Just a question: What about the Savannahs of Africa: About 4 million years ago the fauna there was very similar to what we have today, as well as the environment. Does that mean that when environment stays the same evolution takes place at a slower pace?
oh shit
we fit the description of self-replicating exploratory drones, even if it does take us a long time to do stuff…
the point is evolution is random, but influenced by other factors
or rather, mutation is random, but the persistence of mutations is influenced by other factors
the sahara is a very harsh environment, so there are more mutations that will decrease chances of survival
a veerryy long time indeed.
Well, that would explain why the Gods don’t exist. That’s because they went extinct a few million years after creating us. Duh!
The Savannas of Africa weren’t always savannas. At the time when our species started evolving from our common ancestors with the shimpanzees and bonobos, the area where there are savannas today was mainly covered with flooded rain forests. At least that is what I read in a book about the theory of evolution. Fossil evidence has disproved the theory that our human brains and senses evolved in a sort of “training process” in the savannas of Africa, where we had to learn to survive in a hostile environment full of predators and their ideal cover (high grass, etc). Because there were no savannas in Africa at that time.
I am not sure whether the exact time period was mentioned, though. Whether it was 4 million years or more, I cannot say. Don’t have the book here any more, had to bring it back to the library.
Well, what do you know, some other people also think, like me, that the climate change may had been a direct cause of human evolution - article. BTW, does someone here still believe that we became more intelligent because aliens messed with our DNA?
Earth climate is changing over and over again, so it’s very likely that Savanna occurred more that once in Africa in the past million of years… Which doesn’t change the fact that we can only guess how the environment of early humans looked like.
To reach that conclusion would prove the premise wrong.
Okay, thanks for answering my question 
According to Walking with Beasts, 4 millions years ago the forests were turning into Savannas and the overall fauna was very similar to what we have today, with the exception of the Ancylotherium, Dinofelis, Deinotherium (though this one isn’t too different, and of course our ancestors, Australopithecus.
Dude, that was golden.
Respect +1