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Friday 21 November 2014

Evolution and human anatomy - our history is written in our anatomical quirks

Studying and practicing medicine have taught me many things, of which arguably the most profound is that nothing in medicine makes sense except in the light of our evolutionary origins. From the multiple anatomical quirks to a genome riddled with broken genes, mobile parasitic genomic elements and the decayed remnants of ancient retroviral infection, what we see shouts one fact - we share common ancestry with all life on this planet.

I have spent some time detailing the genomic evidence that confirms our shared ancestry with the great apes, so some time looking at the anatomical and paleontological data would not go astray. The following series of videos from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute serve admirably to provide that information.

Note: while this website contains a wealth of information detailing the considerable evidence for common descent and large-scale evolutionary change, a series of posts systematically detailing (for reference / FAQ purposes) would not go astray, particularly given the misinformation and recycled YEC mendacity that is too often circulated uncritically in our community. Over the next few days, I will be posting a series of article detailing this evidence.