Ok first of all please realize that this is a web service intended for scientific discussions, meaning discussions of topics that are supported by hypothesis driven and evidence based scientific facts, by experienced scientists and students alike. Modern humans have evolved much like any other species, in response to environmental conditions and natural selective forces together with the powerful results of genetic drift and mutation. The presence of variation in each generation coupled with differential survival applies today, and applied historically, equally to the human lineages as to any other plant or animal lineage on earth. The evolutionary history and trajectory of hominins is in fact extremely well documented and fascinating.

This is a time where many powerful scientific tools have come of age, to paint by far the most detailed picture of human history to date, including advanced isotope analysis, comparative genomic DNA analysis including extraction of genetic material from teeth and bones of human remains that are 10's of thousands of years old, including multiple individuals of Neaderthal and Denisovan remains, plus material science where tools, food items and fabrics and other cultural artifacts can be identified and characterized by archeologists to provide the fullest possible picture of who these ancestors were, where they lived and came from and even how they lived. An outline of this rich and enormous subject along with a few details are provided bellow, and I am happy to provide references as well if you'd like to read more.

The lineage that includes our species is the Hominins, diverged from chimpanzee lineage ~7 Mya, but many hominin species, all but 1 in fact, went extinct.

The bipedal gait of hominids is considered by many physical anthropologists to have been a key innovation, why? Well in part because this adaptation in posture was driven initially by climate change, where a drying period caused the trees to begin to die back in the plains of eastern Africa, and this caused our ancestors to move down from the safely of the forest canopy, and freed up the hands, together with leading to specializations in the feet that allowed us to run long distances, and transition to hunting and consuming meat, a much higher nutrition value food relative to plant only diets, thought to be a key in development ofver many generations of larger brains. strategizing together was also important in taking down large animal prey, so cooperation became important as well and language likely began to evolve around this same period. So think about humans moving away from picking fruit and berries, roots and leaves, to hunting mastodons and ungulates. at the same time designing, making/using advanced tools occurred at the same time.

Human bipedality is reflected in many physical features, including:

1.pelvis is cup shaped to support spine

2.S-shaped lumbar region of the spine

3.foot structure where ligaments and tendons provide a physiological spring allowing speed and endurance

4.anterior position of the foramen magnum of the skull allowing us to face straight ahead

Natural Selection is still acting on humans in modern industrial societies despite medicine, hygiene & diet improvements. Many examples of ongoing evolution in humans are known to evolutionary and medical biologists. A few such examples are human blood cholesterol and height. The fitness function acting on total cholesterol for 3 generations of U.S. population between 1948 and 2008 has been demonstrated showing that fitness measured as reproductive success is higher for individuals with lower cholesterol.

The fitness of height in Finland has also been studied showing that taller individuals leave more offspring and have longer lifespans.

In order to answer this question we have to take into account two issues.

1.-Evolution is a very slow process to be able to appreciate it clearly with a human temporal scale.

2.-The selection mechanism has been modified by the cultural factor. In other words, modern human culture does not prioritize strength, the survival of the strongest; solidarity and mutual aid have been imposed instead. Therefore, the answer to this question may be given by the study of cultural evolution.

Brenden has answered this question fairly well but also remember that evolution never stops. If we do not see any evidence of morphological changes we must compare our characters with fossils of ancient humans and their ancestors. I am sure much evidence will merge or has already emerged. As evolution is slow but a continuous process our species has not had that many years to witness any changes in form from our recent ancestors but as the human population progresses through time future generations in the very distant future, may notice some changes - when I say distant future I mean hundreds of thousand of years from now. But, and this a very important BUT, don't only look for evidence of evolution in morphological characters alone but also changes in behavioural, physiological, biochemical, mental capacity, and other characters. Brenden has spoken about these but the several industrial revolutions we have experienced and the fifth which we are currently in, are direct evidence, in my opinion, of progressive human brain capacity development. Add to this the new tools or other endeavours that are emerging which are directly concurrent with this type of evolution. This alone is strong enough evidence for the evolution of our species in progress. Due to the fact that we have populated virtually every part of the globe and have developed ways and means to change or challenge our environment, natural selective forces operating on only phenotypic characters subjected to only environmental /factors or conditions, will not allow us to witness much changes physically, but looking at non-morphological characters, acted upon by genetic drift, mutations, etc. our species will continue to evolve. Besides the few examples pointed our by Brenden there are many others one can revert to.

I would like to insist on a characteristic of the human species that the technological development that provides survival without having to fight to satisfy basic needs. If we add to this that modern culture values solidarity aspects, mutual aid, social security systems, advances in medicine that are generalized for everyone, etc. then our situation in nature is different from the rest of animals with respect to the mechanisms of natural selection. Cultural and technological development have modified (perhaps deadened) the evolutionary development in humans.

Jose, you describe humans as generalist species that is adapted to a large range of environmental conditions as we are. This as opposed to specialized species that exist in a much narrower niche. Coyotes are generalists relative to wolves and so live under a wider variety of circumstances than do wolves and there are many more coyotes than wolves.

