Talk:Homo (genus)

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[edit] Kenyanthropus as our likely ancestor

Just out of curiosity, why was my edit undone? The article states that the Kenyanthropus platyops species is the likely ancestor of Homo, yet this is a hotly debated topic. My edit specifically stated that Humans descended from either Kenyanthropus, Australopithecus or Paranthropus. As there is still no general concensus, we should err on the side of caution by limiting our choices to these three taxa, rather than saying what we personally believe is true. To do otherwise somewhat clashes with the NPOV of the site, in my opinion. Granted, I've been out of the loop for the last 10 months, so things may have changed, but I believe I would have heard about it. Unless you can cite your source that this specimen is, in fact, generally accepted as our common ancestor, I believe it should be returned to the edit that I made.Drur93 05:40, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Given that the previous version stated there was no consensus on this, if you are going to make a change that states something more conclusive, you'll need to provide a citation for it. - UtherSRG (talk) 10:48, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
That's the point, the previous version stated that Kenyanthropus was the likely ancestor. "Likely" suggests that a majority of experts in the field agree - that's not the case, as there is a lot of debate still. As there is no general consensus, stating this as factual is inaccurate at this time. The change I made explained that we still do not know whether we're the descendants of Kenyanthropus or Australopithecus. Ergo, we should stray on the side of caution by not labeling Kenyanthropus as our "likely Ancestor". - Drur93 01:42, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Typography: dagger and extinction

I have seen the dagger character (†) used to indicate an individual's death in German language source material, but have never seen it used in English or French sources. I do not believe it is standard encyclopedic usage. It is currently in use on the article page to indicate extinct species of homo. The article page for dagger claims "Since it also represents the Christian cross, in certain predominantly Christian regions, the mark is used in a text after the name of a deceased person or the date of death, as in Christian grave headstones." - and I have reason to doubt the neanderthals et al., were Christian. If noone justifies its use here, I shall remove it within the week. Cheers, samwaltz 03:45, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

The dagger character is often used to denote extinct taxa (as mentioned in the article). Mgiganteus1 06:26, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Even if they're Jewish? Ah, well, that's what I get for searching the article for death/dead, rather than extinct. samwaltz 12:46, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Linnaeus's Wise man

Is there a 'Homo sapiens Linnaeus' Tho whole of WikiSpecies is confused. Does anyone on Wikipedia Know?

No, Linnaeus is the person who named the human species "Homo sapiens." Someone the Person 23:28, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Red links factual?

There are a lot of red links in the list of species and subspecies. There are a couple of species, and many more subspecies, which do not have an article on Wikipedia, are not in the table, and are not covered by the external links. For example, 14 subspecies of Homo erectus are listed. Four of them have an article on Wikipedia, and the remaining ten not only don't have an article, but also are not mentioned in the article Homo erectus. Also, there are 5 subspecies of Homo sapiens listed, and only 2 are mentioned anywhere else in Wikipedia. Note the information given for a couple of the extra subspecies: "Homo sapiens archaic (most ancient wise man) discovered 2003. Homo sapiens fossilis (fossil wise man) discovered 1869." Firstly, Homo sapiens idaltu is "the oldest representative of the H. sapiens species found so far," according to the article on it. Secondly, I don't think scientists would make fossilized humans a separate subspecies, because any living thing can be fossilized. What is going on here? Someone the Person 23:28, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Boskop Man?

Can anyone comment on and/or help with Boskop Man? Anthro Project assumes he is no longer used and was rolled into another species... Please help if you have a clue. Smilo Don 16:24, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Homo --- genus should be a category too

This topic should be a wiki CATEGORY too. Can someone working in this area categorize? Smilo Don 13:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Homo Technologicus?

Food for thought: I've always wondered if we should have a new category with something like "Homo Technologicus". After all, we all are now so dependent on nutrician, medicine, hygene, surgery (including Caesarean sections) that it might not be possible to continue without technology. --Neilrieck (talk) 12:38, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely not. That would not be appropriate for Wikipedia. The only things that are appropriate are those things we can cite with verifiable and reliable sources. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:28, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
My apologies. I never thought that Wikipedia should create this title. It was a suggestion for academia. In hindsight I can see that my thoughts might be more the realm of philosophy rather than biology. Thanks for catching my faux pas. --Neilrieck 22:35, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A big revert...

In this edit a large number of new 'species' where added. This is an area of controversy as there are two groups of people; Lumpers: those that want to find as small as possible set of species within Homo: Splitters: those that every new skullcup constitutes a new species. My symapthies lie with the former. I don't think we should have any links here without a solid source or a blue link to a page.

