Human evolution: savannah theory fading (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, March 11, 2025, 11:07 (3 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: We know that sapiens spread far and wide, and we know that he co-existed with other homos, and we agree that he evolved. But we don’t know when or why the first sapiens “evolved”. Your theory used to be that your God did a dabble, operating on a group of pre-sapiens to give them new legs and pelvises, and then they descended from the trees. On Saturday you wrote: “We have no real evidence that savannah living drove human evolution now that we find hominins everywhere. This finding does not negate my God designer theory.” Perhaps you’d better repeat your exact theory, since you now seem to favour a natural process of evolution for all the different hominins and homos.

DAVID: I think God created us. No natural need for our big brain has ever been demonstrated.

Our big brain, which you now seem to accept as having evolved from earlier brains (as opposed to your God having performed one of his many operations on our sleeping ancestors), has clearly given us advantages in the great dog-eat-dog battle for survival, which you accept as an explanation of evolution’s history.

DAVID: Monkeys and great apes have been here relatively unchanged for six million years +/-. Then 'Why us'? Yes, the God designed hominin and homo forms whose attributes were formed in part by their climates. 'Same timing' of homos/sapiens fossils everywhere demotes the savannah theory to one proposal from limited evidence, which turns out to be a part of the whole. With pre-human and human activity everywhere we cannot know where sapiens first evolved. With my God theory, it could have occurred in several places relatively simultaneously.

Yes, the savannah theory is just one proposal and all proposals are made from limited evidence, because if there was unlimited evidence, there would be nothing to discuss! Let us remember that your God theory is not a natural progression of cause and effect but an intervention. All you have done now is expand your theory to your God operating on several groups instead of one.

Human evolution: Paranthropus robustus walked upright
A new fossil find in South Africa:
https://phys.org/news/2025-03-fossil-discovery-early-human-ancestor.html?utm_source=nwl...

QUOTE: "Paranthropus robustus was a species of prehistoric human that lived in South Africa about 2 million years ago."

DAVID: dhw worries about sapiens origin. All we can say is we evolved from one of the many ancestors we had. Homo ergaster, mentioned above, is considered to be a form of Erectus fossils so we can follow the line of development to some degree. Paranthropus robustus may not be in that line.

I’m not worried – just curious! I don’t think anyone who believes in evolution would deny that we evolved from our ancestors! But I must confess, I find the savannah theory a bit more convincing than your own theory that your God popped in and performed leg and hip (and brain) operations on a group of our ancestors - now expanded to several groups.