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Author | Topic: Human quadrupeds discovered in Turkey | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
roxrkool Member (Idle past 1017 days) Posts: 1497 From: Nevada Joined: |
Whoa.
Human quadrupeds discovered in Turkey
Tue Mar 7, 7:56 AM ET LONDON (AFP) - The discovery of a Turkish family that walks on all fours could aid research into the evolution of humans. Researchers believe the five brothers and sisters, who can walk naturally only on all fours, may provide new information on how humans evolved from four-legged hominids to walk upright. Nicholas Humphrey, evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, told The Times the discovery opened "an extraordinary window on our past". "I do not think they were designed to be quadrupeds by their genes, but their unique genetic make-up allowed them to be," he said. "It has produced an extraordinary window on our past. It is physically possible, which noone would have guessed from the [modern] human skeleton." The siblings, the subject of a new BBC documentary to be aired on March 17, suffer from a genetic abnormality that may prevent them from walking upright. Instead, they use their palms like heels with their fingers sticking up from the ground. The BBC said the documentary would contribute to fierce scientific debate and raised profound questions about what it is to be human. Humphrey, who has contributed to the documentary, believes the style of walking may be a throwback to a form of behaviour abandoned by humans more than three million years ago. Two sisters and one son have only ever walked on two hands and two feet, while another daughter and son occasionally walk on two feet. All five are mentally retarded and have problems with language as a result of a form of underdevelopment of the brain known as cerebellar ataxia. However Humphrey told the Times their behaviour may be partly the result of their parents tolerating the behaviour in childhood. They are aged between 18 and 34 and live in southern Turkey, athough the makers of the documentary have not disclosed their exact location. "They walk like animals and that's very disturbing at first. But we were also very moved by this family's tremendous warmth and humanity," Jemima Harrison of Passionate Productions told the Times.
[SOURCE]
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JustinC Member (Idle past 4872 days) Posts: 624 From: Pittsburgh, PA, USA Joined: |
I really don't think there is good evidence that this is "reverse" evolution and I don't know why a reputable scientist like Humphrey's is implying such a thing.
They walk in the same manner as some infants do, called the bear-crawl. This is when they crawl using their feet instead of their knees. All the children in the family crawled this way when they were younger. They quadrupeds also have cerebellum problems which result in ataxia. Isn't it more logical that they just felt more comfortable with the bear-crawl due to their ataxia and that the family environment was conducive to them maintaining it? There's no significant morphological differences between the quadrupeds and us bipeds, correct? I think there needs to be more research done before someone can say that this can shed light on human evolution.
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roxrkool Member (Idle past 1017 days) Posts: 1497 From: Nevada Joined: |
I agree. It is way too early to suggest this is evidence of any sort of evolution and that this is likely the result of a brain disorder.
Interesting, though.
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rgb Inactive Member |
JustinC
quote:Having been misquoted by the media more than once, I can tell you that such a news source can most of the time less than reliable on accurate information. More often than not, they like to exaggerate things a little by implying beyond what is there. The article said: quote:While professor Tan may have said something similar, I doubt that that is what he was trying to say. Tan might have suggested that mutations may have caused the individuals to behave like what we suspect to be human ancestors. Also, he might have suggested that mutations may have caused reactivation of long thought to be dead genes. He might even have suggested that mutations may have taken away certain genetic characteristics that make up a modern human. But the way the paragraph was written, the reporter seems to imply that this is some kind of reverse evolution taking place. Especially the following paragraph:
quote:I honestly don't think Humphrey really meant what the article implies. The point is this article is still too vague for us to draw any kind of specific conclusion on what the scientists really think. What we have is an article written by a reporter who writes sensational news for a living.
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JustinC Member (Idle past 4872 days) Posts: 624 From: Pittsburgh, PA, USA Joined: |
Very true. It seems like he was saying something a lot less extravagent in Human Hand Walkers: Five Siblings Who Never Stood Up
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JustinC Member (Idle past 4872 days) Posts: 624 From: Pittsburgh, PA, USA Joined: |
quote:This is what I meant by term "reverse" evolution. I don't really like the term, but it does seem to have some utility when describing this type of phenomena.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1372 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
quote: the tool fans on this board are not suprised. tool toured with the contortionist group "osseus labyrint" for a while, and they were featured in one of the music videos... ... walking on all fours, in much the same manner. only on tip-toes and finger tips. although these guys look like they walk much like baboons do. i doubt it's an "evolutionary throwback," personally. it's a behaviour. and it can be learned, and practiced by normal average human beings, with a lot of stretching. This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 03-07-2006 10:33 PM
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DeclinetoState Member (Idle past 6466 days) Posts: 158 Joined: |
... walking on all fours, in much the same manner. only on tip-toes and finger tips. although these guys look like they walk much like baboons do. i doubt it's an "evolutionary throwback," personally. it's a behaviour. and it can be learned, and practiced by normal average human beings, with a lot of stretching.
Intoxication can produce similar results.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1372 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Intoxication can produce similar results. i doubt it -- it's a very specific position. most people cannot put their hands and feet flat on the floor at same time, with both arm and legs extended. the ligaments and whatnot have to be really stretched out.
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DeclinetoState Member (Idle past 6466 days) Posts: 158 Joined: |
I said the results could be similar, not identical.
There's some leeway there.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1433 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
also in answer to PNT Handwalkers -devolution, God has a sense of humor?
Monkey apes humans by walking on two legsquote: There could be behavioral reasons for taking an upright stance that is then passed down via cultural learning rather than an evolutionary mutation event. It's just a matter of perspective? Enjoy. we are limited in our ability to understand by our ability to understand RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ... to share.
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JavaMan Member (Idle past 2347 days) Posts: 475 From: York, England Joined: |
I saw the BBC documentary mentioned in this article. It was clear from the documentary that the children had just never been encouraged to walk upright (they were all mentally retarded). The intervention of a physiotherapist very soon had them beginning to walk upright.
The documentary itself is very moving. You actually end up being appalled by most of the scientists, who all seem much too easily seduced by the notion of evolutionary throwbacks. When you see the brothers and sisters walking it's pretty obvious, even to a layman, that they're normal bipedal humans crawling on all fours rather than some strange throwbacks with a quadrupedal action. 'I can't even fit all my wife's clothes into a suitcase for travelling. So you want me to believe we're going to put all of the planets and stars and everything into a sandwich bag?' - q3psycho on the Big Bang
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Chiroptera Inactive Member |
Don't show this to the evo-psych people. I'd hate to have to see them try to spin why there is a gene that makes people want to have sex with certain other people but there is no gene that makes people perform the most basic of human activities.
Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus
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randman  Suspended Member (Idle past 4927 days) Posts: 6367 Joined: |
This somehow relates to evolution. Let's see. If someone is allergic to fruit, are we going to say that this is indicative of hominids evolution when people moved from eating berries and fruit to becoming meat heaters?
More stretching way past what the data is, and evo reliance on imagination....edit to add, glad to see some evos here seem to agree in this instance that this really doesn't relate to evolution. Edited by randman, : No reason given.
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