Bittersweet Roadmap Anyone?

[Scyzara]

1 hour ago, vancopower said:

I watched yesterday on the discovery channel they say that the only reason that they did not survive was the ice age, our ancestors however ware closer to the hot areas and they adapted by using tools, tamed wolves and used furs to protect themselves from the cold. I am not an historian but that's what the discovery channel presented. Maybe the main reason was that they ware on good location but still my point was that it is in our gene to make tools and weapons right ? not to give a history lesson

IF (and that is a very big IF in my book) the Discovery channel documentary you watched really said that only homo sapiens and not homo neandertaliensis created weapons and crafted fur clothes, then that's plain and simply wrong and whoever created that "masterpiece" of television deserves to get fired. I could link you at least 50 scientific papers that analyse the different kinds of flint tools created by Neanderthals. 

To sum things up, I'll simply quote one review (Dediu & Levinson, 2013, On the antiquity of language: the reinterpretation of Neandertal linguistic capacities and its consequences) here that sums up some known facts with references to other papers.

Quote

Culture and language

The Neandertals had a complex stone tool technology (the Mousterian) that required considerable skill and training, with many variants and elaborations (see Klein, 2009: 485ff). They sometimes mined the raw materials at up to 2 meters depth (Verri et al., 2004). Their stone tools show wear indicating usage on wood, suggesting the existence of a wooden material culture with poor preservation, such as the carefully shaped javelins made ~400 kya from Germany (Thieme, 1997). Tools were hafted with pitch extracted by fire (Roebroeks and Villa, 2011). Complex tool making of the Mousterian kind involves hierarchical planning with recursive sub-stages (Stout, 2011) which activates Broca's area just as in analogous linguistic tasks (Stout and Chaminade, 2012). The chain of fifty or so actions and the motor control required to master it are not dissimilar to the complex cognition and motor control involved in language (and similarly takes months of learning to replicate by modern students)⁸.

The Neandertals managed to live in hostile sub-Arctic conditions (Stewart, 2005). They controlled fire, and in addition to game, cooked and ate starchy foods of various kinds (Henry et al., 2010; Roebroeks and Villa, 2011). They almost certainly had sewn skin clothing and some kind of footgear (Sørensen, 2009). They hunted a range of large animals, probably by collective driving, and could bring down substantial game like buffalo and mammoth (Conard and Niven, 2001; Villa and Lenoir, 2009).

Neandertals buried their dead (Pettitt, 2002), with some but contested evidence for grave offerings and indications of cannibalism (Lalueza-Fox et al., 2010). Lumps of pigment—presumably used in body decoration, and recently found applied to perforated shells (Zilhao et al., 2010)—are also found in Neandertal sites. They also looked after the infirm and the sick, as shown by healed or permanent injuries (e.g., Spikins et al., 2010), and apparently used medicinal herbs (Hardy et al., 2012). They may have made huts, bone tools, and beads, but the evidence is more scattered (Klein, 2009), and seemed to live in small family groups and practice patrilocality (Lalueza-Fox et al., 2010)

The numerous genes (and epigenetic modifications) that may have been somehow beneficial for the development of flint tools (e.g. genes that influence fine motor skills, intelligence or language to pass on your knowledge) aren't a special feature acquired by Homo sapiens. They root way earlier in homo habilis which is the first hominin known to craft stone tools. Every other species that came after habilis (ergaster, erectus, neanderthaliensis, sapiens & denisova) already knew how to craft stone tools. I've marked it in a cladogram for you. 

TL, DR:

Don't believe everything television tells you. It's often "stupefaction" of the people.

[cekivi]

2 hours ago, Scyzara said:

TL, DR:

Don't believe everything television tells you. It's often "stupefaction" of the people.

