can_anyone_help_me_start Twitch The standard theory regarding the genesis and development of 'modern' (yet still preHistoric) humans (homo sapiens) has recently come under pretty serious assault. Assess what are, to you, the three most important 'puzzles'spawned by that challenge, and explain why they are so. It's not that I'm completely clueless as to what I should do. I'm just having a hard time finding and understanding the 'puzzles' my professor is referring to. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 061007 ... ever dumbening rubix cube has to be one of the three, for sure. tip your servers; i'll be here all week. anyway, i'm interested in your problem. i was an anthro major in school (long ago). i was never really into the paleo side of things (more molecular genetics and evol, behavioral bio, endocrinology stuff) but was into the kind of issue you are looking at here. i'm not sure what you're driving at, though. are we talking about cranial size and birth canal and upright walking and ??? or something altogether different? like changing environmental pressures? basically, i know neither what you nor i are talking about yet, but i'm excited to see what the mysterious three puzzles are. once i get a better idea of the background info, i'd be more than happy to spout my one-time-informed but now largely forgotten bullshit. i took a grad class and we wrote a paper surveying the hypotheses regarding concealment of ovulation. couldn't tell you a damn thing about it now though. just to give you an idea of how little i remember from my college days, and how any insight i might have should be approached with caution. i'm a sculptor now, for crying out loud. but i was a engineering major on the front end of the equation, so um yeah. anywho, good luck on your paper. 061007 ... Twitch The only puzzle I can muster up is "What happened to the Neanderthals?" Christ, that puzzle's probably the most asked of them all. Can anyone think of any other puzzles? 061010 ... Twitch and of course that's not even a puzzle... There's just more then one explanation. Maybe we outcompeted them...or maybe the bastards were given essays and eventually downed themselves out. 061012 ... jane the only thing that i can think of is how apparently the dinosaurs evolved from a unicellular organism, & then they were killed off, but then somehow we also came from a unicellular organism? i mean maybe i just didnt study enough but that one has always bothered me. did evolution restart or am i missing something? 061016 ... nom Twitch, have you identified what that "pretty serious assault"/"challenge" is? 061016 ... nom "recently" 061016 ... () ( why did language and other symbolic systems occur? ) ( why did humankind expand into territory that they, initially, seemed to be poorly adapted for, such as northern europe? ) ( was it a mutation or an environmental pressure which caused the ancestors of chimps and humans to diverge genetically? ) 061017 ... Twitch I would assume the "assault" that our current theory has come under is rooted in the questions that we had to come up with. But that essay is finished now. The puzzles I have found concern Cro-Magnon man's accelerated growth in technology and langauge, as well as his unique sense of self-awareness. 061017 ... nom alright... i was/am still curious what the 'recent' "serious assault"/"challenge" to "the standard theory regarding the genesis and development of 'modern' (yet still preHistoric) humans (homo sapiens)" is/was my first thought was the recentish discussions/media coverage of 'intelligent_design in classrooms' but is 'ID' a serious assault/ challenege "to the standard theory..."? to me it is not so i was wondering what else it could be... i can think of lots of puzzles regarding human evolution and the universe in general but what "puzzles" have been spawned by this 'recent' "challenge", whatever it is? i ask myself... (also i find the use of 'genesis' here interesting) (what is "the standard theory" anyway?) 061017 ... nom i'd seriously like to read the fine print 061017 what's it to you? who go blather from