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Didn't see anything
like this in here, if there
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lock this.Human Evolution


Does human evolution exist?
Do you believe in Darwin's theory of human evolution?
Do you believe that humans were put here by God?
Do you think humans were genetically engineered by aliens and then put here on this planet?
Did some higher being (not God) have a helping hand in creating humans as we know them today?
Did we, as a species, come from outer space by way of an asteroid (meaning we started out as microbial life)?

What is your view on human evolution?

Rules
-Follow all Magistream rules.
-If you have a counter-point: State it calmly and back it up.
-This is not a religious debate. But you are welcome to talk about your region's view point on human evolution.
--As a side note to the one above - I do realize that there may have to be some religious discussion based on Evolution. Such as Religion vs. Science. And that is ok.

--It is also ok to have a religious discussion if you are refuting my view.
-NO arguments - please. This is a discussion thread. Not a hate thread.
-This is not a "I was in contact with an alien, let me tell my story." thread.
-All view points on human evolution are welcome here.

My View Point On Human Evolution

Spoiler

While I am Christian, I do not believe that God put us here on Earth. I do not believe that we have always been this way since He put us on Earth. My view is that he had some sort of Extra-Terrestrial intervention and that we, as Human Beings, are in fact - an alien species. Here's why.

Darwin's Theory of Evolution suggests 'Survival of the Fittest.' Meaning animals compete for food, mates, ect. and those who are the strongest and are able to get a mate - produce offspring and ultimately pass down their genetic traits. Why is it then, if we evolved from prime apes, did we loose a majority of our body hair only to put on fur coats back on, to protect ourselves? Evolutionary it doesn't make any sense. How did we get from prime apes who use branches to find food; to humans producing rocket ships; in such a small time? To me, the only possible way by some other worldly interaction of genetic manipulation with prime apes to get to where we are today. Proof is also found that around the world, ancient cultures have noted that they were given the ability of language and healing from the Heavens. Which suggests that some other source gave them that ability.

The Bible says that God put us on this earth. That we have always been this way since God put us on Earth. God created Adam and Eve; from which all humans can trace their ancestry back to. If so, why are there so many variations of humans with different sets of characteristics such as nose shape and hair texture? Yes, it is proven that all humans can trace their ancestry back to a single women in Africa. But that doesn't mean it was Eve. The earliest hominids (pre-humans) have been around millions of years before the creation myth of Adam and Eve first arose. And the story of Adam and Eve seemed to have been pieced together by similar, older stories, which puts into question the reliability of the Bible.

If we were to follow the Bible; the age of the Earth and humanity are approximately 6000-9000 years old. Understanding historical realities is made even more difficult with attempts made to reduce the billions of years of earth's life forms into a mere 7000 year span as suggested by the Bible. The Bible says in Genesis 1:16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth. The stars gave light to the earth immediately. But the closest star, Alpha Centauri, is 4.3 light years away. So the very first star light would have taken 4.3 years to reach earth. The light we see from the Andromeda Galaxy takes 2.2 million years to reach earth, so the Earth can't possibly be 6000-9000 years old.

Our star, the sun, is 92,960,000 miles (149,600,000 km) away from Earth. Light takes 8 minutes to reach the Earth. The sun is approximately 4.6 billion years old; which again, does not coincide with the Bible. And the Bible contradicts itself, which in my mind, puts doubts in my mind, on the validity of the Bible. Link Bible Contradictions
Adam and Eve Contradictions

I'd be a pretty bad zoology major if I didn't accept the cornerstone of modern biology as fact, and I'd be pretty bad at reasoning if I thought humans had a different origin than everything else.

