Human evolution: savannah theory fading (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, March 10, 2025, 11:20 (55 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: We don't know the exact origins of any hominins or homo fossils. We simply place them in order by time and by morphology. You have avoided my point: Did place and environment drive sapiens development? Yes, wherever they lived.

dhw: I have no doubt they did. I accept your point. You have avoided both my points: 1) the savannah theory focuses solely upon the ORIGIN of sapiens, and is in no way negated by the fact that sapiens eventually spread all over Africa; 2) your theory is that your God operated on a single group of pre-sapiens to change their legs and pelvises. Is your theory negated by the fact that sapiens spread all over the place?

DAVID: Luci was a tree climber, not a savannahian. She is our only example of that stage in human evolution. Then we find hominin and homo evidence everywhere, at times the same as savannah findings.. These are brief points in time in the fossil record. We have no real evidence that savannah living drove human evolution now that we find hominins everywhere. This finding does not negate my God designer theory.

dhw: We find sapiens everywhere, but that does not tell us how sapiens originated. If your theory (see above) that God performed an operation on a group of legs and pelvises is not “fading”, nor is the savannah theory.

DAVID: Sapiens succeeded Erectus, et al. That is all we know from the fossil record. You seem lost as the savannah theory dies. We don't know how erectus or the other early forms originated. We simply accept they 'evolved' just as the Neanderthal's and Denisovans did. Sapiens evolved, a simple concept. "We find hominin and homo evidence everywhere, at times the same as savannah findings".

I agree with all of this, except for my “seeming lost”. The fact that we don’t know how species originate is precisely why we produce theories.

DAVID: Same timing means the savannah evidence is like all the other evidence, and therefore cannot be separated out as a special consideration.

“Same timing” as what? We know that sapiens spread far and wide, and we know that he co-existed with other homos, and we agree that he evolved. But we don’t know when or why the first sapiens “evolved”. Your theory used to be that your God did a dabble, operating on a group of pre-sapiens to give them new legs and pelvises, and then they descended from the trees. On Saturday you wrote: “We have no real evidence that savannah living drove human evolution now that we find hominins everywhere. This finding does not negate my God designer theory.” Perhaps you’d better repeat your exact theory, since you now seem to favour a natural process of evolution for all the different hominins and homos.