Tag - evolution

Are human fossils our ancestors?

New Optimist Jack Cohen — also reproductive biologist and Honorary Discworld Wizard — has sent me his surprising response to a recent Nature article, The evolutionary context of the first hominins by Bernard Wood and Terry Harrison. Here it is:

Are human fossils are ancestors? If it seems obvious to you that the answer is Of course they are! reflect for a moment about the 1924 discovery of an ancient 3-year-old child’s skull in South Africa, named Australopithecus africanus by Raymond Dart.  Obviously, this Taung child was nobody’s ancestor!  But was its species ancestral to ours?

This is a very interesting question,

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Why evolution isn’t “true”

How many people in the US, do you suppose, believe in evolution? According to a survey reported in The New Scientist in 2006, a high percentage don’t. Another survey carried out here, indicated that 50% of us Brits don’t either.

If only, as Ian Stewart reminded us in the 2009 Lunar Society Annual Lecture, it were zero percent who believed in evolution!

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Honorary Wizard of Unseen University & my family’s webbed toes

Who do you look like? Have you ‘inherited’ your Uncle’s ears or your grandmother’s smile?  In my case it is webbed toes – and before you ask, no, I’m a lousy swimmer.

It seems obvious that children look like their parents, but this is worth much more thought than many of us give it, and that’s where New Optimist contributor and Science of Discworld author, the reproductive biologist Professor Jack Cohen comes in.

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