-My biggest issue with the above viewpoint is the use of "prime apes". I believe you mean "primates", which is the family of animals of apes, monkeys, and hominids, too.
-The general hairlessness of humans is a very interesting sort of topic. I am a fan of the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_ape_hypothesis I find it explains things for me that suit my own thought processes.
It is something that people scoff about, though. I've never thought it that outrageous.GoblinShark:
The problem with this, though, is that the only animals on the savannah who are mostly hairless (elephants, rhinos) have very thick hides to compensate for no fur. Most of the animals in that part of the world have short fur to protect from the sun. And might I add that males vary greatly in amount and density of body hair while females have a lot less variety and naturally less hair than their male counterparts. I would also add that the temperatures, flora, and faune were different than they are today.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.
In general I don't think religion belongs in a scientific discussion. The bible and, before it, the torah are a collection of creation stories of a desert people. These stories were eventually written down and they were then oft translated (often not as well as might be hoped). No one looks at the story of Yoruba people of West Africa, they had a god that become drunk and decided to make clay figures that looked like him. the drunker he got the more defective the figures got. When he was done he happily cried out to the king of the gods to breathe life into them and man was created. And this is why there are people with deformities. No one would take that story seriously, but somehow the belief that a judeo-christian god created the world and humanity in six days is debatable...? I do not understand that at all.
I am a religious sort, of the pagan variety, though. As far as I can tell, the main reason why religious folk in the United States (I never hear these arguments in any other country) feel they can argue about evolution is due to a fundamental misunderstanding of the scientific word "theory". 'It's just a theory," they say. "Why shouldn't we put forward other ideas?" In common english vernacular the word "theory" is used in the same was as the scientifically used "hypothesis". One has a hypothesis (an idea about what might be) and then one goes about trying to find evidence to support or disprove that hypothesis. If evidence is found to support the hypothesis it then becomes a theory. it is as much proof as one can find without being able to film every moment of the past billion years.
Evolution is a theory and has proven to be a more complex and fascinating fact of our existence than Darwin could have imagined. Not only a "survival of the fittest", but also a "sexual selection", also breeding between the various hominid lines, jumping our evolution forward faster than it would have on its own. And one of the latest, the knowledge that eventually genes from viruses can blend with out own genetics and be a part of us. That we are, all of us in some way, chimeras. Evolution is a glorious and powerful thing. Glory be unto nature and all of its infinite possibilities!
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they/them pronouns please 