Our ability to extend our generalized status will be tested (and is being tested) a climate change provides a completely different set of selective pressures for us to reckon with. Whether some of us will turn out to be able adjust to the climate and the extinctions of some of our food sources and the necessarily more challenging competition among us will determine whether we are generalized enough at persist. Even extremely generalist species can meet their limits as earth continues to change.

Hello all; The general theme of this discussion sounds as if the entire population is exposed to the same set of stressors. That is surely not the case. Malaria resistance should be strongly selected for in tropical Africa but not in the central regions of North America. Likewise, any endemic pathogen in one region represents a local stressor. In a similar tone, Carbohydrate-rich diets in affluent societies have negative selective effects not experienced by people in the undernourished world. Lactose tolerance is an example of the very recent practice of dairying in only a few places.

These, and a host of other regionally different selective pressures are why people are so diverse around the world. There is no reason to think that these processes differ in any qualitative way today from the conditions that have always prevailed. The particular stressors come and go regionally and temporally but natural selection goes on apace. Best regards, Jim Des Lauriers

I agree with you James. But it is difficult to think that these regional differences among humans can generate new species.

To Adminiters of Researchgate. Why does not my answer have a "Recommend" or "Share" to my answer? What am I doing wrong?

I think it is not an excuse to claim that because evolution is slow and it takes millions of years then we cannot simply witness any change. Because if evolution is true, then we should not evolve at the same speed/time. Just as an example you may consider the fact that every second new babies are born even though it takes several months (7-9) from conception to delivery. What I want to point out is that even if evolution takes millions of years, we should have living species today that are partially humans. But there is absolutely nothing of that nature in existence.

Another excuse is that the interesting fossils (transitional) are not preserved. This is not true. Why is it that the only missing fossils are the ones that supposed to support evolution? I think it is more logical to say that they didn't exist than claiming anything else. For one to claim that some kind of creatures existed millions of years ago but now extinct, one need to prove how we know that such creatures/species were in existence before us. Do we have any trace fossils that can be attributed (unambiguously) to the so-called missing links? No!

Almost everything about evolution is excuse upon excuse. Science requires proof and facts not mere belief. @Ahmed Thandar

Mr. Carrasco; Differences like these are what generates new species...all that is required would be a circumstance that fragmented the global population. Under such a circumstance of isolation populations differentiate - allopatric speciation. Regards, Jim Des Lauriers

@Brenden S Holland

Is this platform/web a wrong place for my question? Don't forget that my question "are we evolving to different kind of species and if not why did evolution stopped on us?" is purely "scientific" question, except if we have to accept the fact that Darwin's theory of evolution has no place in science.

And just want to tell you that researchgate is not only for scientific discussions! Science is not everything and there are many questions/discussions and papers on different fields other than science.

Evolution have not stopped on us. We are still evolving and are far superior to our ancestors of the distant past. Don't concentrate only on morphological/phenotypic characters but think holistically.

"But it is difficult to think that these regional differences among humans can generate new species."

They could, if they went on for long enough and if gene flow ceased. How long that is depends on what you mean by "species".

"To Adminiters of Researchgate. Why does not my answer have a "Recommend" or "Share" to my answer? What am I doing wrong?"

Your answer has both. We just aren't shown these buttons on our own answers, so we can't recommend our own answers.

"What I want to point out is that even if evolution takes millions of years, we should have living species today that are partially humans."

You seem to believe that evolution generates new species at regular intervals, regardless of any external factors like the whole environment. You would be mistaken.

"Why is it that the only missing fossils are the ones that supposed to support evolution?"

I'm a paleontologist. First, most species that have ever existed have not left any trace in the fossil record, and most of those that have we have yet to find. Second, why don't you inform yourself about the origin of birds (a short summary is attached) or of whales or of mammals, for example? In some cases we have whole trees full of enough fossils to see transitions pretty clearly.

"We [...] are far superior to our ancestors of the distant past."

Superior at doing certain things under certain conditions. Inferior at doing other things under other conditions. Equal at doing yet other things under yet other conditions.

Evolution is not progress. Evolution is the change of a population to fit current circumstances better.

I dont believe in this postulation

@Ali Email Al-Snafi

Do you mean you don't believe in Darwinism?

Yes, because it unable to discuss a lot of facts

This is science we're talking about. If you "believe in" a scientific hypothesis, you're doing it wrong.

Scientific method = falsification + parsimony.

"Yes, because it unable to discuss a lot of facts"

Like what, for example?

Regarding the fossil evidence , the evolutionists themselves say that the animals of the Cambrian era - before 570 million years included types of animal divisions, and have a sudden appearance forms. The animals of Cambrian era is a biological problem , so the organisms discovered in this period constituted complex life forms such as those in the beings we see today, In addition to its sudden appearance without apparent origin.

The evidence of anatomical similarity have become funny in front of the new genetic information and molecular biology, so the genes that gave similar structures were quite different.

As for the fabricated transitional forms that the evolutionists have prepared to support the postulation, such as the fabricated archaeopteryx bird

Mr. Al-Sanfi. You should update your knowledge of the fossil record. There is nothing mysterious about the Cambrian era and no particular "biological problem". If you believe that evolutionists "fabricate transitional forms" then you have ended any discussion that biologists or any other thinking person would have with you as what you propose is frankly nonsense.

