Robert; :... it still horrified Darwin to the point of renunciation...
Actually, this myth was invented out of whole cloth by Lady Hope who, by all reliable accounts, probably never even met Darwin. See this website for a refutation of the myth and references.
: Interestingly enough,... Eugenics. ...Aryan ... Planned Parenthood...
Well, remember that the "Branch Davidians" and the "People's Temple" of Jim Jones were also based on the principles of Christianity. As Farinata has explained, numerous times, historical misuse of a concept by people who do not understand that concept does not refute the concept, only the use. If you hold Darwin responsible for fascism, do you also hold Jesus responsible for Jonestown and Waco? The logic (if you can even call it that) is the same, and it is invalid in both cases.
: O.K., Who then IS the closest "related" species to Homo-Sapien-Sapien and is he in fact 4,000,000 years old? The same logic will apply.
OK, the closest living relative is Pan troglogytes whose DNA is 98.6% identical to our own (although some have argued that Pan paniscus may represent a better behavioral analogue). As for extinct ancestors, about two million years ago, we start calling things members of our own Genus, Homo, but this is on the basis of the presence of tools. 4MYA is about the time of Australopithecus anamensis who appears to have been the first fully upright hominid. As we've mentioned before, these designations are somewhat arbitrary and exist for our convenience in talking about the materials. By definition, all fossils are "reproductively isolated," in a sense. We make the distinctions and groupings based on anatomical or behavioral similarities and differences, but since they are the accumulation of miniscule differences, the divisions within a phyletic line are arbitrary. That doesn't make them "not ancestors," however, it just makes the assignment of categories difficult. For example, Tim White recently announced the discovery of A. garhi in the Afar. Anatomically, it is a late gracile Australopithicus, but it was found in a context that suggests at least occasional tool use. Obviously this makes the association of tools with genus Homo problematic. But that's a problem with the categories, not with the evidence.
For your edification, I used "hundreds of thousands" as a sort of shorthand to mean "a lot", simply because the number varies between taxa and I didn't feel like lecturing when I'm not on the clock.
-Floyd
