Rewriting The Book on Human Evolution

"More and more, experts involved in the study of human ancestry are realizing that their theroies are much too simple"

Barbara Berard

Calgary, Alberta

On the issue of how modern man, Homo sapiens, arose simultaneously in widely separated parts of the world ((SCIENCE, March 13)), it seems obvious that early Homo erectus was actually present-day Homo sapiens all along. Maybe the former wasn't very smart or attractive by today's standards, but we wouldn't be very pretty either if we spent our whole life without a bath or a haircut, lived on the ground, never wore clothes and didn't have health care.

It is likely that, within Homo erectus society, people had varying degrees of hairiness and different shapes, sizes and colors, just as they do today. Very possibly, even back then, birds of a feather flocked together. Maybe that is the foundation for the racial characteristics we see today.

Phil Dellwo

Lynchburg, Virginia

Your report is thought provoking. If in 4 million years mankind has made such anthropological progress, one can only wonder what the next millennium will bring. Will technological advances cancel out further physiological and intellectual development? Will a willful disregard of the laws of natural selection bring a Utopian society or a degenerating social organization and extinction?

Larry Goltz

Redding, California

You say "no single, essential difference separates human beings from other animals," then go on to refer to man's capacity to use fire, laugh (you might have also mentioned cry) and reason as "any one of a dozen other appealing oversimplifications." You call these oversimplifications? Good Lord! These entirely human capacities not only constitute essential differences between us and the animals but are crucial to understanding the uniquely human predicament. We are, as Shakespeare said, the "paragon of animals" precisely because we possess the capability of using language, creating mathematical concepts, writing music and, above all, perceiving our own immortality. Not to appreciate this fact is to succumb to populist, if not sophomoric, anthropomorphism in which an attempt to raise the status of the lower animals to that of humans manages only to demean the latter and in some ways the former.

Albert L. Weeks

Professor Emeritus, New York University

Sarasota, Florida

If those bone fragments pictured in your article are a sample of what scientists call "proof" of evolution, it's a wonder this field of study even exists. The story of evolution is just that -- a fairy tale written by Homo idiotus and believed by Homo credulous.

Elizabeth Fifielski

San Marcos, California

Scientific knowledge of complex natural phenomena is far from absolute. It consists mostly of a collection of theories that are constantly evolving as they are refined or modified by skeptical and reasoned interpretation of new evidence. No doubt there are those who regard the uncertainties in the scientific explanation of human origins as another reason to reject it. But they miss the crucial point. The faltering steps of science eventually lead us closer to truths that stand up to rigorous, pragmatic tests.

Helmut Koch

Bangor, Maine

It is unfair to society to present all the contradictory theories as facts since there is so much uncertainty. In their search for the truth about evolution, scientists seem more like a bunch of children who have an "I'm right!" attitude. The one who yells loudest wins.

Sarah Anderson

Claremont, California