Anyone who has studied the concept of Natural Selection knows that one of the requirements is a variable population.\u00a0 Adaptation to a changing environment cannot occur if every individual in the population is very similar.\u00a0 So, variability is a given.\u00a0 However, when scientists look at fossil material, many of them seem to forget this important tenet.\u00a0 Any differences they find in fossil material are given, minimally, a new species name, and frequently, a new genus name.\u00a0 That fossil then becomes the type specimen of a new species, and any other material found in that region that looks different will be given yet another new species name instead of considering whether, in fact, it is just a new individual in a variable population.<\/p>\n

Or, in the case of dinosaurs, a juvenile rather than a small adult of a different species.\u00a0 Jack Horner’s TED talk<\/a> on this topic is both amusing and enlightening.\u00a0Paleontologists who focused on differences created many dinosaur species which had no juvenile forms.\u00a0 Horner felt that this was not only odd, but clearly impossible.\u00a0 By carefully analyzing the skeletons, he discovered that many species of dinosaurs were just the juvenile forms of other species.\u00a0 The focus on differences was a mistake.<\/p>\n

Focusing on differences and assigning new species names to every new find is also common among many paleoanthropologists who study primate\/human origins.\u00a0 Natural selection and population variability are thrown out the door.\u00a0 If we treated present human diversity the way we treat past diversity, every different population of humans would be a different species.\u00a0 We know this is not the case since all humans can potentially mate with each other.<\/p>\n

There are two major groups of paleoanthropologists: those who operate from a population viewpoint and those who operate from an essentialist viewpoint.\u00a0 For instance, populationists view Neanderthals as a population of modern humans, while essentialists view Neanderthals as a different species.\u00a0 Why does this matter to the average person?\u00a0 It matters because the underlying viewpoints affect how we view each other.\u00a0 Essentialists view anyone who differs from their idea of the ‘norm’ (generally someone like themselves, i.e. of European ancestry) as deeply biologically distinct from themselves.\u00a0 In effect, that there are distinct races of humans that are somehow quite different from each other.\u00a0 Populationists, on the other hand, expect there to be many people who differ from themselves because that is what a successful, adaptable population requires.\u00a0 They do not view these differences as creating deep distinctions.\u00a0 That is, they do not view humans as being divided into distinct racial groups.\u00a0 Rather, humans form varying, over-lapping, constantly mixing populations.\u00a0 They also hold that this has been true since the beginning of the Homo<\/em> genus.<\/p>\n

Genes flow, drift, mutate, select, and adapt as the individuals carrying those genes meet, mate, and adapt.\u00a0 For the past two million years our ancestors have been meeting,mating, mixing, and adapting to differing environments as one unified, but variable species.\u00a0 Just as the lack of juvenile dinosaurs was an artifact of paleontologists who operated from an essentialist mindset, the many “species” of human ancestors are an artifact of paleoanthropologists who operate from an essentialist mindset.\u00a0 The juvenile dinos were there all along.\u00a0 The necessary variability of the human population that allows it to adapt to the vast array of environments on our planet has been there all along, too.\u00a0 The essentialist’s mistake has been to divide that variability into different species or races.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n