Introduction: Myths and Misconceptions 1

1 Ideas about Evolution 7

#1 Evolution is a theory, not a fact 7

#2 Evolution is completely random 12

#3 All evolutionary changes are adaptive 16

#4 In evolution, bigger is always better 22

#5 Natural selection always works 26

#6 Some species are more evolved than are others 29

#7 Humans lived at the same time as the dinosaurs 33

2 Human Origins 39

#8 If apes evolved into humans, then apes should not exist today 39

#9 “Ramapithecus” was a human ancestor 44

#10 Humans and African apes split from each other over 15 million years ago 51

#11 Gigantopithecus was the ancestor of “Bigfoot” (assuming Bigfoot exists) 56

#12 Human traits all evolved at the same time 60

#13 Large brains evolved very early in human evolution 66

#14 The common ancestor of African apes and humans walked like a chimpanzee 72

#15 Bipedalism first evolved on the African grasslands 76

#16 Lucy was so small because she was a child 80

#17 Australopithecus was a killer ape 85

#18 Human evolution can be described as a “ladder” 90

#19 All hominin species have probably been discovered 97

#20 There are no transitional fossils in human evolution 101

3 Evolution of the Genus Homo 109

#21 Only one species of Homo lived 2 million years ago 109

#22 Early Homo had modern human brain size 115

#23 Only humans are toolmakers and have culture 120

#24 We can identify species by the stone tools they made 125

#25 Homo habilis definitely made shelter 132

#26 Our ancestors have always made fire 135

#27 Early humans got all of their meat from hunting 139

#28 Species with larger brow ridges are more ape]like 143

#29 Neandertals walked bent over and were dumb brutes 148

#30 Neandertals definitely could not speak 153

#31 Modern humans appeared first in Eurasia 158

#32 “Mitochondrial Eve” is our only common female ancestor 163

#33 Neandertals did not interbreed with modern humans 169

#34 We do not need fossils any more to learn about human evolution 175

#35 All recent human species had large brains 178

4 Recent and Future Human Evolution 187

#36 Each of us has billions of distinct ancestors 187

#37 The first Americans came from Europe or the Middle East 192

#38 The first Polynesians came from South America 198

#39 The origin of agriculture led to an improvement in health 203

#40 Civilization has been influenced by extraterrestrials 206

#41 The recent increase in life expectancy was due initially to antibiotics 211

#42 There are three distinct shades of human skin color 217

#43 Biological race is useful for understanding human variation 223

#44 All African Americans have the same genetic history 227

#45 Genetic ancestry is the same thing as cultural identity 231

#46 Sickle cell Anemia is a “black disease” 234

#47 There is a strong genetic relationship between brain size and intelligence test scores 239

#48 Humans are no longer evolving 243

#49 Blond hair will eventually disappear 246

#50 We can predict future human evolution 249

References 258

Index 273