Six members of a Kurdish family living in rural southern Turkey have genetic abnormalities that prevent normal bipedal ambulation, so they walk on all fours.
There are a couple of important things to take away from this discovery. First- and I cannot emphasize this enough- do not marry your relatives.
Second, there seem to be some bad scientists out there. Presuming that this genetic abnormality will reveal how human ancestors developed bipedality seems to me like saying that hypertrichosis will reveal how human ancestors lost body hair. Not sure I get it.
In any case, it's an interesting discovery. But will it be interesting enough to make it on a CSI script (like hypertrichosis)? That is the real question. A genetic abnormality is one thing, but a genetic abnormality that generates advertising revenue, now that is something special.
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Not sure I'm understanding how they get from the preference of mentally retarded siblings to missing links and evolutionary bidpedality either, but it makes for good TV. Well, it will when it achieves the pinnacle of relevance as a plotline on CSI.
P.S. Thanks for visiting!
AE's post about book titles in the Bush Presidential library is a good place to get today's laughs at Bush's expense.
This just in:
[A] debate erupted last month after a Turkish scientist proposed that the five siblings in Turkey, who also speak what he called a primitive language, had undergone backward evolution. The claim met with skepticism, even jeers, from some fellow scientists.
Count me among the jeering skeptics. Backwards evolution means losing an evolutionary adaptation that is no longer useful for survival, like fish that live in an underground cave lose their sight and pigment over eons.
If a scientist can demonstrate that bipedal ambulation is no longer useful for human survival, I'm all ears. But right now it seems like the only place this guy is going to get tenure is at the University of the Van Down by the River, where the cold fusion guys work.
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