Poll: Do you believe humans are apes?
- Thread starter Nautical Honors Society
- Start date
Too bad that there're clear scientific facts that make us very similar. Same number of chromosomes anyone?Skullkid4187 said:
Hmm... alright then, that's the first time I've heard that story, interesting.Skullkid4187 said:Well this is so far the nicest reply on this thread I've gotten, and for that I will be glad to answer your question. I do believe in the Adam and Eve story, but after Cain killed Abel he wondered the Earth. God had created many more humans and allowed them to reproduce with each other. There was no incest just more humans created.Nannernade said:Just a quick question I've been meaning to ask someone like you please by all means do not take it the wrong way but, if you do not believe in evolution do you believe in the Adam and Eve thing? Because you know that story goes in the direction of family incest and that we'd be hillbillies because everybody would be related to us right?Skullkid4187 said:
So, I assume that you will agree with me that people are different from each other. I would suppose that you would agree that people who are slow and unintelligent have less chance at survival than those who are fast and intelligent, at least in the wild. It stands to reason that those with those favorable traits could more easily pass on their traits, seeing as they find it easier to survive. This is how evolution works. Changes, caused not just by mutation but any number of variables, tend to select for favorable traits in a certain niche.Dorby5826and360 said:
The reason that apes still exist is that they are still successful in their particular niche. Jungle apes have less reason to stand upright or develop as sophisticated thinking processes as savanna apes do. Humans likely came from a group of great apes who migrated to the plains of Africa from the jungle either due to a lack of food or a shrinking of the jungle and evolved, over time, to stand upright to look over the tall grasses for predators. We lost our body hair over time too, as it is easier to cool off without shade by sweating, and hair makes sweating harder.
Skin color changed as well because healthy babies need plenty of vitamin D in the womb to survive, but UV rays, while able to produce vitamin D in the skin, also destroy folic acid, another essential ingredient in a healthy baby. The evolutionary balance between these factors create color changes in the skin with great speed, considering how closely tied it is to reproduction. Darker skin lets less UV rays damage folic acid, but in very hot climates do not impede vitamin D production too much. Lighter skin lets in more UV rays in cooler latitudes for vitamin D production.
Over time, we began to spread out, and had we not been so good at interbreeding we may have become multiple different species (and in fact we did, see Neanderthal). However, even Neanderthals were able to interbreed with what eventually became modern humans. Recent genetic research have linked Neanderthal and modern human genes, showing that they did merge at some point. Most people of European descent have some Neanderthal in them.
This is why we are still one species. We were genetically too far separated from other great apes to continue to breed with them at that point, and so we deviated into a wholly different species. They stayed in the jungle and continued their evolutionary track, we moved out of it. There is no "ideal" to which evolution strives. Only what works in a particular niche works.
As far as flu viruses go, what is the definition of life? As most biologists would tell you, it is a self-defining definition. Viruses are, yes, on the border, but they still show many of the biological markers of life. Every thing that occurs within a living cell happens predictably, just like in a virus, due to biological chemistry. There is no magic within it.
Bacteria adapt in the same way that viruses do. This is why penicillin is no longer as effective as it used to be. Those bacteria who died could not survive it, and those who lived could breed and so the valuable trait of "surviving penicillin" lived on. We now have to deal with bacterial infection in multitudes of ways to continue to keep it at bay. Of course, only so small a life-form could adapt at such a rapid pace. Too much larger and it would take thousands of years for even the smallest change. This is why it is not readily apparent to us.
If I may speak about your disbelief in the big bang for a moment, I would like to. I have quite an interest in the science of Astronomy and Cosmology and have studied at length and found the answers to be quite satisfactory, especially considering I have done some of the experiments myself.
The earth is about 4 billion years old. The sun is about 5 billion. The universe is approximately 13.7 billion. We know this because it takes time for light to go anywhere (the speed of light is about 300,000 km/s). We can look out into the universe and see as far back as we want. The further away something is, the further back in time it is as well. We can see almost to the beginning of the universe. What we see is the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. It is all over the sky at about 3 degrees Kelvin (3 degrees over absolute zero).
It dates back to a time where the whole of space-time was considerably smaller and all of the matter in the universe was pushed together, making it not only very very hot (many times hotter than the surface of the sun) but also causing it to be opaque (much like the surface of the sun). When matter heats up it ionizes (loses its electrons) and turns to into plasma. We can see back to the point where the universe finally cooled down enough to become, as it is today, transparent. We cannot see further back because the universe was too thick with matter.
This is not the only evidence for the big bang, but even alone it points the the idea that at some point the universe was small enough to allow all the matter in the universe to be a soup of burning plasma. Mostly hydrogen with a little bit of helium and lithium. The same equations that allow for fusion technology to be possible (if you believe in thermonuclear bombs, you believe in fusion) show that if the universe was created in a big bang, it would be about 73% hydrogen, 25% helium, and a little less than 2% everything else. This is approximately what is observed through spectroscopic analysis of the universe (using the light an object reflects/absorbs to see what type of matter the thing you are looking at is made of.)
People have been working on this a lot more thoroughly than you might think. Science is not a blind search for answers, but one that constantly questions itself. There is no faith in science. Only theory. There is ALWAYS the possibility that science is wrong, but the statistical chances of it are something akin to the chances of a ball falling up. This is why hypotheses are made in twos. Either this is true, or this is NOT true. In this manner you can test over and over again until you have a statistical probability of the event occurring. You do not do science to prove that you are right. You do science to BECOME right.
Go to the UK or Ireland for a weekend. You'll see enough bad tracksuits to last a lifetime.Julianking93 said:Huh...that's an interesting choice of wardrobe.Cpt_Oblivious said:Julianking93 said:
Still, I think more of the Czech Republic [http://www.trackies.co.uk/nike/tracksuits/tracksuit2.jpg] when I think of bad tracksuits.
Look I am agreeing that humans and apes share a common ancestor, FFS we share a common ancestor with a cat, a fish, and mold. And yes are closest ancestor is the chimpanzee, and damn it I just did some research and gorillas are hominids as well, so yeah we should be classified in the same family as great apes, but still to me it just seems wrong lumping us in with a bunch of smelly apes that have a tendency to fling feces, but I suppose the internet proves yet again that we aren't that different.
But what about the Giant Flying Spaghetti Monster? Does he not trump the turnip in the giant meal of the cosmos? May you be blessed by his noodley appendage.technoted said:
These religious people seem to think that "science" is some magical, self-contained field. But it's open for every argument. They have a good argument? Scientists, philosophers and some such might lend an ear. Chances are they have better arguments.Nautical Honors Society said: