The Human Evolution Story so far

After writing about Religion, and Passion & Success, and nearing the end of the year, I decided to return back to my older interests on evolution, especially the Human evolution.

Many of us would have heard about Neanderthals, our (Homo sapiens sapiens) closest relatives. Neanderthals (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) have become extinct from this earth, 28,000 years ago. They were said to be ruling this earth  for more than 200,000 years, especially in regions of today’s Europe and Western Asia. They lived in regions around today’s Israel, Mongolia, Italy, Gibraltar, and Britain, but gradually moved from place to place. 

Research shows that modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) invaded Europe, starting a little more than 40,000 years ago which means that Neanderthals and our current species would have lived together in the same region or territory for a period of 12,000 – 15,000 years. This makes it interesting. The Neanderthals and modern humans probably lived most of their lives without seeing each other; or rather kept away from each other from the landscape. 

The last batch of Neanderthals are believed to have lived in the now British territory of Gibraltar, some 28,000 years ago. The prime reasons being cited for extinction of Neanderthals are Climate Change and subtle differences in their behavior and biology. It is known that Neanderthals were bigger in size than Homo sapiens sapiens, and therefore would have required 4034 Calories per day, while a modern human being required only 2200 calories per day, which might have caused the Neanderthals to hunt for bigger animals only (like horses, deer, bison and Wild cattle etc..),  though they ate vegetables and other plant food, they served only as supplementary food items for them. 

Humans on the other hand might have hunted for smaller animals, survived with plants and vegetables (latter activities were primarily carried out by women), during the extreme climatic conditions that were changing rapidly within a span of few decades. Therefore humans survived with diversified diet. Another theory is that, Neanderthals had different cognitive capabilities than modern humans; as they reproduced 4 years earlier than in modern humans and therefore matured earlier.

Now the developing story of our history is about the discovery of a new Denisovans – another sub-species of Homo sapiens, who seem to have coexisted in Asia with Neanderthals and early modern humans. To begin with, the common ancestor of modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans would be Homo heidelbergensis, (though some scientists consider it an European species ancestral to neanderthals alone) who existed 700,000 years ago and began to diverge into these two groups and so far. But now a discovery in the Caves of Siberia, called the Denisova Cave, a new human species – Denisovans seem to have existed 190,000 years ago. The surprising and interesting thing is that, this cave seems to have been home for both Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Denisovans are closer to Neanderthals in their DNA and reveals that both might have interbreed with each other. However it is highly likely that Denisovans might have interbreed with another species (yet-to-be identified) which would have created them.  The DNA analysis also tells that traces of Neanderthal DNA (approx 2.5%) in found all non-Africans today and of Denisovan DNA (5%) found in today’s Melanesians – the aboriginal Australasians.  This means that humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) interbreed with both Neanderthals and Denisovans and also provide strength to the argument that Neanderthals were with the West, and Denisovans with the East. 

Prior to this, the discovery of the remains of Homo sapiens idaltu, another extinct sub-species of us, was found in Ethiopia in 2003. This species is argued as the ancestors for us – Homo sapiens sapiens.   The discovery of yet another species – Homo floresiensis – known as Hobbit (as they were known to be very short) through the remains found in Indonesia  in 2004 tells about another human species that is considered to be from Homo erectus, another of our sibling that would have lived with the modern humans for a long time.   

Well, the story does not end here, and hopefully,  even more mysteries of our species will be unraveled in future. 

Sources of Info: 

• National Geographic , October, 2008
• Scientific American, August 2009 
• Scientific American, August 2012
• National Geographic, July 2013
• New Scientist, November 2013

India’s Telephone Service in 1970’s and 80’s

India’s 162 year old telegram service (1851-2013) had come to an end on July 14, 2013.  At this juncture, I wondered how many of us know how the telephone system worked, especially in the 1970’s or 1980’s, where telephones were not available in our residences. 

If you need need to make a long distance call, to your relative residing in a farther location, all you need to do was to walk up to your nearest Postal and Telegraph office, and the following process ensues. 