Mr. Kirare, Apparently you have not read Darwin or any evolutionary biology or you would not present the falsehoods that you do.

As Dr. Marjanovic noted, research gate is a forum for science and unsubstantiated global statements are simply inappropriate and offensive.

Hence your question was disingenuous and you had no wish to discuss the matter is a scientific manner. I'm sure that you would find more pleasing answers in any number of religious forums.

@Patrice

It is not Ali who will update his knowledge of the fossil record but you. He is probably talking about the Brgess shale fossils (Cambrian). I don't know if you Mr. Scientist if you have a better way to explain them more than Prof. Richard Dawkins. Please go ahead and read his comment about the so-called Cambrian explosion. Confusing himself and other thinking humans.

It doesn't matter how many scientists BELIEVE in this Darwin's hypothesis since you people cannot explain it without confusing yourself.

I read all comments here, and I didn't attack anyone. But you just jumped from nowhere telling other people to go and update their knowledge.

The person you are referring to is far more Educated than you because at least he is a thinking human.

Please avoid disrespecting people while trying to defend your dogma because the person you are replying to, is probably older than you.

Thank you.

Dear Patrice Showers Corneli

How to explain that, we are genetically not similar to old human fossi

Sequence comparisons with human mtDNA sequences, as well as phylogenetic analyses, show that the archaic human forms sequence falls outside the variation of modern humans. Despite intense research efforts, no consensus has been reached about the genetic relationship between early modern humans and archaic human forms such as the Neandertals. The retrieval of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences from four Neandertal fossils from Germany, Russia, and Croatia has demonstrated that these individuals carried closely related mtDNAs that are not found among current humans.

-Serre D, Langaney A, Chech M, Teschler-Nicola M, Paunovic M, Mennecier P, Hofreiter M, Possnert G and Pääbo S. No evidence of Neanderthal mtDNA contribution to early modern humans. BLOS Biology 2004; 2(3): 313-316.

-Hodgson JA and Disotell T R. No evidence of a Neanderthal contribution to modern human diversity. Genome Biol 2008; 9(2): 206.

-Matthias Krings, Anne Stone, Ralf Schmitz, Heike Krainitzki, Mark Stoneking, and Svante Paabo. Neandertal DNA sequences and the origin of modern humans. Cell 1997;90:19-30.

Human species may be 2 million years old, that is to say very young, compared with many other animals, insects and plants!

You think we are not evolving? Why not? When I was young, I was among the tallest in my school, and now I am not so among the younger generations.

In human species, not only morphology is evolving but the societies are too. Adaptations to changing environments si the main driver of evolution, directly selecting more adapted organisms and modifying epigenetic characters. Evolution is also active against diseases, selecting resistant strains of hosts.

@Nicolas Degallier

I understand those changes/adaptations. But what I really want know is whether we can say with certainty/adequate evidence that yes human beings will evolve to a completely different species even if it will take millions of years.

I know that we can observe changes over time within a given species, but macroevolution is not observable.

At the human life time scale, we can only observe micro-evolution but at the geologic time scale, we surely will observe some macroevolution. If the human species will be completely different or not, nobody can know, only science fiction writers! Macroevolution is however observable in the fossil records of much older phylum than the mammalian one.

@Nicollas Degallier

Are you sure that we have indisputable transitional fossils supporting macroevolution? Because I noticed that those so-called transitional fossils are subject to so much hot debates. And please do you discount the possibility that the transitional fossils (?) are not really what you evolutionists think they are, may be as a result of misinterpretation?

"But if by believing in something you mean that accepting something blindly then that is exactly what I have to call evolutionists because I am yet to see the evidence."

You would see the evidence if you spent a few hours in Google. Your failure to educate yourself about the topic you're talking about, and the failure of your schoolteachers to explain the basics of life to you, are not an argument.

"Please how did Darwin's theory explain the Origin of life?"

See? You don't know the first thing about evolution.

Evolution is descent with heritable modification. It can only begin (and inevitably begins) once entities reproduce with imperfect inheritance. (Those can be organisms, languages or certain computer programs.) The first such entity has to come about by some other process. Darwin and everybody since him have said so explicitly.

No theory of evolution is meant to explain the origin of the first entity capable of reproduction with imperfect inheritance. Whether that's the same as the origin of life is a matter of how you define "life".

"Sadly, the fossils evidence are still contradicting his theory."

How so? And how does creationism explain a single champsosaur?

"the evolutionists themselves say that the animals of the Cambrian era - before 570 million years included types of animal divisions, and have a sudden appearance forms."

You are, at best, decades behind current knowledge. The Cambrian began 541.0 ± 1.0 Ma ago http://www.stratigraphy.org/ICSchart/ChronostratChart2018-08.jpg , not 570, and the "sudden appearance" was a process that lasted about 50 Ma (from about 550 to about 500, very roughly speaking). Our knowledge of this has, in the last 30 years, improved to the point that we can now trace the origin of arthropods in similar detail as we can trace the origin of birds 400 Ma later, for example.

There's such a wealth of knowledge out there now! I pity you for having no idea it exists.

