Is it truth or theory that humanity came out of Africa?

Question

Because if it is true it'll give the ******* BNP something to think about..

Answer 1

its a theory with so much supporting evidence

Answer 2

"Truth" and "theory" are not opposites. A theory can explain things that are true.

What is truth is that one of the prevailing theories about human origins, based on fossil evidence and mitochondrial DNA analysis, is that our ancestors arose on the African continent. While this theory is falsifiable, as all good theories should be (to disprove it you would need to find fossils or DNA evidence or other that did not point to Africa), it has yet to be falsified.

As to the people that say it is "only a theory, and has not been proven", you are getting your science confused. A theory is not "proven." When trying to come up with explanations for natural phenomena, a scientist develops a hypothesis, and it is the HYPOTHESIS that is tested in experiment, and if it is not disproven, it is tested again. If not disproven this time, it is tested again. And again, and again, countless times over. Other, related, hypotheses are also tested repeatedly. Reams of data are collected.

A THEORY is what connects all of these huge amounts of data together. So, a theory is not just some guy saying, "Hey guys! Whaddaya think of this!!" and everybody nodding in agreement because the guy's smart. It is a well-tested, extremely well-supported body of evidence pointing towards a single conclusion. The only difference between a well-corroborated, non-falsified, supported theory and a scientific "law" is one of semantics.

Answer 3

That theory, called the "out of Africa model" or the "single-origin hypothesis," is one theory of the origin of humanity. There is some good evidence, like very old skeletons found in Africa, and mitochondrial DNA analysis. But the opposing "multiregional hypothesis" suggests that hybridization occurred among different early human ancestors, and it also has some evidence behind it.

Answer 4

What will annoy the BNP even more is that we are all related, the whole of mankind has a common ancestor from between 100AD to 2000 BC, the variance is depending on what allowance you make for movement, with account taken for traders and conquering armies mixing the gene pool, 100 AD is the more likely date, you take a very conservative view of movement 2000 BC is more likely, either way everyone from an Australian Aborigine to an Eskimo is related

Answer 5

This is probably true, and there is some interesting evidence in favor, but it is really hard to prove.

There are some fossils and remains of human like creatures who lived in Africa quite a long time ago (millions of years) but it is hard to prove that they are the direct ancestors of humans. It looks like it, but you can't absolutely prove it . In Asia there are some pretty old remains but not as old as the African ones. The remains of the earliest people in Europe are nowhere near as old. And the remains of people in North America and South America are not very old at all (there is a big argument as to whether they are roughly 15,000 years old, or more like 30 -40,000, but they are nowhere near as old as the African remains.)

So the best answer is, it seems this is probably true, but we are going to have to work on the question for a while before we are really certain.

Answer 6

As I understand it, it is a theory that has sufficient evidential support for me to believe it is true. Sadly, I don't think the BNP think all that much.

Answer 7

According to science, we all started in Africa.

The Africans who migrated to what is now known as Europe evolved in to what we now call Europeans because they lost their need to be protected from the sun because of the cold climate.

They don't call Africa the Motherland for nothing. And you can't argue with the scientific evidence.

Answer 8

Its pretty much proven that we all have a comon ancestor (Mitochondrial Eve) in Africa roughly 50,000 years ago. Brian Sykes did the work on this, check out "The Seven Daughters of Eve"

Answer 9

Theory. It depends on your dividing line for humanity from non-humanity. We have Homo sapiens ancestors who looked like us but didn't think like us, who lived in Europe and Asia too. We don't know where the cultural change came that differentiated Homo sapiens sapiens from that ancestor -- it happened about 50,000 years ago.

Answer 10

The oldest human remains have been found there. Nothing else older has been found so far. Who/what are the BNP?

Answer 11

It depends whether you believe the overwhelming scientific evidence or "revealed truth." Your ancestors and mine and everybody else's came from Africa.