The same user that added so many new species also added this edit quoting source 'homo hierarchy classification by systema naturae 2004, Taxonomicon'. I can not find any references to a version of systema naturae published in 2004. I can find a version from 2000 here which shows a far more limited and feasible homo tree here

Since I know I am biased towards the Lumper view I thought I should discuss before changing.

GameKeeper (talk) 23:12, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I have done the revert now , I tried to keep the valid edits since the big addition, here are the edits I kept.GameKeeper (talk) 14:45, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] LOL?

"Homo sapiens sapiens (Wise Man) discovered 1758". Is this some kind of joke? --212.247.27.5 (talk) 13:56, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Its not a joke, its just the wrong word has been used. It should not say discovered it should say classified. 1758 was the date when Linnaeus published the 10th edition of the Systema Naturae which is the basis of zoological nomenclature. Most recently discovered creatures are classified and discovered on similar dates which is why the inconsistency has occurred. I am planning a big revert when I get time. So am not going to correct this now. GameKeeper (talk) 14:28, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How many species of homo are there?

Just curious, is this all the known species of homo? I noticed there's a tension between the "splitters" and the "lumpers" which complicates things, but are there any informed guesses on how many species of homo there may be in reality, including ones we haven't yet discovered?VatoFirme (talk) 17:40, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Do you see that tree outside your window? No, not that one, the other one. Yeah that one. How many leaves did it ever have and will ever have? You question is as meaningless as mine. There is not way to know if all of a genus' species are known. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:13, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

There really aren't that many species of the Homo Genus. The ones known would be a rather low number, somewhere around 100. I don't see why it's a meaningless question. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.65.180.46 (talk) 02:53, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Isn't the Cro-Magnon man one of the sub-species of Homo sapiens? In high school, I had learnt that the Neanderthal Man was called Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Cro-Magnon man was called Homo sapiens fossilis, the present human species Homo sapiens sapiens & future man will be called Homo sapiens futuralis (or Homo sapiens futuris). Can anyone shed any light on this? 59.184.134.9 (talk) 11:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Any number we give would be artificial due to the difficulty of defining species, especially when all you have to go on are fragmentary bones. Who is to say where the color aquamarine ends and the color blue starts? The classifications are our best attempt to put categories on things that resist static categories. So like Uther said, the number is meaningless, it is just a tool to help us with the mathmatical way our brains are wired and it will always be changing and debated as more information is found. The more important question is how those species/individual fossils fit into the larger tree. Nowimnthing (talk) 13:48, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
To answer the question we would need a very firm definition of species , which we simply do not have. See the Species problem for some discussion. See Ring species for an interesting example of a species problems. Those articles do not mention the problems when time separates organisms . The standard species definition 'a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring' becomes hard to interpret when the organisms concerned are separated by large time spans. It could be that 4 time separated organisms A,B,C,D could each interbreed with the next one but A and D could not. Indeed this must happen for separate species to share a common ancestor. GameKeeper (talk) 20:02, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] image.

Someone included this image image:RussianRainbowGathering 4Aug2005.jpg as the image for this article, which I reverted as I did not think it was a sufficiently suitable image to illustrate homo as a genus. As i think more about it I could be wrong, we should be illustrating homo with its most common species the human . Image:PPlaqueB.png is used on the human article. Just to be different perhaps an example of Vitruvian Man wuld be good. I like this because it gives a sense of the physical proportions of a member of the homo(genus). I like this from commons Image:Homem Vitruviano - Da Vinci.jpg GameKeeper (talk) 22:08, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

That was me. As I was patrolling the page Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Articles without images/Mammals, I noticed that hardly any of the Hominidae articles (prehistoric AND modern) had taxobox images. I purposely edited this article and none of the higher taxa because I wanted to see how the community would respond before adding the same image to those articles as well. I found it odd that these articles don't have an image, yet Human does. Since I find the image on Human a bit undignifying to members of both sexes, I was looking for an image of a clothed human. Because I was in a hurry, this was the best I came up with. However, that Da Vinci image is tempting...especially since it's such a well-known model and I think fewer people take offense to it. Is there another version that includes less detail? I know I've seen them with that section sort of blurred. (I think you know which details I'm talking about) Bob the Wikipedian (talk) 05:20, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Nice choice, I see you have used a Neanderthal skull. It's hard to offend others with a skull, so that should work very well. Bob the Wikipedian (talk) 20:33, 18 May 2008 (UTC)