6 ms·
How many early human species existed on Earth?
- dennis_jeeves 6y agoHomo idioticus, homo imbicilicus and homo moronicus. Three IMHO.
- nimbleal 6y agoI’ve always found this “humans are so stupid” meme a bit hard to fathom. As far as we can tell (so far) humans are by far the most intelligent thing in the universe. By what standard are we “stupid”? It seems to me to be equivalent to saying “blue whales are so small”, just because I can (approximately) imagine a larger animal.
- dennis_jeeves 6y agoIt was a joke, in case you didn't catch it. In fact all you can reasonably define is survive-ability of a typical organism of a species to define it's success compared to other species. That is the only meaningful comparison that can be made. Intelligence as we commonly define it is only a tool for survival.
- frongpik 6y agoIMHO, the today's historians and archeologists have become just another type of beancounters. If I were to research this topic, I'd look into the RapaNui island, the strange statues on that island and the sudden cutoff of history records about 12,000 years ago.
- polytronic 6y agoFive according to Hesiod. We are the sixth. See Hesiod's Theogony and Work and Days
- barnaclejive 6y ago"The number is mounting, and it'll vary depending on whom you talk to," said John Stewart, an evolutionary paleoecologist at Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom. Some researchers argue that the species known as Homo erectus is in fact made up of several different species, including Homo georgicus and Homo ergaster. "It's all about the definition of a species and the degree to which you accept variation within a species," Stewart told Live Science. "It can become a slightly irritating and pedantic discussion, because everyone wants an answer. But the truth is that it really does depend."
- polytronic 6y agoIt is very interesting to read how Hesiod defined the extinct species (size, anatomy, behaviour, etc) almost 3000 years ago and contrast it with modern research
- colechristensen 6y agoJust how different two organisms have to be to be different species is always going to be arbitrary. It is not as though you can select a particular day (the absurd extreme) two populations transitioned from one species to two. Given this (and more reasonable arguments in the same vein over longer time periods), a particular number of “species” in a closely related group over an evolutionary short timeframe just isn’t an interesting or useful metric.
- amelius 6y ago> Just how different two organisms have to be to be different species is always going to be arbitrary. Isn't the decision made based on if mating can happen (and the offspring can procreate)?
- jmgao 6y agoOne of the problems with that is ring species: if A can mate with B, and B can mate with C, but A and C cannot mate, are A and C the same species?
- posterboy 6y agoWell, if AxB and BxC can mate, then the off spring has genes from A and C so by some second degree derivative they can mate. iff. Not my field of interest but I feel reminded of dialects and how difficult it is to define language. The dialect with a military meme has some truth to it, when variet are measured against a standard or prestige dialect. B obviously has an advantage so unless other disadvantages apply, it would be dominant. A societal (?) or socio-cultural definition is interesting as well. Even genetically identical specimen couldn't mate if on opposite sites of the globe, and they are bound to drift eventually. I do kindle with the idea that groups have to be understood as organisms in their own right, but I never read anything specific about it. About language families, it is startling how anthropologists reason about language by proxy via archaogenetics. Lots of open questions there, too.
- 6y ago
- xxel 6y agoWhen homo sapiens met nendertals they eat them not slotered as some books say.
- barnaclejive 6y agoTL;DR "the truth is that it really does depend"
- darwingr 6y agoAll of them. Presumably all of them lived on earth.
- toss1 6y agoWhile the fine distinctions in defining and counting species are interesting, it seems that a key issue is related to the Fermi Paradox, Drake Equation, and the Great Filter question. How many separate times did potentially technological-level intelligence arise separately (and how separately)? Is it fairly likely to arise from a range of environments and evolutionary paths, or is the evolution of technological humans an absurdly unlikely fluke? Are these multiple potentially technological species likely, and once one species gains technological advantage, it just dominates, or did just one 'branch' arise, most of the 'twigs' die out, and we've been just a bit more lucky so far? My guess is that the more branches, and the further back in the tree they occur (i.e., further back than higher intelligence develops), the more likely it is overall that we are not alone, but we'd need a lot more information to make that call.
- jibbit 6y agoI would really like to get an idea of (current thinking) total population numbers for the last, say 1 million years, but struggling to find anything.