Nothing like some good science

I love references

On a related note, I also recall reading somewhere that the cause of the extinction of the neanderthals is still open for debate. Like @Scyzara said, it is highly unlikely that they died out due to only one reason. One report I read (sadly forget where) was that the neanderthals were actually smarter than humans but their larger brains took more resources to maintain so homo sapiens were able to out compete them. Just some food for thought

[cekivi]

On 2016-04-08 at 10:02 PM, vancopower said:

Admit that you are itching to shoot some bad NPC's yes? me too and loot them. corpse looting is king of boring now I almost never do it but when you take NPC down you will want to see what you traded for your precious bullets

I am absolutely not looking forward to this. I would be very sad if NPC interactions were that one dimensional. Hinterlands has shown a lot of depth and care in making the game so I am confident that there will be more options for dealing with "bad" NPCs than just shooting them. Besides, we have a .303 if it comes to that already which would do far more damage at any range than a tiny revolver. Personally, I'm hoping that there will neither be "bad" nor "good" NPCs. Grey is much more interesting narratively 

On 2016-04-08 at 9:46 PM, vancopower said:

Revolver- Since there will be NPC's in the game and there will be some bad ones I guess we need fast weapon to take them down. You can't expect us to shoot them with arrows  flare, and slow hunting riffle yes? AK-47 why not  ??? You think that they don't use it in Canada guess again since there is no PvP you can be safe from the whos gun the bigger gun issue. Rocket launcher well that is where I draw the line no need for things to become messy. Guns are always what people will stockpile in times of any crisis since they are power and security in fact it is strange all those bunkers and no guns in them.

I can guarantee you 100% that we don't have AK-47s in Canada. They are super illegal prohibited firearms. If you tried to get your hands on one that actually fired the RCMP would have a lot of questions for you. Admittedly, criminals gangs may be able to get AK-47s but they would likely be based in Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal. And, again, things like that get a lot of notice from the RCMP which organized crime generally tends to avoid. I can't see it happening in an area far from a major population center.

[cekivi]

2 hours ago, vancopower said:

There you go with your strange words again: Chosen few like the Illuminati ? what are you talking about ?  ancient craftsmen? There are few Turkish  villages in my country that they still craft tools mostly axes, and horseshoes and yes I am talking about today 2016. I don't know in what country you live in but I am sure that there are still people that can craft tools, heck my grandfather used to make axes all the time. I have a neighbor that has a metal workshop and bangs with some hammer from 6:30 AM to 12:00 he makes tools for Gypsies he is the last well I guess you can call him blacksmith in town and still works. So if you want to unravel the mystery of tool making come to my place I will introduce you to my neighbor he will tell you all about "the secret of steel"   . Gunpowder it is not so hard to make too however it is dangerous and you'll have to have at least knowledge of  basic chemistry.  Water filters are even easier to make, there is so much reusable material it won't fit in the game. You should watch some of the youtube's that SteveP posted while back you'll see how a man makes arrows out of glass flint and other stuff it is very interesting.

Just make sure you're not confusing black and smokeless powder. Black powder is comparatively easy to make but it will quickly ruin modern firearms (they would need constant cleaning). Trying to make smokeless powder... from what I read read on Wikipedia it's main ingredient is nitrocellulose. Now, I'm a chemist. I've got years of experience handling dangerous and reactive components. I wouldn't touch this stuff: I like having fingers. Not only would it be very difficult to find the raw ingredients but without lots of technical expertise you are not going to be making smokeless powder anytime soon. Plus, like @Dirmagnos pointed out the real problem isn't even the gunpowder but the primers. How are you going to make those?

With regards to making a gun from scratch... I don't think so. Unless your neighbour is going to visit us in the Long Dark I don't know of anyone with the expertise necessary to smith a gun barrel. I would assume in real life that the barrels are actually cast... which again begs the question of how one can do that with primitive tools.

Yes, you can see how to do a lot of things on YouTube but never forget that the people making those videos have years of experience. Going back to me I know what penicillin is, I can draw out the mechanism for you on how it's antibiotic properties work (with a little refresher from my notes first) but even for someone like me - a trained chemist - it would take months to re-learn the early penicillin manufacturing process and make a viable drug. Even with textbooks and technical manuals to do it. Why? Because I'm an inorganic chemist. The techniques are the same but pharma and synthesis are very different knowledge bases. Someone with zero technical expertise... good luck

[SteveP]

I'm pleased to see y'all talking about paleo technology and realizing how hopeless things become in a post apocalyptic world if 90% of infrastructure and distribution simply is not there.

