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Our ancestors might not be "from" Africa.
There's huge gaps in the historical record because of that whole ice age cycle thing.
Sapians may have evolved somewhere else, but either slowly migrated to Africa as safe haven or just died out everywhere else as glaciers bulldozed all traces of evidence.
It doesn't really change anything, we'd still all be descendants of the same people. I just don't think we know enough to for sure say the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence.
It's not that long ago we thought all our ancestors lived in caves, just because evidence was most likely to be preserved then
I note your acknowledgement that absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence, but I think the science has gone further than this to rebut this opinion or theory or hypothesis.
Firstly, there's not a linear progression from some distant precursor like monkeys through to homo sapiens. Rather we seem to have coalesced from a number of other species, and this record is present in the fossil record in Africa.
Secondly, there are plenty of fossils from elsewhere on the planet of animals from other genus, so while glaciers might have destroyed some evidence, not all of it has been destroyed.
I don't know enough about this to give you a thorough rebuttal, suffice to say people who do conclude that the out of Africa theory is the most credible given the available evidence. One can choose to believe something else, but ofc that's contrary to the evidence.
It actually makes the most sense for sapians to have evolved in Africa due to being solidly on the equator and having the right climate for transitioning from arboreal apes to long distance runners. Conditions there were perfect for our physiology.
I'm fully aware that orangutans aren't our closest relatives, and that our of Asia is pretty well debunked... But I swear to God, every time I see one of them fuckers I think "hello, grandfather! Teach me the ways of the forest!" Lol. I feel a kinship to them that I just don't with other great apes (except maybe bonobos), and it makes me wish they were our closest relatives. ... And also that I had some kind of scifi helmet I could give them to make them smarter and give them language so they could tell us to fuck off and leave their habitats alone
I mean, it would be much less controversial to say "I believe that there are many unknown about the geographical origins of humans" and "our ancestors were not from Africa" (not exactly what you said, but exaggerated for clarity).
One sounds like a generic question about prehistoric times, the other sounds like a racially charged propaganda piece.
Sometimes things are about wording.
Exactly what I'm talking about.
Bring it up and people will literally change what you say and label it racist.
I don't even understand how this could be construed as racist. Am I missing something?
That's why it's controversial, it gets the people going...
Even with all the disclaimers input in there with it, I 100% knew someone would say it was racist for zero logical reason, even without me saying that's the reason it's controversial.
It changes absolutely nothing about how we all evolved from an (actually insanely small) population that lived in Africa very recently on an evolutionary timescale. If anything it debunks racist beliefs that there's large divides between who left and stayed.
But well intentioned people get mad and call me a racist, every single time.
Well then clearly your opinion is perfect for this thread haha
I did not call you racist, I was on the contrary pointing out that the only thing that can make it controversial is the wording.
My point was, this is not a controversial take, but phrased badly it can sound like one, which is probably the reason people would end up calling you racist. Not because what you say (and especially what you mean) is racist, but because it can sound like a red flag.
And I totally agree with the fact that the origin changes nothing to humans, or to racism, because nothing will ever prove racism to be right scientifically. I wasn't disagreeing with you, just commenting on the "controversial" aspect.
Or homophobic, or transphobic, or other flavor of the month phobic.
If you disagree with their stated world view, you are being irrational, hateful, and must be censored. Which is ironic considering that what they demand is of the world to accept their version of reality at face value.
Nah man, I just meant this one specific point, which is why I put it in this thread...
Shane Gillis said it best (paraphrased):
But it's all the "isms", they're all just different ways to describe "in/out group bias" which older than humans, primates, and considering birds even mammals.
It's a fundamental part of human life.
The only problem is people weren't getting socialized first due to distance and then due to instuitional laws. And as people age they fall back on earlier "in/out group biases" of what they were exposed to as young.
Everyone can be guilty of "doing an ism" and most of the time not even realize it, really mean it, or even control it. The brain just stressed and falls back on that shit.
We fix it by understanding it and working towards the current new generation getting properly socialized and motivated enough to keep doing it
That's why conservatives fight so hard against "indoctrination" seeing a demographic exists when young is all it takes to stop them from becoming "them" later. They're just another member of the tribe to our monkey brains, they're always be "us".
Do you think people will, by default, just hate on other people at some point because they look drastically different from them/their group? That's a very Western take, I think, and a form of coping. You can find people bizarre-looking, shockingly so even (ever seen those videos of rural Chinese people meeting African people? They touch them just to check if it's not dirt, lol), but hatred because of it is certainly not natural. Well, it isn't in the rest of the world from what I've seen, I'd like to believe it isn't natural to the Western man either.
Literally does not sound like that at all though. Wasn't weird until you made it weird.
Yeah, because no one racist ever tried to mix the concept of ancestry and geographical origin to imply the existence of races.
Yeah but how would that actually work in this particular case? Maybe I'm missing something but I just don't see it