Did we descend from apes?? NO

Originally posted by Alien DNA
If we are an ape how did we become so clever? Why are all the other groups of apes still living in the wild?

Who says we are cleverer than gorillas?

I got to go out an work for a living. People are killing each other over the stupidest crap - RIGHT NOW!

Gorillas sit around on their buts in the jungle living in peace and harmony.

Pretty damned clever of them if you ask me.

Originally posted by melatonin

Originally posted by Alien DNA
I suppose your right in that respect but why are we so far advanced to anything else on the planet?

well that is a good question.

I think it's currently suggested that 2 gene mutations allowed the development of language and brain expansion. Probably more were involved but it's not a bad starting point for divergence from other apes.

But it's a bit like saying "what is it that allowed primates to be more intelligent than reptiles?" As ToE suggests we also have a common ancestor with reptiles.

I saw a story some time ago on the web (if i remember correctly we have a thread around here on it.) I think it's relevant to the emergence of "intelligence" and civilization... not real sure 'bout that though. I think it's interesting cause the 5,800ya date matches with the Biblical dates for the dawn of man... not sure 'bout that either though. *shrug*

Regardless of the Biblical implications (or lack there-of) is there anything to this?





(emphasis - Rren) Not 100% sure but i believe that those dates also coincide, more or less, with evidence for the rise and evolution (if you will) of civilization. If that's accurate then i would think that the emergence of these chemicals in the brain is key to man's "cleverness."



obviously i didn't spend much time looking into this; thought i'd throw it up here and see what you guys think.

[edit on 2-2-2006 by Rren]

Cheers Rren, quite interesting.

So it seems like the earlier mutations (FOXP2 and myosin) first allowed language and some encephalic expansion, then more recent mutations of ASPM and microcephalin pushed us further along the road to our current intellectual abilities. Quite cool.

So maybe the early hominids only had the first two (or maybe some just one), and the latter two may separate us from them in neural structure/capabilites. All conjecture obviously. I'm sure we'll find more indications of these sort of mutations eventually. If we could compare neanderthal DNA, that would be ace. I know they have isolated some mitochondrial DNA a while back.

We aren't descended from apes. Ape and man are distant cousins, which means that somewhere in our past we descended from the same ancestor. It is likely that this prehistoric primate doesn't exist anymore (in the literal sense), because evolution and DNA mutation would have, over a very large time period, made it into a fundamentally different species.

Originally posted by mj13
We aren't descended from apes. Ape and man are distant cousins, which means that somewhere in our past we descended from the same ancestor. It is likely that this prehistoric primate doesn't exist anymore (in the literal sense), because evolution and DNA mutation would have, over a very large time period, made it into a fundamentally different species.

THANK GOD FOR THE EDUCATED.
People depress me!!!!! Did you all go to private christian institutions where they don't teach you anything on the theory of Evolution?
oh geez. thank you mj13....I was losing hope.
and lizards didn't evolve from Fish either, they have a common ancestor, and some stayed in the water some made it out, and the rest are our current amphibian friends. Someone else said that the gorillas were pretty clever. I agree, for the same reasons my friend. I read a book on the origins of language recently, and the author had a pretty bit to say about evolution and how it shaped our language, and how its interesting that the great rift valley was caused by a catastrophe thousands of years ago. the original species (that we share with the ape cousins) were split; on the westren side of the great valley, are the rainforests of the congo, giving these descedants the ability to live in and adapt to trees and the forest that was their environment. The other side of the great rift valley is more of a savannah, and the descendants here would have had to learn to run and walk upright (which wasnt tall for them, only about 3-4 feet at the tallest) in the grasses to watchout for and run from predators. These are OUR ancestors. They eventually migrated and then adapted to new environments as they got there.
whew. excuse my spelling and grammar errors, I'm simply trying to spill all of this out quickly.

Originally posted by papillonnoir
THANK GOD FOR THE EDUCATED.
People depress me!!!!! Did you all go to private christian institutions where they don't teach you anything on the theory of Evolution?
oh geez. thank you mj13....I was losing hope.

who me? No, I went to run down british comprehensive, but I did sing hymns occassionally and have RE lessons...

[edit on 2-2-2006 by melatonin]

Actually I went to a private Catholic school. And in science they did teach evolution. And in Relgion classes they also taught that

Shocking!