"the fabricated archaeopteryx bird"

Back in the 1980s, there was one astrophysicist who claimed one of the several Archaeopteryx specimens (...don't you know how to format genus names?) was fake. He didn't seem to know the other specimens existed. He also didn't seem to know anything about the processes of fossilization, or about the methods preparators use to uncover and conserve a fossil.

Most of the specimens known today have been unearthed since then. They're not fakes, and neither is the one the silly astrophysicist was talking about.

Also... do you have no sense of embarrassment? I just posted a paper that could give you a glimpse on how diverse early birds and their closest relatives were. Picking one out of them, as if the others didn't exist, wouldn't even do anything to the argument!

"Isn't it offensive for someone to grow up and start calling his grandparents APES and some kind of unknown monkeys just because they put him in University?"

We are apes, or the term "ape" has no meaning and nothing is an ape. I'm sorry if reality offends you. :-|

"How to explain that, we are genetically not similar to old human fossi

Sequence comparisons with human mtDNA sequences, as well as phylogenetic analyses, show that the archaic human forms sequence falls outside the variation of modern humans. Despite intense research efforts, no consensus has been reached about the genetic relationship between early modern humans and archaic human forms such as the Neandertals. The retrieval of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences from four Neandertal fossils from Germany, Russia, and Croatia has demonstrated that these individuals carried closely related mtDNAs that are not found among current humans."

You have simply misunderstood what you're quoting. That's common among creationists.

First, of course Neandertal DNA is very similar to ours. That's why it can be sequenced with the same primers in the first place. The two papers simply stated they found no evidence that any humans today are descended from Neandertalers in the direct female line – they might be our great-aunts, but not our great-grandmothers.

Second, two of the papers are pretty old for this fast-moving field, and the third is downright ancient. I don't think anyone alive today carries Neandertal mtDNA specifically, but all of us from outside Africa do carry some 1–3% nuclear DNA from Neandertal people, who evidently interbred with our ancestors in the Middle East some 100,000 years ago. Inside Africa, Neandertal mtDNA is also present, but in much smaller amounts. I'll let you find the papers in Google Scholar.

"macroevolution is not observable"

Two things.

First, define "macroevolution". If your definiton is "evolution into a different species", define "species". You'll find some 150 mutually contradictory definitions in the literature...

Second, what evidence is there that macroevolution is anything but microevolution summed up over longer time scales? I'm not aware of any.

"I noticed that those so-called transitional fossils are subject to so much hot debates. And please do you discount the possibility that the transitional fossils (?) are not really what you evolutionists think they are, may be as a result of misinterpretation?"

Details, please. Let's have this discussion.

Dear Readers,

If anyone is interested in:

Article Towards a General Definition of Life

Regards ...

We're developing, a slow determined biological and psychological development, but we can't evolve into other species or have a DNA different from the one of our species....as u know there's also no DNA link between homo sapiens and homo sapiens sapiens. This is biological evolution or biological development instead of evolution. They are different concepts. Evolution means we evolve and we may show sudden changes like mutation...etc. but biological development is something scientific and natural happening in the world and the first polymath who analyzed it was Al Jahiz in his encyclopedia The Book of Animals of better yet, The Book of Living. He analyzed that biological development is called biological determinism because: 1 the development is determined, ie: don't expect humans to have wings or so...it would be a logical, calculated, anticipated development, and 2: it is determined by natural processes, the most important of which are a: Environmental determinism (eg: u move to a hot environment it influences ur physiology and psychology, or eg: a village that drinks polluted water it's people develop skin abnormalities. ..etc.), b: Struggle for Existence ( eg: a strong lion develops strong biological characteristics based on his engagements in fights when it lives with multiple other predators for example, and the lion transmits these biological characteristics to its offspring), c: Defense Mechanisms ....there's also lifestyle and so on. U can relate to these more with AL-JAHIZ AND THE RISE OF BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION

by Dr. Mehmet BAYRAKDAR and Jim Al Khalili' s researches on Al Jahiz's The Book of Animals, there's also

Lunde, Paul. ‘‘Science, The Islamic Legacy: The Book of Animals

Sultan Shah, Muhammad. “Pre-Darwinian Muslim Scholars’ Views on Evolution

Tschanz, David W. ‘‘Al Jahiz, the First Islamic Zoologist’’

Friedrich Dieterici 's Der Darwinismus im X und XIX Jahrhundert (Darwinism in the 10th and 19th Century)

And E. Wiedemann in his Darwinistisches bei Gahiz (Darwinism by Al Jahiz)

What I'm trying to say is that what u may call evolution, biological evolution or biological development of course exists, but certain scientists use it to prove creationism as they do with Natural Theology and the watchmaker analogy...because it's a defined exact scientific calculated expected natural process...so after all, 1- not all evolutionists are atheist, and 2- the defined determined methodological process of evolution proves the existence of God, not negates it...

Hope u can find something interesting in these ideas...

The scandal fake embryoes images prepared to serve the postulate of evolution became famous. The German scientist Hanbrach Heikkel confessed to this forgery in his article published in 14 Dec In 1980 entitled "Forgeries to prove the idea of evolution," and hundreds of researchers and philosophers have forged the images to match the idea of evolution such as the pictures of transitional animals.

