What do you base that theory upon? Our fully articulating shoulders strongly suggests a past that included a significant amount of time swinging in trees. That would mean forest or savannah. What physical characteristics do we and any other apes have that suggest a coastal origin?

It could be argued that the oldest remains being in Africa and getting younger with distance away from Africa is a coincidence, but with both homo erectus and homo sapiens? That is pushing the boundaries of coincidence a little far.

Convergent? When I was in university, such things were called evolutionary analogies. There is nothing complicated about it. Different organisms independently adapt similar features. Insect and bird wings both provide the ability to fly, but that is their only similarity. They are completely different structurally.

Other than having identical skeletons, and the human and chimpanzee genomes being about 96% identical, there is no reason to believe that we are related. Species having the same parts is called an evolutionary homology. It indicates a shared common ancestor at some time in the past. Evolutionary homologies are the opposite of evolutionary analogies.

So why even bring creationsim up in this thread when it is specifically about discussing evolution?

Much of the rift valley isn't near a coast, the specimins found in South Africa are not near the coast

I agree the sample size is to small but it is the only evidence we have so far.

So are you suggesting that multiple genus and or species evolved into fewer or one at the same time?

Aren't all mammals are related at some level?

Please forget religion, political, and conspiracy discussions and leave this to evolution and science.

I'll have to look that discovery up and see what they say then.

It does throw a spanner into the works but you'll see many old timers defend their theories to the last and not give up.

I'm jealous

You see this is also part of the problem and doesn't help. "The basic fact of evolution may be incontrovertible" the thing is because of the gaps it isn't. I don't doubt evolution, I wouldn't have studied it and maintain an interest in it if I did, I just don't have that time and energy, but I do doubt the interpretation of it.

I'll watch that later, I have lectures to listen to first. Should be doing that now actually, and, your welcome.

The problem is actually that Athiesm isn't part of the scope of this thread and starting a flamewar about atheism vs creationism is not needed.

When I move into my new residence new week, I shall have access to my library. I believe the details are in one of my books. (I am getting too old to remember what I have.)

Like the Clovis First theory in the Americas.

1) What missing link? I thought I covered that in my first post.
2) When did evolution become the product of atheism? It is a theory to explain observed phenomena. A theory, which by the way, has been accepted by most Christians as being the product of their deity's design.
3) Most importantly, this thread is a discussion about the various aspects of evolutionary theory and how it pertains to humans. The purpose is to discuss the relationship between theory and available evidence. It is not a religious thread. There are already several of those to participate in if you want discuss religion.

That would be appreciated, thanks.

Mike Morwood had a theory that some of the people of Tiera Del Fuego at the southern tip of South America have genetic links to Indigenous Australians. He posited that they were like a remnant population of a much earlier migration. I'll see if I can find the video where it was mentioned and I'll post it up if I can.

+1

*sigh* I knew it would eventually happen but I didn't think it would happen in the first 24 hours.

That is interesting, since I was unaware of any human remains being found.

The evidence of an earlier arrival is overwhelming, but the Clovis First proponents refuse to abandon the theory. People have been in Australia for at least 50,000 years. New Guinea and Australia were part of a single land mass and only separated from the mainland by a few miles of water, but the people still had to cross water to get to what is now New Guinea (60, 80,000 years ago?). To get to North America they only had to walk across a thousand-mile-wide piece of dry land that joined the Americas and Asia into a single land mass, but it could not have happened before 14,000 years ago! 18,000 year-old hearth remains in Pennsylvania be damned.

Do not under-estimate the determination of fundamentalists.

What is there to discuss !

the only things are EXACTLY when a spices diverged on " The Tree"
what EXACT branch it IS on and just HOW many years ago it happened.

The very fine tuning that profs., and grad / post grad students LOVE to publish papers on

Whatever people want to discuss with regards to evolution and science, if you don't want to no one is forcing you to.

Not at all, there is also what caused it to happen, where it happened and a myriad of other questions that crop in in a discussion.

Here is an old BBC news article on this idea. The video mentioned in the article isn't the one I was thinking of but I'm going to watch it anyway.

Here is another article on it. I'm still looking for actual academic papers to post excerpts from.

Not true. They do not have identical skeletons and that percentage is "functional" DNA and does not account for gene expression, make sure to see one of the articles I posted which says that at least 80% of the human genome has been found to be function, but only recently. Cite a source so we can see exactly what they are talking about.

Also note that humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, while chimps and other great apes have 24. This suggests that there is a common ancestor, and I agree. However, this ancestor must be found before any more discussion.