All families have their own quirks and habits, but one group of relatives has such a unique trait that scientists have branded them a total anomaly of the human species.
The Ulas family has been the subject of evolutionary fascination for years after they were discovered in a remote village in Turkey walking on all fours.
Back in the early 2000s, a scientific paper was published on five of the Ulas siblings and their strange bear crawl-style of movement, with experts divided over the cause of the abnormality.
In the years following the paper’s publication, evolutionary psychologist Professor Nicholas Humphrey, of the London School of Economics (LSE), travelled to Turkey to meet with the extraordinary family.
The Ulas mother and father had a staggering 18 children, however, of these, only six were born with quadrupedalism (walking on all fours), which has never been seen before in modern adult humans.
“I never expected that even under the most extraordinary scientific fantasy that modern human beings could return to an animal state,” Humphrey told 60 Minutes Australia, which made a documentary about the family back in 2018.
“The thing which marks us off from the rest of the animal world is the fact that we’re the species which walks on two legs and holds our heads high in the air,” he added.
“Of course, it’s language and all other sorts of things too, but it’s terribly important to our sense of ourselves as being different from others in the animal kingdom. These people cross that boundary.”
The documentary describes the Ulas as “the missing link between man and ape” and suggests that they “shouldn’t exist” at all.
And yet, no one has yet figured out the precise cause of the strange walking style.
Whilst some experts have suggested that it’s caused by a genetic problem which has “undone the last three million years of evolution”, others have rejected the idea that there’s a specific “gene” for upright walking and suggested something else is at play.
Humphrey pointed out that the affected siblings – five of whom are still alive and aged between 22 and 38 – all suffer from a particular form of brain damage.
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He also stressed that the Ulas’ form of quadrupedalism differs from that seen in our closest animal relatives – chimpanzees and gorillas – in one key way.
Whilst these primates walk on their knuckles, the Turkish children’s use the palms of their hands – putting their weight on their wrists while lifting their fingers off the ground.
“What’s significant about that is that chimpanzees ruin their fingers walking like that,” Humphrey told the BBC News website back in 2006 when the BBC broadcast its own documentary about the family.
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“These kids have kept their fingers very agile, for example, the girls in the family can do crochet and embroidery,” he added.
Humphrey has hypothesised that this could indeed be the way our direct ancestors walked.
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The LSE researcher also suggested that there are more basic explanations for the Ulas children’s quadrupedalism: they were simply not encouraged to walk on two feet.
In the Turkish village where they grew up, there was no local health service to help the disabled kids make the transition from crawling as babies (on hands and knees) to walking fully upright.
“I never expected that even under the most extraordinary scientific fantasy that modern human beings could return to an animal state,” Humphrey told 60 Minutes Australia, which made a documentary about the family back in 2018.
“The thing which marks us off from the rest of the animal world is the fact that we’re the species which walks on two legs and holds our heads high in the air,” he added.
“Of course, it’s language and all other sorts of things too, but it’s terribly important to our sense of ourselves as being different from others in the animal kingdom. These people cross that boundary.”
The documentary describes the Ulas as “the missing link between man and ape” and suggests that they “shouldn’t exist” at all.
That’s a very odd way to talk about a group of people - you might expect it from the fifties but 2018?
That’s what got me, too. The fucking gall. They didn’t devolve somehow into proto-humans, they have brain damage and he himself knows they have brain damage.
For all the specific type of damage is explained in the article, I was going to guess that it could be a simple balancing issue and a basic google search proved that correct: the siblings who walk like this all have a congenital defect that causes mental retardation and difficulty balancing, in addition to other things like muscle weakness and impacted speech and coordination, the latter two of which are normally present but they don’t happen to suffer from. Hence why they won’t stand upright, but they will do embroidery.
Motherfucker just referred to a handful of mentally disabled people as the missing link between human and ape. Out loud.
I only hope he sees academic humiliation for this.The documentary describes the Ulas as “the missing link…
“Missing Link” is a terribly unscientific term and is rooted in some combination of evolution denialism and a very antiquated concept known as “The Great Chain of Being”. Critics of evolutionary theory, appropriately not understanding how evolution works, would decry the absence of fossil evidence for every possible physical change leading to physical variations in a species, a so-called missing link.
So, lack of social and health services was the missing link. That family living in such poverty was made outcast because they missed the critical lesson on walking up right, and with a simple walker, some hand rails, and a good doctor the whole family healed.
They did not “devolve” they adapted to an astonishing lack of support and community.
The torment these people went through, with a significant portion due to their lack of community and medical support, is terrifying.
That’s the real story here.
Plus, how did they obtain the brain injuries in the first place? Problems during birth? Inbreeding? Genetics? Was it preventable?
Absolute bollocks.
He also stressed that the Ulas’ form of quadrupedalism differs from that seen in our closest animal relatives – chimpanzees and gorillas – in one key way.
Whilst these primates walk on their knuckles, the Turkish children’s use the palms of their hands – putting their weight on their wrists while lifting their fingers off the ground.
Yes, that’s because it’s absolute bollocks.
Why is the woman tripping over her skirt? This seems ridiculous.
“The thing which marks us off from the rest of the animal world is the fact that we’re the species which walks on two legs and holds our heads high in the air,” he added.
Hey everybody, birds aren’t animals!
That did make me stop and wonder if the scientist was an actual idiot.
They’re Plato’s feathered men
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Any answer they gave would probably be about as useful as asking you why you walk upright.
My neck hurts just thinking about moving around like that.
When the next meteor comes down and wipes us all out, these are the bones the Squid-people are going to find. They’re gonna make us all look like four legged fools.
I got through 7 minutes of the video while on toilet. After that I realized this is no different than what I left at the bottom of the porcelain bowl.
You shit news articles?
Your should get a job working for a newspaper lol
is that the tornado guy?