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SAYS that you can believe evolution if you wish because the creation stroy, while inspired, is jsut a story. NOW it does have important theological bases but it isnt "fact" that thats what happend. IT was written around the time of Moses. It was the LAST thing to be added to Genisis.

your right thank GOD for Theology majors.

And I do not wish to turn this into a relgious debate. If you wish to debate me on what I have stated U2U me. I do not want to ruin this thread.

BTW I still stick by my statment on this from page 1.

Ooookay.... an answer to the first question and a review of some of the known facts and discoveries about life on Earth:


"Why are we so techologically advanced?" The easy, simple, astonishing answer is: "we have opposable thumbs." For all their intelligence, the only way dolphins have of making things is to hold things in their beaks... so construction projects, crafting pulleys, crafting sleds, etc, etc is quite impossible. Things with hands (like apes) don't have our exact hand-thumb setup, which means they really can't hold implements like paintbrushes or screwdrivers or other tools that require fine motor control.

The second factor is that we live in large groups and we have developed methods of communicating and recording discoveries and traditions ("culture.") While animals do have these same things, a wolf from a pack in Western Alaska really can't transmit the culture of her pack (like "stay away from humans who wear orange, don't eat certain berries" to a pack in eastern Canada where her environment would be completely different.)

The third factor is that we've learned to control the environment.

Some bullet points here about humans/hominids and so forth:
* homo sapiens has only been around for 100,000 years or so.
* humans (this includes Australopithecenes) have been around for about 5 1/2 million years. While we'd think a number of them are kind of ugly looking, the differences are mostly surface (as with coyotes and dogs or wolves and dogs)
* for the past 30,000 years (or so) there has only been one species of human (homo sapiens.)
* The arguments against "intelligent design" or "alien intervention" here are numerous.
-- all Earth lifeforms have certain genes (and genes from nonterrestrial sources would not be the same because they would have developed under different circumstances.
-- there's a good sequence of skeletons showing the gradual development from the Australopithecene line and earlier into the humans. No, we don't have a whole orderly graveyard showing the first hominid and with neat rows of all their descendants for millions of years (and there would be people who wouldn't find that convincing) but we do have a lot of evidence. Most people aren't familiar with the number of skeletons and the locations where they were found.
-- there's also good evidence about diseases moving into human groups from animal groups and into anthropod (apes and relatives) groups. If we were "designed" or "came from Mars" we wouldn't be susceptible to the same diseases (in a mere 100,000 years) as the rest of the Earth life-forms. And any ID would make sure of the species survival by making them resistant to animal-borne diseases.
-- there's lots of cultural evidence, including making stone tools and transmitting that knowledge; evidence that runs millions of years into our past.

I'm just doing a brief review-and-run... I need to go to the paleontology lab today to clean fossils and so I just hopped in to check mail.

I believe our DNA was tampered with by an advance race too, know a good book on this?

Originally posted by Alien DNA
If we are an ape how did we become so clever? Why are all the other groups of apes still living in the wild?

We were part of a group of apes that had to become clever in order to survive. Probably because we were cut off from more temperate areas because of some climate change. The other groups of apes were luckier than we were, and found an environment that didn't challenge them as much, so they didn't need to change and adapt to it.

It's also possible that we were part of a relatively isolate group of primates that was exposed to a mutating retrovirus (like AIDS), that altered us in such a way (made us smarter) so we could adapt better to harsher environments.

Classical Darwinian evolution is more about slow change over time. The punctuated equilibrium folks may be more correct in that we cruise along pretty much the same for a long time, then we get hit by a mutation. If it doesn't kill us, we move on from there.

So at the end of the day, some things happened to us that didn't happen to the great ape species alive today. We're both on the same evolutionary level, though. We're just different, not necessarily better.

just because a divergent evolutionary cousin is still here we didn't evolve for apes?

also, human civilization has no actual starting date, because the definition of civilization is so loose. so 5800 years ago is an extraneous date. there is evidence of a manmade wall dating back 10000 years on the island of malta and many other structures there that blow that date out of the water.

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul


also, human civilization has no actual starting date, because the definition of civilization is so loose. so 5800 years ago is an extraneous date. there is evidence of a manmade wall dating back 10000 years on the island of malta and many other structures there that blow that date out of the water.

Quite right. There's plenty of evidence of ancient civilizations and massive catastrophes that brought them down. I'd like to mention here that Genesis is the story of a 're-creation' and the whole new earth thing is just really dim.