Workshop Activity 1 by Marcus Johnson https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt Post the controversy and impact on society from your Social Biology 1 topic en-us 2022-04-03 11:31:26 UTC 2025-10-15 13:11:37 UTC hello@padlet.com Homo Floresiensis https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127637565 Controversy
- Very small brain size, at first it was controversial to consider it human at all.
- Archaic and ape-like but remains only ~50,000 - 190,000 years old.
- Very small stature
- Lineage not known, debate over the ancestry (from Homo Erectus/Australopithecines etc)

Impact
- Widened the brain size diversity considered human (lowered from about 500-600cc to 380-400cc)
- Forced consideration of an earlier exodus from Africa for early human species (much earlier than previously thought) due to the primitivity of H. floresiensis.]]> 2022-04-04 00:14:58 UTC https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127637565 Chimp and Human https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127642419 Controversy?
We have different jaw and teeth structure due to our different diets. 
Ethics and that
Handling of samples
Respectful treatment of remains (no grave robbing)
Religious beliefs that disagreed upon having a common ancestor

Impacts on society:
Helps to link linages of the homo genus]]> 2022-04-04 00:19:24 UTC https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127642419 Homo neanderthalensis https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127642513 Controversy:
Neanderthals are thought to have interbred with Homo sapiens, but there is no evidence of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA in modern Homo sapiens. Some theories are that female Neanderthals didn't breed with male Homo sapiens, or that their offspring was infertile. Another reason is that modern technology may not be advanced enough to adequately detect Neanderthal mtDNA.

In summary: Where did they go, and why can't we find their mtDNA?

Impacts on society: 
The prevalence of Neanderthal DNA has been used to predict migration patterns of archaic humans out of Africa. At times, links to Neanderthal DNA have been used to justify the 'supremacy' of certain groups, but this has been disproven. This controversy also highlighted that DNA sequencing often leads to more questions than answers, and that there is still a long way to go in understanding the Human Genome.]]> 2022-04-04 00:19:29 UTC https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127642513 Taung https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127642592 Controversy
- New species declared based on one skull / endocast
- Suggested that man had a recent common ancestor from apes just 2 million years ago, and not 10 million years ago
- Showed that humans evolved from Africa, and not Asia as was believed at the time
- Not widely accepted by the scientific community for a few decades after discovery

Impact
-  Showed that humans had an intermediary ancestor after apes that more closely resembled humans
- Showed that humans had not split off from apes 10 million years ago, rather that humans were more closely related to apes than previously thought]]> 2022-04-04 00:19:35 UTC https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127642592 Piltdown man isti6952_2 https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127642723 - controversy: major finding of a skull proving the existence of 'the missing link' between man and apes, turns out it was a fake 
- impact: marked a change in our approach to theories of evolution (from orthogenesis to phylogeny), also how we approach evidence in the scientific method]]> 2022-04-04 00:19:44 UTC https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127642723 Homo floresiensis https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127643451 Controversial that scientists and commentators refuse to believe that a new early human species have been discovered and was interpreted as a dwarf variant. The question was raised as the fossils dated back 100,000 to 60,000 years and potentially co-existed while modern humans inhabited the planet. ]]> 2022-04-04 00:20:28 UTC https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127643451 Australopithecus Afarensis (Lucy) was an astonishing discovery as she was the most complete skeleton of her time. Paloanthropologists at the time found 47 of her bones. Her pelvic ileum was wider and elongated, and the front of her pelvis was prognathic (jutted out). This feature, along with a rounded knee joint, was physiologically analogous to homo sapiens (US!) even though she was dated as between 3- 3.5 million years old at the time (species is 3-4 million years old). The major controversy was that these morphological characteristics indicated her bipedalism, even though her brain was a similar size to a chimpanzees. Scientific theory at the time believed tool usage and brain development led to bipedalism, and was disproven. As well as this, her small molars changed our conceived ideas about hominid evolutionary theory, allowing for the possibility that homo sapiens may have been descended from the genus Australopithecus. This went against several established theories from early paleoanthropological findings that the homo genus went back further. https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127645636 While I didn't get time to read the article, scientists are currently analysing the mechanism of bipedalism- looking at her fourth metatarsal through 3D (?) analysis to gain more insight regarding how Australopithecus afarensis walked.]]> 2022-04-04 00:22:34 UTC https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127645636 Lucy https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127646418 Controversy:
Small brain but walking on two feet
Long ape like arms
So small brain increased in size after humanistic certain features

Impact:
Showed complexity in the evolution of structures

]]> 2022-04-04 00:23:05 UTC https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127646418 The Piltdown Man https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127648646 Controversy
- A skull was found in the early 1900s that was assumed to be the 'missing link' in the fossil record of human evolution
- This was until decades later in the late 1940s where new methods of dating revealed that the skull had been falsified from the cranium of a human and the mandible of an orangutan
Impact
- This set back the study of human evolution by decades as the fake skull was considered  evidence

]]> 2022-04-04 00:24:49 UTC https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127648646 Homo Floresiensis https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127651631 Controversy --> Dated to be closer related to a much older human species (H.Habilis). Was originally thought to have been a modern human affected by microcephaly, although its relatively tiny brain size and small stature (which is associated with the natives of Flores, where the species was found) is deemed to be insufficient evidence to back this claim
Impact --> Suggests that a more ancient human species migrated worldwide before the younger one, causing scientists to reconsider the current lineage of human evolution and challenge our understanding of evolution in general (evolution is not as linear in humans as previously believed). ]]> 2022-04-04 00:27:26 UTC https://padlet.com/marcusj19899/mtnzesva3fh316rt/wish/2127651631