Skulls Of Modern Humans And Ancient Neanderthals Evolved Differently Because Of Chance, Not Natural

Here's one for the darwinians to consider....

New research led by UC Davis anthropologist Tim Weaver adds to the evidence that chance, rather than natural selection, best explains why the skulls of modern humans and ancient Neanderthals evolved differently. The findings may alter how anthropologists think about human evolution.

There is more on the story here

Aye, genetic drift is an important process in evolution.

But it's not the only process. It would only be an issue if 'darwinists' thought that only natural selection existed in evolution.

ABE: here's a darwinist discussing Weaver's study, and pointing out its weaknesses:

John Hawks: Darwinist

[edit on 20-3-2008 by melatonin]

reply to post by melatonin


melatonin, hope you are well mate. Have read some of your thought provoking posts especially about Lysenko-ism. However, all that Lysenko seems to have done is to express Lamarckian inheritance in a dialectic framework. Not Hegel's version of dialactic thought but the more revolutionary Marxist version where the strong dominate and destroy the weak.

Back to the OP. I think that the model applied by the scientist made certain assumptions and that these must be evaluated before any firm conclusion can be made. For example:

Weaver et al. (2008) assume a model of "mutation-drift equilibrium." This is an assumption that the effective population size has not changed over time in the populations under consideration -- in this case, the Neandertal and human populations back at least as far as their common ancestor.

Also:

But their analysis assumes that genetic drift accounts for all changes. I don't deny the role of genetic drift, but I do deny that it explains much about recent skeletal evolution in humans. Random chance cannot do much in a very large population in a few hundred generations.

John Hawks weblog

I don't know if the population size estimates (from microsatellite DNA analysis) have any sound basis either but I can be persuaded otherwise.


Well done to Wales, mate. If it wasn't Scotland for the Rugby, then we would rather that you guys win.

reply to post by VIKINGANT


There's a sort of element of "chance" in that a species can adapt to its environment in any number of ways. There is no single "right answer" to adaptation.

Random evolution and natural selection go hand in hand. Some beers evolved to have short necks randomly some evolved to have long necks. When their environement changed to put all those collected beers in the cooler and the ice started to melt only the long necks survived.
Alfred from children of men said it best. I can't remember the line though. Something about chance and fate and strawberry cough wacky tobacy.