Turkish Wrist Walkers

That's weird. My son learned to walk by himself. It's not a skill one aquires like reading or table manners. I think it's pretty much instinct.

It's a hoax by the children themselves. With 19 (?) kids in the family, they feel unloved/unnoticed, and use this as a means of getting attention. In 5 or so years, they'll stand up and say "ha ha" to the world.

Brain damage of all 5 kids? Unlikely.
Reverse evolution? Ha!
A hoax by 5 kids who crave attention? Ding! Ding! Ding!

They're not actually kids anymore. They're grown-up. In other words, if it's a hoax on their part, they deserve some kind of award for sticking with the act for some thirty odd years.

It's real.
Three possible explanations:
1. Lazy parents.
2. Family of alcoholics.
3. Gastro-intestinal problems.

JoeSixPack is right, walking upright is something done instinctivly. Babies not yet ready to walk can be held upright by a parent, the baby will then move his legs as though walking upright. Someone might say he learned how to move like that from observing the parents, but then you have to explain why crawling (not demonstrated by parents) comes naturally and walking doesn't. Remember the mouse on fire story was widly reported, as was the severed member in the microwave. In fact I heard about the conclusion to the penis story here before any place else. Most sources that reported the story when it was suppose to be a real penis, never went back later to amend it as a fake hoo-hoo.

I'm thinking an inner ear problem. It messes with your balence, so it would be very difficult to walk.

Five out of nineteen would be quite close to the statistically expected number of affected offspring if this is caused by a recessive gene. One would expect one out of four to be affected.
Didn't the British team attribute their gait to a form of ataxia?

ledasmom:
"All five of the quadruped siblings

It doesn't seem like a hoax...

Not to mention, a child with spina bifida (that survives infancy) may have problems walking upright, and I have seen SB kidss bent over at the waist walking similarly to the above people.

Since I'm not a doctor, I can't really think of any other diseases that can cause this...but as mentioned above - there most deffinately are.

If their parents are as closely related as I've read, this could be a result of, essentially, inbreeding.

What a load of rubbish!

I certain arab countries people will do anything to earn a couple of quid.

Here is a link to a news story about this.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=379134&in_page_id=1770

From the last paragraph:

The documentary, to be shown on BBC2 on Friday, March 17, is called The Family That Walks On All Fours.

In response to what "Whathe?" said: I suppose people in Western cultures don't do "anything to earn a couple quid?" Ever heard of a tabloid? That's an incredibly ignorant remark. Not to mention the fact that Turkey is not an Arab country, child. It's actually more European. Finally, what people have been saying about the vestibular system is more than likely the case. If that system goes out of whack, you can't walk normally. I definitely believe the story.

I find the whole thing very interesting and I certainly will be watching the BBC program on St. Patricks's day
Amazing what happens when genes get mixed up.

Is it that impossible that there are actually people on this Earth different to the old 'run of the mill' human being???
Believe it of not, it is actually possible for evolution to 'slip up' sometimes.
That said, I can see why some would have a problem believing the story but we do all learn from what we hear and see. It's also possible that one of the siblings that has this throwback and because the other 4 siblings saw this they decided to copy.
I'm not sure what I think about interbreeding as I do wonder if the warnings of disabilities and deformed foetuses is scaremongering to put those that have thought about it off the idea as it is socially unacceptable. I'm guessing the parents of this brood are brother and sister as they are 'very closely related'(ewww).
Maybe if they both had a recessive backward evolution gene the fact they are related would make the odds of this gene appearing in their children much higher.
Anyway, I'm just speculating and it'll be interesting to see the documentry to see if it is convincing.
I can be convinced one way or the other and just get annoyed when people dismiss the idea of something new (or old) as out of the question for no real reason. If these people wanted to make a 'quick buck' would they not have done that 25 yrs ago so they could then revert back to walking on just 2 limbs. 30 something years isn't my idea of a quick buck!

This has all been caused by inbreeding, and the mental problems caused by it.

This is definetly a case of inbreeding and isolation. Evolution had nothing to do with this ... I grew up near a family who had over 13 children. The mother and father were actually father and daughter. The father also later produced children with the children he had from his daughter and children from the grandchildren.

There were many strange deformed children born out of this. Babies that only had a mouth and indents were the eyes and nose should be. They had one child that lived to be about 8. He was born with teeth and small bumps rather than ears. To look at him that's all you would see, but at the age of 1 or 2 they had to keep him penned up because he would bite chunks out of the other children.

I remember my grandmother visiting them and they would poke food through the cage at him. There were others that you never saw but just heard growling like animals in a back room somewhere. They too were isolated in the back woods - they owned 60 acres with no one around for miles. I can only remember 2 or 3 being somewhat functional. This was back in 1940's early 50's and something I will never forget.

These people are the local villagers. And villagers in general are hard working people. I think genetics.