Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
But yes, we made progress in the sense that we evolved to live in all of the Earth’s extremes.

Yes, and we’ve wrecked every single one.  We can’t compare one species with another to say one is better than the other.  Like you say, each is optimised for their environment.

We’ve made progress – but in what kinds of…[Read more]

We did not “progress” relative to other apes. When we diverged we “went our separate paths”. But yes, we made progress in the sense that we evolved to live in all of the Earth’s extremes.

Reg,

On the right, Judeo-Christian values are out and Christian nationalism is in.

From the story:

This week, for example, Washington Post columnist Jason Willick looked at how Tucker Carlson has been pointedly criticizing the Hebrew Bible. He’s “shocked by the violence in it, and shocked by the revenge in it, the genocide in it” and empha…

[Read more]

Reg,

Chimps are not frozen in evolutionary time, stuck at a checkpoint on the way to being human. Modern chimps have been evolving for the exact same 6–8 million years since our lineages split from a shared common ancestor. They are not some sort of “old” humans or “failed humans”. They are modern chimpanzees and specialists in their own ecolo…

[Read more]

As I prepared Sunday School this week, I noticed that it had quite a few posts about Christian Nationalism. That got me thinking about how Ireland in the past functioned very much like a Christian Nationalist state, even if that term wasn’t used at the time. Not fascistic Christian Nationalism like the U.S. fringe wants today, but a soft tacit t…[Read more]

Have a great week everyone and a peaceful and pleasant Thanksgiving.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
But cooperative breeding, known as ‘alloparenting’, where individuals other than the biological mother help raise offspring did not start with them. Hominins before erectus already had extended childhoods, reduced canines, increased sociality, and group-based foraging, all of which support cooperative care. Homo ere…

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Our lineage split from the other apes circa 5–7 million years ago. That’s when the hominin line begins. Homo erectus appears much later, around 1.9 million years ago and evolved in Africa and yes, they were the first major successful wave to leave Africa. I think they first spread in Eurasia.

But cooperative breeding, known as ‘[Read more]

Apparently the first human species to make it out of Africa was Homo erectus, ~2 million years ago, and they were the first species to do cooperative breeding, meaning that a woman could have more than one child at once, because she got help in looking after them.  This meant that human children had longer in which to mature.

The human line must…[Read more]

Notice how dates are pushed back for the earliest fill in the blank? Big Bang. Human migration out of Africa. First humans in the Muricas. Fossils of hominids.