Leading Anthropologist Says Human Beings "Extinction Proof"

Leading Anthropologist Says Human Beings "Extinction Proof"
2011 06 13

The theory that human beings may be extinction-proof has been put forward by a leading anthropologist.
Darren Curnoe, a senior Lecturer at University of New South Wales, made the argument in an article published on academic website on The Conversation.

He advances the theory that comparing historical extinction rates among humans and animals shows how the advent of mass farming some 8,000 years ago fundamentally altered our evolution.

Curnoe, the author of the article, is a leading light in evolution and human anthropology.

He wrote: ’Farming gave our species level assurance that the biological isn’t always inevitable.
’The odds have shifted to such a degree that we may now be, with or without climate change, extinction-proof.’

His article comes after the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) moved its famous Doomsday clock one minute further from midnight, to six minutes, thanks to ’progress seen around globe in both key threat areas: nuclear weapons and climate change’.

The clock serves as a countdown to a theoretical apocalypse and the end of the human race, based on threats - whether nuclear or climatic - to our race.

The decision by the BAS, comprising 18 Nobel laureates from the worlds of chemistry and physics, has affected the thinking of Curnoe, an evolution and anthropology specialist of 15 years standing.
In 2010, Curnoe named and described the new species Homo gautengensis, one of the oldest known members of the human genus.

As background to his theory, he explains in his article that while extinction for the human race sounds apocalyptic, in biological terms it is almost a matter of certainty.

There was no animal life on earth 500million years ago whereas today there are around 6million species.

Humans - Homo sapiens – are just one of the 4,500 species of mammal and in our seven million years of evolution from apes some 30 or so species of two-footed ape have evolved and become extinct.
That is a 95 per cent loss of hominin biodiversity, whereas about one third of animal species becomes extinct every 10million years, which means the rate of extinction among hominins is three timers that of normal animals; we are prone to extinction.
But, the article argues, the Neolithic revolution 10,000 years ago - the invention of farming - fundamentally changed humans as a species.

There were around 100,000 hunter-gatherers in the Ice Age and now the worldwide population stands at approximately seven billion.

Curnoe says: ’Seen in its broadest context, the history of life on Earth soberly demonstrates that the vast majority of organisms that ever lived, perhaps 99 per cent of them, no longer do,’ wrote Curnoe.
’It also shows that mammal species normally last 1-2 million years before extinction inevitably bumps them off.
’Yet, unlike most mammals, including our dozens of extinct hominin cousins, we have escaped the vulnerabilities of a small and massively fluctuating population.
’The simple, but profound act, of growing our own food delivered us the food security that ensured most of our children survived and our population grew.

Read the full article at: dailymail.co.uk

Share |

Latest News from our Front Page

"Policy of multiculturalism in Europe has failed"
2013 05 22
The UK is experiencing a deficit of Caucasian people in the regions where the majority of the population is made up of immigrants and ethnic minorities. In the last 10 years more than 620 thousand white Brits left the capital of the UK, where Caucasians are now a minority making up only 45% of London’s population. The policy of multiculturalism in ...

Stockholm braced for further rioting by young immigrants
2013 05 21
Main article from FT.com follows below this comment: Well, all of this is hardly unexpected, since there now is pretty much annual riots in Sweden. Disgruntled immigrants who are burning cars, schools and other buildings is now turning into the norm in Sweden ...as it seems to be throughout the rest of Europe. Stones are flying and you can smell the ...

Dzhokhar’s boat ‘confession’ the most unbelievable part yet of Boston psyop
2013 05 21
Remember the notes that accompanied the anthrax deliveries right after 9/11? They said things like, “Allah is great!” “Death to Israel,” “Death to America!” and “9-11-01: This is next.” In other words, THE MUSLIMS DID IT: the same ones who had so handily defeated the world’s greatest military machine on Sept. 11, 2001. And they did it because they hate us ...

The Mystery of the ’Immaculately Conceived’ Baby Anteater
2013 05 21
[...]Staffers at a zoological conservation center in Greenwich, Conn., are very confused — as are the rest of us — because their female giant anteater, Armani, has managed to conceive a baby, apparently without the presence of a male anteater. What? It all started in August, writes Lisa Chamoff for Greenwich Time. Armani, an anteater at the LEO Zoological Conservation Center, ...

The US Government Might Be the Biggest Hacker in the World
2013 05 21
Cyber crime is big business in the US. It’s used to spy, steal, harass competition, political opponents, or to stage an attack and blamed it on a foreign enemy. Is the government in on this crime industry? Yes, and in bigger ways than you can imagine… This trend is enabled domestically by an institutionally corrupt US legal system and a police state ...

More News »