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Author Topic:   Why Did Homo Erectus Not Retain a Tail?
jar
Member (Idle past 384 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


(1)
Message 31 of 68 (735507)
08-16-2014 5:53 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by mram10
08-16-2014 5:51 PM


piss poor design
If God had designed man then there is lots and lots of blame to be assigned to God.

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

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DrJones*
Member
Posts: 2283
From: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Joined: 08-19-2004
Member Rating: 5.7


Message 32 of 68 (735509)
08-16-2014 5:59 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by mram10
08-16-2014 5:51 PM


of course not, why would I blame something that there is no evidence for? You stated a tail would be very useful, according to you god designed everything, ergo, your god made a mistake when she didn't give you a very useful tail.

It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds
soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet
All of a sudden i found myself in love with the world
And so there was only one thing I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang along ling long - Jesus Built my Hotrod Ministry
Live every week like it's Shark Week! - Tracey Jordan
Just a monkey in a long line of kings. - Matthew Good
If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist! - Get Your War On
*not an actual doctor

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Capt Stormfield
Member (Idle past 446 days)
Posts: 428
From: Vancouver Island
Joined: 01-17-2009


(1)
Message 33 of 68 (735510)
08-16-2014 6:00 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by mram10
08-16-2014 3:05 PM


...why is it so easy to give credit to the natural selection process, but not be able to give credit to something putting that process into motion?
What do you suppose the "natural" in natural selection means? Why would a natural process need to be put in motion? What does that even mean? How could a process like NS not work in an imperfectly reproducing population? Seems like it would require outside intervention to stop it, not to start it.
Unless I miss my guess, your real question would be more accurately stated as "why is there something instead of nothing". Could we just skip the next several hundred wasted posts and say "don't know" right now?

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 275 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 34 of 68 (735514)
08-16-2014 6:25 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by mram10
08-16-2014 5:40 PM


I can guarantee it
I do not find bare assertions on your part particularly convincing.
As for a tail not being useful, that is a ridiculous statement. Balance, open doors, scratch your back. There are plenty of advantages to having a tail.
These are all things that I can do without a tail. How about you?
Here are some more things I can do without a tail: not shut my tail in a door by accident, not break a bone in my tail, not get an infected wound in my tail, not get gangrene in my tail, not have mosquitoes bite my tail, not have parasites burrow into the flesh of my tail ...
So when you come to me telling me that a tail would be an advantage because if I had one I could do stuff that I can do anyway, it's not much of a selling point.
---
Put it this way. Suppose you were to go to a venture capitalist and say that you wanted to start a company to make prosthetic tails. There'd be a huge market for this product, you explain, because they're so gosh-darn useful. Why, you could open doors with them! So can you have a few million dollars for R&D?
How do you suppose you'd get on? In fact, we know how you think you'd get on, because you have not, in fact, tried to meet this supposed need, have you? (This is supposition on my part, I admit, and if you have in fact founded a start-up company called Tails R Us, then I shall apologize for jumping to conclusions and admit the sincerity of your argument. Otherwise, not so much.)
As for the rest of your comments, not worth replying to each..... as usual. Of your 12k posts, how many are actually of use? 20 ... maybe 30?
You are not obliged to answer me; I shall form my own judgment as to why you do not.
Mr Inadequate
Oh, look, you also got my name wrong.
Did you take some sort of religious vow? It is hard otherwise to account for such obsessive consistency extending, as it does, to the most trivial of details.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 35 of 68 (735525)
08-16-2014 10:02 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by mram10
08-16-2014 3:05 PM


If we were in the same room, I guarantee you would be more respectful.
If we were in the same room, hopefully when you asked a question as poorly phrased as this one, the question would get rephrased in short order. In this case, we can note that your question was answered multiple times.
Point is, why is it so easy to give credit to the natural selection process, but not be able to give credit to something putting that process into motion?
This appears to me to be a question easily answered by considering what can be confirmed by the scientific method. But perhaps this is just another poorly phrased question. Should we wait for you to rephrase the question or should we attempt to answer?

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. Galileo Galilei
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. Frederick Douglass

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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3973
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 6.9


(2)
Message 36 of 68 (735527)
08-16-2014 10:39 PM
Reply to: Message 32 by DrJones*
08-16-2014 5:59 PM


DrJones* writes:
ergo, your god made a mistake when she didn't give you a very useful tail.
But then she'd have made a monkey of him, rather than letting him do it for himself.

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

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ringo
Member (Idle past 402 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


(4)
Message 37 of 68 (735538)
08-17-2014 2:31 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by mram10
08-16-2014 5:40 PM


mram10 writes:
As for a tail not being useful, that is a ridiculous statement. Balance, open doors, scratch your back. There are plenty of advantages to having a tail.
That isn't how evolution works. It doesn't anticipate what "might" be useful.
If an organism born without a tail survives to reproduce, the "tail gene" may be missing in its offspring. Eventually, a tailless population may evolve.
You should be thinking about why the tail wasn't useful - i.e. why the ones without tails survived - instead of telling evolution what it "should have done".

