Early humans had sex with chimps?

Question

I thought this would like to provoke a question in your mind
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1641443.htm

Answer 1

Please notice the mistake commonly made in mainstream science press (science articles written or edited by non-scientists).

The first sentence says "Our early ancestors interbred with chimpanzees after the two species drew apart millions of years ago"

But the headline reads "Early humans had sex with chimps"

Can you see the mistake?

They went from "our early ancestors" in the text to "early humans" in the headline.

Guess what, they are not the same thing. Our early ancestors were not what we would call "human" ... if by "early ancestors" we mean at the time of separation from the branch that led to chimps and the branch that led to humans. Our early ancestor would not look like or be called "human" ... nor would the chimp's "early ancestor" look like or be called "chimp." By definition, these two branches were indistinguishable at the time ... they would have slightly different genes, but would look almost identical ... so it would not be unusual for the two of them to interbreed. But none of the bloodlines produced by these interbreedings happened to survive (most bloodlines do indeed die out). So the separate bloodlines continued to evolve separately.

Eventually the interbreedings between the two branches (these two bloodlines) became increasingly rare ... although these interbreedings may still have left some individuals whose fossils we can still find. And eventually these interbreedings died off altogether.

In short, this news story is barely news at all. Scientists have just adjusted the time period over which the two branches were occasionally interbreeding ... an important piece of data to get correct ... but not mind-blowing or even unexpected. But it is much more sensational to report these with the headline: "Early humans had sex with chimps." Shocking!

All the better to get it posted around on the Internet.

(Science journalists make me groan sometimes with the bad science they propagate. In this case, I'm guessing that it was not the article-writer himself that came up with the headline ... but the editor. I've written a few magazine articles myself in which some editor who barely understood my story, came up with a completely inaccurate headline.)

Answer 2

No recent humans had sex with chimps. As in that's where AIDS started. So I'm going to say between 50 and 40 years ago some missionary in a South African jungle gave a chimp the business.

Answer 3

Well, at present, from reading your link(which, I may add it seems not many have...WHAT a surprise)it is but a hypothesis based around the Toumai fossil. Saying that, early 'humans' 5.3 million years ago would have been MUCH more similar to chimps than we are now, so it is a scenario that cannot be so easily dismissed without further examination.

Answer 4

There was a man X primate baby born once that was created by scientists. The mother was a gorrilla (sp?) and the father was human. Artificialy done of course. And they put the baby to sleep days after it was born. I'm sure they've done this many time though. If scientists have a way to do something, they'll do it.

Answer 5

Since early humans were practically chimps themselves, what's the big deal. I mean, when did the line form between man and ape? I'm pretty sure it didn't just appear one day.

Answer 6

Well, hominids weren't what most people think of as human. See http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/blogs/static/dowbrigade/hominid.jpg for an illustration of what they apparently looked like. But the idea of hominids breeding with apes is interesting, given the accepted belief that neanderthals weren't able to breed with "more advanced" humans (but not for lack of trying).

Answer 7

Frankly, modern humans have sex with chimps. It's all on the internet, baby!

Answer 8

Why?? You sound as though you seem to have a great fascination with bananas and nuts and other fruits that like to mess around....

Answer 9

in different ttimes when people were not so judgemental and always prosecuting each other, I would have banged a cute little monkey. I would probably try to shave it and I would probably only do a girl, though.

Answer 10

Instead of trying to provoke a question in my mind, you should just ask one.