Until recently, anthropologists generally agreed that higher primates originated about 30 million years ago in the Al...

Emil-Kunkin on August 11, 2022

Hi Supreet1,

We are looking for evidence that would support the conclusion that the jawbone does not prove that there were higher primates in Burma 10M years before they were found in Egypt.

A tells us that primates are not more common in Burma than they are in Egypt. This does not support our conclusion, for two reasons. First, we only care about higher primates, not all primates. Second, the commonness of primates today does not say much about the world 30 million years ago.

C tells us that you cannot tell if an animal is a higher primate just by looking at a jawbone. This undermines the idea that higher primates were present in Burma, so it does exactly what we needed it to do.