Why are there no human apes alive today?

A 4th metatarsal does not a species make. And you are the one complaining about unwarranted reconstructions? Here you are constructing an entire skeleton from a single metatarsal. Has it ever occurred to you that australopithecines and humans could have nearly identical metatarsals? Evolution can be falsified. Just show us a vertebrate that clearly violates the nested hierarchy. A feathered bat would do quite nicely. So if I find an animal with an arched foot does that make them human, no matter what the rest of the animal looks like? So please tell us what dating methods they should be using, and what criteria they should be using to determine if a fossil is transitional or not. It is much worse. You are claiming that one can reconstruct a modern human from a single metatarsal.

What evidence indicates that it came from a modern human? Why can't we find a single modern human skull from that time period? Why are skulls from australopithecines the closest thing we can find to a modern human during that time period? A feathered bat would falsify the theory.

Birds are dinosaurs just as bears are mammals. But please, go on. Keep pointing to your ignorance of how taxonomy and biology works. You are the one who thinks that neanderthals look more like gorillas than modern humans. I remember something in the Bible about removing planks . . . What characteristics must a fossil have in order to link it to other life? They do have a notochord and spinal column (plus other features) which is needed to be classified as a chordate.

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They are united by having, for at least some period of their life cycle, a notochord, a hollow dorsal nerve cord, pharyngeal slits, an endostyle, and a post-anal tail.
Chordate - Wikipedia

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Like I said before, please keep talking. You are proving our point. Please show us a cambrian fossil of a modern hagfish. Please, we are waiting. Ready to get owned by Darwin?

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In looking for the gradations by which an organ in any species has been perfected, we ought to look exclusively to its lineal ancestors; but this is scarcely ever possible, and we are forced in each case to look to species of the same group, that is to the collateral descendants from the same original parent-form, in order to see what gradations are possible, and for the chance of some gradations having been transmitted from the earlier stages of descent, in an unaltered or little altered condition.--Origin of Species

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In Tiktaalik we see preserved transitional features just as Darwin said we should find. So I asked for a feathered bat. What did you present instead? A feathered dinosaur. See the problem?

What ape does Turkana Boy so strongly resemble? What features must a fossil have in order for you to consider it transitional? Wouldn't a transitional fossil necessarily contain a mixture of non-human and human features?It would seem to me that your creationist dogma has blinded you. Something is either a non-human or human. You are so blinded that you can not even tell us what a transitional fossil should look like. Why can't a transitional fossil have these features?

Due to the random nature of retroviral insertion, finding the same virus inserted into the same base in each genome indicates that the insertion occurred in a common ancestor. You keep ignoring the fact that these ERV's are found at the same base. Retroviruses insert throughout the entire genome, not in one spot.

Not at all. The ERV evidence indicates that bonobos and chimps are more closely related to each other than chimps are to humans. If you would actually familiarize yourself with the science you wouldn't make serious mistakes like this. You would also learn that viruses insert randomly amongst billions of insertion sites. Therefore, finding multiple ERV's at the same base in each genome can not be due to independent insertions. It is due to a single insertions in a common ancestor.

You seem to do it with ease. Can you tell us again how H. erectus more closely resembles a gorilla than it does a modern human?

Barring DNA recovery from fossils, it is impossible to determine with certainty if a fossil is a direct ancestor of any extant organisms. The best that can be done is to organize species, extant and extinct, based on shared characteristics using cladistics. In this method, no species is in the direct lineage of another. Rather, all species are joined by synapomorphies, the list of shared characteristics.For extant species, the clade looks like this: ABE: found a decent representation of the Hominid clade. Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

I think Percy has labeled this line of inquiry off limits for this thread. Just to help in further discussions, there are lineage specific ERV's that are not seen in orthologous positions in other species. Be careful when claiming that all species have all of the same exact insertions.

