Tópico: Antropólogo ainda defende (2009) orangutangos como nossos parentes mais próximos

[Buckaroo Banzai]

[...] Schwartz and Grehan scrutinized the hundreds of physical characteristics often cited as evidence of evolutionary relationships among humans and other great apes—chimps, gorillas, and orangutans—and selected 63 that could be verified as unique within this group (i.e., they do not appear in other primates). Of these features, the analysis found that humans shared 28 unique physical characteristics with orangutans, compared to only two features with chimpanzees, seven with gorillas, and seven with all three apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans). Gorillas and chimpanzees shared 11 unique characteristics.

Schwartz and Grehan then examined 56 features uniquely shared among modern humans, fossil hominids—ancestral humans such as Australopithecus—and fossil apes. They found that orangutans shared eight features with early humans and Australopithecus and seven with Australopithecus alone. The occurrence of orangutan features in Australopithecus contradicts the expectation generated by DNA analysis that ancestral humans should have chimpanzee similarities, Schwartz and Grehan write. Chimpanzees and gorillas were found to share only those features found in all great apes. [...]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090618084304.htm

Eu fico só esperando inventarem uma teoria híbrida dessa e daquelas de evolução-castiçal/multirregional das raças humanas, ainda tidas como aceitáveis por uma fração não tão pequena dos pesquisadores quanto essa aí. Já houve gente que defendesse coisas tão toscas como que as diferentes raças seriam originárias de diferentes espécies de macacos (chimpanzés, gorilas, orangutangos), acho que essa linha teórica do orangutango como nosso parente mais próximo tem coisas que poderiam ser usadas para se defender algo assim.