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djufo
Member (Idle past 3444 days)
Posts: 55
From: FL
Joined: 10-02-2014


Message 38 of 68 (737964)
10-02-2014 8:26 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by mram10
07-26-2014 11:45 AM


Simple: Homos never naturally evolved from any monkey. Otherwise, prove it.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1395 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 39 of 68 (737982)
10-03-2014 8:03 AM
Reply to: Message 38 by djufo
10-02-2014 8:26 PM


humans are apes
welcome to the fray, djufo,
Simple: Homos never naturally evolved from any monkey. Otherwise, prove it.
All Homosapiens (Homos) are hominids, and we share a common hominid ancestor with other hominids, like our cousins the Neanderthals.
All hominids are apes, and we share a common ape ancestor with other apes, particularly chimpanzees, our closest ape cousins.
All apes share a common primate ancestor with monkeys, but apes evolved to be tail-less before hominids evolved, and thus hominids did not have a (prehensile) tail to lose, just the remnant coccyx.
You are correct that humans did not evolve from monkeys, but wrong that humans did not evolve from primates.
The evidence is readily available in documents on the internet if you are truly interested in finding out the evolutionary history of humans, based on evidence rather than opinion or belief.
Enjoy.
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Edited by RAZD, : clrty

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This message is a reply to:
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ringo
Member (Idle past 402 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 40 of 68 (737998)
10-03-2014 11:55 AM
Reply to: Message 38 by djufo
10-02-2014 8:26 PM


djufo writes:
Otherwise, prove it.
In a court of law, the prosecution has to "prove" its case to the jury, not the spectators.
Similarly, science aims to make its case to people who have actually looked at the evidence. No offense, but nobody's interested in "proving" anything to you.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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djufo
Member (Idle past 3444 days)
Posts: 55
From: FL
Joined: 10-02-2014


Message 41 of 68 (738046)
10-04-2014 12:53 PM
Reply to: Message 40 by ringo
10-03-2014 11:55 AM


ringo writes:
In a court of law, the prosecution has to "prove" its case to the jury, not the spectators.
Similarly, science aims to make its case to people who have actually looked at the evidence. No offense, but nobody's interested in "proving" anything to you.
As nobody is interested in the "belief" of the scientific "religion" therefore common sense tells any mortal with average IQ that a creation of homo sapiens makes much more sense than a fairy tail of a missing link.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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 Message 43 by ringo, posted 10-04-2014 3:18 PM djufo has not replied

  
Tangle
Member
Posts: 9486
From: UK
Joined: 10-07-2011
Member Rating: 4.5


Message 42 of 68 (738049)
10-04-2014 1:27 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by djufo
10-04-2014 12:53 PM


djufo writes:
As nobody is interested in the "belief" of the scientific "religion" therefore common sense tells any mortal with average IQ that a creation of homo sapiens makes much more sense than a fairy tail of a missing link.
Harrumph.
If you want to have a debate - rather than raise a series of disjointed claims, accusations, technical errors and random side-swipes at science - why don't you stop splattering stuff across numerous forums? Try making a single point and properly present it; preferrably in more than two sentences.
At the moment you look like just another muppet.
Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
"Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved."
- Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.

This message is a reply to:
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ringo
Member (Idle past 402 days)
Posts: 20940
From: frozen wasteland
Joined: 03-23-2005


Message 43 of 68 (738056)
10-04-2014 3:18 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by djufo
10-04-2014 12:53 PM


djufo writes:
Blah blah blah....
You didn't repond at all to the post you were replying to.
Here it is again:
quote:
In a court of law, the prosecution has to "prove" its case to the jury, not the spectators.
Similarly, science aims to make its case to people who have actually looked at the evidence. No offense, but nobody's interested in "proving" anything to you.
If you want to demostrate that you have an average IQ, try addressing the topic instead of blathering inane platitudes.

This message is a reply to:
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djufo
Member (Idle past 3444 days)
Posts: 55
From: FL
Joined: 10-02-2014


Message 44 of 68 (738060)
10-04-2014 3:44 PM


I see a lot of emotions going on. Usually emotions are used and manipulated by "science" to successfully convince the masses into "belief" The only muppets here are those trying to put together a monkey skeleton with shoulders and arms out of place to make it look somewhat similar to a human skeleton next to it. Theres a lot of people who pays for shark meat instead of real tuna and they don't know it. Prove that we evolved from primates. The missing link is just hilarious. Tell me where he lives and where does he works because I can't imagine the descendants of a missing link wearing a suit.

Replies to this message:
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JonF
Member (Idle past 158 days)
Posts: 6174
Joined: 06-23-2003


Message 45 of 68 (738062)
10-04-2014 4:03 PM
Reply to: Message 44 by djufo
10-04-2014 3:44 PM


Nobody's being emotional, but you are merely throwing out unsupported (and unsupportable) claims.
Science requires evidence.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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