Estase morfológica, a evolução não para...

"The scandal fake embryoes images"

Ernst Haeckel did have a few gaps in his sample of embryos, and dishonestly filled them in. Funnily enough, it has turned out not to matter: his guesses were right. More recent versions of what Haeckel was trying to show use PHOTOS and work just as fine. Please don't act as if embryologists had learned nothing in a hundred years!

By the way, who is this "Hanbrach Heikkel" person? Hanbrach is not a first name, and kk is very rare in German spelling.

Evolution would be Human species (Homo sapiens) dividing into 2 or more separate species ((no more interfertile populations)?

Why not? If genetical mixing is once stopped between some populations, added to an isolation and different environment.

New species are generally thought to arise this way, by genetical isolation, and accumulation of mutations which would be adapting populations to new environments. Why not happening with human species in some million years from now?

"as u know there's also no DNA link between homo sapiens and homo sapiens sapiens" No, I don't know that – because it's a meaningless string of words. Please explain what you mean. "Natural Theology and the watchmaker analogy" This analogy suffers crucially from the fact that watches don't reproduce, let alone inherit.

DNA was extracted from the Neandertal-type specimen found in 1856 in western Germany. By sequencing clones from short overlapping PCR products, a hitherto unknown mitochondrial (mt) DNA sequence was determined. Multiple controls indicate that this sequence is endogenous to the fossil. Sequence comparisons with human mtDNA sequences, as well as phylogenetic analyses, show that the Neandertal sequence falls outside the variation of modern humans. Furthermore, the age of the common ancestor of the Neandertal and modern human mtDNAs is estimated to be four times greater than that of the common ancestor of human mtDNAs. This suggests that Neandertals went extinct without contributing mtDNA to modern humans.

@Ali Esmail Al-Snafi I'm agree with your statement.

You may agree Ali but that doesn't make it true. Neanderthal genes persist in Homo sapiens as you could check for yourself by comparing modern and Neanderthal DNA that you could download from GenBank or EMBL.

None of this is a matter of agreeing with someone else. It is a matter of checking the facts - and getting them right - and then using reason to understand the process.

You can't make it up as you go along.

PATRICE so is Ismail Ali's response or answer inincorrect or am I missing something here?

He is wrong. Neanerthals and Homo Sapiens lived at the same time and evidently interbred to a some extent.

This opinion (No evidence of Neanderthal DNA contribution to early modern humans) is not mine, it is the conclusion of scientific research of advance DNA analysis. There have been several comparisons between the DNA of the human Neanderthal and the modern man. The DNA of the Neanderthal man was compared with the DNA of 300 Caucasian, 300 East Asian and 300 from the South African Desert. The differences were 25.25 ± 3.27, 23.27 ± 0.60, 23.09 ± 86.2% respectively. This indicates a clear sign that the Neanderthal man is not associated with any of the modern ethnic groups and has no genetic or evolutionary links to modern man(1).When the nucleotide sequence of the Neanderthal man was compared with the 5846 DNA sequence of modern humans, the sequence of DNA of the Neanderthal man was different. The sequence in the Neanderthal samples was identical. The 5846 samples of modern humans were also identical, but the mitochondrial DNA samples of the Neanderthal man had a sequence that was sufficiently different. Matthias Krings and colleagues were able to extract a small amount of mitochondrial DNA from the Neanderthal bone found in 1856 in western Germany. They then compared the DNA of the Neanderthals with the DNA of the receptors in human beings. Kringes concluded that the genetic sequence of the Neanderthal sample is specific and does not resemble the sequence of the mitochondrial DNA of modern man. The genetic distance between Neanderthals and modern humans made it quite unlikely that our ancestors would be Neanderthals. The difference between the genetic sequence of the Neanderthal specimen and man was also found to be far from the differences between modern humans, suggesting that the Neanderthal was extinct without contributing to the formation of mitochondrial DNA for modern humans. On the other hand, the mitochondrial DNA of the Lake Mongo man contains a different nucleotide sequence than that of the Neanderthals fossils and modern man, which indicates that the offspring of this man are completely extinct (3-4)Analyzes of nucleic acids for fossil models and archaeological evidence demonstrate a clear separation between Neanderthals and modern sane humans. Analytical studies have not demonstrated the idea of ​​mating between human Neanderthals and modern humans. The sequences of mDNA and DNA for four Neanderthal models from Germany, Russia and Croatia showed that these samples contained similar mitochondrial DNA but differed from five samples of modern man suggesting that the Neanderthal man don’t contribute in the synthesis of mitochondrial DNA for modern humans (5-6).compared mtDNA from those females and found a significant similarity between them (7-8). The difference of the DNA of the mitochondria to the Neanderthal man from what we have indicates that he is not associated with us in the same mother (7-8).1-Ovchinnikov IV, Götherström A, Romanova GP, Kharitonov VM, Lidén K, Goodwin W. Molecular analysis of Neanderthal DNA from the northern Caucasus. Nature 2000; 404: 490-493. 2-Matthias Krings, Anne Stone, Ralf Schmitz, Heike Krainitzki, Mark Stoneking, and Svante Paabo. Neandertal DNA sequences and the origin of modern humans. Cell 1997;90:19-30. 3-Strausbaugh L and Sakelaris S. DNA and Early Human History Neandertals and Early Humans: But Did They Mate? Presented at the Evolution Symposium, NABT Convention, Montreal, 7 November 2001.4-Adcock G, Dennis E, Easteal S, Huttley G, Jermiin L, Peacock WJ and Thorne A. Mitochondrial DNA sequences in ancient Australians: Implications for modern human origins. Proc Natl Acad Sci 2001; 98: 537-542.

