Blacks, Whites And Asians Have Different Ancestors �- And Did Not Come From Africa, Claims Scientist

[Moontanman]

Blacks, whites and Asians have different ancestors – and did not come from Africa, claims scientist

 

Geographer claims the races evolved from different ancestors.

 

A public claim by a fellow of the prestigious Royal Geographic Society that humans did not all come from Africa — and that blacks, whites and Asians have different ancestors — has been dismissed by world experts as “dangerous”, “wrong” and “racist”.

 

In a paper widely trumpeted and due for release in book form, Akhil Bakshi, the leader of a recent major scientific expedition supported by India’s prime minister, claims that “Negroid”, “Caucasian” and “Mongoloid” peoples are not only separate races but separate species, having evolved on different continents. Responding to the claims — developed while Bakshi led the Gondwanaland expedition from India to South Africa — Professor Lee Berger, a leading palaeoanthropologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, immediately insisted that, there were no fundamental differences between the races and that all humans had the same genetic and physical roots in Africa.

 

 

http://www.articlesafari.com/2010/09/whites-asians-did-not-come-from-africa/

[Tormod]

And a field day for racists all over the world...just look at the trackbacks on that story!

[Ken]

The estimate time course of Gondwanaland ranges from 600 million years ago to 30 million years ago. That would put the initial point of evolutionary departure of human races at least 30 million years ago.

 

It seems unlikely that parallel, but independent evolutionary processes could result in separate groups that are the same species. In genetic terms a species consists of groups that can interbreed (i.e., can produce viable offspring). Differences between populations of the same species that are physically separated for long periods of time tend to experience genetic drift resulting in some phenotypic differentiation but are still the same species.

 

Consider that the genome of Homo sapiens and Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) are about 96% identical and they constitute separate species that developed in generally overlapping geographic distribution. It suggests that the notion of the independent development of the same species from different proto-hominids is extremely unlikely in the case of just two groups, and extraordinarily unlikely for four such independent groups.

 

Is anyone really surprised that a Geographer could get the Anthropology wrong? ;)

[HydrogenBond]

One interesting point he makes is how did the Aborigine get to Australia from Africa? The first Aborigine settlements appear to be about 50K-60K years ago. The oldest boats ever found in archeological excavation were log-boats from about 10K-12K years ago.

 

Another observation is most primates species are found in Southeast Asia instead of Africa. There is a theory migration may have been possible during the Pleistocene epoch from 14K to 2.5M years ago, during the last ice age, when the oceans were lower. Even then, however, there was a deep ocean trench between Bali and Lombok that has been said to be responsible for the failure of Asian fauna to migrate south to Australia and Papua New Guinea (The Wallace Line).

[Ken]

One interesting point he makes is how did the Aborigine get to Australia from Africa? The first Aborigine settlements appear to be about 50K-60K years ago. The oldest boats ever found in archeological excavation were log-boats from about 10K-12K years ago.

 

Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl. B)

 

Another observation is most primates species are found in Southeast Asia instead of Africa.

 

Can you provide a reference for that? I haven't been able to find any primate species population frequencies by location. In general, most primate species occur in tropical latitudes in various types of forest environments in Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and South America.

 

There is a theory migration may have been possible during the Pleistocene epoch from 14K to 2.5M years ago, during the last ice age, when the oceans were lower. Even then, however, there was a deep ocean trench between Bali and Lombok that has been said to be responsible for the failure of Asian fauna to migrate south to Australia and Papua New Guinea (The Wallace Line).

 

Why assume that there had to be connecting land passages for migration? There are lots of ways that small groups, or small populations, could have been trapped on naturally occurring "rafts" of inter-twined roots and branches and been carried across spans of water. That speculation is easily as valid as the one you present.

 

BTW, despite appearances I'm not stalking you. :) You seem to write on topics that happen to be interests of mine.

[Boerseun]

How do the explain the ability of whites, blacks and asians to interbreed, if they're separate species?

[CraigD]

;) Rael agrees with Bakshi in principle, though he claims “Earth’s seven races were created by scientists from another planet.” IMHO, Rael and Bakshi’s “theories” are of about equal scientific merit – though in fairness to Rael, his is more popular with the general public. ;)

 

Seriously, I could understand these silly claims having been made 50 years ago, before we could actually analyze human DNA. For Bakshi to make the claims he does, he must deny the existence of modern microbiology.

 

I’m not offended by the possibility that Baskhi is a racist. That his claim is essentially anti-scientific, yet taken seriously, does.

 

The idea is simply too silly, IMHO, to be dangerous.

[C1ay]

I wonder where the genetic bottleneck caused by the eruption of Mt. Toba fits into this theory?