Where did humankind originate from?

Monkeeees! In Africa.

I had to check other because this wasn't multi-pick...

Pangaea

Africa... I'm not sure which part of Africa though

apes (or it could be chimps or some some primate)

probabbly somewhere's from Africa.

btw: these options are not mutually exclusive. way to go genius.

Well...according to my anthropology class, humans evolved from hominids that evolved from apes.....and the first hominids that evolved into homo sapian sapians were from africa...i can't remember if it was ne or se africa but i'm going to guess southeast b/c it seems familiar....
they couldn't have come from india or tibet b/c those are from the wrong ape family!

Atlantis...
Love this stuff.

obviously we didn't evolve from chimps b/c they didn't exist 6 million years ago....only their ancestors did......
by the way....why do you have to chose apes OR a location? isn't it both?? and what about an option for all of those god people?

Until I see some sort of evidence of origins, I will remain skeptical. It all sounds pretty much like a creation myth to me.

I have no idea

What kind of evidence do you want, and for what exactly?

I'm not choosey. Anything I can examine myself that will convince me that humans had an origin.

God.

Definite humankind, which species of hominids? ... or are you including all of them? Why isn't this multi-choice?

Thanks, you summed up alot for me

Can't forget about Lucy, she was found in Ethiopia, which is classified as the NE quadrant.

Ah, see that's rather harder. First you'd have to become an expert palaeontologist. Then you'd have to apply to museums for them to let you see their early human artefacts. Then you'd have to examine them objectively, perhaps running genetic sequencing on them (in which case, you would need to train to be an expert geneticist first)...

impossible to answer

all of which assumes we are experts, which we are not. we are children learning to figure nature out. nothing should be assumed, and all possibilities left open. the universe is an amazing place. to be objective you must have all the facts. if you have half the facts, you are subjected to ignorance of the real truth, whatever it may be. if you expound on research that came before you, that is not objectivity either, it is only placing an assumption on top of an assumption. nope. fact is, its fun to try and find out, but we're too young a species to know.

And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
12 And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

These border what was the garden of Eden....where life began...

...and how would that prove origins? It seems to me that logically, origins is a negative, ie: humans didn't exist prior to this theoretical origin. And you can't prove a negative.

It is all a fig newton of our imagination.

Ah, I see your point. In this case, the null hypothesis would be "humans have always existed". We can't disprove that anymore than I can disprove that there are purple key-eating pixies with a preference for Jammy Dodgers living under your bed. But we can amass such a body of evidence that it becomes a virtual statistical certainty that something isn't true. I know you can come back at me and say, "a virtual statistical certainty isn't the same as absolute certainty" and that's right - but it isn't a reason to believe that something that is pretty much statistically impossible is in fact true. If it was, then you'd better start locking your keys up at night (and puzzling over where you lock up the keys for the safe you locked your keys in) for fear of the pixies. Another hypothesis you might test is "humans existed after X date but not before". It would be simple to disprove that - just find a human fossil predating X. So the onus is really on those who don't believe that humans had an origin to disprove the commonly held belief that they do. Find me a dinosaur skeleton with a man in its gut. Really, please do, because I could steal it and win a Nobel prize or something!

Seriously, statistics is an immensely powerful tool. People don't respect it as they should because it's seen as the weak strain as maths. And it isn't. My lecturer described it in a way I found interesting. He said, if God created the world and knows everything about it, every number, every population size, every factor relating to change, and we can never hope to measure all of those things, statistics gives us a way to estimate the cards that God is holding in his hands. We can't know the real numbers, but statistics lets us get close enough to get the idea. All of which is somewhat at a tengent, except it isn't because stats is at the heart of this. A virtual certainty is virtually certain. Why is it not easier to accept that, than something that is virtually impossible?

> all of which assumes we are experts, which we are not.

No it doesn't.

>we are children learning to figure nature out.

You can be a child if you want. Personally, I'm a lady

>if you expound on research that came before you, that is not objectivity either,
> it is only placing an assumption on top of an assumption.

That's what people say when they don't understand the scientific process. There's peer review, there's replication, there's the potential for paradigm shifts...The scientific process actually works, it actually produces results, and those results are testable, against nature, not just by three guys in a basement somewhere playing with equations on a blackboard.

>nope. fact is, its fun to try and find out, but we're too young a species to
> know.

We know so much. We know so much. How can you put down all of the discovery of the thousands of years of humanity that have preceded you? Your ancestors knew how to make fire. Your ancestors knew about placing stress on the right parts of a flint in order to make an axe. Your ancestors knew which part of an animal to attack to kill it quickly and easily. We learned how to selectively breed crops and animals for agriculture. We learned how to use fermentation or boiling to render water safe to drink. We learned that the Earth is a sphere. We know how proteins are made from genes. We know why your son looks a little like you, a little like Julie, a little like your parents and hers. We know how to alter the genome of rice so that it will grow in areas ravaged by drought. We can make nuclear bombs. We can make vaccines. We can make spaceships. We can make telephones.

Will we ever be old enough for you? Will you ever actually be proud of what we've accomplished rather than ashamed? Will you ever be able to address a scientist without patronising them as someone who hasn't discovered the secrets of life that you are privy to and we are not?