Gunsmithing: a modern gunsmithing operation requires lots of power to run things like lathes if you were to build guns from scratch. If you visit a gunsmith's shop, you will find milling machines and lots of things but the smith typically orders things like barrels and other parts and fabricates the minimum amount of things. What you might find is a store that had lots of different kinds of gunpowders, bullets and casing; in fact, a bewildering amount. A gunsmith is not the same as a fire arm manufacturer.

A reloading press and supplies is something you could very easy expect to find in a prepper cache or in a remote cabin where someone had been reloading cartridges. You won't often find that in a city however in the rural areas of Canada, you actually would find them. You would need to find the reloading books as well.

I am wondering if some of these items are actually metaphorical for other items.

There seems to be plenty of hay in PV so keeping the horse alive would be viable there but not in other places at least not until spring. I suspect that Raphael was letting us think about these things in preparation for the Spring season when travel to distant locations might be possible. It's a kind of blue sky thing such as how do you see the game vision evolving.

[SteveP]

Please trim your quotes guys, to just the relevant sentences. Thanks!

[Axe]

I think people should be a bit more open to proposed additions. Lets see what the devs have in mind and try it out, then if we don't like it we can tell them to change/remove something. But if they want to add content I say yes, to simply disagree with something at concept stage is too premature. They only telling us what, and not really how so lets wait and see, give a try and take it from there. None of their ideas seem outrageous or unbelievable, the horse seems odd to me too, but who knows it may surprise us all and fit in well.

All I'm saying is let's see how they implement it, who knows we might like it. Personally I don't see what the point of a revolver is when I got a .303 but I'll give the devs the benefit of the doubt to see what they come up with. Who knows, maybe the revolver will function more like an axe when being attacked by wolves so you can immediately kill them without getting mauled and injured.

The devs haven't let us down so far, give them the benefit of the doubt at least.

[cekivi]

32 minutes ago, SteveP said:

I'm pleased to see y'all talking about paleo technology and realizing how hopeless things become in a post apocalyptic world if 90% of infrastructure and distribution simply is not there.

Exactly which is what I ultimately thing a lot of us are obliquely pointing out. Going back to my penicillin example, industrial manufacturing was initially done by US beer companies since they had the ability to cultivate large quantities of the yeast that could them be harvested for the actual active drug. If you wanted to make your own you could go to a local store, order a home brew kit, find some penicillin and begin manufacturing within a week or two. Remove all those supplies, the knowledge base (experience or the internet), indoor heating to keep the yeast alive, etc. and things become much more complicated. Days or weeks to do something now suddenly becomes months or years.

@SteveP's gun barrel example is another excellent case. You can order gun barrels and, with a lathe and proper training, you can even make one yourself. How do you do either though without electricity or a postal system? Again, it's not that it can't be done (or ancestors managed fine) but it's a case of either already having the special training (PhD in science or engineering for instance) or having access to knowledge and being able to understand it (e.g. an enthusiast with access to a good library).

Never forget though that regardless of the disaster we do have one huge advantage over primitive peoples: even if we personally don't know how something can be done, we still know that it can be done.

[cekivi]

3 minutes ago, Axe said:

The devs haven't let us down so far, give them the benefit of the doubt at least.

I fully agree but I think giving feedback on the proposed additions is still beneficial. Between this post and mine there are some common themes emerging on what things people would like so see and would like to avoid for certain roadmap items. Assuming development on these items hasn't already begun than this early feedback can still be incorporated into the design of these elements. It's a lot easier and faster to tune and address things when they're just a concept on paper than it is to repair something that's already built.

Even the simple lists of what excites people the most gives a very, very rough metric for how much those players would like to see that element in the game so that developer resources could be allocated accordingly.

[boshmi]

7 hours ago, Ohbal said:

I wouldn't mind a recipe approach. How does a pilot know how to make a rabbit snare? or a wolf coat? or a bow? I personally would need to find some instructions or would expend an insane amount of hours trying to figure out myself which trees should I use, how much time should I cure them, what should I use for arrows, etc. 