5-Serre D, Langaney A, Chech M, Teschler-Nicola M, Paunovic M, Mennecier P, Hofreiter M, Possnert G and Pääbo S. No evidence of Neanderthal mtDNA contribution to early modern humans. BLOS Biology 2004; 2(3): 313-316.

6-Hodgson JA and Disotell T R. No evidence of a Neanderthal contribution to modern human diversity. Genome Biol 2008; 9(2): 206.

7-Cann RL, Stoneking M and Wilson AC. Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution. Nature 198,7 1-7;325:31-36

8-Aquadro CF and Greenberg BD. Human mitochondrial DNA variation and evolution, analysis of nucleotide sequences from seven individuals. Genetics 1983; 103: 287-312.

Thank you so much for the references!

@Ali Esmail Al-Snafi I'm agree with sir. His statement is correct according to me no evidence of Neanderthal DNA contribution to early modern humans.

Regards

Umama

Although some early mitochondrial DNA studies did not find solid evidence of Neanderthal introgression into modern human DNA, studies of chromosomal DNA now make a much more complete picture. Also, back on the other end of the timeline, the separation of the lineage leading to humans from the lineages that lead to modern chimpanzees and to modern gorillas, was not a cut-and-dried instant split and probably ocurred over quite a long period of time, with some "back crossing" still happening infrequently quite some time after the initial separations.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/438390v1

Ding Q, Hu Y, Xu S, Wang J, Jin L. Neanderthal introgression at chromosome 3p21.31 was under positive natural selection in East Asians. Mol Biol Evol. 2014 Mar;31(3):683-95. doi: 10.1093/molbev/mst260. Epub 2013 Dec 13. PubMed PMID: 24336922.

Ding Q, Hu Y, Xu S, Wang J, Jin L. Neanderthal introgression at chromosome 3p21.31 was under positive natural selection in East Asians. Mol Biol Evol. 2014 Mar;31(3):683-95. doi: 10.1093/molbev/mst260. Epub 2013 Dec 13. PubMed PMID: 24336922. Hu Y, Ding Q, He Y, Xu S, Jin L. Reintroduction of a Homocysteine Level-Associated Allele into East Asians by Neanderthal Introgression. Mol Biol Evol. 2015 Dec;32(12):3108-13. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msv176. Epub 2015 Sep 21. PubMed PMID: 26392408. Wall JD, Yang MA, Jay F, Kim SK, Durand EY, Stevison LS, Gignoux C, Woerner A, Hammer MF, Slatkin M. Higher levels of neanderthal ancestry in East Asians than in Europeans. Genetics. 2013 May;194(1):199-209. doi: 10.1534/genetics.112.148213. Epub 2013 Feb 14. PubMed PMID: 23410836; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3632468. Ding Q, Hu Y, Xu S, Wang CC, Li H, Zhang R, Yan S, Wang J, Jin L. Neanderthal origin of the haplotypes carrying the functional variant Val92Met in the MC1R in modern humans. Mol Biol Evol. 2014 Aug;31(8):1994-2003. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msu180. Epub 2014 Jun 10. PubMed PMID: 24916031. Juric I, Aeschbacher S, Coop G. The Strength of Selection against Neanderthal Introgression. PLoS Genet. 2016 Nov 8;12(11):e1006340. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1006340. eCollection 2016 Nov. PubMed PMID: 27824859; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5100956. Mendez FL, Watkins JC, Hammer MF. A haplotype at STAT2 Introgressed from neanderthals and serves as a candidate of positive selection in Papua New Guinea. Am J Hum Genet. 2012 Aug 10;91(2):265-74. doi: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2012.06.015. PubMed PMID: 22883142; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3415544. Yasukochi Y, Ohashi J. Elucidating the origin of HLA-B*73 allelic lineage: Did modern humans benefit by archaic introgression? Immunogenetics. 2017 Jan;69(1):63-67. doi: 10.1007/s00251-016-0952-8. Epub 2016 Sep 30. PubMed PMID: 27695917; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5203853. Lowery RK, Uribe G, Jimenez EB, Weiss MA, Herrera KJ, Regueiro M, Herrera RJ. Neanderthal and Denisova genetic affinities with contemporary humans: introgression versus common ancestral polymorphisms. Gene. 2013 Nov 1;530(1):83-94. doi: 10.1016/j.gene.2013.06.005. Epub 2013 Jul 19. PubMed PMID: 23872234. Caspermeyer J. Sunlight adaptation region of Neanderthal genome found in up to 65% of modern East Asian populations. Mol Biol Evol. 2014 Mar;31(3):763. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msu003. Epub 2014 Jan 23. PubMed PMID: 24458432. Steinrücken M, Spence JP, Kamm JA, Wieczorek E, Song YS. Model-based detection and analysis of introgressed Neanderthal ancestry in modern humans. Mol Ecol. 2018 Oct;27(19):3873-3888. doi: 10.1111/mec.14565. Epub 2018 Apr 17. PubMed PMID: 29603507; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6165692. Taskent RO, Alioglu ND, Fer E, Melike Donertas H, Somel M, Gokcumen O. Variation and Functional Impact of Neanderthal Ancestry in Western Asia. Genome Biol Evol. 2017 Dec 1;9(12):3516-3524. doi: 10.1093/gbe/evx216. PubMed PMID: 29040546; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5751057. Skov L, Hui R, Shchur V, Hobolth A, Scally A, Schierup MH, Durbin R. Detecting archaic introgression using an unadmixed outgroup. PLoS Genet. 2018 Sep 18;14(9):e1007641. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1007641. eCollection 2018 Sep. PubMed PMID: 30226838; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6161914. Dannemann M, Kelso J. The Contribution of Neanderthals to Phenotypic Variation in Modern Humans. Am J Hum Genet. 2017 Oct 5;101(4):578-589. doi: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2017.09.010. PubMed PMID: 28985494; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5630192. Browning SR, Browning BL, Zhou Y, Tucci S, Akey JM. Analysis of Human Sequence Data Reveals Two Pulses of Archaic Denisovan Admixture. Cell. 2018 Mar 22;173(1):53-61.e9. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.02.031. Epub 2018 Mar 15. PubMed PMID: 29551270; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5866234. Fu Q, Hajdinjak M, Moldovan OT, Constantin S, Mallick S, Skoglund P, Patterson N, Rohland N, Lazaridis I, Nickel B, Viola B, Prüfer K, Meyer M, Kelso J, Reich D, Pääbo S. An early modern human from Romania with a recent Neanderthal ancestor. Nature. 2015 Aug 13;524(7564):216-9. doi: 10.1038/nature14558. Epub 2015 Jun 22. PubMed PMID: 26098372; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4537386. Gokcumen O, Zhu Q, Mulder LC, Iskow RC, Austermann C, Scharer CD, Raj T, Boss JM, Sunyaev S, Price A, Stranger B, Simon V, Lee C. Balancing selection on a regulatory region exhibiting ancient variation that predates human-neandertal divergence. PLoS Genet. 2013 Apr;9(4):e1003404. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1003404. Epub 2013 Apr 11. PubMed PMID: 23593015; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3623772.

