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Scientists Cite Fastest Case of Human Evolution

Ace Fresh said:
1. Humans didn't evolve from apes, that's just an urban legend about evolution - humans and apes both had a single common ancestor.

2. 99.9995% of all scientists accept evolution as fact - and yes, many of these scientists (in fact the majority of them) believe in a god. Evolution doesn't seem to hurt their belief in a higher power, so why does it hurt yours? In my opinion, if God had used evolution to develop all the species over millions of years, that would have shown a lot more creativity on his part, than had he just said "presto!" and made them all appear by magic.

3. Evolution and the Big Bang theory do NOT explain HOW the universe got here - they aren't supposed to. They just explain how the universe and life on earth DEVELOPED since the big bang, which is the furthest back that scientists have been able to trace the origin of the universe. Just like the theory of gravity does not explain WHY gravity exists - it just explains HOW it works.

4. Creationism isn't science - it's just philosophy, because it deals with the supernatural and the untestable. Science deals with what is observable (the natural world only) and testable.
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Was that directed at me?
 
mac said:
Was that directed at me?
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No, I was just summing up the anti-evolution comments in this thread, and responding to them. And since I am a multi-account troll, you can just ignore me.
 
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mac said:
Yeah, I read it. I didn't see it explain why it didn't kill off as many chimps as humans.
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Genetic bottlenecks of other mammals

The population of the Eastern African chimpanzee,[35] Bornean orangutan,[36] central Indian macaque[37] and all tigers,[38] and the separation of the nuclear gene pools of eastern and western lowland gorillas,[39] all recovered from very low numbers around 70,000–55,000 years ago.
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I can't really talk to you about the genetic bottlenecking of each individual species, but it seem s that there are at least a few other species that hit this same problem at around the same time that is talked about in the link.
 
roughdraft274 said:
I can't really talk to you about the genetic bottlenecking of each individual species, but it seem s that there are at least a few other species that hit this same problem at around the same time that is talked about in the link.
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Ok, but still, why are they so much more genetically diverse than humans? Unless far more humans than chimps died, leaving far more chimp survivors, then the impact should be about equal, right?
 
mac said:
Ok, but still, why are they so much more genetically diverse than humans? Unless far more humans than chimps died, leaving far more chimp survivors, then the impact should be about equal, right?
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Why do humans have to have the same genetic diversity as chimps? Could one make the same argument when comparing cheetahs to other big cats?
 
mac said:
Ok, but still, why are they so much more genetically diverse than humans? Unless far more humans than chimps died, leaving far more chimp survivors, then the impact should be about equal, right?
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I don't know.

There could have been many more chimps in the first place. That's just the first thing that comes to mind.

Is there something you're getting at? Are you saying that since we aren't as genetically diverse as chimps we didn't share a common ancestor?
 
roughdraft274 said:
I don't know.

There could have been many more chimps in the first place. That's just the first thing that comes to mind.

Is there something you're getting at? Are you saying that since we aren't as genetically diverse as chimps we didn't share a common ancestor?
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I've read that it indicates we are a much younger species. Doesn't make sense to me if we are descendant from a common ancestor. Was wondering what other's take on it was before I suggested this in order to get an unadulterated opinion.
 
mac said:
I've read that it indicates we are a much younger species. Doesn't make sense to me if we are descendant from a common ancestor. Was wondering what other's take on it was before I suggested this in order to get an unadulterated opinion.
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It could mean many things.

If the population of humans and chimps bottlenecked at the same time as is plausibly presented in the linked Toba article, then perhaps the chimps managed to have a couple of populations that had previously diversified come together with less territorial pressures. perhaps the chimps had a few more paternal figures that added their genes to the mix (and actually differences in monogamous human versus chimp opportunistic mating behaviors make it quite plausible that a diversified group of male chimps passed their seed versus a very narrow selection of human males). Perhaps humans killed of each other, or perhaps there was a scenario that fits the stereotypical Amazon women tales where they killed off all the men except for one who then impregnated them all. Perhaps any of these, or a million other scenarios or situations that might explain it.

We do not have sufficient evidence to explain why our bottleneck only allowed a few variants through, while chimps may have had more, and when the sample size is reduced substantially even extremely slight variables can make a dramatic difference in potential outcomes.
 
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marduc said:
It could mean many things.

If the population of humans and chimps bottlenecked at the same time as is plausibly presented in the linked Toba article, then perhaps the chimps managed to have a couple of populations that had previosly diversified come together with less territorial pressures. perhaps the chimps had a few more paternal figures added their genes to the mix (and actually differences in monogomous human versus chimp opportunistic mating behaviors make it quite plausible that a diversified group of male chimps passed their seed versus a very narrow selection of human males). Perhaps humans killed of each other, or perhaps there was a scenario that fits the stereotypical Amazon women tales where they killed off all the men except for one who then impregnated them all. Perhaps any of these, or a million other scenarios or situations that might explain it.