First of all, I'm glad I'm not playing MP games as much as I did before... ha ha, the world has been filled up with e-penis it seems. Lol!

I'm all up for the small shelter addition, as I'd really like the game to offer maps with literally no shelters. No caves, no cabins, no huts, no nothing. You vs Mother nature. This gameplay woulnd't be possible without this skill. 

I completely agree here. Ammo being so scarce is what makes those bullets so valuable. This is another feature that needs to be implemented very gently

Let's see how the horse works. What I'm worried the most about the horse... is how badly they are usually animated and controlled in games. The only decent one is Red Dead Redemption.

Lovely picture you draw there of your future travels. Hope the game gets to that point! 

Great post, sorry for the super-quote

I don't mind super-quotes at all, but I know people who do

Personally, I don't think about my survivor as "Will Mackenzie" or "Astrid Greenwood" when I play sandbox. It buggers up the immersion for me (pardon the French). Instructions, yes, but then I think there would need to be more things to craft. It might be interesting to pick up a book and notice it's a guide on how to make snowshoes or summat. I meant I wouldn't like it to be used in the sense that, you can use a "Research bench" in order to create blueprints for something, like in Rust.

About the e-p*nises, yes, it's true, they are the scourge of all mp survival games.

About your ideas on small shelter building, omfg yes. No one seems to want a fully nature map except for me. I put up a wishlist a while back, with "a few fully nature maps" on it. (Like a Tundra, or thick forest) and I was kind of put down with "It would add no story value" or "There would be no incentive to go there". I think, combine shelters with canoes, and you have an epic survival game made epicer by traveling through kilometers of untamed wilderness.

RDR's horses were fantastic (in fact, that game was fantastic. GOTY IMO), but first-person horse riding in such small map sectors (with a horse galloping at full speed), especially when there's things like awkward hills to climb, etc, will take a lot of mechanics and design effort to do correctly. I'm worried they won't do it correctly. Maybe I'm worrying too much.

Thanks for the reply

[SteveP]

You cannot craft or reasonably make primers. You find them. There are typically two kinds; regular and magnum and they work in most centre fire rifle cartridges. Pistols and shotguns and small arms use different ones. The 50 cal BMG uses larger ones.

All the 30 cal centre fire cartridge primers will be the same except the magnums which need a slower ignition and slower burning propellant.

Reloading Powders & Primers

[vancopower]

6 hours ago, Scyzara said:

WOW I can not even pronounce some of these names, wait a minute aren't homo erectus and sapiens connected I always thought that we evolved from homo erectus and there should be more something that starts with C homo Ch something they ware vegetarian I think and they ware big hence the story of big foot, or it was some conspiracy bad show that I remember probably. Well as you pointed out maybe the genes got mixed up and today we are product of all of these species however I know this evolutuon takes time so at least nothing has changed from 100.000   years ago right?

[hauteecolerider]

Recently I read a very interesting book about human evolution, called The Strange Case of the Rickety Cassock, and it talks about biases in anthropology and research. The long and short of it is that the classic diagram showing the progression from monkey through chimpanzee through the earlier Homo species to the more modern species is wrong. The human species plural are not linear at all, but more like a bush. And we simply do not have enough fragments or complete fossils to accurately place the different species in such a diagram. The one included by @Scyzara is but one proposed model of human evolution, but the scant evidence we have does not support this version over others. So discussions in anthropological circles sometimes get more heated than a flame war on a Bethsoft forum . . .

[Vhalkyrie]

Regarding the revolver, I've seen a number of people expressing concerns about this.  When I learned that this game was highly influenced by the book "The Road", I went out and bought a copy.  If you read the book, you will see TLD written all over it (no pun intended!).  There's a gas station, farmhouse, and barn, and they run through empty houses searching for canned goods and tools.

So one of the interesting items that caught my notice is a single handgun with only 2 bullets for most of the book.  The revolver is mostly used as a deterrent for running into other people.  The father and son try to avoid people and spend most of their time hiding, but sometimes they get caught.  When they mentioned in the roadmap the introduction of NPCs, my first thought was, this doesn't mean friendly NPCs.