Kuhlwilm M, Han S, Sousa VC, Excoffier L, Marques-Bonet T. Ancient admixture from an extinct ape lineage into bonobos. Nat Ecol Evol. 2019 Jun;3(6):957-965. doi: 10.1038/s41559-019-0881-7. Epub 2019 Apr 29. Erratum in: Nat Ecol Evol. 2019 May 14;:. PubMed PMID: 31036897.

Yasukochi Y, Ohashi J. Elucidating the origin of HLA-B*73 allelic lineage: Did modern humans benefit by archaic introgression? Immunogenetics. 2017 Jan;69(1):63-67. doi: 10.1007/s00251-016-0952-8. Epub 2016 Sep 30. PubMed PMID: 27695917; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5203853.

Overmann K, Coolidge F. Human species and mating systems: Neandertal-Homo sapiens reproductive isolation and the archaeological and fossil records. J Anthropol Sci. 2013;91:91-110. doi: 10.4436/jass.91021. Review. PubMed PMID: 24344097.

Thanks Brian. Well Done. The papers cited by Ali are indeed classics in the field and some written by my colleagues. Marvelous papers but quite early. The last two are from before PCR when sequences were few and quite short. Much has changed.

I do not think that scientific evidence will change the mind of Ali as he has provided, in the papers listed, scientific evidence that we are indeed closely genetically related to Neanderhals and others. Nevertheless I provide more evidence that indisputably (in a rational empirical way) theses various humans are indeed very closely related.

I refuse to argue against your religion Ali. It is clearly a deeply held belief. However, yours is not a scientific argument and generally does not belong in this forum. Nevertheless I will on occasion reply to well thought out religious arguments as different as they are my own view of God.

For fun I downloaded two species each of various subspecies of Homo sapiens as well as some that are Homo species but whose species names have not been classified yet. Quite fun to see the past in these now extinct humans and to remember that for most of the history of humans, multiple separate species existed at the same time.

I attach a table of complete mitochondrial genetic differences for these species and a tree that includes a chimp for an outgrip. Indeed all of the Homo species share 97% or more of their total mtDNA with one another. Very, very few difference in the sequences as can be seen from looking directly at the sequence.

This is the kind of statistical molecular evolution that I have done for a living for the past 25 years and have always considered it a lovely kind of computer game except that it is about reality. But a real joy.

In conclusion, based on the above, the Neanderthal man contains all human specifications and that the anatomical differences between him and modern man are not more than the differences between the different races within the modern man. However, He is a different kind of human being not genetically connected to the modern human being, and they are not our ancestors as it was thought. All bones even that dated 1.8 million years ago showed different genetic sequence from modern human and from each other(1-9).Accordingly I believe with which My God say in Holy Quran [And fear Him Who created you and (who created) the generations before (you)"] (Surah Ash-Shuara- 184).

