Don't get it (Re: Ape to Man - where did the hair go?)

Absolutely nowhere. You have the same amount of skin hair follicles as an ape - man or woman.It's just that the hairs are smaller, finer, and lighter. Especially if you're a woman. Well, their envronment isn't changing much, either. Anyway, how long have you been keeping track? Evolution's pretty slow, you know. Individuals don't adapt. Populations do. Is this a distinction you can understand? What the fuck are you talking about? Yeah. You're obviously laboring under some pretty steep misconceptions. Why don't you try asking honest questions in a genuine spirit of inquiry instead of trying to play Stump the Chumps?

Adaptation happens to populations, not to individuals. Why do I feel like I'm repeating myself? Oh, wait, I am.You're born with all the adaptations you'll ever have. You don't get new ones after you're born. The adaptations come from mutations when you're concieved. They're not driven by environment, they're random. Then the environment selects among individuals to pick the ones with the best adaptations. The rest die, and the winners reproduce. We didn't lose it! You have as many hair follicles as an ape. Man or woman, you have the same number of follicles. How many trees do you think there are on the African steppe, where humanity evolved? How many ape species do you see on the African steppe these days?It was that transition to the new envrionment - one of flat, rolling terrain and tall grasses, not trees - that drove the evolution of the human body plan.It's like you guys are thinking totally backwards on this. How do you guys come up with this stuff?

The fact that sometimes changes are needed immediately for a species to survive is why the fossil record is largely one of extinction. When the environment changes beyond a species' ability to adapt, extinction is the result. Yes, exactly. That migration probably started the evolution of the human body plan. Yeah, it's good, but sometimes you ask questions in such a way that it's not clear how you've arrived at the misunderstanding. Like, if we were talking about Christianity, and I asked "if Christianity is true, then how do you explain the fact that Buddha beat Jesus in a street fight?" you might be very justified in wondering just where the hell I was getting my information about Christianity.

Boy oh boy, do you need to see my back. Whenever I start to doubt that humans and gorillas share a common ancestor, I just take my shirt off and look in the mirror. (The mental image you should be getting is "Sasquatch.")You could probably get the hair back. I'm not really familiar with the genetic basis for hair but I doubt it would take more than a few crucial control genes to make your normal mammalian hair thicker and darker. Of course, why would you want to?

Yeah, but it's not a forgone conclusion that it would take a destructive mutation to cause thin hair.For instance it could be that, like skin color, having a certain number of gene repetitions controls hair thinness - more of a certain gene, thicker hair. Just like two light-colored people could have a dark-colored child, you could have much, much thicker hair than either of your parents.Like I said, though, I'm not familiar enough with the genetics of hair to say.

But in that case, the wings they got back weren't the wings they had, as I recall, so I think Mike is still mostly correct.There's nothing that would prevent the regaining of lost information. But it would be only as likely to happen as it was for that organism to gain that information the first time.

I'm sorry, did I say it did?Nonetheless, every hair has exactly one hair follicle, so it's hard to see your point. Not every follicle has a hair, obviously, or the same thickness of hair. What the fuck are you talking about? Science just explained it. Humans adapted to places where they didn't need hair. Then they moved to places where it was so cold they needed clothing.Sticking your fingers in your ears and closing your eyes lest you learn something about the world isn't going to make you too popular around here.

How do you think those elite runners got that way?Oh, I don't know - just a guess, here - maybe by running?Primitive man spends a lot less time on his ass in front of the computer, if you get my drift. We've developed a sedentary lifestyle and the bodies to match, but relatively few of us couldn't make the change - couldn't be what you refer to as "elite" - if all of a sudden, our lives depended on it.Oh, and one more thing - it would help us all stay on topic if you could pick a position and outline it clearly. As it is now your only position appears to be "whatever you say, that's wrong."

To the contrary, it was asked and answered:Humans live in places where apes do not; i.e. places where hair is disadvantageous. Moreover, we didn't lose the hair, it's just that the individual hairs became smaller, finer, softer, and lighter.You tried to rebut this with something along the lines of "hair follicles aren't hair." This nonsensical reply doesn't even begin to represent an intelligent response, but when asked to expand, you resorted to insults and quote-mining instead.So the point still stands. Hrm, I think I'll stick with the points you have yet to rebut, thanks.

That's exactly the opposite of what he wanted, and it's clear from his post. What he wanted was to try to trap evolutionists in some kind of gotcha, and set up his personal incredulity as some kind of scientific obstacle.If I was terse it was deliberate, in order to shock him out of his smug confidence that evolution was about to fall to such a simple question.I don't particularly feel the need to be civil to people who aren't respectful. Nor do I feel that my intelligence has anything to fear from your impression of it. Moreover, if it turns out that I was wrong, and that the OP was simply an honest question with unfortunate wording, I'm more than ready to apologize.Now, did you have an argument? Did you care to address the substance of my posts, instead of just the style?[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 04-28-2004]