Human Quadrupeds Found in Turkey, Could Provide Links for Evolution. LONDON (AFP) - The discovery of a Turkish family that walks on all fours could aid research into the evolution of humans. Researchers believe the five brothers and sisters, who can walk naturally only on all fours, may provide new information on how humans evolved from four-legged hominids to walk upright. Nicholas Humphrey, evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, told The Times the discovery opened "an extraordinary window on our past". "I do not think they were designed to be quadrupeds by their genes, but their unique genetic make-up allowed them to be," he said. "It has produced an extraordinary window on our past. It is physically possible, which noone would have guessed from the [modern] human skeleton." The siblings, the subject of a new BBC documentary to be aired on March 17, suffer from a genetic abnormality that may prevent them from walking upright. Instead, they use their palms like heels with their fingers sticking up from the ground. The BBC said the documentary would contribute to fierce scientific debate and raised profound questions about what it is to be human. Humphrey, who has contributed to the documentary, believes the style of walking may be a throwback to a form of behaviour abandoned by humans more than three million years ago. Two sisters and one son have only ever walked on two hands and two feet, while another daughter and son occasionally walk on two feet. All five are mentally r****ded and have problems with language as a result of a form of underdevelopment of the brain known as cerebellar ataxia. However Humphrey told the Times their behaviour may be partly the result of their parents tolerating the behaviour in childhood. They are aged between 18 and 34 and live in southern Turkey, athough the makers of the documentary have not disclosed their exact location. "They walk like animals and that's very disturbing at first. But we were also very moved by this family's tremendous warmth and humanity," Jemima Harrison of Passionate Productions told the Times.
I spoke with a guy that visits Africa Often he told me that it was disconcerting to go some places where the kids/people ahve a disease that does not allow them to walk erect. They basically scamper about on all fours I thought that was a horrid image Esp considering it is something that was easily averted all it took from what he told me was nutrition and maybe a lil medicine Rocket RIver
"The siblings, who live with their parents and 13 other brothers and sisters, are mentally r****ded, as a result of a form of cerebellar ataxia — an underdevelopment of the brain similar to that in cystic fibrosis. Their mother and father, who are themselves closely related, are believed to have passed down a unique combination of genes resulting in the behaviour." Don't marry your sister.
if that picture is a good representation of how they really walked on fours then that doesn't look too "naturally" to me. looks exactly how any of us would look today doing that.
Very disturbing. Even more disturbing when I read that the parents were closely related. Even more disturbing than that is it went through my mind, "how do they have sex".