[Behold, thy Lord said to the angels: "I will create a vicegerent on earth." They said: "Wilt Thou place therein one who will make mischief therein and shed blood?- whilst we do celebrate Thy praises and glorify Thy holy (name)?" He said: "I know what ye know not."] ( Surah Al-Baqara-29)

What is the knowledge of the angels by saying, ' Are you create those who mischief and shed blood, if they had not seen those who spoil them and shed blood before (from the previous generations).'"

1-Difference Between Human and Neanderthal, http://www.differencebetween. net/ science/difference-between-human-and-neanderthal/

2-Phillips D. Neanderthals Are Still Human. http://www.icr.org/article/ neanderthals-are-still-human/

3-Lieberman, P. and E. Crelin, 1971. On the Speech of Neanderthal. Linguistic Inquiry, 2:203-222. Mayfield Publishing Company.

4-Trinkaus, E., and P. Shipman 1992. The Neanderthals: Changing the Images of Mankind. Alfred A. Knophf, New York.

5-Arensburg, B. et al., 1989. A middle Paleolithic human hyoid bone. Nature 1989; 338:758-760.

6- Lai, C.S.L. et al. A novel forkhead-domain gene is mutated in a severe speech and language disorder. Nature 2001;413, 519–523.

7- Smith K. Modern speech gene found in Neanderthals. Nature 2007, doi:10.1038/ news. 2007.177

8-Benítez-Burraco, Antonio & Victor M. Longa. 2012. On the inference ‘Neanderthals had FOXP2 = they had complex language’. In Thomas Scott- Phillips, Monica Tamariz, Erica Cartmill & James R. Hurford (eds.), Evolution of Language. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference (Evolang 9),50–57. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing.

9- Phillips D. Neanderthal are still human. http://www.icr.org/article/neanderthal-are-still-human/

Oh and finally we do not evolve to a different species because our genes are shared all around the world among peoples of many faiths and no faith. Thus there is no barrier for us to evolve independently of other humans.

Do we evolve within our population of all humans on earth? Of course we do. Otherwise all of our genomes would be identical rather than sometimes quite different among us.

Let us return to the first step in evolution. The prokaryotic cells were integrated to form an eukaryotic cell. When they entered in the eukaryotic combination, they distributed the vital functions of the new organism among them. One took the role of the nucleus, the other the role of the mitochondria, the third the role of the chloroplast, When a specific job is given to a particular cohabitation, it must abandon its structure and vital mechanisms of the independent existence and obtain new structure to serve the new function in the new organism.

See: William Day. The emergence of life on Earth, the search for the beginning of life 1989.

Who can convince us in this postulation

What is your point Ali?

Oh and by the way no one ever said that Neanderthals were our ancestors.. They existed for a long time during our history. Both species shared a much earlier common Primate ancestor that no longer exists.

Preprint THE PHILOSOPHICAL STUDY OF INTELLECT EVOLUTION

n my opinion, the evolution is so slow in certain groups such as vertebrates that we cannot appreciate significant changes. Another problem that must be taken into account in human evolution is that Cultural heritage separates us from pure evolution with the mechanism of the struggle for life. In other words, the solidarity character among the individuals of Homo sapiens (Social Security, Ong's, Generalization of Health, etc.) is more important than the competition between "tribes". Competition with other species does not exist since a branch of Culture, Technology, has invalidated that competition. In human communities there is no natural selection, all individuals have the same opportunity to procreate and have offspring regardless of ethnicity, cultural level or health.

There is a fairly strong opinion that we stopped evolving as soon as we adopted agriculture and we reached our peak as a species at that time. Certainly civilization acts strongly against natural selection by keeping weaker members of the species alive.

Natural selection is actually a pretty horrible way to improve a species.Many perfectly healthy individuals have to die from various causes in order to ensure that the weak ones are weeded out.

There is an alternative theory that natural selection works for groups too, so that cooperative behaviours that strengthen the group are favoured.

The main point is, however, that to evolve into something else any genetic modification would have to improve the breeding capacity of that individual and their descendants. We are already a bit too successful at breeding so it is hard to see any modification doing better.

Estase morfologica...

"There is a fairly strong opinion that we stopped evolving as soon as we adopted agriculture"

Oh no, that's when quite a few selective changes only got started. Human populations with a long history of agriculture have more copies of the gene for salivary amylase than people whose ancestors have all been hunter-gatherers, for instance. And because plants are such a bad source for vitamin D compared to fresh meat, selective pressure for light skin began with agriculture in Europe and Asia, too.

Others happened later still. Lactose tolerance ( = lactase persistence) only appeared in Europe some 4000 years ago and has become amazingly common amazingly fast. I don't know how old it is in Africa, but there it is due to two separate mutations that happened in different regions of the continent, and both are different from the European one.

We are still evolving. Transition from one species to another species doesn't occur in a lifetime. In the changing world, the rate of evolution is high. It can take several thousand or more generations to evolve into another species. Some animals haven't changed much over a very long time ex: Crocodiles.