Humans are not from Earth: a scientific evaluation of the evidence (2nd Edition)

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Zalmout, Iyad S.; Sanders, William J.; MacLatchy, Laura M.; etal. (July 15, 2010). "New Oligocene primate from Saudi Arabia and the divergence of apes and Old World monkeys". Nature. 466 (7304): 360–364. Bibcode: 2010Natur.466..360Z. doi: 10.1038/nature09094. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 20631798. S2CID 205220837. For thousands of years, nature had well-regulated the concentration of these gases. But this started changingwhen humans beganburning fossil fuels as a global means of creating energy— resulting in a sharp rise of unnatural CO2 emissions.This has interfered with the planet'satmospheric balance. If an alternative theory of what is driving climate change rather than greenhouse gases would be supported by research and evidence, such work would be groundbreaking," said Benjamin Cook. "It would be Nobel Prize-level study. But we do not see this research." Up until the genetic evidence became available, there were two dominant models for the dispersal of modern humans. The multiregional hypothesis proposed that the genus Homo contained only a single interconnected population as it does today (not separate species), and that its evolution took place worldwide continuously over the last couple of million years. This model was proposed in 1988 by Milford H. Wolpoff. [243] [244] In contrast, the "out of Africa" model proposed that modern H.sapiens speciated in Africa recently (that is, approximately 200,000 years ago) and the subsequent migration through Eurasia resulted in the nearly complete replacement of other Homo species. This model has been developed by Chris Stringer and Peter Andrews. [245] [246] Known H. sapiens migration routes in the Pleistocene The increase in volume of the neocortex also included a rapid increase in size of the cerebellum. Its function has traditionally been associated with balance and fine motor control, but more recently with speech and cognition. The great apes, including hominids, had a more pronounced cerebellum relative to the neocortex than other primates. It has been suggested that because of its function of sensory-motor control and learning complex muscular actions, the cerebellum may have underpinned human technological adaptations, including the preconditions of speech. [149] [150] [151] [152]

Since Homo sapiens separated from its last common ancestor shared with chimpanzees, human evolution is characterized by a number of morphological, developmental, physiological, behavioral, and environmental changes. [8] Environmental (cultural) evolution discovered much later during the Pleistocene played a significant role in human evolution observed via human transitions between subsistence systems. [115] [8] The most significant of these adaptations are bipedalism, increased brain size, lengthened ontogeny (gestation and infancy), and decreased sexual dimorphism. The relationship between these changes is the subject of ongoing debate. [116] Other significant morphological changes included the evolution of a power and precision grip, a change first occurring in H.erectus. [117] Bipedalism [ edit ] Bipedalism shown by a man and a woman Homo erectus lived from about 1.8 Ma to about 70,000 years ago – which would indicate that they were probably wiped out by the Toba catastrophe; however, nearby H.floresiensis survived it. The early phase of H.erectus, from 1.8 to 1.25 Ma, is considered by some to be a separate species, H.ergaster, or as H.erectus ergaster, a subspecies of H.erectus. Many paleoanthropologists now use the term Homo ergaster for the non-Asian forms of this group, and reserve H.erectus only for those fossils that are found in Asia and meet certain skeletal and dental requirements which differ slightly from H.ergaster. In the Early Miocene, about 22million years ago, the many kinds of arboreally adapted primitive catarrhines from East Africa suggest a long history of prior diversification. Fossils at 20million years ago include fragments attributed to Victoriapithecus, the earliest Old World monkey. Among the genera thought to be in the ape lineage leading up to 13million years ago are Proconsul, Rangwapithecus, Dendropithecus, Limnopithecus, Nacholapithecus, Equatorius, Nyanzapithecus, Afropithecus, Heliopithecus, and Kenyapithecus, all from East Africa.The first debates about the nature of human evolution arose between Thomas Henry Huxley and Richard Owen. Huxley argued for human evolution from apes by illustrating many of the similarities and differences between humans and other apes, and did so particularly in his 1863 book Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature. Many of Darwin's early supporters (such as Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Lyell) did not initially agree that the origin of the mental capacities and the moral sensibilities of humans could be explained by natural selection, though this later changed. Darwin applied the theory of evolution and sexual selection to humans in his 1871 book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. [221] First fossils [ edit ] The gibbons (family Hylobatidae) and then the orangutans (genus Pongo) were the first groups to split from the line leading to the hominins, including humans—followed by gorillas (genus Gorilla), and, ultimately, by the chimpanzees (genus Pan). The splitting date between hominin and chimpanzee lineages is placed by some between 4to8 million years ago, that is, during the Late Miocene. [266] [267] [268] [269] Speciation, however, appears to have been unusually drawn out. Initial divergence occurred sometime between 7to13 million years ago, but ongoing hybridization blurred the separation and delayed complete separation during several millions of years. Patterson (2006) dated the final divergence at 5to6 million years ago. [270]

