50 Great Myths of Human Evolution: Understanding Misconceptions about Our Origins

Content: 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