...humansxalmost went extinct, 

 

Around 800,000 years ago, humans experienced a significant population bottleneck, potentially reducing their numbers to as few as 1,280 breeding individuals, according to a study published in Science. This event, which may have been triggered by a severe climate event, nearly led to the extinction of the human species. The bottleneck is thought to have occurred between 930,000 and 813,000 years ago, coinciding with a period of extreme cold and drought in Africa and Eurasia. 

 

😮

That's when I was born!  Look at me now!  🤣

 

Sorry, but I don't care how many PhD's the researchers have, there is simply no way they could know this.

They can come up with a hypothesis based on some evidence and likely assumptions, but they cannot know for certain about almost anything that happened so long ago.

This is yet another example of so-called scientists coming up with wacky theories to justify their careers and obtain more funding to keep them employed.  I've seen this process play out several times in my former career where the scientists would make exaggerated claims about their research to keep the funding going.  Of course, I and everyone else who worked there went along with the story as we wanted to keep our jobs, too.

Dave

47 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

Sorry, but I don't care how many PhD's the researchers have, there is simply no way they could know this.

Before blaming the scientists, I recommend having a look at their original work. Their university public relations corps probably put out a press release that will sound groundbreaking, and by the time it reaches the media, a lot of research appears to be the best thing since sliced bread. To be frank, I have stopped reading any news article about science as soon as the word "groundbreaking" appears in it.

There is simply no substitute to consulting the original source of any claim, be it in science or elsewhere. 

Peter

Bat Cave Man saved humanity. And Wonder Troglodyte helped. She used her lasso of truth on the evil Mastodon boss!

800,000 years ago:

Caped Crusader: "Quick, Robin, to the bat cave"!

Robin: "When danger comes, why do you always want to hide like this?"

Edited July 10, 2025Jul 10 by Fielder

Ah.  I remember it well.  I was down to three cousins.

I remember when I was in secondary school in Ireland in what was called something like the junior cycle studying for my intermediate certificate one of the 10 subjects I was required to study was Geography in the broad sense. I remember coming across this concept called a natural check on population. That was about 45 years ago and I was studying nothing new. I always am amazed when these topics now show up in the media as if they are new ideas!

Edited July 11, 2025Jul 11 by FBW737

The first clue is Science isn't a publication. It's a click-bait factory.

This is old news. At least 20 years old. There was a narrowing of human population based on a study of mitochondrial stuff and has since been questioned as to the number of humans and exactly when this happened. When I first read about this they suggested the event coincided with the last ice age which wasn't 800,000 years ago. Hell, there wasn't any humans that long ago.

Its this 1,280 humans left that suprised me. Why not 1000 or 1,500 or 2000? Quite how they can be that specific alludes me.

Regardless, its still a very small number. 

57 minutes ago, martin-w said:

Its this 1,280 humans left that suprised me. Why not 1000 or 1,500 or 2000? Quite how they can be that specific alludes me.

Regardless, its still a very small number. 

I would be interested to know who carried out the sensors back then. That came up with 1,280 and not 1,281.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/human-ancestors-nearly-went-extinct-900-000-years-ago/

They came to their conclusions by DNA analysis, apparently.

 

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To make their discovery, the researchers needed to invent new tools. Advances in genome sequencing have improved scientists’ understanding of population sizes for the period after modern humans emerged, but the researchers developed a methodology that enabled them to fill in details about earlier human ancestors.

 

 

Quote

The study, published in Science, utilized a new genetic analysis method called FitCoal to reconstruct the population dynamics of early humans. The results indicated a severe population bottleneck, with the number of breeding individuals plummeting to just 1,280. 

 

Quote

FitCoal, short for Fast infinitesimal time coalescent, is a computational method used to infer past population sizes and demographic history from genomic data. It analyzes the site frequency spectrum (SFS), which represents the distribution of allele frequencies within a population's DNA sequences, to detect bottlenecks and other significant events in evolutionary history. 

 

 

 

Edited July 11, 2025Jul 11 by martin-w

Funny how when archeologist and real climate scientist debunk climate change, they get jumped on.

Because they say the climate will change and nothing mankind can do will stop it.

The first recorded record is about just over 2,000 -4,000 years ago romans Egypt Hebrew.

 

I don't know any "real" Climate scientists that have done so, if there are they are in a very small minority. But as has been said a multitude of times, of course climate naturally changes, due to numerous natural causal factors.... but none of those factors are present now. Our emmisions are present, and the isotopic signature of the additional CO2 is from fossil fuel burning. Rapidity is also a factor, in that natural causal factors of a global nature are over much longer timeframes, not 150 years or so.

 

Theres no need to go through all the same points again, surely. Let's stick to the study.

 

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/how-do-we-know-build-carbon-dioxide-atmosphere-caused-humans

Edited July 11, 2025Jul 11 by martin-w
Link added