Questions tagged [human-evolution]
The study of evolution with a particular focus on questions about the evolution of modern humans.
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How could humans have interbred with Neanderthals if we're a different species?
To be clear, I'm not doubting that Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis did interbreed: of that much I'm convinced.
Within the past few years I've seen an upcropping of pop-sci articles discussing ...
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Are humans the only species who drink milk as adults?
I was drinking a glass of milk the other day and that got me thinking that no other animal to my knowledge drinks milk past their infant stages. One could argue that cats might but it isn't good for ...
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Are humans more adapted to "light mode" or "dark mode"?
I was discussing with a colleague about using dark-mode vs. light mode and remembered an article arguing that humans vision is more adapted to light-mode rather than dark-mode:
I know that the trend “...
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Does it make sense to classify all humans in a single species?
For what biological reasons do we consider that all human beings belong to the same species?
A Thai and a Nigerian share a common ancestor that is 140,000 years old (see Gravel et al. 2010 and this ...
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Is evolution a fact? [closed]
Richard Dawkins in one of his videos says that Evolution is a fact and not just a theory.
He goes on to say that man and chimpanzees both evolve from apes.
Is this correct (Is evolution a fact and ...
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How do we know the human species arose in Africa?
I have heard (from multiple sources) that the current scientific opinion is that the human species arose in Africa. What are the reasons for this opinion? If possible, simple and non-technical ...
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Why do we have five fingers?
Humans (and other humanoid mammals) have five fingers in each hand.
Curious to know, why five? Wouldn't more fingers be more useful?
Is there any evidence that it used to be different and natural ...
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Why do humans suffer anxiety when they view "Trypophobia trigger images"?
When you type Trypophobia Trigger Images in google, you see a variety of images with irregular lumps and bumps among some more gory images.
Many people report that these images induce phobia like ...
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Do all living humans literally descend from one ape?
In the opening chapter of Sapiens, Harari writes:
Just 6 million years ago, a single female ape had two daughters. One became the ancestor of all chimpanzees, the other is our own grandmother.
Is ...
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Online phylogenetic tree of human lineages
I am looking for a source of information about the diversity of human lineages and their relationships.
With a quick google search it is easy to find this type of tree
A perfect online resource ...
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Human Evolution Chromosome 2: Fusion or Break?
I have a question regarding Chromosome 2. I've heard that there is evidence that the Human Chromosome 2 is a fusion between the two ancestral chromosomes 2a and 2b, but could it be possible that it ...
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Human genetic diversity in Africa in comparison with the rest of the world
Background
The claim ...
Most of the genetic diversity in humans is in Africa
... is quite common. On Biology.SE, it is easy to find posts that make this claim. Consider for example:
Do humans ...
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Why did humans evolved the scratch reflex?
I've been wondering about this for some time, and I can't come to an answer...
Everybody keeps telling me that scratching one's own skin is bad. It damages the epidermis, creates the hazard of ...
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What is the closest species to humans in animal kingdom?
I presumed chimpanzees were the closest relatives of us. However, after watching this TED Talk, it seems bonobos are closer to us both in skeleton and behavioral similarity than chimpanzees. I once ...
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Why do people feel pleasure when using roller coasters / centrifuges?
The feeling when using an amusement park unit is usually a pleasure. Why is it not a pain instead?
Are there advantages, from an evolutionary point of view, in loving this potentially dangerous ...
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Why some parts of the human body have immune privilege?
Why have the eye and CNS have immune privilege? Why does the body not develop tolerance against their tissue and instead risk their damage in case an accidental immune cell infiltration?
Wiki:
......
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How was the resemblance between apes and humans explained in pre-Darwinian biology?
Humans and apes have somewhat obvious similarities, these must have been apparent to natural philosophers before the possibility of a common ancestry was first proposed in the mid-1800's. These ...
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Why do we blink instead of winking each eye independently?
Question
Why do we blink both eyes at the same time rather than winking each eye as needed?
Why would winking independently be better?
The benefit would be a minor improvement whereby a person ...
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Why do humans grow taller than their ancestors?
I'm taking the Introduction to Genetics And Evolution course and in the first lecture it was said that:
Evolution in a biological sense is simply a change through time. And very importantly, that ...
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What are the evolutionary reasons behind men being taller than women?
Human men and women are sexually dimorphic: there are some phenotypic differences between men and women.
Men being taller than women is an accurate stereotype. Overall, men are on average 13 ...
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Why cannot there be multiple sources for same species origins?
We often associate Africa as the geographical location of the origin of humans. Why cannot there exist multiple geographic locations of origin (given same environmental conditions)?
The same ...
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When did our ancestors switch to a menstrual cycle instead of the estrous cycle?
The Wikipedia page on the Estrous cycle says:
Humans have menstrual cycles instead of estrous cycles. They shed their endometrium instead of reabsorbing it. Unlike animals with estrous cycles, ...
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Is bad tasting food more likely to cause harm?
Taste is often referred to as subjective. For example certain foods taste bad to me, such as oranges, grapefruit, grapes, raisins, and sweet potatoes. However the wiki article on taste explains that ...
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How does chromosome fusion get fixed in the population?
It's well known that one of human chromosomes is the result of fusion between two chromosomes in a primate ancestor. If we put anthropocentrism aside, it becomes clear that fusion events happened a ...
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How valid are Koestler’s criticism of evolutionary theory?
