h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A596171

OK, I am kind of ready for a flame war here, as the title may encompass more than the entry... maybe I should talk about pre-biots(sp?) and single cell to multi celluar evolution?

they gave out on horizon last night that lucy might not be the direct ancestory of humans.

What has happened it that last year they found another proto-human of about the same age, which could only have been a cousin of lucy.

this means that we are almost certainly decended from one of the parallel branches containing either lucy or the one discovered last year, or another currently unknown branch of the family tree, but we can only be decended from one of them.

I read that all Europeans and persons of european ancestry are descended from eight women.

Clearly you've got all the knwoledge about the subject you could want, but this article really is a bit tricky to understand for laymen like me. S'good for a reference guide for people researching the subject, but not as an informative article for laymen.

Hi Will. There are a few typos here and there that need sorting out, but other than that this is a fair stab. It's a very difficult subject for people to understand without diagrams, so maybe you could slot in an external link to a diagram somewhere. Also you should perhaps think about mentioning how few fossils there are for any given species of Homonidae. The fractional nature of the evidence leaves a huge gap for speculation, and the possibility that *we haven't found our ancestor yet*. (XYROTH'S posting being a good example. Every time we have a good solid picture of events, some little Homonid pops up and we have to start again).

THEANTHROPE - According to this theory Europeans are descended from 8 *genetic types* not 8 individuals. Although that makes for better press. (Similar to that of the Mitochodrial Eve miss-understanding making better press than the actual data. Although having said that, there are professional palaeo-anthropologists who don't understand the theory. And those who think the whole idea is cobblers anyway).

So in all a good piece, but it does come across rather factually for a science that is more speculative than most.

Thanks for the feedback guys... I'll see what I can do. I have been off line because of personal emergency, but I hope to get back to this before too long.

Hi Will of God,
Certainly an ambitious topic you've taken on here. Feels like another paragraph or two of commentary would be helpful to the layman. Maybe something as has already been suggested about how little hominid fossil evidence there really is making the whole tracing of the family tree thing a difficult piece of detective work. And maybe a bit more about some of the more famous branches of the family. Or some of the famous names who've worked in the field.
The facts you've got there are great If you add a lighter paragraph or two it might help keep your average reader with you through the Latin lists.
Whatever, your choice, well done so far
MC

Yes Will. It's a broad topic, and I apologise if I came across as patronising. Keep going on it, I think it'll make a good entry.

A couple of questions...(I know you could write an article on them alone )
What are the methods used to compare the different ancestors?
Is it a morphological technique or have genetic techniques come to the fore?

Some of the names of poeple might help as would locations or geographic distributions of the various ancestor species would be good info to add I think.

Your h2g2 internal links don't show up on the right hand side - you don't need the full URL, as the pure A-number will do the trick: Humans

typo: accespted -> accepted; sme time -> same time

I'm not trying to lure you into a h2g2 University project, but a few words about the different homo somethingiensis IMHO would be an improvement

A while back, there were some news articles stating that all humans could be traced back to a group of 20 or so women about 60,000 years ago.

Lucy and her rival were placed by Horizon at 8-10 million years ago. They were not common ancestors 'of the chimanzees' as you (strangely) put it, nor of humans and chimpanzees, because they both walked upright, (unlike chimpanzees and other apes).

Are you sure you know enough about this subject? With the greatest of respect, it's pretty evident that you need to do a lot more research.

H.

Hmmm... I don't think I said that "Lucy" was an ancestor of chimps... but that chimps and homo had common ancestors... "Humans are thought1 to have decended from a common ancestor of modern day chimpainzes about 6 million years ago" IE both Humans and chimps had some ancestor in common... dosen't mention "lucy" at all.

as to my knowledge... a lot of my research is out of recent journals.. which place "Lucy" most recently (at the time of writting) at 5 to 3 million years ago... these numbers change fairly frequently.

Again, thanks for all the comments. I never feel slighted by people giving their observations and opinions, so don't worry about offending me.

A lot of what you guys have pointed out is very helpful and will almost certainly be used to make this entry better. I still don't have time to start with those changes, but it shall be done.

After watching a couple of hours of documentary on the subject of evolution, I can say that while the data you have here is very useful, it should go into a larger entry or group of entries.

I've been thinking about attempting an overview of evolution (a generalized entry) but we'll need specialized entries for it to link to. Maybe something like this...

• Overview
• Evolution of single-celled organisms and plant life
• Mammals
• Reptiles
• Insects
• etc.

Because the h2g2 editor types would like to keep entry sizes down, each of these would have to be a separate entry at least - if we're going to talk about the evolution of whales from bovine animals, and the evolution from reptiles into birds, we'll have to find a demarcation somewhere to keep things under control.

I applaud your efforts, Will. What's your status right now?

I agree with Lentilla. Sadly, the author appears to have gone AWOL -- is this one flea market bound?


Mikey

Given the latest journal entry on the author's space, he appears to be back on h2g2 again. Still wanting to pursue peer review with this one, Will?

Mikey

First of all Will, I give you some credit for undertaking this one, I am more glad to see someone attempting it. My suggestions (as an anthropologist):
Sections:
Primate characteristics, What makes primates special
The 'Great Apes' (Gorilla, Chimp, orangutan, gibbon & man)
-Gorilla gorilla
-Pan paniscus & P. troglodytes (chimp & bonobo)
-etc...
Possible human ancestors (australopithecines, kenyanthropus, ardipithicines, homo habilis-sapiens sapiens including sapiens neandertalensis & sapiens heidlebergensis (which is currently lumped under neandertalensis))
Possible human evolution patterns/theories: Out of Africa v. simultaneous evolution etc..
Most likely pattern of human ancestry & cultural evolution (tool kits, civilization, agriculture, fire possesion, etc..)
Dead ends
Modern man
What makes a primate fossil a candidate for possible human ancestor status (morphological changes in the skeleton, etc..)

I would be more than willing (no pun intended, Will) to help you undertake this entry. Or if you have washed your hands of it, I would be willing to take over. Yay for anthropology! I was thinking about creating an entry regarding the field of Anthropology, maybe I will just have to do that...

Maybe something about the key differences between humans and the most closley related living species could be useful.
Whatever people may think of the underlying aquatic ape theory, Elaine Morgan's 'Descent of Woman' seems to cover many of these differences in some depth.

Hello all,

Just read this PR thread and wondered if it might be useful to mention this Uni Project: Evolution vs Creation A672248

I was involved in some of the threads that resulted in it being set up, though I'm not contributing to it. Perhaps WoG might like to see if this fits in there?

Just a thought
Spiff