Why are there no human apes alive today?

Yes.Since chimpanzees are more genetically similar to us than they are to gorillas, any classification that includes chimpanzees and gorillas but not us would be willfully artificial.I'll comment on your quote later; it contains numerous amusing absurdities, and if, by the time I get round to it, there are any left that haven't been mocked by other posters, I'll mock those.

I would prefer you not to give him any clues at this stage. Thank you.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Yes, by which he meant varieties and species of animals; he never mentioned the various races of humans anywhere in the Origin of Species. And his gloomy prediction was largely correct; but I don't see how you can hold that against him. Why, you yourself must have been right about something once or twice.

Only if he thought that a "civilized state" was a genetic property; and since five seconds' thought would show that it isn't, and Darwin was a genius, it is unlikely that this is what he meant.It is obvious that Darwin, of all people, knew that the various human races were part of a family tree and not of the "Great Chain of Being".

NO.

The link you provide does not support your claim nor show me to be incorrect about anything. Well, that was nonsense.Since you don't know anything about evolution, perhaps you should stop trying to lecture other people on it and start asking questions instead. Does the word "niche" mean anything to you? Who claimed that? No. Golly, you said something true. Yes, artists' impressions are not evidentiary, which is why no-one says that they are. No, then dumbass creationists would be asking "why are there still ape-men" just like now they ask "why are there still monkeys". There is no set of circumstances under which creationists will cease to be stupid. Your point, assuming you have one, is obscure.

There is a greater gulf between the lifestyle of a New Yorker and a chimpanzee than between a hunter-gatherer living in a jungle and a chimpanzee; and so if everyone lived like New Yorkers the apparent gap between our species and chimps would appear greater. But if we agree on this, and I presume you do, we have said nothing about genetic differences between the New Yorker and the hunter-gatherer. So I don't see that we should jump to the conclusion than that Darwin was trying to. I did not "appeal to genetics". I used the word "genetic" --- where Darwin would have used the word "heritable". He knew the difference between genetic and cultural transmission of behavior even if he wouldn't have put it in those terms (which he wouldn't). I don't regard him as infallible; but a genius, yes. And even if he was not, I take it as a general rule that if someone says something which admits of more than one interpretation, the correct interpretation is likely to be the one which makes more sense. I think I'll stick with what he actually wrote:

I think if Darwin thought he had an actual bunch of living intermediate forms walking around he'd have made more of it.And surely it is so patently obvious that culture depends on upbringing that I don't see you can make anything of him not explicitly mentioning it in this one passage. Well, he thought that every group of humans had been subject to the evolutionary pressures that he thought produced morality.

You might as well say: "If the US had elected a president, there would be no reason to report it every four years". Lots of "links" have been found. They keep being found. This is why their discovery keeps being reported. I've got another explanation for why scientists keep reporting discoveries of intermediate forms. It's because they keep discovering intermediate forms.If they didn't, it would be easy to demonstrate. You could ask to see photographs of them and they wouldn't be able to do this:

So, you wish to put your arbitrary line between I and J (something you would have to dispute with most other creationists, who would put it earlier in the sequence).And yet the difference between I and J is less than the difference between I and A or B. So it seems that according to your arbitrary classification, there are some apes that are more like humans than they are like other apes.And the existence of intermediate forms like this is always going to screw up creationist attempts at pigeonholing. Well, that's hilarious. Apparently you wish to locate the creationists' supposedly unbridgeable gap between ape and human between two individuals so anatomically similar that they are sometimes thought to be the same species. It seems that you are trying to tell some lie about Turkana boy, but your incoherence is impeding your mendacity.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

And yet you (you hypocrite) wish to class KNM-ER 3733 and Turkana boy into different kinds. Yet you complain when scientists divide more disparate specimens into different species. It seems that your objection is that they do on a rational and systematic basis what you do on a capricious and arbitrary basis. You see all those fossils that are intermediate in form between basal apes and modern humans? Those are intermediate forms. And yet it is a fact that they are extinct, even if you can't understand why. This is why we have fossils of them but they aren't still alive. There is, clearly, some reason why australopithecines are extinct, 'cos of them all being ... y'know ... dead. If you don't like the explanations provided, you are free to think up your own. Speak for yourself. I was planning to come to well-evidenced conclusions. You must do as you see fit.

Would it be too much to ask for you to introduce a little more consistency into your paranoid fantasies?

If you read back through the series of posts, he's not asking about extant apes but about our ape-man ancestors. What he wants to know is to what extent the intermediate forms displayed the intellectual traits pre-eminent in modern humans.To some extent want must be his master, since traits such as "conscience" are hardly likely to fossilize.

Fortunately, apart from the comedy value, we are in no need of lecturing by someone who thinks that Homo erectus is "a variety of gorilla". You'll do what now? Don't you ever tell the truth? As this is true, I have no idea what you seek to gain by quoting it. You inadvertently told the truth when you said that it was irrefutable. I believe you meant to pretend that it was unfalsifiable, which would be a lie.

The skull pictured is H. heidelbergensis, the species which you pretended was evidenced only by a jaw. And yet we distinguish between H. erectus and H. heidelbergensis, which you appear to have confused. Whereas the creationists over at AnswersInGenesis insist that H. heidelbergensis and H. erectus are both "racial variants of modern man".So what we have here are species which some creationists, such as yourself, insist "are apes", "are not human" and "not on [their] way to being human"; and which other creationists, such as AiG, insist are varients of modern man.Which is just what one would expect if (a) they are intermediate forms (b) creationists are a bunch of blatherskites desperate to pigeonhole them one way or the other but with no rational basis for doing so. That was so incoherent that it is hard to determine what lie you are trying to tell. Would you like to try again? I guess my imaginary actions do not hide my imaginary qualities; so you may be inadvertently telling the truth again. Never mind, I'm sure you can make up for it in subsequent posts.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.