I hate that people hate me for being a scientist. I hate that it's seen as less than the arts, less than religion, less than "just getting on with it", less than "the good old fashioned way of living where people died of cholera in their tens of thousands"...We don't claim to have all the answers, but to have scorn poured on what is known? To have our efforts to explain what isn't known derided as the petty actions of a child who doesn't yet understand how the world really works? That doesn't help anyone.

What sort of statistical evidence would suggest origins?

How does: "humans existed after X date but not before" place the onus to disprove on those who are skeptical of origins? It seems to me that it would be the other way around. I'm simply saying I'm skeptical of origins until I've seen some compelling evidence. I don't think that I'm suggesting anything unreasonable. I just don't see why I should believe something without evidence.

Statistical evidence based on "Prior to X date there are 0 human fossils and after X date there are a million human fossils" would show that the probability that human fossils from before X existed and were just missed was insignificant, while the probability that human fossils were in fact linked to dates following X was significant. It's kind of hard to explain it properly without resorting to very technical terminology, so I hope you catch my drift from that!

But that is evidence, right? Evidence doesn't have to be proof. You build up a body of evidence to support something, and once you reach a certain amount you can say, well this really is likely to be true, especially when you haven't found any evidence to confound that. I wouldn't ask anyone to believe something where there is no evidence, but there is evidence that humans had an origin at a particular date in time. What are you suggesting is the alternative - perhaps that's where I'm not getting you, but you seem to be implying that the other possible view is that humans never began, that we have always been as long as the universe has been? Am I muddling what you're actually saying?

"humans existed after X date but not before" doesn't *exactly* put the onus on people who are skeptical than humans had origins, but the statement itself is something that can be disproven. If you think it isn't true, despite the body of evidence and the stats saying that it almost certainly is, then go ahead and disprove it. It's a statement that can be disproven, and that's where the scientific process comes in. Where's my man in a dinosaur? (I really want that Nobel prize )

The question seems to be, Where on Earth did humankind originate? That question is answered variously by differing areas of study; but, as I understand it now, Lower Africa is the current thought.

I have not heard the arguments for Tibet, India, or Atlantis. Only sci-fi die-hards are apt to go with apes and aliens. All honest folks are obliged to say they don't know.

I am not sure that we get to know the answer. And, when you get right down to it, what are we going to do with the information if we find out?

Uh - only sci-fi die-hards are apt to go with apes???

*pauses*

Ok, so I'm a big sci-fi fan....
Richard Dawkins is married to a former Dr Who star...

But I'm sure most of the other evolutionists out there aren't sci-fi die-hards!

Planet earth with a little help from our galaxy.

I don't know.

Not a fan of evolution; leaves too many unanswered question. For me, God did it makes better sense until there is more convincing science. Sorry if there was a hurt nerve there. I will be more careful to couch my responses in "most" or "some" and other weasal words per my formally training in academic writing. This is only my first day with Survey Central and I don't want to be shunned immediately.

Not sure

you can make water safe by fermenting it?
my point is a philisophical one, not scientific. similar to 'the prove your existence' survey, i am just stating my belief that know one reallly knows anything. this world may be an illusion for all we know. to build and make things is great, i was talking about researching things you cant know (like the past) and calling the conclusion truth. we weren't there!

That's why we have such a high tolerance for alcohol in the west, and why until recently, children in hospital were given their allowance of beer each day. It was often very weak, but small ale was virtually all a lot of people drank in the past.

ah so, basically bad water can be made better by using it to make ale? wouldnt help with any chemical contamination though

Well, we can have words about it on some other occasion! But I don't see why it's "weaselly" to soften insulting statements slightly. There are some brilliant, brilliant people out there who absolutely support evolution all the way. It seems unfair to dismiss all of those brilliant scientists as "just a bunch of sci-fi fans" as thought they were incapable of rational thought. Would you say the same about Einstein if you thought his equations weren't strongly supported enough?

Oh, you might have noticed by now, I'm something of an evolutionist myself. Only without the brilliance...which is a real pity!

No, but chemical contamination wasn't the biggest threat people faced - it was diseases like cholera. Ever seen an East Asian drinking? They tend to go from standing to horizontal a lot, lot quicker than people from Europe. They discovered tea and so boiled their water, which is another way of destroying infectious agents. But it meant they never developed the inherent (genetic) tolerance for alcohol that we have evolved (but that I have never tested!)

I haven't been watching that closely, but from what I've seen "X date" keeps moving further back all the time. It seems that everytime I read something on the topic, they're saying that the latest discoveries shocked everyone and they predate anything discovered before by some humongous amount of time. So statistically, this suggests to me that if the pattern continues in this direction...

I've examined my apartment thoroughly for human fossil remains and come up empty handed. Does this suggest to you that no one else has ever lived in my apartment?

I'm not suggesting anything. I've not said that humans have always existed, nor have I said the contrary. All I'm saying is that as far as I'm concerned the jury is still out on the issue of origins.

And incidentally, I feel the same way about the magic pixies under my mattress.

Don't know.

my bible says God created us

Amen

And I'm guessing your bible also says it was in the garden of Eden. So where was that?

Eastern Turkey