Does human evolution exist?
- Yup. We're not some super species that's above the origins of literally every other species on earth, we're a part of the same family tree as everything else. Perhaps we've removed ourselves somewhat, with modern things like medical care allowing people to live longer than they would if we were out in nature still, but we were at some point just as a part of it as the average mouse or giraffe.
Do you believe in Darwin's theory of human evolution?
- Survival of the fittest? Yep. Of course, only if we're using the actual biological version of 'fitness", the capacity of an organism to produce offspring that go on to produce offspring of their own. Using fitness as in strength or speed misses the point (That being that you don't have to be better at living, only better at breeding), even if oftentimes individuals are more fit than their neighbors by being stronger or faster.
Do you believe that humans were put here by God?
- Nope. Fossil record sinks that.
Do you think humans were genetically engineered by aliens and then put here on this planet?
- No. Though I do admit, that'd be pretty neat.
Did some higher being (not God) have a helping hand in creating humans as we know them today?
- I dunno. I don't really see why there'd need to be a helping hand, because "this does better, it lives and passes on its genes" isn't a really complicated process, I don't see a reason why there'd need to be a helping hand. Of course, that doesn't mean there isn't one, I just personally don't see a reason to think a helping hand was required.
Did we, as a species, come from outer space by way of an asteroid (meaning we started out as microbial life)?
- I've seen this idea a few times before, but I'll admit that I haven't really looked into it enough to have much of an opinion. All life descending from one microbial ancestor is the currently accepted theory, as far as I know, but where that microbe came from is another thing entirely.

Why is it then, if we evolved from prime apes, did we loose a majority of our body hair only to put on fur coats back on, to protect ourselves? Evolutionary it doesn't make any sense.

This change actually does make a lot of sense, biologically speaking.
You see, humans aren't really meant for places where we'd need extra fur for warmth. We're a creature that hails form the plains of Africa, which is generally a decently warm if not hot place. We lost our coating, and by lost I mean it became quite a bit less dense (Anyone who's been in a men's locker room knows just how hairy our species can be), as an adaptation for running.
From what I've read, humans are basically adapted to be reeeeeaaally good at long distance running. As in, we're probably one of the best at it. Other animals definitely beat us in speed, but a person in peak physical condition can run for longer than most other species. In fact, it's thought that, before we developed ranged weapons, running at our prey until it literally collapsed from exhaustion was the way we hunted large animals.
A fur coat is great for keeping an animal warm. This is the reason why it's not a good thing for an animal that runs for incredibly long periods. Running generates a lot of bodyheat, and all that bodyheat built up over a long run would contribute to overheating. A loss of fur also allows us to make use of an effective cooling mechanism, sweating. The alternatives, panting, wallowing in water/mud, moving into the shade, etc. all require stopping, which keeps them from being viable methods when you're going to need to be running for the next hour or three because this stubborn gazelle won't drop dead already.
Really, our lack of fur only makes no sense when you take us out of our natural environment and put us into places that we've conquered through ingenuity. This happens with other animals, too. A seagull's webbed feat are pointless to the bird when it's flying around a fast food joint's parking-lot, but they're effective at letting the bird paddle through the water in their natural habitat.

Survival of the fittest actually isn't about being the strongest of the fastest. It's about which beast is the most 'fit' to adapt to it's survival.

Humans did not evolve from apes. Humans evolved from a common ancestor with apes. This little chart will help me explain, I think.

Spoiler

See, humans didn't evolve from plankton, but rather along the evolutionary chain, they branched off, like a tree, into their own species. It's the same thine with humans and apes. We didn't evolve from apes, but rather at one point in our evolutionary history, we branched into two separate species.

I'm too fried to even read all the posts thus far, let alone respond to them, but I just have a quick question for AidenFaoladh

In the graphic posted, under Cat, what does the red word say? I can't make it out.

TNHawke wrote:I'm too fried to even read all the posts thus far, let alone respond to them, but I just have a quick question for AidenFaoladh

In the graphic posted, under Cat, what does the red word say? I can't make it out.

Oh, sorry, I didn't review it before I posted it. It says fur.

That's incorrect, though? Humans did evolve from apes, not just any living species of ape. We're even considered apes ourselves, biologically speaking.
It's not like there was a single animal that split into "ape" and "human" lineages some long time ago. The last common ancestor that man shares with a living ape, the one he shares with the chimpanzee, is by any definition considered an ape. Said common ancestor actually comes pretty late in the ape lineage, too. It's not anywhere near the beginning (It comes waaaaay after the last common ancestor shared by all of the living apes), by the time the lineages that would eventually become humans and chimps were splitting, they'd had a loooooooonng line of ancestral species that'd be considered apes.

