Genetic Eve Reflection #4

From studying the reading from this chapter various articles I have come to know many different types of hominids. This changes my standard paradigm where I believed present day man and the Neanderthal were the only two steps in the evolutionary chain. I believed that the Neanderthal had evolved from apes but I have come to know that our closet cousins are chimpanzees. Like the species Australopithecus aphaeresis who is somewhere in the middle between today’s man and a chimpanzee. These reading make me wonder when and how other species will evolve. Humans first evolved over 2 million years ago in Africa where we began to use tools. Homo habilis is the name given to these early humans meaning handy man. Proof that man originated in Africa was a skull of Homo erectus. Homo erectus was much more successful than Homo habilis. Perhaps Homo erectus survived longer than Homo habilis due to the fact that they could speak, even if it was very simple speech. Homo erectus spread to Europe and Asia and lasted longest in Asia. By using DNA scientist are able to trace the highest diversity of a various genes. Thus the highest genetic diversity should hold the oldest population. This is how we have now come to know that humans have been living in Africa longer than any other continent and then spread to all other parts of the world. To cement this fact scientist looked at the CD4 gene located in human chromosome 12. There were 24 different segments found in 1,600 individuals in 42 populations. Of these populations 21 of these segments were found in Africans while 3 to 2 were found in the rest of the populations. This argues that chromosome 12 has existed in Africans far longer and all other populations, which then branched off from them originally. Man once believed that the world was flat, learning that it was indeed round changed the course of the society forever. Many people who are deeply religious and believe god created man will be deeply changed by factual information about the origins of man. They will either choose to questions there paradigms or to negative factual information in favor of religious beliefs.