• At your nearest postal and telegraph office, you book a ‘trunk call’ by giving your relative’s name and full residential address (and your details too) to the operator or clerk there. You may also have to typically pay an advance amount of Rs.10/- (Remember this was during 1980’s).
• The operator then calls your relative’s corresponding postal and telegraph office and informs about your and your relative’s details to the operator and asks them to inform your relative. 
• A person from your relative’s postal and telegraph office then goes to the residence of your relative and informs him about your call, and requests the relative to come to the office to speak with you. 
• After your relative goes to his local postal and telegraph office, the operator informs your operator and then the call is initiated, generally by you (as the caller) and you communicate.  Billing is based on “caller pays”, though I am not sure of the rates, and had felt it was generally low – even in 80’s – and have felt that it in many occasions the operator will refund you the money you paid.  

In three decades, the voice communications have evolved drastically from the above scenario to landline telephones becoming affordable, telephone booths at every corner, and the arrival of mobile phones that have wiped out both of the above and converted it from a family device to a personal device and future looks bright for mobiles with 4G and LTE knocking at our doors .. oops … mobiles. 

Emotions and Intelligence – Part I

I believe that Intelligence is a skill that can be acquired through consistent practice. I also feel that the major factor that would differentiate a machine and a man is ‘Emotions’ and not Intelligence, in the future. Emotions are the only answer to questions why people behave in a certain way, while the logic dictate something drastically different. Emotions are more complex and are difficult to simulate or built-in.

I knew that people have been working for long to build Emotion into robots and other Intelligent systems to make it more humane!. But, I am afraid as it could not be that easy!. When we look around the nature, we can see that animals have emotions!. However, animals may have lesser emotions than humans!. I also feel that even trees will have emotions, but they are either not able to express them to us, or we do not possess the capability to understand their emotions!. I have also heard of the view that emotions are considered as an outcome of intelligence.

Looking at evolution, we can see that the living beings have evolved with more and more emotions, in this earth, (if Darwinian theory is believed to be right) and the ability to express those emotions explicitly have also become tremendously increased. So, as we can see, we use different methods, such as talking, writing, typing etc.. to communicate our emotions, and one can understand the other by understanding the emotions, and not by just looking at the actions – a person had performed!.

A lot of animals are intelligent and behave in Intelligent ways, such as ants foraging for their food. However, the emotions that goes through them is extremely difficult for us to decipher. So, more research should go on to understand the emotions of the others, including all living beings of the nature, rather than just deciphering their intelligent behaviors. I feel man has evolved this far, when compared to other animals, because of his more number of emotions and not just merely because of intelligence. We also just cannot predict that we possess all the emotions that exists in this earth.

Emotions are of different types, and one can atleast make two classifications as: Positive Emotions and Negative emotions. Emotions such as goodwill, happiness etc.. can be considered as positive, as it makes our mind feel more lighter and comfortable, while other emotions such as greed, fear, can be considered negative, as it makes our mind more heavier!. I also feel each species in this earth, has different set of emotions, than others.

Meditation can be defined as the art and state of keeping your mind light, without any emotions – either positive or negative.

Oh! … let me stop these philosophical thoughts for now!.

Updates:

• Emotions and Communications – Part II
• Emotions and Passion – Part III

God and his Open System

As (I might have) indicated earlier in my blogs (such as “Secrets of Nature”, “Beliefs on Evolution“, and Superior Evolution), it makes sense for us to perceive the creations of God – essentially the Universe, as a System and of course, I believe that God has created this system.

I also sometimes believe that it is this System, created by God, that creates each one of us, than God himself creating each one of us individually, and the system has also spawned up the entire earth and the world we live in. We are all components or entities within the system, and I believe that god has designed and put in place controls, limitations and other mechanisms for the effective functioning of his system, and of course, god will and can control his system.

