar in their DNA ("Becoming Human" NOVA/PBS 2009)? More evidence suggests we are closest to the African apes. This is inconvenient for the "Orangutan Theory" since Orangutans are only found in SE Asia. We are genetically closer to chimpanzees and gorillas.

Another indication all human populations are very similar is the fact that we can all interbreed with each other and produce fertile offspring. Generally, different species cannot interbreed and those that do normally produce sterile offspring (think donkey + horse = mule). One interesting exception may be the female liger (male ligers are sterile, females are not).

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolib.../_0/history_26
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...-gene-gap-wide
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/fitch/re...ers/silver.pdf
http://anthro.palomar.edu/primate/prim_8.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan

[Yosemite]

wouldn't we be from a common ancestor rather than directly from a chimp

it took quite a long time to be what we are today, chimps didn't change one bit from the comon ancestor? they don't evolve?

[Helm]

The common ancestor of chimps and humans would have been some kind of now extinct species of ape.

[Copperknickers II]

wouldn't we be from a common ancestor rather than directly from a chimp

Yes. Did anyone say otherwise?

[Yosemite]

Yes. Did anyone say otherwise?

Originally Posted by Valiant Champion View Post
White humans (caucasoids) came from Orangutans.

[Helm]

White people would have ended up looking more like this had that been the case.



The general idea anyway.

[Gelgoog]

How would you account for the evidence that suggests humans are 99% similar in their DNA ("Becoming Human" NOVA/PBS 2009)? More evidence suggests we are closest to the African apes. This is inconvenient for the "Orangutan Theory" since Orangutans are only found in SE Asia. We are genetically closer to chimpanzees and gorillas.

Another indication all human populations are very similar is the fact that we can all interbreed with each other and produce fertile offspring. Generally, different species cannot interbreed and those that do normally produce sterile offspring (think donkey + horse = mule). One interesting exception may be the female liger (male ligers are sterile, females are not).

thats because there is only one species of human. There are no different human breeds we are genetically identical and there is so little variation that the term race is highly inappropriate when talking about people or different origins.

Fact is there is no signs that we even were able to successfully reproduce with neanderthals, since we see no signs of their genetics within out. New discoveries are point to the split between humans and neanderthals being further apart then we first thought. Apparently at one point in history there were 4 species of human in existence at the same time. Homo

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It was probably Homo erectus, almost 2,000,000 years ago, who first started to leave Africa. Ever since, Africa has been the engine of our evolution, pumping out wave after wave of ancient humans, who populated Europe and Asia. Settling in far-off places, they developed in their own special ways.

An early wave gave rise, in Indonesia, to the extraordinary Hobbit, perhaps a type of dwarf Homo erectus. Another wave took Homo erectus all the way to China where fossil remains have been dated to over 700,000 years ago. Soon after, another wave left Africa, this time, heading for Europe. This was the species that would one day give rise to the Neanderthals.

Humans, although on the surface we seem to be so different from each other, actually have remarkably little genetic diversity. We're 99.9 percent identical. Look at other apes, like chimps or gorillas or orangutans, they have between four and ten times as much diversity at the D.N.A. level.

It is the birth of a new type of human culture, more complex but easier to pass on from generation to generation.

Sixty-thousand years ago, our ancestors emerged with new technology and new culture. Thousands of years of drought had forced them to change. They were ready to explore the world.

As the climate improved, they started to stream out of Africa. They might have been surprised to discover continents already populated by other humans, remnants of earlier, more primitive migrations. As they moved into Asia, they might have come across Homo erectus or the tiny Hobbit.

There's no evidence for such a meeting. But there is one encounter we can be more certain about. As a separate wave slowly moved through the Middle East into Europe, they must have met the Neanderthals.

What were those meetings like?

For many years scientists speculated that early Homo sapiens populations absorbed the Neanderthals through interbreeding. If they did, there would be traces of Neanderthal D.N.A. in our genes today. But there was no way to detect Neanderthal D.N.A., until researchers at the Max Planck Institute set out on a daring scientific odyssey: the quest to sequence the Neanderthal genome.

The human genome contains approximately three billion chemical bases: the As, Ts, Cs and Gs that make up our genes. Mapping that was hard enough. The idea of mapping the genome of a long extinct species, seemed pure fantasy. But that didn't stop Svante Pääbo from dreaming about it.

The first problem was to get D.N.A. from Neanderthal bones over 30,000 years old. In most cases, D.N.A. degrades steadily over time, leaving only minute fragments.

NARRATOR: But finally, taking great care not to contaminate it with their own, they isolated the first piece of Neanderthal D.N.A. Svante's dream is now a reality. He and his team have made a draft of the entire Neanderthal genome. Now scientists all over the world can compare key parts of it to the human genome. And one such comparison is already giving us deeper insight into the Neanderthal brain: the gene called FOXP2.

SVANTE PÄÄBO: It's the only gene we know of today that's involved in speech and language development in humans. We know that because, if one copy is lost in a human due to mutation, we have a severe speech problem.

NARRATOR: When first discovered, FOXP2 created a lot of excitement. Although many animals have the FOXP2 gene, the human version is unique. Some thought it was the gene for language. We now know that complex traits like language are controlled by many genes. Yet researchers agree the human version of FOXP2 is closely tied to some of the basic motor skills necessary for speech.