I don't expect TLD to become a COD type pewpewpew fest.  If I read "The Road" correctly, I'm expecting something more subtle where the revolver will be some kind of bluff or deterrent.  The design choices in TLD has shown a degree of sophistication, so I'm quite intrigued and curious about the revolver.  I'm thinking it's not what it seems to be.

[Patrick Carlson]

8 minutes ago, Vhalkyrie said:

Regarding the revolver, I've seen a number of people expressing concerns about this.  When I learned that this game was highly influenced by the book "The Road", I went out and bought a copy.  If you read the book, you will see TLD written all over it (no pun intended!).  There's a gas station, farmhouse, and barn, and they run through empty houses searching for canned goods and tools.

So one of the interesting items that caught my notice is a single handgun with only 2 bullets for most of the book.  The revolver is mostly used as a deterrent for running into other people.  The father and son try to avoid people and spend most of their time hiding, but sometimes they get confronted.  When they mentioned in the roadmap the introduction of NPCs, my first thought was, this doesn't mean friendly NPCs.

I don't expect TLD to become a COD type pewpewpew fest.  If I read "The Road" correctly, I'm expecting something more subtle where the revolver will be some kind of bluff or deterrent.  The design choices in TLD has shown a degree of sophistication, so I'm quite intrigued and curious about the revolver.  I'm thinking it's not what it seems to be.

I wrote an article for our Website about The Road and The Long Dark. I'd encourage you (and others) to check it out. http://hinterlandgames.com/the-road-a-landscape-of-memory/ Think about what the revolver represents and how it is used (or not used). 

You're right that the pistol holds a special place in that story, and I refer to it in my piece. 

I will also say though, especially in terms of the Roadmap, there are many influences that are powerful for The Long Dark. Check those out as well. STALKER. The Dog Stars. Fallout 3. And more. 

Lots to build still and we look forward to developing new ideas going forward. 

[Vhalkyrie]

10 minutes ago, Patrick Carlson said:

I will also say though, especially in terms of the Roadmap, there are many influences that are powerful for The Long Dark. Check those out as well. STALKER. The Dog Stars. Fallout 3. And more. 

For sure!  You bet I'm a Wasteland Wanderer.  

Thanks for the link - good read and insights.  

[cekivi]

27 minutes ago, Patrick Carlson said:

I will also say though, especially in terms of the Roadmap, there are many influences that are powerful for The Long Dark. Check those out as well. STALKER. The Dog Stars. Fallout 3. And more.

Personally, I would hope for more influence from Fallout 1 or Fallout: New Vegas

[boshmi]

1 hour ago, Patrick Carlson said:

I will also say though, especially in terms of the Roadmap, there are many influences that are powerful for The Long Dark. Check those out as well. STALKER. The Dog Stars. Fallout 3. And more. 

When you said this, my mind leapt to the misery mod. Oh, those were the days. That mod was like a brand new game inside of STALKER: Call of Prypat. Anyone else remember that? While we are on the subject, I always found myself relating this game to Shelter 2. The art style and situation sorta kinda match each other.

I'm gonna go reinstall Call of Prypat and Shelter 2 now, thanks a lot guys, now I'm gonna get addicted again.
Interesting read on the article as well, Patrick, I feel as though I'm obliged to read The Road for myself.

[Patrick Carlson]

11 hours ago, boshmi said:

When you said this, my mind leapt to the misery mod. Oh, those were the days. That mod was like a brand new game inside of STALKER: Call of Prypat. Anyone else remember that? While we are on the subject, I always found myself relating this game to Shelter 2. The art style and situation sorta kinda match each other.

I'm gonna go reinstall Call of Prypat and Shelter 2 now, thanks a lot guys, now I'm gonna get addicted again.
Interesting read on the article as well, Patrick, I feel as though I'm obliged to read The Road for myself.

But I would say read it in any case. It has a message for sure. 

The Road is one of these books that's sort of sitting out here as we all waltz towards climate change oblivion and a Mad Max Lifestyle. I would say we all have a single player destiny, and we embrace it--we tell our own stories, so to speak. And gladly. Onward!

