Hi, AndrewPD.
Welcome to EvC!
AndrewPD writes:
My point is that humans are created apparently by millions of mutations so at some stage we would have had less functional, knees, backs, language etc. What kind of mutation could lead to our knee with out us being initially crippled.
You’ve lost your perspective. Working backwards by removing traits and organs won’t help you find it.
If you’re going to work our evolutionary history backwards, you have to do it from a gestalt point of view: i.e. you have to work the entire body backwards, not just the eye or the knee.
Back when our ancestors didn’t have knees, they were fish.
Back when our ancestors didn’t have eyes, they were probably worm-like proto-fish.
Let’s talk knees. Knees probably evolved alongside the rest of the leg, not as a sudden addition that made the leg work better than before. Back when the knee first emerged, it wasn’t a knee, but just one of several pieces of bone in the limb that was used to maneuver a fin. As the knee (along with the other parts of the limb) was altered gradually through various mutations, the utility and function of the limb changed. And, as the function changed, the structures that best matched that function became dominant in the population via natural selection.
Evolution isn’t like Legos, where you just insert new blocks to create the next portion of the masterpiece. You have to understand that all the pieces are themselves changing and adapting, not only to optimize their own operations, but also to optimize their ability to function with one another. So, the evolution of the knee is highly interdependent on the evolution of the other leg bones; the evolution of the retina is highly interdependent on the evolution of the lens and iris; and the evolution of the lung is highly dependent on the evolution of the windpipe and bloodstream.
Most successful mutations are modifications of already existing traits, not sudden arrivals of brand new structures. Never in the history of evolution is a kneecap hypothesized to have popped out of nowhere: rather, a blob of modestly-specialized cells was modified into a structural member that gradually developed into a mineralized support structure, and was sculpted over time into a moving part in a fish's fin, and eventually took on the role of supporting the tibia-femur joint.
You cannot get an accurate picture of evolution by simply removing pieces and asking how the rest could have possibly functioned without it, because evolution does not predict that the leg ever
did function as a leg without the knee.
Do you understand this?
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AndrewPD writes:
So we can't have gone from monkey to human overnight which makes it essential that intermediates hang around for a long time.
Nuggin writes:
So, in a very real way, chimps, gorillas, orangs and bonobos _ARE_ "half man, half monkey".
But there appears to be no intermediated between humans and mokeys and Goriillas.
And here’s how the future of this conversation is going to go:
Evolutionists: Chimpanzees fit between humans and gorillas.
Andrew: There is no intermediate between chimpanzees and humans.
Evolutionists: Bonobos fit between humans and chimpanzees.
Andrew: There is no intermediate between bonobos and humans.
etc.
How small does the gap have to be before you will stop demanding that it be filled by something else?
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AndrewPD writes:
I don't see why every intermediate stage would fail.
And yet, the evidence suggests that all the intermediates between bonobos and modern humans
did fail.
Do you doubt that
Australopithecus and
Homo habilis are extinct?
Are you going to reject evolution because
Australopithecus and
Homo habilis are extinct?
Does that really make sense to you?
Edited by Bluejay, : I must have accidentally deleted "are extinct."
-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)
Darwin loves you.
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