SVANTE PÄÄBO: And a big question was, of course, is that shared with Neanderthals or not? And when we now look at it in the Neanderthal, indeed it looks to be identical with us.

NARRATOR: It's tantalizing evidence that despite their mental limitations, the boy from Scladina and his people may have been able to speak.

If we share the capacity for language with the Neanderthals, could we both have inherited it from the same source, a common ancestor who gave rise to both species? Who was it?

With a technique called the molecular clock, scientists can now find out. That's because D.N.A. mutates, or changes, at a surprisingly regular rate. By counting the differences in the genetic code of Neanderthal and ourselves, simply comparing the As, Ts, Cs and Gs in our D.N.A., scientists can calculate how long the two species have been diverging.

SVANTE PÄÄBO: We can then estimate when there was a common ancestor population, where some individuals went on to become modern humans, some went on to become Neanderthals. It's in the order of say 300,000 to 400,000 years ago.

NARRATOR: The timing points straight to the intriguing ancestors who left Africa half a million years ago, and buried their dead in the hills of northern Spain, leaving a distinctive pink hand ax at the spot.

This is Homo heidelbergensis, who we now know is our ancestor, too. In Europe, they evolved into the Neanderthal. In Africa, groups that had not yet migrated evolved into Homo sapiens.

So D.N.A. is revealing we share a common ancestor with the Neanderthals. But do we carry some vestige of Neanderthal D.N.A. in our genes, proof that we absorbed them by interbreeding?

JEAN-JACQUES HUBLIN: Some people claim that there are some hybrids of Neanderthals and modern humans. In the genetical record, we don't see clear evidence of that. The big story is that there were Neanderthals that were replaced by other people, and, after a rather short time, we don't see any trace of the Neanderthals in Europe. And certainly, today, we don't see, really, traces of Neanderthal genes.

NARRATOR: With no evidence of interbreeding, it now seems more likely that as our population grew, we simply pushed the Neanderthals out of their environments.

DANIEL LIEBERMAN: Humans have a very intensive way of using the environment. We seem to have the ability to pump out lots of babies, and our babies seem to have a high probability of surviving. So population growth is a really important part of the human adaptation.

NARRATOR: The arrival of Homo sapiens was not the only thing the Neanderthals had to contend with. Europe was gripped by wild climate swings. The Neanderthals were already struggling to survive.

JEAN-JACQUES HUBLIN: Probably the density of Neanderthals in the landscape was very low.

NARRATOR: And there was a good reason for that. Neanderthal technology was limited, and their energy needs were huge.

JEAN-JACQUES HUBLIN: They had these big bodies, these big brains, living in rather cold environments, so we have estimates of their energy consumption every day. It's about 5,000 kilocalories. It's about what someone racing the Tour de France is spending every day.

NARRATOR: But with slimmer, taller bodies, modern humans had lower energy demands and an ever-improving toolkit. They now developed yet another breakthrough technology: projectile weapons, throwing spears.

[Valiant Champion]

How would you account for the evidence that suggests humans are 99% similar in their DNA ("Becoming Human" NOVA/PBS 2009)? More evidence suggests we are closest to the African apes. This is inconvenient for the "Orangutan Theory" since Orangutans are only found in SE Asia. We are genetically closer to chimpanzees and gorillas.

Another indication all human populations are very similar is the fact that we can all interbreed with each other and produce fertile offspring. Generally, different species cannot interbreed and those that do normally produce sterile offspring (think donkey + horse = mule). One interesting exception may be the female liger (male ligers are sterile, females are not).

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolib.../_0/history_26
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...-gene-gap-wide
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/fitch/re...ers/silver.pdf
http://anthro.palomar.edu/primate/prim_8.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan

We are also very similiar genetically to blue-green algae aside from blue green algaes large amount of unused information.

Actually there are a few genes we share in common with blue-green algae that we do not share with Chimpanzees.

According to Discovery magazine we have a mermaid descendant not a chimp descendant. Funny what "REAL scientists" discuss when they don't think intelligent design "pseudo scientists" are watching.

Wish I could find the article I read in a doctors office but this small snippet will have to do.

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/nov...ape-hypothesis

Lots of unanswered questions for two creatures that share 99 percent genetic similiarity or is it less? Its been years since anyone with up to date knowledge has claimed 99 percent.

http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/m...er/000250.html

[Adar]

According to Discovery magazine we have a mermaid descendant not a chimp descendant. Funny what "REAL scientists" discuss when they don't think intelligent design "pseudo scientists" are watching.

Wish I could find the article I read in a doctors office but this small snippet will have to do.

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/nov...ape-hypothesis

To once more quote your own article

But the aquatic ape hypothesis never got much support from the scientific community. Eric Delson, a paleoanthropologist at Lehman College in New York, says the hypothesis is more an exercise in comparative anatomy than a theory supported by data.

But your right about the 99% part. It's only in some of the most important parts we are that similar. What this show is that there are some areas of the genome where mutations cause immediate disadvantages.

[jankren]

White humans (caucasoids) came from Orangutans.

That explains their habit of impregnating their women and leave shortly afterwards ...

PS: For those who dont know, orangutan males dont help with child-rearing. They only bang the moms and flee.