The outcome illustrated little variation for many hundreds of years until the 20th century, when there was suddenly a sharp rise. Stringer, C. (2012). "What makes a modern human". Nature. 485 (7396): 33–35. Bibcode: 2012Natur.485...33S. doi: 10.1038/485033a. PMID 22552077. S2CID 4420496. (archaic admixture). A more recent study conducted by a group of international authors confirmed that over 90% of climate scientists share the consensus that climate change is human-caused. H. sapiens (the adjective sapiens is Latin for "wise" or "intelligent") emerged in Africa around 300,000 years ago, likely derived from H.heidelbergensis or a related lineage. [109] [110] In September 2019, scientists reported the computerized determination, based on 260 CT scans, of a virtual skull shape of the last common human ancestor to modern humans/ H. sapiens, representative of the earliest modern humans, and suggested that modern humans arose between 260,000 and 350,000 years ago through a merging of populations in East and South Africa. [111] [112] O'Neil, Dennis. "Early Modern Homo sapiens". Evolution of Modern Humans: A Survey of the Biological and Cultural Evolution of Archaic and Modern Homo sapiens (Tutorial). San Marcos, CA: Palomar College. Archived from the original on April 30, 2015 . Retrieved April 20, 2015.And a 2019 analysis of 11,602 peer-reviewed articles on climate change published in the first seven months of 2019 found scientists have reached 100% agreement on anthropogenic global warming. That research was carried out by a James Lawrence Powell, an American geologist and author of 11books on climate change and Earth science. Tyson, Peter (July 1, 2008). "Meet Your Ancestors". Nova ScienceNow. PBS; WGBH Educational Foundation. Archived from the original on March 8, 2021 . Retrieved April 18, 2015. The study also revealed that for the last 2,000 years Earth has actually been in a natural cooling period in terms of its position relative to the sun.

Based on archaeological and paleontological evidence, it has been possible to infer, to some extent, the ancient dietary practices [50] of various Homo species and to study the role of diet in physical and behavioral evolution within Homo. [51] [52] [53] [54] [55] Barnicot, Nigel A. (April–June 2005). "Human nutrition: Evolutionary perspectives". Integrative Physiological & Behavioral Science. 40 (2): 114–117. doi: 10.1007/BF02734246. ISSN 1932-4502. PMID 17393680. S2CID 39549910. Archaeologists working in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya have discovered the oldest known stone tools in the world. Dated to around 3.3million years ago, the implements are some 700,000 years older than stone tools from Ethiopia that previously held this distinction. [189] [286] [287] [288]Around 50,000 BP, human culture started to evolve more rapidly. The transition to behavioral modernity has been characterized by some as a " Great Leap Forward", [193] or as the "Upper Palaeolithic Revolution", [194] due to the sudden appearance in the archaeological record of distinctive signs of modern behavior and big game hunting. [195] Evidence of behavioral modernity significantly earlier also exists from Africa, with older evidence of abstract imagery, widened subsistence strategies, more sophisticated tools and weapons, and other "modern" behaviors, and many scholars have recently argued that the transition to modernity occurred sooner than previously believed. [47] [196] [197] [198] Anatomically, modern humans can generally be characterized by the lighter build of their skeletons compared to earlier humans. Modern humans have very large brains, which vary in size from population to population and between males and females, but the average size is approximately 1300 cubic centimeters. Housing this big brain involved the reorganization of the skull into what is thought of as "modern" -- a thin-walled, high vaulted skull with a flat and near vertical forehead. Modern human faces also show much less (if any) of the heavy brow ridges and prognathism of other early humans. Our jaws are also less heavily developed, with smaller teeth. Turner, William (April 1895). "On M. Dubois' Description of Remains recently found in Java, named by him Pithecanthropus erectus. With Remarks on so-called Transitional Forms between Apes

a b Leonard, William R.; Snodgrass, J. Josh; Robertson, Marcia L. (August 2007). "Effects of brain evolution on human nutrition and metabolism". Annual Review of Nutrition. 27: 311–327. doi: 10.1146/annurev.nutr.27.061406.093659. ISSN 0199-9885. PMID 17439362. S2CID 18869516. Gardner., Elizabeth K.; Purdue University (April 1, 2015). "New instrument dates old skeleton before 'Lucy'; 'Little Foot' 3.67 million years old". Science Daily. Retrieved April 3, 2015. They argue that no specific point in time can currently be identified when modern human ancestry was confined to a limited birthplace. The known patterns of the first appearance of anatomical or behavioural traits that are often used to define H. sapiens fit a range of evolutionary histories. H. ergaster is often considered the next evolutionary ancestor to H. sapiens following H. erectus, however, there is considerable uncertainty as to the accuracy of classifying it as a separate species from H. erectus at all. [135]

The earliest member of the genus Homo is Homo habilis which evolved around 2.8million years ago. [32] H.habilis is the first species for which we have positive evidence of the use of stone tools. They developed the Oldowan lithic technology, named after the Olduvai Gorge in which the first specimens were found. Some scientists consider Homo rudolfensis, a larger bodied group of fossils with similar morphology to the original H.habilis fossils, to be a separate species, while others consider them to be part of H.habilis—simply representing intraspecies variation, or perhaps even sexual dimorphism. The brains of these early hominins were about the same size as that of a chimpanzee, and their main adaptation was bipedalism as an adaptation to terrestrial living. Noonan, James P. (May 2010). "Neanderthal genomics and the evolution of modern humans". Genome Research. 20 (5): 547–553. doi: 10.1101/gr.076000.108. ISSN 1088-9051. PMC 2860157. PMID 20439435. Until about 50,000–40,000 years ago, the use of stone tools seems to have progressed stepwise. Each phase ( H.habilis, H.ergaster, H.neanderthalensis) marked a new technology, followed by very slow development until the next phase. Currently paleoanthropologists are debating whether these Homo species possessed some or many modern human behaviors. They seem to have been culturally conservative, maintaining the same technologies and foraging patterns over very long periods. Nonetheless, humans retain a degree of sexual dimorphism in the distribution of body hair and subcutaneous fat, and in the overall size, males being around 15% larger than females. [173] These changes taken together have been interpreted as a result of an increased emphasis on pair bonding as a possible solution to the requirement for increased parental investment due to the prolonged infancy of offspring. [174] Ulnar opposition [ edit ] Only the human is able to touch the little finger with the thumb.