Are Other Hominins (Hominoids) Alive Today?

[Guest]

If the papers are so self-obviously flawed, then it should be a simple matter for you to establish this.

It is, and I did.

1) How do we rule out human feet as a source for the smaller tracks included in the study?

A: Because of the biometric ratio of width to length which Fahrenbach has identified as being characteristic of a sasquatch track.

Pray tell, how did Fahrenbach establish that? Simple, he plotted the length of footprints that people said were bigfoot prints:

2) How do we rule out the presence of hoaxed tracks in the sample dataset.

A: Because hoaxed tracks would throw the distribution numbers off statistically, creating a jagged "mountain range" (my term, Fahrenbach referred to it as a "series of sharp peaks" if I recall correctly) distribution instead of a single, smooth bell-curve distribution.

Oh, so Fahrenbach has somewhere published on the statistical distribution of known hoaxed bigfoot prints? (Other than the analysis you're talking about I mean.)

I can't even tell if this logic is merely circular or if the bigger problem is that it rests on an assumption so obviously pulled out of thin air to aid Fahrenbach's subjective pre-conclusion that his data consisted of authentic bigfoot prints.

[Guest FuriousGeorge]

Exactly Saskeptic. That's what I meant when I posted the ROFL emoticon one page back.

[Guest Cervelo]

Well the argument/position is certainly repeatable!

[Guest BFSleuth]

I think this thread has wandered again into the realm of circular argument whether BF exists. The OP intent is to discuss Dr. Meldrum's paper regarding the discovery of fairly recent hominoids and whether and how it may be possible for all other species within the genus homo to go extinct.

Discussions about the value of peer review or other side topics should go to another thread.

[Guest]

Removed per mod request, though I would point out that it is virtually impossible to debate conclusions or questions without debating the means by which they are reached.

Edited April 26, 2012 by Mulder

[Guest Kronprinz Adam]

New research indicates the theory that a meteor impact caused megafauna extinction from 10,000 to 40,000 years ago may not be valid:

http://www.huffingto...tml?ref=science

I seriously think that there was some major climatic or environmental change (soon after the retreat of glaciers) that wiped out large mammals and other species (giant turtles, large birds)...so they could not adapt to the new conditions and perished....

Giant animals (which probably also grew slowly) dissapeared selectively, but all minor species survived (for example, teratorns died, but all other condors and vultures survived very well)...but I think also the killing of these animals made by humans just accelerated their extinction....

[Guest]

Australia's megafauna started to disappear after man arrived there. While there were some environmental changes at the time they were not as significant as human hunting and fire. Moas continued to exist past the ice ages intact apparently until humans arrived on New Zealand's shores. Elephant birds continued to survive alongside hippos and giant lemurs on Madagascar until humans arrived. I think man is the greater of the two issues facing megafauna. Their slower reproductive rates make them more vulnerable than smaller faster breeding animals.

[Guest BlurryMonster]

Actually, the biggest reason for the moa going extinct wasn't people themselves, but the rats they brought to New Zealand. Polynesians used to take them along in boats as food (before you cringe, think about it - it's portable protein), and they let them go once they found a stable form of food in New Zealand, obviously the moa were part of that. The problem with letting the rats free was that Moa nested on the ground, which left their eggs open to predation from the rats. Basically, rats ended up eating all their eggs, and no offspring could grow up to carry on a breeding population.

Did humans kill them off? Kind of - more idirectly than anything else. Would the moa have died off without the rats eating all their eggs? Maybe, but that's debatable. It's very common on this forum to paint Homo sapiens sapiens as an incredibly violent and destructive force, but that's really not true. We're more complicated than that, and I don't think you guys give us enough credit. Everything kills something else, we just have an ability to do it more, but that hardly makes us evil. I think any other animal in our position would be exactly the same.

Edited May 1, 2012 by BlurryMonster

[Guest BFSleuth]

I've come across this rather interesting article:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/humanitys-best-friend-how-dogs-may-have-helped-humans-beat-the-neanderthals/257145/

This talks about a new hypothesis that our domination of Neanderthal, one of the competitive hominids to HSS, was due to our domestication of dogs. This makes sense, because with dogs we became better hunters, had protection and early warning from danger, and had service animals that would do work for us. They mentioned how some plains Indians bred large, powerful dogs for dragging or carrying loads prior to the introduction of horses in North America.

The article also mentions the advantage of the whites of our eyes in silent communication for a hunt. I've noticed that many primitive tribes have very expressive use of the whites of their eyes as well.

This history of cooperation between man and dog may have some bearing regarding the behavior of BF vis a vis dogs. They may associate dogs with humans, or have some level of understanding that hunting dogs represent a threat to themselves and/or their food sources.

