re: #180 freetoken

TEACH THE CONTROVERSY!

/oops….

This controversy is much more esoteric and subtle than the creationism/evolution controversy.

Some basic facts are acknowledged by all:

- Our original proto-human ancestors evolved in East Africa.
- There was an original emigration from Africa which populated the world many hundreds of thousands of years ago.
- There was then a second emigration from Africa more recently, on the tens-of-thousands-of-years scale.

Everyone agrees on those points.

The point of contention is:

Did the first wave of African emigrants, the proto-humans, all die out? Or, did they interbreed to any extent with the second wave?

The mainstream theory is that they all died out. Most scientists subscribe to that theory. However, it is not unanimous, nor anywhere close to unanimous. A significant segment of the scientific community continues to unearth evidence of the survival of the original African emigrants.

Most recent DNA studies support, but do not prove, the mainstream theory.

Both sides have strong political motivations and biases — often contradictory. In the modern hyper-politicized world, one must now look at the politics of every scientist to see “where he’s coming from.” Unfortunate, but unavoidable.

I try to strip away the politics and weigh the evidence neutrally. I’m still undecided, but one fact keeps nagging at me: Men will screw anything given half a chance. We know that the two populations overlapped in many places around the world. What are the chances that these early men all took vows of abstinence and no sexual contact took place between the two groups?

Not bloody likely.

So, they had offspring, UNLESS they were not cross-fertile. Which also seems unlikely (see: mules, ligers, etc.).

The question, to my mind, remains unresolved.