One secret to understanding God’s own system is to understand nature that will unlock all the secrets of the system. Talking more from the system theory perspective, a system, is called a closed system, if it does not interact with the external world. In such case, a closed system cannot change and also cannot evolve. However, as we know the system created by God, the Universe, is subject to change and evolution, and hence very much an open system.

As the main system, created by God is open, all the entities and all the other subsystems within it, can only be open naturally. Hence, it is highly impossible to design and have a fully closed system, and run it for long!, as in a closed system, there cannot be developments or enhancements possible. So, for a system to function, it should try to mimic the parent system, and hence should be open, and should interact with diverse external environments to enrich and sustain itself. This could be true for families, organizations, countries, cultures etc…. as these are all sub-systems within the global system.

Well, now the IT people, may ask if God has created a open system, where is the source code?. My answer is, the source code is available for all of us, but we have surrounded ourselves with such worldly illusions, that we are unable to see it, – forget deciphering it!.

Thinking about The Secrets of Nature

Well, I had thought of writing many things in this blog, in the past few months; but was extremely busy with my work to take my time off. Though today is no different from the busiest days, I had a pressing thought, that pushed me to blog.

Thinking about the secrets of nature, humans (some of them) do believe that they are the superior beings, and have all powers vested with them. But, I got an analogy, that was striking to me, when I was dwelling upon these thoughts.

According to the Big bang theory, the world started as a single cosmic atom, and kept splitting into stars, planets, and moons. All of these have a life; i.e., they have a birth and death. It is an accepted fact of science, that stars, planets and other heavenly bodies do have life and death. Similarly, even in our body there are thousands of organisms in the form of bacteria, that are born, and live and die. Probably according to these organisms, your body is their world, as earth is to you, and some times, they jump from one body to another, as man plans to visit/stay in other planets like mars.

So, the universe (like the heavenly objects), humans and even the smallest creatures (like the bacteria) do have a birth, life and death. A striking aspect that differentiates one from the other is the longevity.

Continuing to think in this fashion, it leads to a thought that the earth we live in, could be our master, and we are like those countless bacteria that live in our body. As we take steps to keep our body in a healthy condition, the earth too sometimes takes these steps, that comes to us as natural disasters like, floods, earthquakes etc…

So, taking this analogy further, when we pollute our environments, we behave like those bad viruses in our body, to our master – the earth; As long as we are good in maintaing the health of our master – the earth, we would be safe, otherwise, we are bound to be punished by our master.

I do sometimes think, that humans have been given a greater control over other species in the earth is to protect our master – the earth from being damaged/polluted/ruined by others and at the same time to protect the good species (similar to good bacteria in our body) from being annihilated. Therefore in my thinking, humans could have evolved as an ‘intelligent medicine’ to save the earth, while in reality, we may be using that ‘intelligence’ to meet our own self-interests and therefore ruining the objectives of our master – the earth.

Hope everyone realizes this.

Superior Evolution

I had an opportunity to visit the Birla Science Museum, while I was in Hyderbad last week. The Birla Science Museum had tools for scientific demonstrations, and also portrayed real dinosaur fossils. Apart from that there was a replica of the now submerged city of Dwarka near Gujarat. The thing that struck me most was the mention about the origin of life, in the dinsosaur part of the museum.

“The earth is old by 460 million years and if this is shortened into one day, then life began at the 7th hour. Dinosaurs came at 22:30 and disappeared at 23:40. As far as man is concerned, he was born in just the last minute of the day. ”

That harped my mind, whether the man is really the so- called evolved creature!. That opens a possibility that there may be superior creatures evolved at some later point of time. Also, if you look at the other creatures that were around, the first living being were unicelled, then followed by multi-celled, vertebrates, mamals etc… So, there seems to be a superior evolution happening. But ofcourse, dinosaurs, the giant creatures that ruled this earth are no more now. But few million years later, man the creature is seeming to be master of earth. But how far it lasts is an interesting question!!. Again the possibilities seems to be too many to think of – whether man will be replaced by another superior creature or he evolves himself into a far more superior creature or he just sits there, while another superior creature evolves in the years to come are matters of interest, and would lead to inconclusive debates (atleast in our life time, until man does some thing foolish to destroy himself!!)

