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Author | Topic: Ape to Man or Common Ancestor | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TheDarin Member (Idle past 5690 days) Posts: 50 Joined: |
I cannot find the post/reply in here where I was corrected in my monkey to man understanding.
I thought evolution teaches that modern man evolved from ape. But I was corrected in here somewhere that that is NOT the correct understanding; that I had fallen victim to AIG. Rather, this person said, the correct understanding is that both ape and man evolved from a common ancestor. Are there two camps on this?
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AdminNosy Administrator Posts: 4754 From: Vancouver, BC, Canada Joined: |
Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Modern apes and humans evolved from a common ancestor.
That ancestor was also an ape. And humans are apes too. "Ape" just means hominid.
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NosyNed Member Posts: 8996 From: Canada Joined: |
There are a lot of ways to answer the question which is why you my get a bit confused when reading different people's views.
For one thing "ape" is not necessarily a precisely defined term. It is just a colloquial expression that, most of the time, refers to a particular group of old world, tailless primates. Some people separate off the "great apes" from other apes. So "great apes" include chimps, bonoboos, gorillas and orangutans but not baboons. Some people include humans in the "great ape" group and some don't. (Certainly, there are good genetic and anatomical arguments to be made that we should be included but that general usage may trump that). Since the term "ape" is fuzzy you could allow it to include a lot of extinct primates as well as modern man. So if we are "apes" so are H. erectus. And likewise so, perhaps, you could define the autralipithicines (Lucy) as an "ape" too. If you do that then we are decended from apes by definition. However, what must always be made clear is that we are, no matter how you define things, NOT decended from modern animals like a chimp, gorilla or what have you. In that sense saying we are descended from apes is ALWAYS WRONG. And, most often, a person making such a statement only thinks of apes as being chimps and gorillas so they are wrong in what they say. However, if you define "ape" to mean primate of some kind or another including all extinct forms then, by defnition, of course we are descended from an "ape". What is actually the case when you attempt to avoid using poorly defined terms like "ape" is that we AND the extant other primates are all descended from some common ancestors. Chimps and we shared one about 6 million years ago. That common ancestor was NOT a chimp and was not a modern human. To our uneducated eyes we might, if we saw one in the forest, think of it as being more chimp like than human like (it was probably pretty hairy for one thing). And even to an expert it may be anatomically a bit closer to a chimp since we have reason to believe that the line leading to humans has undergone more change than that leading to chimps in the time frame involved (not all lineages have to evolve at the same rate). However, it might also have been a lot less chimp like that we might think at first glance. We don't have specimens of the last common ancestor ( I don't think) but there is reason to speculate that it may have been a bit more upright than modern chimps are for example. Generally the likes of AIG use "Ape" to mean chimps or gorillas. We definitely did NOT evolve from a creature that was such an animal. How much like them it was is a subject for the experts to argue over. I'd guess it was somewhat more like them than like us. Instead of being exactly as different from us as from them I would make an uneducated guess and say it was 30% different from chimps and 60% different from us.
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TheDarin Member (Idle past 5690 days) Posts: 50 Joined: |
Genesis says that God made man from the dust of the earth. So I see no problem with science observing that we have a great deal in common with say, common yeast.
Is this a point where Creationists and Evolutionists have some common ground/understanding? It seems that the monkey to man visual that we have had shoved down our throats at the zoo and science exhibits would suit both camps better if they showed one line coming out of the "soup" and then splitting up into different creations (or mutations in the EVO case); it would be a much less antagonistic visual. Don't you think? Edited by TheDarin, : No reason given.
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Coragyps Member (Idle past 734 days) Posts: 5553 From: Snyder, Texas, USA Joined: |
That approach might be more palatable to some creationists, but, I think, only with one important feature: man would need to be at the very tip-top and center of the tree. If some cyanobacterium was in that spot, in keeping with their relative influence on the history of the planet, and we were over on some little side branch of the big bush of life, I don't think creationists I know would be very impressed. And either way of presenting the data should be perfectly valid - we just like to think we are the important ones.
"The wretched world lies now under the tyranny of foolishness; things are believed by Christians of such absurdity as no one ever could aforetime induce the heathen to believe." - Agobard of Lyons, ca. 830 AD
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TheDarin Member (Idle past 5690 days) Posts: 50 Joined: |
I don't think man amidst the other branches would freak any creationist out. I have no issue with it.
And differing prerogatives were never in question. Going back to my original question... Seems to me we have some common ground, or should I say soup... eh?
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NosyNed Member Posts: 8996 From: Canada Joined: |
It seems that the monkey to man visual that we have had shoved down our throats at the zoo and science exhibits would suit both camps better if they showed one line coming out of the "soup" and then splitting up into different creations (or mutations in the EVO case); it would be a much less antagonistic visual. Don't you think? What "soup"? That is only, to my knowledge used in references to origins of life. That is not the topic of discussion here. What visual are you referring to? The cartoon that shows a series ending in a man or sometimes some funny ending? That has absolutely NOTHING to do with any science if that is the one you mean. It is a joke. It would be informative to show as complete a bush of various primate forms as we have. There are a number of possible side branches in our family tree that could be shown. I'm not sure what you mean.
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TheDarin Member (Idle past 5690 days) Posts: 50 Joined: |
The visual Joke? It's plastered all across America. The Columbus (ohio) zoo has this cartoon as a beautiful mural.
And it's in many text books. I agree its not accurate or funny.
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Straggler Member Posts: 10333 From: London England Joined: |
I think the sort of thing you are thinking of (if not the exact diagram) is such as this -
http://www.nervousaxon.com/...ersus-branching-evolution.html I agree that such diagrams are commonly used and are essentially misleading. However that does not mean that a diagram showing different branches for apes and humans diverging from a common point of "soup" is correct either (as you seem to be suggesting).The "soup" element would long precede any branching off between humans and other apes.
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
I agree its not accurate or funny. And most evolutionary biologists would agree. It is a popular visual that tends to give people the wrong impressions about evolution. Then again, it's art, not science. However, showing the known players in hominid evolution in approximately chronological order isn't necessarily terrible, but a more accurate (but less visually appealing to the layman) would be something like this.
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NosyNed Member Posts: 8996 From: Canada Joined: |
You forgot to explain what you meant by "soup".
If you want to carry on a discussion you'll have to keep up with all the thread you raise.
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TheDarin Member (Idle past 5690 days) Posts: 50 Joined: |
And most evolutionary biologists won't object because it serves the objective of excluding a designer.
God made man from the dust of the earth. This is why man has so much in common as say, common yeast. We all DO have a common ancestor. We all can agree on that!
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
And most evolutionary biologists won't object because it serves the objective of excluding a designer. Excluding a designer is not the objective. They only follow where the evidence leads them.
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New Cat's Eye Inactive Member |
Excellent link, Modulous. Thank you. I'll be using that one... haven't seen it before.
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