50 Great Myths of Human Evolution

Preface x
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