by dorlomin » Tue 12 Feb 2008, 07:50:35
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('seldom_seen', 'N')o doubt yeahbut.
The only reason chimpanzees are not classified in the same genus as humans is because we're "totally all that, with bling and stuff."
Jared Diamond makes the case that if a taxonomist from mars came to earth we'd have:
Homo Sapiens Sapiens
and
Homo Sapiens Chimpanzee
It is currently pan troglodytes and homo sapiens. Also in the family are the bonobos and gorrillas (gorilla gorilla) (a further relative is the other of the great apes the orangutang). A reclasification would be either to pan sapiens or homo troglodytes. It has been 6 million years since the last common ancestor. During this time we have experianced an increadibly fast evolution that has brought us to being bipedal an enormous differetiation, opposible thumbs, an astonishingly complex vocal region and many other very very distinct taxonomical differentiators from other great apes. Taxonomicaly we are further from the other great apes than they are from each other, inspite of our closeness geneticaly to chimpanzees.
I tend to disagree with the reclassification argument.
On a side note since we split from the last common ancestor we have had three well established families of speices, homo, australopithicine and paranthropus. Paranthropus is a robust (heavy set) early humanoid that probibly split from australopithicines and were more likely to have been very vegitarian. Speculation that at points all three families may have had individuals living on the same continent (our direct ancestor at that time would have been homo habilis).
It is believed our most distant dictinct ancestors emerged from rain forrests or swamps so the bones decompose very quickly and leave few fossils. Out ancestors were not particularly common until recently so also left few fossils in the much more fossil friendly savanas.
Those asking about genetic clocks, they work by mutation. Mutations are assumed to happen at a relatively steady pace. Taking gene sequencies that are still the same it is feasible to look at the mutations that have occured between two samples and work out how long since they split. The technique is new and has some critics but has been strongly corrolated to field excavations on a variety of spieces.
Real doomers should check out the Toba Catastrophy theory for when we (homo sapiens) were very nearly wiped out about 70 000 years ago.