Homo sapiens, evolution

Homo sapiens, evolution accelerated and, in the age of mammals, made animals increasingly able to dominate the environment. This culminated in the development of man s capacity to extrovert evolution, so to say, by adding to the intrinsic genetic memory the ability to transmit to future generations, orally or in writing, the experience acquired during an individual s lifetime. 

Wolpoff MH, Wu X, Thome A (1984) Modem Homo Sapiens origins a general theory of hominid evolution involving the fossil evidence from East Asia, In The Origins of Modem Humans A World Survey of the Fossil Evidence. Smith F, Spencer F (eds), Alan Liss, New York, p 411-83... 

This chapter anticipates the completion of Arabidopsis thaliana, Drosophila melanogaster, and Homo sapiens genome sequencing projects by reviewing current ideas of the evolution of sequence families. In parallel the related issue of domain homolog detection is discussed in light of continuing efforts to map the complete set of domain families. 

In my case the decisive period of experimentation that built into my brain the urge to clarify the unknown neurochemical mechanism of the acquisition of a drive fell between 1951 and 1953. After 50 years of continuous analysis of this problem, it has become my firm belief that the mammalian brain reached its highest level of organization with the evolution of specific cortical enhancer regulation enabling it to acquire drives. I also propose that this development culminated in the appearance of the Homo sapiens, the only mammalian species whose fife is primarily based on the acquisition of unnatural drives. It seems to me that just as the discovery of the force of mutual attraction among all bodies led to a sound interpretation of the world around us, the discovery of the force of mutual attraction between cortical neurons will lead to a sound interpretation of a brain function which is inseparable from conscious perception. 

The familiar continental crust of the Earth on which most of us live is of unique importance because it formed the platform above sea level on which the later stages of evolution occurred leading to the appearance of Homo sapiens. The conditions for the production of massive granitic cmsts are probably unique to the Earth and require three or more stages of derivation from a primitive mantle composition. The Earth has transformed less than 0.4% of its volume to continental cmst of intermediate composition and less than 0.2% of its volume into granitic continental crust (i.e., upper continental cmst) in over 4000 million years, so that the process is inefficient. The highland feldspathic crust of the Moon, about 12% of lunar volume, formed in contrast within a few million years. 

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