The Road Less Considered

Here's a good one kids.  It's been a slow day & the CUBS aren't on TV, so I've been surfing the favorites on the computer.  Came across this on Science Daily.  It has to do with science & evolution.  Not to worry.  Uncle Rich is going for the purely scientific nature of the information, so no politics or religion.

It seems that a man by the name of Tim Weaver, an anthropologist from UC Davis, "adds evidence that CHANCE, rather than natural selection, best explains why the skulls of modern humans & ancient Neanderthals evolved differently.  The findings may alter how anthropologists think about human evolution."

Now the only thing I don't understand is that they don't go on to explain the difference, at least what I consider a difference, between, "chance," & random genetic mutation, & quite frankly, I couldn't begin to ponder the difference.

But it's still intriguing.  Even if there is a definitional difference between what they call "chance," & random genetic mutation, it adds a whole new spectrum to the debate.  Here, they were just talking @ the shape of the skulls.  From what I've read, the shape of the skull, actually, the whole body, in Neanderthals, was an adaptation to the cold weather brought about by the ice age in Europe.  They were short, stocky, very strong & had short blunt noses, better to conserve heat & warm the air breathed into the lungs.

The appearance of Cro Magnon, that's basically us, was near the end of the ice age.  As the story goes, Cro Magnon had a higher brain pan capacity & better vocal apparatice & that is genearally attributive to his success as opposed to Neanderthal.

As I said, it's been a slow day so I thought that I'd throw something different into the mix.  Hope all of you enjoy the Chamber of Commece weather while avoiding cameras & the evil, law breaking signs that suport our troops.  What a farce.  JATFUR.

RichK