Darwin-L Message Log 2:85 (October 1993)

Academic Discussion on the History and Theory of the Historical Sciences

This is one message from the Archives of Darwin-L (1993–1997), a professional discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences.

Note: Additional publications on evolution and the historical sciences by the Darwin-L list owner are available on SSRN.

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<2:85>From danny@orthanc.cs.su.OZ.AU  Fri Oct 15 10:02:49 1993

Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1993 19:17:43 +1000
From: danny@orthanc.cs.su.OZ.AU (Danny Yee)
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: RFD: sci.evolution.human
Followup-To: news.groups
Organization: Basser Dept of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Australia

[ This message was posted to the USENET newsgroups sci.bio, sci.anthropology,
talk.origins,bionet.molbio.evolution,sci.lang,sci.cognitive, and
bionet.population-bio.  Discussion will take place in news.groups. ]

       Request for Discussion

     creation of the unmoderated newsgroup

      **  sci.evolution.human  **

Charter
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sci.evolution.human is for the discussion of the evolution of the species
homo sapiens.  Some of the topics likely to be covered include:

* palaeoanthropology (discussion of new fossil finds, etc.)

* primatology (primate social interactions, comparative morphology, etc.)

* origins of human language and cognition

* origins of distinctive human morphological features (bipedalism, big brain,
	hairlessness, etc.)

* genetic variation in homo sapiens relevant to our evolutionary history
	(e.g. mitochondrial DNA studies)

--

Some subjects recently debated that would find a place in sci.evolution.human

* The "African Eve" theory vs regional evolution debate

* The Aquatic Ape theory

--

The following are explicitly NOT intended for discussion in
sci.evolution.human:

* religious issues (e.g. Creationism)
	the proper forum for these is talk.origins.

* general biological topics without particular relevance to homo sapiens
	sci.bio, sci.bio.ecology, the bionet hierarchy or (potentially)
	sci.bio.evolution are the appropriate places for these.

* non-biological evolution (eg memetics, cultural and linguistic evolution)
	these may later require a newsgroup of their own (perhaps gated to
	the DARWIN-L list?) but it is expected that sci.anthropology,
	sci.lang and alt.memetics should suffice for the moment.

It is however envisaged that posts will regularly be shared with other
newsgroups, among them
	sci.bio
	sci.bio.evolution (if created)
	talk.origins
	sci.anthropology
	bionet.molbio.evolution

Motivation
----------

The evolution of the human species is naturally something of
considerable interest to a large number of people.  At the moment the
quite frequent threads on this topic are split somewhat clumsily between
sci.bio, sci.anthropology and talk.origins, as well as several other
newsgroups.  All three of these groups are fairly high volume, and are
certainly viable without this material; it is also expected that they
would share crossposts to sci.evolution.human where appropriate.

It seems likely that there are many people who are interested in human
evolution but are not particularly interested in natural history,
creationist controversy or social anthropology.  (These are examples of
topics which make up a fair fraction of the volume in the three newsgroups
mentioned.)

Calendar
--------

Discussion of sci.evolution.human will take place in news.groups.  Unless
any problems are raised the Call for Votes will be sent out on the 18th
of November.  Any volunteers to do the vote counting would be welcome.

Danny Yee (danny@cs.su.oz.au).
15/10/93

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