And to end, an Australian aboriginal proverb in today’s newspaper again struck me. It says ‘All of us are visitors to this point of time and to this place‘.

My beliefs on Evolution

As promised in my previous post, here are my beliefs or thoughts on evolution. Here’s the one liner.

“Everything in this universe will evolve”.

I mean to say that it doesn’t matter whether something is alive or not. Anything and everything in the Universe (including the world we live in) will evolve or change, in due course of time. Here time could be anything between a millisecond to a billions of years.

But that said, I also believe that changes or evolution to all of the things in the universe is happening (almost) always. The thing is that, we realize them only after a significant period has passed or rather I should say, we realize them only after we attain the capability of realizing them.

The question, whether, things change for the better or for the worse may arise. I believe that most of us are not in a position to differentitate between the good and the bad. Ultimately, I like to say that, (quoting some philosphical thoughts) everything will change for the better.

The above statements are my beliefs. I don’t think it will be hard to prove, but I don’t have the patience or interest to prove it scientifically. Though I am a scientist (by designation), my areas of work are on Information Technology. So, I would like to say that these thoughts are on a philosophical note.

Was Darwin Right?

I browsed through an old National Geographic Magazine – November 2004 issue, with its focus on Evolution. It carried an article ‘Was Darwin Wrong?’. I believe it should have been ‘Was Darwin Right’, because it stated that Darwin was right about evolution or atleast the gist of his theory. As a scientist, he had garnered many theories to support his theory, few of which were proved to be wrong later. I also learnt that Darwin has renounced christiantity and became agnostic.

Well, I got a few inspiring thoughts after reading it. Let me put up them in the future blogs!

Updates: My articles related to Evolution

• Languages and Evolution 
• My beliefs on Evolution
• Superior Evolution
• Secrets of Nature
• God and his Open System

More about Languages and Evolution

Myself and my colleagues had a discussion on the evolution of languages and ultimately the evolution of man. So, this is a sort of continuation of my previous blog post – Linguistic Monograph. A few points that worth mentioning here are that

1. A language is said to be primitive (meaning old) if it has a fewer constructs.
2. The sounds (phonetics) used in a language is dependent on the sounds used / required by the people of a region, who were responsible for the growth of the language.

Based on the above, the language of Tamil was discussed. Tamil is now an officially declared ‘classical’ language. It has fewer constructs, but has a solid and good grammar. Perhaps this could be attributed to the use of languages for many years. Another conclusion that was derived in our conversation was Tamils or atleast the older Tamils did not require the sounds of ‘sh’, as it is only people who were living in higher regions need to produce high sounds or sounds from there stomach, as they need to communicate clearly. Tamils most probably should have lived in plains, and they did not find the need to produce ‘gha’ or ‘sha’ and they simply produced the sounds of ‘ka’ and ‘sa’.

Another related talk was on the research done by a Prof. Dr. R M Pitchappan from Madurai Kamaraj University, who has done research on the immigration of man. Some of the details could be found at his site http://www.geocities.com/rdbgy/journey.htm

About a Linguistic Monograph

Today I received a mail from my colleague just having this link.
http://www.datanumeric.com/dravidian/index.html

It pointed to a detailed document on “Discovery of Dravidian as the common source of Indo-European”. A lot of examples and a detailed narrations are put up to that effect.

That said, I think whenever a person is exposed to a new language all of a sudden, he tries to correlate it with the language that he knows best. Thus, if you are exposed to many new languages, and if you come across similarities between the one’s you have mastered and the new ones, you get a feeling that all languages in the world might have sprung up from a very few common sources, if not a single source.

I also believe the origin of man and the various races and immigration issues also matter in the context of languages. It is widely beleived now that man would have originated from Kenya and spread the entire africa and a group moved towards central Asia, India, south Asia to Australia.