I recently read Arthur Koestler's 1967 book The Ghost in the Machine. In it, Koestler criticises the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution—beneficial random mutations preserved by natural seleciton—as ...
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Do human populations differ in core body temperature?
Human body temperature is a very complex and tightly regulated system. Hypothermia or fever of only 1-2K (i.e. changes of about 5%) already cause major symptoms and changes of 3-4K (i.e. about 10%) ...
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Why is there no symmetry in pigmentation when comparing people north and south of the equator?
If you are at the equator and start moving north, the further you travel, the lighter the skin of the indigenous peoples. Considering that we live on a ball, why do we not find the same traveling ...
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Why did humans lose their tail during evolution?
Most mammals seem to have tails. Even human embryos start out with a tail. But here we are with nothing but a tail bone that hurts when we trip over backwards. What is it good for? Why don't humans ...
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What do blue cone cells add to visual function?
First of all, I saw this other question in the SE sites with a good answer, but I didn't find an explanation about the blue cones specifically.
So most human beings have 3 types of cones (cells ...
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Is there evolution in humans since the first homo sapiens sapiens
Has the human species changed since first defined as homo sapiens sapiens?
I'm asking this question partly because I'm wondering how we might evolve next.
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Why did the face of human species changed so much during the course of its evolution?
I recently watched this video which showed the evolution of facial features of the modern man
https://youtu.be/-69K7E0UlBI
I'm wondering what evolutionary advantage did we get by having our face ...
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Do the claims in this paper have any degree of validity?
The paper The waiting time problem in a model hominin population talks about a problem of waiting time, etc. Is the methodology of this numerical simulation, and the conclusion right or is it wrong?
...
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Why are there so many different humans yet chimpanzees are just chimpanzees?
There are two species belonging to the Pan genus (Pan troglodytes and Pan paniscus). That's just two.
I mean, humans have changed radically since we split from chimpanzees, we have Australopithecus ...
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What was the evolutionary reason for cross lateralization of the brain?
In the human brain the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body and the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body. What led to this development? Why doesn't the left side of the ...
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Human evolutionary innovation for rapidly restoring glycogen, and link to cardiovascular disease?
I'm a physicist, not a biologist, but I'm interested in human evolution and its link to the physiology of endurance sports. Circa August 2019, I read an article in the newspaper whose contents I'll ...
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Does eating hard food really cause wisdom teeth to erupt properly?
According to the article Bad molars? The origins of wisdom teeth, in our evolutionary history, people were eating harder food like nuts and had unimpacted wisdom teeth. Later, that article appears to ...
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What is the biology behind human population dynamics?
A paradox: Human population growth looks a lot like a simple logistic growth pattern. But the simplest interpretation of logistic growth doesn't seem to fit. Is this peculiar to humans, or does it ...
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What motivates an organism to reproduce? [closed]
What is the biological factor (gene or something else in case of humans) which motivates an organism to reproduce?
By reproducing the evolutionary success of an organism increases. But why would an ...
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Why are humans so variable in appearance
Most animals look almost identical to their peers. To distinguish lions we record the spots on their face; with whales we look at the blemishes on their tail or flukes. In other words, we have to try ...
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Why do humans not have a powerful sense of smell?
It seems like a useful ability to be able to detect many different things about, say, another organism. A lot of mammals have this ability. Why not humans? Did we evolve it out or never develop it?
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Is Homo sapiens the only extant species of genus "Homo"?
Is Homo sapiens the only species of genus "Homo" that survived?
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Which others human species/subspecies are known to have coexisted in the past with anatomically modern humans?
According to this article,
interbreeding between archaic and modern humans
There is evidence for interbreeding between archaic and modern humans
during the Middle Paleolithic and early Upper ...
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In reconstructions, how are various shapes of facial features determined from skull only?
I have seen reconstructions (with skin, eyes, muscles etc) of some first humans based on skulls and skeletons. But how can the shape of nose (protruding part), shape of eyelids, shape of eyebrow, ...
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A colony of humans are sent to an alien world, at what point would the descendants evolve to be genetically incompatible with Earth humans? [closed]
I recently heard about the evolution of the London Underground mosquitoes, and how they have changed genetically enough that they almost can no longer reproduce with above ground mosquitos. Since this ...
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Skin Colour in "Northern" Regions of The earth
Question: Netflix has recently produced a two-part miniseries, The Evolution of US, that examines the evolution of "man". The topic of of human skin colour was covered and it was stated that 'lighter ...
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What is meant by "50% related to sibling" versus "95% related to chimpanzee"?
Obviously I am more related to my sister than to a chimpanzee, so what do these different percentages actually refer to?
Here is my preliminary research:
https://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-...
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Evolution - The ability to control ear muscles
Among animals the ability to control ear muscles is pretty common, but only a few humans have the ability. Is it because we in general lost this ability ?
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Miscarriage in early humans
Today, about 10 to 20 percent of known pregnancy end in miscarriage. Pregnancy is a biological process that has been very well studied by medicine. As a result, modern medicine helps a lot to prevent ...
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Current Trend in Evolution of Human Intelligence
Up front, I am specifically not interested in philosophical or ethical considerations re Eugenics and related concepts. In an effort to receive a concise answer I'll post a narrowly defined question ...
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Why do female humans invest more in parental care than male humans, from an evolutionary standpoint? [closed]
As the question title suggests, why do female humans invest more in parental care than male humans, from an evolutionary standpoint?
My guess is that the crux of this that males and females have ...