 

[Dirmagnos]

14 hours ago, vancopower said:

There you go with your strange words again: Chosen few like the Illuminati ? what are you talking about ?  ancient craftsmen? There are few Turkish  villages in my country that they still craft tools mostly axes, and horseshoes and yes I am talking about today 2016. I don't know in what country you live in but I am sure that there are still people that can craft tools, heck my grandfather used to make axes all the time. I have a neighbor that has a metal workshop and bangs with some hammer from 6:30 AM to 12:00 he makes tools for Gypsies he is the last well I guess you can call him blacksmith in town and still works. So if you want to unravel the mystery of tool making come to my place I will introduce you to my neighbor he will tell you all about "the secret of steel"   . Gunpowder it is not so hard to make too however it is dangerous and you'll have to have at least knowledge of  basic chemistry.  Water filters are even easier to make, there is so much reusable material it won't fit in the game. You should watch some of the youtube's that SteveP posted while back you'll see how a man makes arrows out of glass flint and other stuff it is very interesting.

Youre missing my point. I was referring to an average city dweller, an individual, not combined knowledge of humanity. Protagonist in the game doesnt know your neighbor, nor your grandfather, not he has access to their knowledge.

By select few i referred to apprentices that masters took in and tough their trade secrets. Like making damascus steel for example or japanese sword forging techniques. And thats just metal.

[Dirmagnos]

3 hours ago, Patrick Carlson said:

The Road is one of these books that's sort of sitting out here as we all waltz towards climate change oblivion and a Mad Max Lifestyle. I would say we all have a single player destiny, and we embrace it. Gladly. Onward!

Hold your horses there is no climate change oblivion. Right now whole panic around climate change is 50% doctored data and 50% political circus. Majority of scientific community just sits back and watches the show, saying that there is simply not enough information to make any informed conclusions.

[aurora]

I think horses could be quite useful, eg.: if they can be used for transportation. You could carry much more stuff with you as you can now and you would not get exhausted so fast. TLD for me is moving from one place to an other place. You can't stay at one place forever and so you have to do tough decisions every time: which items are more important to carry with you. A horse "could" allow you to take more items with you to the next place. It could be also useful to carry wood you collected in the forest. It could add so many to the game, if you could use it for transportation.

I always thought a transport sled would be a great addition, but in this case you would also need dogs or ... a horse ... to pull the sled, otherwise it wouldn't be very useful regarding exhaustion and in other season it wouldn't be of much use anyway ...

[SteveP]

2 hours ago, Dirmagnos said:

Right now whole panic around climate change is 50% doctored data and 50% political circus.

That is speculation and rather dangerous at that. Changes are not the same across the planet; some areas are affected more than others.

Ever wonder about the drought in California? or the ever increasing severity of drought here in British Columbia in the summer and the horrible forest fires that grow worse with each season? Perhaps you have heard of the high pressure ridge that is causing this: the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge! Are you unaware of the temperature deviation in Alaska and in the Arctic this winter? Or the gradual and unrelenting rise in sea levels? Or the changes in the atmospheric circulation patterns or the warming of the Pacific Ocean surface waters? You may insist that these changes are all within "normal" variability for this planet however the archaeological evidence of the FIVE major extinction events in the history of life on planet Earth are incontrovertible. We are in the midst of the sixth major extinction event, the Holocene. The Earth's human population of 7 billion people produces immense stress upon the biosphere of this planet. I get that most people live in denial; they are after all, consumed by the mundane struggles of life and perhaps preoccupied with some faint hope of a benevolent magical super being. I have no more patience for this Schmonzes.

Mein liebes Kind, the climate does nothing except change. To be without change is to be completely devoid of energy. This is physics. Das ist die Realität.

[Scyzara]

11 hours ago, vancopower said:

I always thought that we evolved from homo erectus and there should be more something that starts with C homo Ch something they ware vegetarian I think and they ware big hence the story of big foot, or it was some conspiracy bad show that I remember probably. Well as you pointed out maybe the genes got mixed up and today we are product of all of these species however I know this evolutuon takes time so at least nothing has changed from 100.000   years ago right?