Unless of course, this is what you're getting at and I'm just misinterpreting your usage of ape. In which case, I apologize.

Edit: After taking a look, there are several things wrong with that chart. I've been trying to type out some of my problems with it, but I'm having a hard time properly articulating what I want to say.

GoblinShark wrote:That's incorrect, though? Humans did evolve from apes, not just any living species of ape. We're even considered apes ourselves, biologically speaking.
It's not like there was a single animal that split into "ape" and "human" lineages some long time ago. The last common ancestor that man shares with a living ape, the one he shares with the chimpanzee, is by any definition considered an ape. Said common ancestor actually comes pretty late in the ape lineage, too. It's not anywhere near the beginning (It comes waaaaay after the last common ancestor shared by all of the living apes), by the time the lineages that would eventually become humans and chimps were splitting, they'd had a loooooooonng line of ancestral species that'd be considered apes.

Unless of course, this is what you're getting at and I'm just misinterpreting your usage of ape. In which case, I apologize.

Edit: After taking a look, there are several things wrong with that chart. I've been trying to type out some of my problems with it, but I'm having a hard time properly articulating what I want to say.

What about the chart? It's a Cladogram. It's a really dumbed down version of this one.

Spoiler

When I'm talking about Apes, I mean modern day.

Spoiler

Hahaha, I did misinterpret you then. Sorry about that, I can sorta jump the gun when it comes to this sort of thing.

A lot of my problems with the cladogram do probably come from it being simplified, to be honest. It's missing a lot of intermediate steps, which would admittedly make it less simple, but would probably make it look more accurate. If I'd created it, I'd have added just another couple steps between plankton and fish, because that's a big jump to make.
The position of snakes isn't a result of being over-simplified, though. Having evolved from four legged lizards, they definitely shouldn't be before both lizards and four legs on the chart. I'd kick 'em off in favor of amphibians, assign both four legs and lungs to them, and give the reptile something like being able to reproduce without a source of water.

Both of the cladograms you showed are faulty. For the first one, snakes and lizards are sister groups, which means the best place to put the snakes would be the side branch on the lizard branch. They're definitely wrong where you put them, but GoblinShark already said that. Multiple cells also come long before the common ancestor of all vertebrates (at the point where sponges branch off, to be exact) and you're completely ignoring protostomes (who comprise about 99.9% of animal life on earth) which would branch off at some undetermined point between plankton and fish. You cannot reduce the branching points to single features (like fur) either, you have to see consider a collection of features.

The second cladogram you made puts birds at the wrong point. In this case, they would be better placed as a side branch to the lizard branch, as theriapsides separated from other amniotes long before the sauropsides branched into the various groups that would later evolve into birds, lizards, turtles, crocodiles, various kinds of dinosaurs, and a multitude of other mostly extinct clades. The most important feature at the point you put "claws and nails" would actually be the amnion, a protective membrane around the embryo which allows the amniotes (reptiles, birds and mammals) to reproduce outside the water.


On topic:

I consider evolution a fact; although scientific theories can never be proven without doubt, evidence for evolution is so strong and all the facts fit so well that there is no doubt in my mind that it exists. It's not quite as Darwin describes it in "On the Origin of Species," as more modern research methods have modified some parts, disproved others and added new points, but the basic premise and arguments still hold. Humans are just as much part of the evolutionary process as any other life form.

Personally, I do not believe in any god, although I don't disbelieve either. I just don't care whether one exists or not. However, if there is a god, I'm certain that evolution is his way of creating life. Basically, he set up everything for life to be able to exist and then let it evolve into whatever it turned out to be. I honestly don't see why any religious believer or scientist would refuse to accept that as a perfectly valid explanation that allows religion and science to coexist peacefully. But then, I don't get fanatics on either side anyway.