Path: ccsf.homeunix.org!ccsf.homeunix.org!news1.wakwak.com!nf1.xephion.ne.jp!onion.ish.org!onodera-news!Q.T.Honey!enews.sgi.com!logbridge.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: nulldev00@aol.com (Edward Green) Newsgroups: sci.physics,de.sci.physik,fr.sci.physique,alt.sci.physics,fj.sci.physics Subject: Re: The Universe, SARS and Science News Date: 11 Jun 2003 07:21:12 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Lines: 33 Message-ID: <2a0cceff.0306110621.2e4414a5@posting.google.com> References: <4d056f5f.0306072304.72aa4284@posting.google.com> <3EE3462D.E474C36E@hate.spam.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.29.110.119 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1055341273 18220 127.0.0.1 (11 Jun 2003 14:21:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 11 Jun 2003 14:21:13 GMT Xref: ccsf.homeunix.org fj.sci.physics:212 Uncle Al wrote in message news:<3EE3462D.E474C36E@hate.spam.net>... I'm still marvelling at the idea that 70,000 years ago the human species may have almost become extinct. Of course the idea is probably based on misinterpretation of the genetic data and a tendency to sensationalize -- that goes without saying -- but one want it to be true. So would liberals ... do I have closet liberalism? ;) If we passed through such a restrictive bottleneck so recently, we are even more all brothers than we thought. It's such an incredible thought ... takes the sting out of worries about nuclear annihiliation -- it was a complete coin toss whether the seemingly inevitable human investation of the planet, the culmination of nature and 5 billion years of blind evolution, would have happened or whether we would have become yet another insignificant blip in the then unexamuined fossil record, next to paleohomoeohipicus. Ahh.... there is the misinterpretation/distortion! In saying that "humans" almost become extinct, meanS direct ancestors of the dominant talking primate -- the fossil record _is_ littered with extinguished humanoids. So big deal ... if our little band had joined them, there would have been some other essentially human looking primate ready to try again: essentially, only broadening "human" a little ways down the branched genetic tree, human domination of the planet was almost inevitable after all. It's just that, like infant hyenas, having once gained the upper hand we quickly cleaned up the immediate competition. Note to Maleki: I never thought I'd be glad to see _you_! Educated curmudgea welcomed in vacant intellectual sea, abandoned by squeamish academics in high dudgeon. You are insulting, but insulting with class. ;-)