[Guest BFSleuth]

News article in the Sacramento Bee about Dr. Meldrum's research and the difficulties he's faced.

Note the following quote:

"Each time you get these (different species) pushing closer to the present, you have to ask, 'why do we assume we're the only ones?'" - Meldrum

[Guest]

What irks me is the lazy conclusion that because evidence of Homo <x> is found as recently as <y> thousand years ago, then this is the period to be marked as when Homo <x> died out.

It's nothing of the sort. It proves only that Homo <x> was alive at that time.

If there were a small population of 1000 Neanderthals alive somewhere in the world just 5,000 years ago, what would be the odds of stumbling upon any of their remains? Pretty tiny I would think.

[Cotter]

Hi folks. I wanted to touch upon some math here.

According to Wikipedia, bipedal apes shared the planet with humans as long as 3 million years ago.

http://en.wikipedia....human_evolution

Some more recent discoveries have shown that other bipedal primate fossils have been dated to 10,000 years ago.

Some quick math, using 3 million data points (implied), that leaves us with 96.66666% of the time of documented human evolution that we have shared the planet with another form(s) of walking bipedal primate (humans).

SOOOO....I have to ask, really, where would the 'smart' bet be placed?

I've seen absolutely no tangible evidence, much less proof that shows that a.) there was a die-off within the last 10,000 years of average side land mammals or b.) that bipedal primates were eradicated in the last 10,000 years.

I'll save some folks the trouble and say that a. and b. above can be applied to BF existing....so then, I'll refer back to the top calculation and the 96.666% of the documented history of bipedal fossils indicates that there should be and were multiple bipedal primates on the earth.

This one aspect of this phenomenon has not been addressed thoroughly by those advocating on the 3.333% side of the argument.

Thoughts on any of that?

Edited September 4, 2012 by Cotter

[Guest BlurryMonster]

Thoughts? If you're saying what I think you are, your argument has some flaws. First off, it's a logical fallacy to assume that because something has happened in the past that it needs to happen now. If I have a car that starts 98% of the time, there's no guarantee that it will start the next time I try. Dinosaurs lived a lot longer than we have, does that mean they still have to exist?

Don't forget that the only reason people think any ancient homids existed in the first place is that we've found bones of them. No one has seen a Homo habilis running round Africa and making Olduwan tools. Fossil records are all we have to say that these things existed, when the record stops, it's pretty safe to assume that the species did as well. You don't really need to see proof that the died off because such evidence really wouldn't exist. You have to extropolate that they died off based on when the record stops, and the record stopping is very much tangible evidence that species died out.

I also think you phrased your proposal in a really clumsy way. Humans weren't walking side by side with other hominins for 3 million years. Bipedal apes (not all of them are in the Homo genus, by the way) have existed for a really long time (possibly as far back as 8 million years ago), but humans (H.s.s. - us) have only existed for 200,000 years. Yes, other hominins existed for much of that time, but whether they were in direct contact with H. sapiens is largely debatable, and even in cases where contact is known to have happened, the extent and duration contested.

[Guest]

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm returning to human beginnings/anthropology after a 25 year hiatus. So a quick question, which is not loaded in any way. What are the numbers like for recovered relics of distinct hominin individuals? I'm pretty sure for Denisova it's one (tooth and finger bone?), but what about, say, Homo Neanderthalensis? Are we talking bones/teeth from just a handful of subjects, or hundreds?

Just curious, from the statistical perspective.

[BobZenor]

With habilis it was assumed with no real basis that they went extinct or actually more commonly believed to have evolved into erectus until they found one that cohabited with erectus. It was also believed, primarily for political reasons from Leaky and others in East Africa that we evolved there on the savannah as the rising mountains from the rift caused a climate change that changed forest to open savannahs. That notion has largely been discredited by recent data like some relating to Ardi. The fact is that it was just a fluke of geology that made the rift one of the rare places that had volcanic eruptions millions of years ago for fossils to be buried and where 2 million year old sediment for example is exposed. There is no reason to assume that the range of habilis was limited to where the fossils were found so it is a huge assumption to assume they went extinct because of a lack of fossils in a certain region. People should consider the limitation of the fossil record and use basic biology to fill in some of gaps even though that requires speculation. For some reason most paleontologists seem to think it is logical to assume they found the last member of a species even when the number of fossils is very small. My brother Jim and I used to joke about that every time they found a new fossil. The speculation using basic biology to fill in the gaps is no greater than assuming that humans evolved in east Africa where the rift valley is now. It seems like pretty slim evidence when you consider the odds of us evolving only where fossils are likely to be found which is geologically rare.