Why are there no human apes alive today?

But you have agreed that Turkana boy is both human and ape, so it follows that you're an ape, surely? And, as you're alive, then there are clearly still "human apes" alive today, making nonsense of this topic's title.

There was a whole reply to Nuggin explaining that I no longer agree with many creationists that suggest Turkana Boy is human. I see Turkana apes no, that I have seen a side view and read more about the pelvis, arms, nose.If changing ones mind in the face of finding more information kills one's theory then TOE died long ago and carries on in a zombie state...with life lines like convergent evolution, homoplasy, accelerated evolution, punctuated evolution, Lamarkian style epigentic inheritance, junk DNA no longer junk at all etc etc etcAre you unable to further refute the main points of my arguments? Such asides tend to support the theory that likely maybe and possibly you can't.The overall conclusion for me is that nothing I have asserted or supported by way of research proves that macroevolution from bacteria to human did not occur. However what I see is that the door is open for many other hypothesis of the data found. I beleive much of what you call evidence for common decent is not evidence at all, more like evidence in evolution.I also use assumptions (creation) as your researchers do (common descent). I, and other creationists, also offer interpretations of the evidence and refute the veracity of that which I/they choose to ignore due to a lack of validity which can be defended eg ERV's, DNA similarityYou have explanations based on theories and interpretation of research findings, as to why no tribe remains that appears ape like in appearance. I also have explanations based on theories and interpretations that support the reason why there are no such creatures today is that there never were any. We can put up theoretic evidence against theoretical evidence endlessly and it will be no more than facing off one theory or interpretation against another.So your choosing to harp and strain points with no substance is truly a waste of time, just like Nuggins. I am as free to change my theories as your evo researchers are to change theirs on everything apart from 'it all evolved'. If not then TOE is long dead.

This is a picture of Ardi in the link below. Clealy look at the toes. On one side Ardi's right the foot is pictured as an apes. On the left with toes close together. This very much resembles any representations and reconstruction of feet and likely hands. It is easy to represent or misrepresent the fossil evidence according to assumptions.Apart from the arms and a few skull features Ardi looks just like Turkana boy. If you visualise the Turkana skull tilted back just a few degrees, it is even more obvious That Turkana Boy has pronounced ape like pronagnathism and is therefore outside the range of human variation.[http://wshsdominiquem.edublogs.org/...on-of-Ardi-18ys8gi.jpg]This is Turkana Boys skull and human comparison.Yahoo Image Search-This is the Turkana boy skeleton found.File:Turkana Boy.jpg - WikipediaTurkana boy is just a varitey of ape. The flesh as represented by your researchers could be as close as it is removed from the actual morphological appearance of these fossils. eh NeanderthalThis article below does a decent job at highlighting the contradictory interpretations of evolutionary assumptions about Ardi and Lucy.Yahoo Image Search-Seriously, these creatures, whatever they are, are not mid species. Turkana Boy may have some features that are comparable to humans now, but that does not demonstrate common descent. There are many similarities between todays chimps and us anyway. There are more differences, regardless of all the intellectulisation of the arguments. Too bad for you that makes us apes in your eyes.Turkana Boy is sufficiently different to suggest it is not human. Chimp, gorrilla and human skeletons are all similar to begin with. However the flesh resulting from expression of genes have expressed radically different the two species, one of whom dominates the world and is slowly irradicating its supposed sister and cousin species. That said, there is no reason to suggest that the reason there are no Lucy's, Ardis or Turkana Boys around today is because there never were any ape-human intermediates. It is as good an assumption as yours.If you wish to put much weight on this kind of evidence and other genomic evidence such as ERV's, then you go ahead and do so. I feel it is worth little weight if any. Rather I would believe in the creation by a powerful being that created or caused the singularity and possibly the multiple dimensions required to support such a theory and Big Bang. There is no end to His power and He certainly could have caused the coalescence of kinds into being if He so chose to do so.Creationists are providing just a few more possibilities to add to the plethora already proposed for any evolutionary question or conundrum.