There are hairy ape creatures around today, and ERV's demonstrate that they share a common ancestor. You seem to be missing the point entirely.BTW, humans have just as many hair follicles as other apes do. Look a little closer at humans and you will find that almost every surface of our body is covered by hair. What differs is the thickness of the hair. The fact remains that they did go extinct, no matter what the cause was. Being extinct does not change the fact that they were transitional. Does the fact that no one speaks Middle English anymore mean that Middle English was not transitional between Old English and Modern English? We are saying that humans also have the facial morphology of an ape because humans are apes.Also, you have yet to define what facial morphology a transitional between humans and a common ancestor with chimps would have. Why haven't you done this?Until you tell us what criteria you are using to determine if a fossil is transitional or not you are simply flailing in the air.Perhaps I can help you out. Wouldn't a transitional have eye ridges that are not as heavy as those seen in chimps but larger than those seen in humans? What about lower jaw size and prognathus? Shouldn't those be intermediate as well?

Shouldn't a transitional have more primitive features than the modern species? Isn't that EXACTLY WHAT WE SHOULD SEE IF H. ERECTUS IS TRANSITIONAL?Or are you saying that a transitional between humans and a common ancestor with chimps should look exactly like modern humans? That is a human feature, is it not? In other apes the hips do not stick out, and the femur is perpendicular to the ground instead of at an angle like that seen in humans.So according to you, H. erectus has a mixture of modern and primitive features, EXACTLY WHAT SHOULD BE SEEN IN A TRANSITIONAL FOSSIL.

There is a continuum of these features in transitional hominids. There is no discontinuity. The brow ridges in H. erectus are intermediate between humans and other apes. Same for the other features. Therefore, H. erectus is transitional. Mazzy, what are your criteria for determining whether a fossil is transitional or not?My criteria is a mixture of modern and primitive features. What criteria are you using?

The only way for this thread to improve is for Mazzy to tell us how she determines if a fossil is transitional or not.At this point, if a fossil differs at all from modern humans she disqualifies it as a transitional. I would really like to see Mazzy defend this. Is Mazzy really saying that if evolution is true then a chimp-like ancestor should have given birth to a fully modern human without any generations in between that had a mixture of chimp-like features and modern human features?

Since you used genetic comparisons to construct your holobaramin it is easily falsifiable. All I need to do is demonstrate that humans are more similar to chimps (using your same criteria) than chimps are to other apes. As it turns out, chimps are genetically more similar to humans than they are to orangutans (or any other ape for that matter). Therefore, your separate holobaramins are falsified.Also, transitional hominids form a morphological continuity with other living apes species. H. erectus, for example, has a mixture of modern human and basal ape features that are found in other modern apes.Therefore, your holobaramin is falsified by both the genetic and morphological data.Let's look at this from a different angle. Where have you shown that humans and other apes can not share a common ancestor? I could also point to the differences between chimps and gorillas in order to put them in separate holobaramins, but how does that stop them from sharing a common ancestor? It would seem to me that you have falsely assumed that any difference between two species indicates that they could not share a common ancestor. Using your same criteria I could show that chihuahuas and wolves form two separate holobaramins, but obviously they share a common ancestor. The ERV data demonstrates that humans share that same common ancestor with other apes:

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Given the size of vertebrate genomes (>1 109 bp) and the random nature of retroviral integration (22, 23), multiple integrations (and subsequent fixation) of ERV loci at precisely the same location are highly unlikely (24). Therefore, an ERV locus shared by two or more species is descended from a single integration event and is proof that the species share a common ancestor into whose germ line the original integration took place (14). . .

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Second, as with other sequence-based phylogenetic analyses, mutations in a provirus that have accumulated since the divergence of the species provide an estimate of the genetic distance between the species. . .

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Third, sequence divergence between the LTRs at the ends of a given provirus provides an important and unique source of phylogenetic information. The LTRs are created during reverse transcription to regenerate cis-acting elements required for integration and transcription. Because of the mechanism of reverse transcription, the two LTRs must be identical at the time of integration, even if they differed in the precursor provirus (Fig. ​(Fig.11A). Over time, they will diverge in sequence because of substitutions, insertions, and deletions acquired during cellular DNA replication.
emphasis mine
Inaugural Article: Constructing primate phylogenies from ancient retrovirus sequences - PMC