We do not have sufficient evidence to explain why our bottleneck only allowed a few variants through, while chimps may have had more, and when the sample size is reduced substantially even extremely slight variables can make a dramatic difference in potential outcomes.
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What about the concept that we are actually an offshoot of Chimps. There is evidence that early humans interbred with Chimps.
 
mac said:
What about the concept that we are actually an offshoot of Chimps. There is evidence that early humans interbred with Chimps.
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what???
We are an offshoot of chimps and we have interbred? What and where is this evidence you allude to?
 
mac said:
News in Science - Early humans had sex with chimps - 18/05/2006

I haven't followed up on it much more than these few articles...other then the genetic diversity part.
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Talk about a misleading headline. No one was having sex with chimps, our common ancestors were having sex with each other, and prior to the populations actually becoming speciated it is possible the two seperate lineages were still able to interbreed for a while

From your article:
"It is possible that the Toumai fossil is more recent than previously thought. But if the dating is correct, [it] would precede the human-chimp split," he says.

"The fact that it has human-like features suggest that human-chimp speciation may have occurred over a long period with episodes of hybridisation [inter-breeding] between the emerging species."

A gradual divergence of species through hybridisation, rather than a quick break, may be far more common than we suspect.
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So our common ancestor was able to interbreed for a while before the two populations split into what became chimps and humans, This is how speciation works, eventually the changes add up to the point where they can no longer interbreed, and they become divergent populations that continue to drift further apart over time.
 
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marduc said:
Talk about a misleading headline. No one was having sex with chimps, our common ancestors were having sex with each other, and prior to the populations actually becoming speciated it is possible the two seperate lineages were still able to interbreed for a while

From your article:


So our common ancestor was able to interbreed for a while before the two populations split into what became chimps and humans, This is how speciation works, eventually the changes add up to the point where they can no longer interbreed, and they become divergent populations that continue to drift further apart over time.
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I don't read it to say that. What I get is that early humans and chimps were close enough to interbreed (like chimps and bonobos) for awhile and then diverged further. Added to the greater diversity of chimps than humans, that means we are spin off of chimp rather then two separate species descendant from a common ancestor.
 
mac said:
I don't read it to say that. What I get is that early humans and chimps were close enough to interbreed (like chimps and bonobos) for awhile and then diverged further. Added to the greater diversity of chimps than humans, that means we are spin off of chimp rather then two separate species descendant from a common ancestor.
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No that means that ~5 to 7 million years ago we started to diverge from the same ancestor, and for a while we were able to interbreed.

50 to 80 thousand years ago something happened that drastically reduced our genetic diversity to what is referred to as Y-chromosomal Adam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What this means is that we share a common ancestor, and our genetic variance has suffered more damage from whatever stress factors. Chimp genes have managed to come through the bottle necks with more diversity, where we as humans appear to have been down to literally one patriarchal line in the last tiny fraction of the previous millions of years since our species initially split.
 
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marduc said:
No that means that ~5 to 7 million years ago we started to diverge from the same ancestor, and for a while we were able to interbreed.

50 to 80 thousand years ago something happened that drastically reduced our genetic diversity to what is referred to as Y-chromosomal Adam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What this means is that we share a common ancestor, and our genetic variance has suffered more damage from whatever stress factors. Chimp genes have managed to come through the bottle necks with more diversity, where we as humans appear to have been down to literally one patriarchal line in the last tiny fraction of the previous millions of years since our species initially split.
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Assuming you are correct, would that mean that chimps are descendant from one of the homo species we commonly consider to be our ancestors?
 
mac said:
Assuming you are correct, would that mean that chimps are descendant from one of the homo species we commonly consider to be our ancestors?
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No, the split occurred around or before the time of Ardipithecus Ramidus.. long before the first Homo species emerged

edit: after looking it up so I could provide the correct time instead of estimates the earliest homo species, H. Habilus is ~2.5 million years ago versus chimp/human divergence 5-7 million years ago.
 
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marduc said:
No, the split occurred around or before the time of Ardipithecus Ramidus.. long before the first Homo species emerged

edit: after looking it up so I could provide the correct time instead of estimates the earliest homo species, H. Habilus is ~2.5 million years ago versus chimp/human divergence 5-7 million years ago.
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Ok, and since that split, we've evolved through 5 or 6 species while the chimps are mostly directly descendant from that common ancestor?
 
mac said:
Ok, and since that split, we've evolved through 5 or 6 species while the chimps are mostly directly descendant from that common ancestor?
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not necessarily, there are not many chimp fossils to be found/had, nor is there even close to the same amount of vested interest for seeking or finding chimp ancestors than there is in finding human predecessors, so we have found and documented human transition in a lot more detail than chimp.

Using the Ardepithecus Ramidus fossils I mentioned earlier as the closest human ancestor to the approximate time of the Pan/hominid split we find they could not be classified as either human nor chimp, but rather a prototype that shares some similarities to both.. and to cut you off at the pass.. no you could not say it was more "chimplike" than human.

Chimps, like humans are distinctly different from the early primates of shared lineage, just as gorillas and orangutangs while also having similarites are distinct in their own right as well.
 
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Why are people debating whether humans evolved from monkeys? What ****ing year are we in? 1925? Dear skeptics of evolution( ID and Creationists included), there are over 120 years of scientific evidence supporting the 'theory' of evolution. Please catch up? Maybe you have some sort of modern argument against evolution? No?
 
Hatuey said:
Why are people debating whether humans evolved from monkeys? What ****ing year are we in? 1925? Dear skeptics of evolution( ID and Creationists included), there are over 120 years of scientific evidence supporting the 'theory' of evolution. Please catch up? Maybe you have some sort of modern argument against evolution? No?
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Sigh...

Humans are descended from monkeys in the same way you are descended for your cousins. We share a common ancestors with apes.
 
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