There is actually genomic evidence and ERVs, while there is NO evidence of your imagined creator.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Changing your mind in the face of finding new information is a very good thing to do, and I think you should make a habit of it. But an interesting point is this. You are dividing apes into one group and humans into another. If they are two such distinct groups, then it's surprising to find that you had so much trouble with Turkana boy. And it is also surprising that creationists are divided on the point. If there are two clearly distinct groups then, by definition, it should be easy to distinguish.I find it so hard to draw a line that I call them all apes. Why on earth are those things "lifelines"? What are the main points? If your central argument is that we are not related to the other apes, your difficulty in deciding which side of the supposed divide Turkana boy is on effectively has refuted it. We'll call him a "creationist transitional" until the creationists have a united view on the subject. I agree entirely, and it's good to find common ground. Do you mean that there are many different ways in which the Creation could have happened? You sound rather more open-minded than some of your fellow creationists. "Appears ape like" is very vague. I once knew a guy who looked remarkably like some of the reconstructions of Turkana boy. And we're only a mutation or two away from being very very hairy. I think it's more a case of you putting up theoretical evidence against biologists looking at real evidence. The true sign of transition is when things are difficult to classify. There's certainly substance in that point. When we find ourselves looking at fossils and saying "is this more of a fish than it is an amphibian", or "is this more of a mammal than it is a reptile", then the honest and astute readers of evidence amongst us realise that we're looking at macro-evolution. Big time.I certainly agree with you on mind changing, and if you keep examining Turkana boy every so often, you might easily find your views in a constant state of flux.There's a reason for that.

Yes it is. Once more your incoherence is impeding your mendacity; it is not clear what falsehood you are attempting to tell about me.I am always "happy" to accept the type specimen of a species as being a member of that species, 'cos of that being true by definition. It is flatter than other great apes (except humans); it is not flat. Or even of an apeman with dissimilar features, such as H. erectus. But there is no proof that it is ancestral to Homo, so you shouldn't be too quick to claim it as a human ancestor.And really, if you're going to accept that evolution could have gotten from Anoiapithecus brevirostris to Homo erectus, then it seems fatuous to deny the much smaller morphological step from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens. Who swallows a camel but strains at a gnat?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Well, first of all, arms and skulls would actually be rather important in determining what something looks like. I don't think that you can dismiss them quite so casually. But be that as it may, let's do some comparing.Here is Ardipithicus ramidus, first the actual remains, then in reconstruction, as seen from the front and from the side: Here's Turkana boy, the very same image that you linked to: Here are two views of chimpanzee skeletons, one viewed head on in an unnatural human-like posture, the second seen from the side in a more natural posture: Here are two human skeletons, again seen from the front and from the side (even stooped over a bit): And finally, here are a human skeleton and a chimpanzee skeleton, posed side by side. You've said that the chimpanzee is the primate that most resembles human beings. We can all see the differences between those two, as well as the similarities. But if Ardi and Turkana boy are both apes (again, using your sense of the word), they should at least look as ape-like as a chimp. Thus, Ardi, Turkana Boy and the chimpanzee would all clearly be apes, and being apes, would all be more like each other than they would human beings.Again, let's look at the pictures:The apes, according to you: And the human being: If you want to argue that any of these images are atypical, and that there are other images around that show a greater resemblance between any one of these species to another, then the burden of proof is on you to show us such images. (Click on help for dBCodes to learn how to display pictures.) Do you believe that the first three specimens represent one "kind" of creature, and the the fourth represents an obviously different "kind?"Because from where I sit, it doesn't look quite so easy to draw the line between human and non-human, at least not when it comes to Turkana boy.Edited by ZenMonkey, : Improved spelling and rhetoric.

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Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric

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Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert

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I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

Oh, by the way, where are you putting H. neanderthalis these days, human or ape? (Sorry for the image-heavy posts. I assume that this is preferable to more than 10,000 words on my part.)

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Your beliefs do not effect reality and evidently reality does not effect your beliefs.
-Theodoric

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Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert

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I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

So, you admit you were wrong when you said that there were no humans in Australia before 200 years ago.Great. Now that we've settled that you were WRONG about that, we can move onto the next thing you are wrong about. ERVS. Let's be SPECIFIC.We're not talking about certain places in the genome meaning "somewhere in the 2nd chromosome". We're talking about certain places in the genome meaning the EXACT SAME PLACE.So, SAME STRAIN of the virus, infecting the EXACT SAME PLACE, in EVERY SINGLE HUMAN and EVERY SINGLE OTHER GREAT APE....By chance?Okay, one virus. MAYBE. Two viruses? You'd have been luck winning the lotto 6x in a row.But we aren't talking about one or two viruses. We're talking about hundreds of viruses.If YOUR claim were correct then we'd expect to find DIFFERENT strains of the virus in the exact same location in different groups of people all around the world.But we don't. Do we?We find the EXACT SAME STRAIN, int he EXACT SAME PLACE, in EVERY SINGLE HUMAN.And we see it again and again and again and again.Can you offer a plausible explanation for HOW every single human in the entire world would contract the EXACT SAME virus and have it insert into the EXACT same area in the DNA? With NO exception. NO one left out. NO one with a different version of the virus? I never infer.I'm stating FLAT OUT that you can not back up your claims. Not one of them. Not from ANY post. Not for as long as you've been here.

quote:

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Buddha is a probable no. I consider his historicity to be similar to that of Jesus. Compare Buddha to Alexander the Great who is of roughly the same time period. We have tons of historical evidence and artifacts for Alexander, nothing for Buddha. Also, Buddah is not the fat guy most Americans think of as Buddha. That is Budai

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Muhammad is also questionable for the same reasons I question the historicity of Jesus. There are no contemporary accounts. There seems to be a bloodline from Muhammad but this is attributed to tradition not actual historical sources.

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Confucius is most probably not a historical character. There is actually some recent scholarship that suggests Confucius was a creation of Jesuit missionaries.
Confucius and the Scholars

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Unless I see actual historical evidence I am skeptical of the historical existence of these figures. I am also skeptical of the historical existence of Jesus.

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Thats interesting that the founders of major religions did not exist. Im not sure if its because that didnt exist or because people dont want them to exist. Ill stop now so I dont take the thread offtopic.

But you do want to take the thread off topic or you would never have mentioned the subject. Are you going to open a new topic so we can discuss this more?Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Well I wanted to answer your post. Im not interested in starting a new thread.

Dr Adequate...I have read up on ERV's. and this is one of the things I found.... http://www.sciencedaily.com/...ases/2005/03/050328174826.htmIf you wish to be nast, desperate and offer simplistic refutes, then I'd say ERVs being a support for ancestry to apes has just been flushed down the toilet. ...or do ERV's only matter when the results suit you?Which scenario/excuse do you put your faith in?Basically your whole post was basically hot air and attitude with nothing worth refuting.Edited by Admin, : Fix quote.

I might congratulate you for finding something completely consistent with the theory of evolution; except that it is of course very easy to do so.Did you even read the article? Or did you just not understand it? You would say a whole lot of crazy things. But they do not change reality.If you wish to ask any questions about this article, I shall be happy to explain it to you. If, on the other hand, you just wish to quote a random piece of it and then spout bizarre and pitiable nonsense unrelated to the text ... then you might be a creationist. This result suits me just fine. I put my faith in reality, it's always served me well so far. That's a poor excuse for not being able to refute any of it.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Not all apes are knucklewalkers No your researchers said that a chimp most resembles us. Some researchers say the orangutan most resembles us.Ardi most certainly resembles an ape more than a human. Turkana Boy may not be just like the apes today or the fossil is misrepresented in its construction. There are no fingers or toes. The point is the skull looks like an ape because it is an ape. It has a jutting jaw, large upper leg bones that look nothing like the human. Don't forget Neanderthal used to be a bent over ape man in most pictures, now he is as upright as you or I.Turkana Boy has narrower thoracic vertebrae and the face is highly prognathic (projecting), and it has a receding mandibular symphysis with no chin and distinct eyebrow ridges. He was some sort of ape. Look at the top of Turkana Boys leg bones and how wide they are like a gorilla's. The poke out of the side past the end of the hip bones. I do not know what your researchers have done with these sifted fossil pieces, or even if the bones are from the one creature, but it is not human.These are all apes and only apes in the link below.
http://www.kfrp.com/fossils_of_koobi_fora.htmRead this about Ardi...."I think it's equally likely, or perhaps even preferable, that it is an ancestral form or an early representative of the African great ape" groupthat "it's not necessarily uniquely linked to humans," Harrison said of Ardipithecus in the podcast."The placement of a hole at the base of the skull, known as the foramen magnum, also might suggest Ardi as an upright walker, and thus perhaps a solid hominin. But in looking to other apes, "this feature is more broadly associated with differences in head carriage and facial length, rather than uniquely with bipedalism,"We're Sorry - Scientific AmericanIt appears that some of your researchers think Ardi was an early representative of the African Great Ape. So he was devolving, it seems, into an ape.Truly grab at straws as they may..Ardi and Turkana Boy are some variation of ape.Edited by Mazzy, : No reason given.