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All three forms of baraminological indicators that ERV's supply put humans squarely in the ape holobaramin, as shown in figure 2. Specifically, in Fig. 2 B (HERV-K18) humans and chimps are shown to be more closely related than chimps are to gorillas. If humans and non-human apes were in separate holobaramins then you should not find the same ERV's at the same position in humans and non-human apes, but you do. Not only that, but humans group more closely with chimps than chimps do with other apes. Then why do you discount fossils with intermediate morphology as viable evolutionary transitionals? Arbitrarily drawing a line does not stop species from sharing a common ancestor.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

How is this a problem? The authors explain that this is expected if the "time span between speciations evens is small". Overall, the chimp genome is still more similar to the human genome than it is to any other ape. How can this be if chimps, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans all share a common ancestor but humans do not? Yeah, there is. H. erectus has a short, squat pelvis with femurs that bend towards the midline just as in humans and unlike other apes. This means that H. erectus has modern human features not found in other apes making it transitional between humans and other apes. It's not obvious at all. Please explain, keeping in mind that chimps, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans share a common ancestor within your baramin model. That common ancestor would need to also be close to humans. As the different ape lineages branch off from that common ancestor they should all acquire lineage specific mutations, none of which should make any of those lineages any closer to humans than the common ancestor was. If your model is true then humans should be genetically equidistant to ALL APE SPECIES, but they are not. Therefore, your model is falsified. You need to pay attention as well. None of those insertions are orthologous which indicates insertion after common ancestry. The ERV's in the paper I discussed ARE ORTHOLOGOUS. Due to the random nature of ERV insertion, independent insertions will not occur at the same position in each genome, which is exactly what we see with PTERV-1 which invaded ape genomes after all modern lineages branched off from one another. Therefore, finding the same ERV in the same location in multiple species indicates that the insertion occurred in a common ancestor. This can be double checked by comparing LTR divergence within the orthologous ERV's as discussed in the paper I already cited.You also do a fine job of twisting the context of the quote. The author was indicating that the species distribution falsifed the idea that PTERV-1 infected the common ancestor. You will notice that the author was not talking about HERV-K.In fact, PTERV-1 actually strengthens my argument. Due to the fact that PTERV-1 is found in chimps and other apes but not in humans it offers a test of common ancestry. Given the species distribution of PTERV-1, evolution would PREDICT that none of these insertions should be found in orthologous positions, AND THEY ARE NOT. PTERV-1 actually supports my argument, not yours.IOW, pointing to non-orthologous ERV's does not refute the evidence of orthologous ERV's. If you can't demonstrate that humans do not share a common ancestor with other apes then don't assert that it is true. Yes, I am. Yes, I do. Shared ancestry has very real repercussions in the genetic data. There are markers that should be there if two species share a common ancestor, and markers that should NOT be there. Those are the facts. If you want to claim that humans and other apes do not share a common ancestor, then all I have to do is point to evidence that indicates just the opposite. ERV's are one small example of that data set which falsifies separate baramins for humans and other apes. Wouldn't a transitional be more chimp-like than modern humans? Yes or no. Why is that? According to you, each baramin was created separately by an all knowing and all powerful being who has unlimited resources and time. Why shouldn't all life have completely different mtDNA? Or completely different tRNA's for that matter? Using the same method that demonstrated a 30% difference between chimps and humans, what is the difference between chimps and orangutans which you claim shares a common ancestor?What you seem to forget is the method that was used, which is very misleading. In the paper, the author looked at 30 base pair stretches. If just one base differed in that 30 bp sequence then it was assigned 0% homology even though 97% of the bases were the same. You haven't even defined what features an intermediate would need, so you can't make this claim. I will ask again, wouldn't an intermediate between humans and other apes have morphology that is more chimp like than what is found in modern humans? Aren't you using similarity between H. erectus and other apes as the basis for determining that H. erectus shares common ancestry with other apes? Your view is no fossil, no matter how intermediate, can falsify creationism. Your view is dogmatic, unscientific, and unfalsifiable. If you think I am wrong, then please describe a fossil that would fit your description of intermediate and falsify separate baramins for humans and other apes. Due to universal common descent, all species are related to humans. How do chimp like features in H. erectus disqualify it from being related to humans? How do brow ridges and a prognathus eliminate H. erectus as a potential human relative? What disqualifies chimps and other apes from being human relatives? You haven't answered any of this, other than to state that your religious beliefs will not allow it.