Lot of confusion going on here. Yes, sapiens is commonly believed to have evolved from erectus, but my cladogram exactly shows that. You see the spotted line below the sapiens/Neanderthal ramification? That's all erectus as well. The branch leading to erectus above only means that the old erectus type didn't completely evolve into sapiens and neanderthaliensis, but ALSO continued to exist as erectus phenotype elsewhere.

The existence of bigfoot (or yetis or anything else along these lines) has never been proven scientifically. I'd very much prefer to leave this discussion to so-called "Cryptozoologists". One shouldn't blindly believe the claims of these guys as well, btw. They're often not working in a way that could be described as "good scientific practice".

You're right that evolution (especially on the genomic level) takes a lot of time, but 100.000 years (= more than 5.000 generations) is definitely enough for a fair amount of (minor) changes. People commonly believe genes to have a way more important role than they actually do. What is important is not primarily the genes themselves, but their precise epigenetic regulation. Unfortunately, these news haven't reached the broad public (or the school books) yet. The epigenetic regulation can be influences by your general environment, your experiences during childhood, your mother's nourishment status during pregnancy and a whole lot of other factors.

Just to give you one idea what I'm talking about: ALL cells in your body, no matter whether a skin cell, a liver cell or a brain cell have the very identical DNA setting. Yet they have completely different tasks and express completely different proteins. That's because entirely different genes are active in them. Each cell type has a particular set of genes active and others which are silenced. It's a hell of a complex topic because different genes can be silenced in different cell types during different stages of embryonic development or adult life or stage of disease. We don't even understand the whole plethora of epigenetic mechanisms in simple organisms like worms and we're probably centuries away from understanding complex animals like mice or humans.

What I'm trying to say is: Modern humans are more than just a collection of their genes. Even if genes hadn't changed at all during the last 100.000 years (which they have, anthropologists are using exactly these small SNP differences to research how people in different parts of the world are related to each other), humans as a whole might have changed considerably nevertheless. Our environment, our culture, the hygienic and food conditions during our childhood and various other factors shape our outer appearance (e.g. size & weight), our immune system and our consciousness (e.g. IQ & character) just as much as our genes. One should never forget that. 

9 hours ago, hauteecolerider said:

Recently I read a very interesting book about human evolution, called The Strange Case of the Rickety Cassock, and it talks about biases in anthropology and research. The long and short of it is that the classic diagram showing the progression from monkey through chimpanzee through the earlier Homo species to the more modern species is wrong. The human species plural are not linear at all, but more like a bush. And we simply do not have enough fragments or complete fossils to accurately place the different species in such a diagram. The one included by @Scyzara is but one proposed model of human evolution, but the scant evidence we have does not support this version over others. So discussions in anthropological circles sometimes get more heated than a flame war on a Bethsoft forum . . .

Yeah, you're right about that. Much isn't known yet about the details of hominin evolution, especially about the older species (the root of the bush, so to say). Don't take my cladogram for the "truth", it's just one paradigm and not even a particularly modern one - it even lacks the denisovans for example. I just chose this cladogram as it also depicts the different stone tools used by some early hominins.

I'm pretty sure in 20 years the hominin tree will be depicted differently regarding some of the details. Maybe sapiens, neanderthaliensis and denisovans will finally be considered the same species (I personally hope so, the whole species-but-interbreeding thing is a ridiculous oxymoron) and thus be renamed to Homo sapiens ssp*. sapiens, Homo sapiens ssp. neandertaliensis and Homo sapiens ssp. denisovans. Maybe they'll also get a fourth sister species or another distinct erectus species (e.g. Homo erectus ssp. floresiensis) as kind of a cousin.

That's the great thing about science: Paradigms aren't dogmatic, but can be adjusted if new informations are acquired. 

And people believing recent chimpanzees to be their ancestors is another great example how easily stupefication can happen if children aren't tought about evolution properly. *sigh*

*ssp = subspecies

[Ohbal]

Kudos @Scyzara & @SteveP for your last posts. 100% agree with both. 

You are right the epigenetic theory hasn't reached most of the public and you really need to dig your way up to find that info. Explains why the stressful lives we decide to endure are taking such a toll in our health (not to mention our planet). Food for thought