Fossil Hominids - an Empirical Premise of the Descriptive Definition of homo sapiens

1970 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-176
Author(s):  
Piotr Lenartowicz ◽  
Jolanta Koszteyn
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Biological Knowledge ◽  
Fossil Hominids ◽  
Fossil Remains ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Modem Human ◽  
Descriptive Definition

Since the discovery of the Neandertal bones 1856 (cfr Toussaint, 1996), the extremely old, fragmentary fossil remains of hundreds of man-like bodies have been discovered in Europe, Asia, and Africa (cfr Bonjean, 1996). Even the oldest ones - usually the most incomplete - look man-like and „un-apish", even to a layman, if compared with a modem apish and human correlate. Sometimes, in the vicinity of these remains, primitive stone tools or the evidence of their production have been found. At present, it seems absolutely certain — within the limits of our present physical and biological knowledge - that at least four million years ago, in Africa, some creatures resembling modern man were living, and that at least two and half million years ago, in Africa, stone tools were produced. In contrast with the firm, scientifically-arguable belief that all modem human tribes - however different they are - belong to a single species (cfr Littlefield et al., 1982; Marks, 1995), in paleoanthropology an equally firm scientific belief is maintained that the extinct man-like forms belong to several different, „presapient", „prehuman'', more ape-like species (cfr Wood, 1996).

scholarly journals The Principle of Continuous Biological Information Flow as the Fundamental Foundation for the Biological Sciences. Implications for Ageing Research

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xavi Marsellach
Keyword(s):  
Biological Sciences ◽  
Biological Information ◽  
Biological Knowledge ◽  
Phenotypic Characteristics ◽  
Apparent Contradiction ◽  
Current State ◽  
The Face ◽  
Unique Definition ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Flow Of Information

The current state of biological knowledge contains an unresolved paradox: life as a continuity in the face of the phenomena of ageing. In this manuscript I propose a theoretical framework that offers a solution for this apparent contradiction. The framework proposed is based on a rethinking of what ageing is at a molecular level, as well as on a rethinking of the mechanisms in charge of the flow of information from one generation to the following ones. I propose an information-based conception of ageing instead of the widely accepted damage-based conception of ageing and propose a full recovery of the chromosome theory of inheritance to describe the intergenerational flow of information. Altogether the proposed framework allows a precise and unique definition of what life is: a continuous flow of biological information. The proposed framework also implies that ageing is merely a consequence of the way in which epigenetically-coded phenotypic characteristics are passed from one generation to the next ones.

scholarly journals Arguments that Prehistorical and Modern Humans Belong to the Same Species

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Kühne
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Homo Erectus ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Homo Neanderthalensis ◽  
Out Of Africa

I argue that the evidence of the Out-of-Africa hypothesis and the evidence of multiregional evolution of prehistorical humans can be understood if there has been interbreeding between Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens at least during the preceding 700,000 years. These interbreedings require descendants who are capable of reproduction and therefore parents who belong to the same species. I suggest that a number of prehistorical humans who are at present regarded as belonging to different species belong in fact to one single species.  

CRISPR Creations and Human Rights

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-252
Author(s):  
Margaret Foster Riley
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Universal Declaration ◽  
Definition Of

Abstract When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948, the definition of human was uncontroversial. It included all members of homo sapiens regardless of gender, ethnicity, race or religion and it did not include animals. In the decades since then, who—or what—should be included in that definition has become less clear. Recently some scholars have argued that some animals should be accorded human rights of liberty and equality. This paper considers what characteristics and qualities should be required for a bearer of human rights. To do that, the paper examines beings who might occupy the space between animals and homo sapiens—a de-extincted Neanderthal or a “humanzee,”—both of which are at least theoretically possible with new technology. It concludes that the cognitive and moral abilities to be both a beneficiary and a contributor to a human polity is a central part of being a bearer of human rights in this context. It determines that a humanzee, and possibly a de-extincted Neanderthal, might have those capabilities. The best way to respect such human rights in those beings would be not to create them.

The Last Threshold

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Dambricourt Malassé
Keyword(s):  
Nervous System ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Threshold Effects ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Base Of The Skull

Anne Dambricourt Malassé argues for a morphological definition of Homo sapiens that allows us to see humans evolving through the straightening of the base of the skull, a result of the growing complexity of the nervous system, which led to a succession of threshold effects.

Population Control: Natural versus Human

1993 ◽  
Author(s):  
Garrett Hardin
Keyword(s):  
Exponential Growth ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Population Control ◽  
Single Species ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Gift ◽  
Functional Equivalent ◽  
Level Of Living ◽  
Over Time

Were we able to talk with other animals, it is extremely unlikely that we should hear them debating the problem of population control. They don't need to debate: nature solves the problem for them. And what is the problem? Simply this: to keep a successful species from being too successful. To keep it from eating itself out of house and home. And the solution? Simply predation and disease, which play the role that human beings might label "providence." As far as the written record reveals, no one recognized the self-elimination of a species as a potential problem for animals until the danger had become suspected among human beings. One of the earliest descriptions of this population problem for other animals was given by the Reverend Joseph Townsend, an English geologist. His key contribution was published in 1786, twelve years before Malthus's celebrated essay (Box 25-1). Townsend was dependent upon others for the outline of his story, and there is some question as to whether the details are historically correct. But the thrust of the story must be true: a single species (goats, in this case) exploiting a resource (plants) cannot, by itself, maintain a stable equilibrium at a comfortable level of living. The animals will either die after eating up all the food, or their numbers will fluctuate painfully. (Details differ, depending on the species and the environment.) Stability and prosperity require that the gift of exponential growth be opposed by some sort of countervailing force (predatory dogs, in Townsend's example). However deplorable predators may be for individuals who happen to be captured and eaten, for the prey population as a whole predators are (over time) a blessing. With millions of different species of animals there are many different particular explanations of how they manage to persist for thousands or millions of years. The species we are most interested in is, of course, Homo sapiens. A meditation on Townsend's account led to a challenging set of questions. "If all this great earth be no more than the Island of Juan Fernandes, and if we are the goats, how can we live "the good life" without a functional equivalent of the dogs? Must we create and sustain our own dogs? Can we do so, consciously? And if we can, what manner of beast will they be?"

Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de (1707–88)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Wokler
Keyword(s):  
Family Members ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Evolutionary Hypothesis ◽  
Dynamic Forces ◽  
Races Of Mankind ◽  
Definition Of

Both as a scientist and as a writer, Buffon was one of the most highly esteemed figures of the European Enlightenment. In depicting the perpetual flux of the dynamic forces of Nature, he portrayed the varieties of animal and vegetable species as subject to continual change, in contrast with Linnaeus, whose system of classification based on physical descriptions alone appeared timeless. But Buffon’s definition of a species in terms of procreative power excluded the evolutionary hypothesis that any species could become transformed into another. Hybrids, as imperfect copies of their prototypes, were in his scheme ultimately destined to become sterile rather than to generate fresh species. By virtue of the same definition, he judged that the different races of mankind formed family members of a single species, since the mating of humans of all varieties was equally fertile.

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