Convoluted human evolution: Tattersall's take (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, February 16, 2016, 18:43 (3203 days ago) @ dhw

David's comment: Until this is settled, they look a lot like us, and therefore will remain Homo. With all the branches of Hominins at the start, it looks like convergence, with humans a definite purpose of the process.
> 
> dhw: I agree that it looks like convergence - different varieties evolving at the same time, often under different conditions - each of them with the “definite purpose” of surviving and/or improving. Homo sapiens has proved to be the most successful. That is how natural selection works: success = survival. -Natural selection is the active judge for survival only after it is presented with choices. I'm still asking why humans were presented at all. They weren't necessary from the ape/chimp point of view. Something drove that special brain and intellectual capacity, when it wasn't necessary to appear.