Evolutionary Biology replaced by Bible Studies in American Schools.

[Kate]

haku, thank you! *big hug for haku*

[haku]

You're welcome.

All the articles from katbeidar.

An Ancestor to Call Our Own
Early Hominid Fossils from Africa
Food for Thought
Once Were Cannibals
Once We Were Not Alone
The Evolution of Human Birth
The Multiregional Evolution of Humans
The Recent African Genesis of Humans
Who Were the Neandertals

[goku]

katbeidar, alright, I'm beginning to understand you now. See it's that your facts are not my facts. I don't really believe in facts. You only believe in facts.

Thank you Kate for the articles and haku for posting them.

[marina]

Originally Posted by haku

First article from katbeidar

An Ancestor to Call Our Own

Excuse me my ignorance , what this article has to do with our katbeidar?

[spyretto]

Reading...

There's so much speculation, disagreement between scientists about their hominids and how could there not be? They're trying to recreate our alleged ancestors from the findings of a tooth fossil and a few toe bones

While the development of the intelligent human who conquered the earth - I suppose through the makings of natural selection is attributed to acquiring a larger brain. Yeah, that must be it then

[Kate]

goku, you don't believe in facts? That's the silliest thing I've heard in years. Lol.

marina, oh, they have almost nothing to do with me. I'm just a huge Scientific American fan, and I read almost every issue, and so I decided to contribute some articles for everyone to enjoy.

spyretto, of course there's disagreement, but one thing every paleoanthropologist agrees on is that somehow these screatures are connected to humans, through evidence of dentition, bone structure etc. Also they agree upon the age. If you think on a larger scale, the disagreements are purely in the little details.

[spyretto]

I don't want to dispute the findings, but when it comes to commonsense, it is difficult to accept that we and the chimpanzee or the gorilla had a common ancestor that was more developed than the chimpanzee or the gorilla; then some kind of diversification/evolutional process took over that allowed the hominid to go backwards in the evolutionary cycle - and become a gorilla and a chimpanzee - while another portion of the same ancestror gradually developed into human.
And all that simply because natural selection took over. What exactly is natural selection? We're not talking about a slight change here but a whole mutation from one form of species to another.

[goku]

katbeidar, it's more that I don't believe that we know any actual truths. I believe in many of the same probable ideas as you, I just don't accept them as fully factual. I believe there will always be something out there to refute any "fact".

[Kate]

spyretto, "more developed" is a relative statement. What made us so successful, our brain, might not have worked for champanzees, for example. They needed to put their energy into developing other features to help them survive in their ecological niche. Have you heard of the Gause's Principal? I quote: "no two species can exist indefinitely on a single limiting resource (aka in the same niche)". Champanzee and humans diverged to avoid competition for the same habitat, and thus developed into different species which have different "more developed" features. You probably can't do many things that a champanzee can. Does that mean you're less developed? No. Humans are just another mammal trying to survive on Earth. We ARE NOT special, which is what Bible teaches.

goku, but we do have evidence. Material evidence. And if you're a clear minded person, you'll see that it's pointing in one direction. Yes, there's doubt, and I doubt things when I read about new finding etc. Everyone forms their own views. But one thing is indesputable, and that's that all life on Earth had a common ancestor (whether it formed here on Earth by accidental chemical reaction, or what it was brought by a meteorite from outer space) and that chimpanzees and gorillas and other primates (including us) are related, judging from fossil and genetic evidence. Please, I beg you, give one of those articles that haku so kindly uploaded for us, a read. Please, please, please. Stop ignorance starting today. I know that's it's nicer to think that we're something special, that we'll all go to Heaven cuz God forgives all our sins (then what's Hell for, anyway?) and so on, but that's just a made up story... we need to move on from that.

[haku]

Originally Posted by spyretto

it is difficult to accept that we and the chimpanzee or the gorilla had a common ancestor that was more developed than the chimpanzee or the gorilla; then some kind of diversification/evolutional process took over that allowed the hominid to go backwards in the evolutionary cycle - and become a gorilla and a chimpanzee - while another portion of the same ancestror gradually developed into human.

No, no, no! Modern Apes don't descend from Hominids! Apes and Hominids have a common ancestor. All Hominids (like their name indicates) are Humans.

[spyretto]

Not to mention, that obviously, human development has long broken that barrier of "natural selection". There's nothing natural about being able to destroy the same planet that it give birth to us. There's nothing natural in the way we pollute the planet or affecting our environment to such a degree that whole species are in the verge of exinction.
There's nothing natural about microwave overns, genetically modified foods and cloning. Am I making myself quite dramatic enough?

ok goku, wrong term used. That australopithecus creature - if that's our common ancestor. Is it more developed than a chipanzee, less developed or essentially a chimpanzee?

[Kate]

Originally Posted by haku

Modern Apes don't descend from Hominids! Apes and Hominids have a common ancestor. All Hominids (like their name indicate) are Humans.

Exactly. Evolution is full of Nature's experimants, if you look at an evolutionary tree of any creature, then you'll see that more then half of it's ancesteral relatives went extict. Humans are no exception, and even though champanzees and humans might have had Sahelanthropus tchadensis (with a possibly better developed brain then chimps have today) as a common ancestor, doesn't mean that when chimps and hominids went their different ways on the evolutionary tree, chimps didn't supress their brain development in order to develop better eye sight, hearing, climbing adaptions and so on.

spyretto,

Originally Posted by spyretto

Not to mention, that obviously, human development has long broken that barrier of "natural selection". There's nothing natural about being able to destroy the same planet that it give birth to us. There's nothing natural in the way we pollute the planet or affecting our environment to such a degree that whole species are in the verge of exinction.
There's nothing natural about microwave overns, genetically modified foods and cloning. Am I making myself quite dramatic enough?

Yeah, unfortunately, that comes with a well developed brain.

Originally Posted by spyretto

That australopithecus creature - if that's our common ancestor. Is it more developed than a chipanzee, less developed or essentially a chimpanzee?

Autralopithecus WAS NOT a chimpanzee ancestor!!!! It was an upright walking hominid! Sahelanthropus tchadensis is a possible common ancestor to chimps and hominids. Australopithecines came MUCH LATER! At least look at the evolutionary tree before you post. Oh, the ignorance.

[spyretto]

Originally Posted by katbeidar

spyretto, "more developed" is a relative statement. What made us so successful, our brain, might not have worked for champanzees, for example. They needed to put their energy into developing other features to help them survive in their ecological niche. Have you heard of the Gause's Principal? I quote: "no two species can exist indefinitely on a single limiting resource (aka in the same niche)". Champanzee and humans diverged to avoid competition for the same habitat, and thus developed into different species which have different "more developed" features. You probably can't do many things that a champanzee can. Does that mean you're less developed? No. Humans are just another mammal trying to survive on Earth. We ARE NOT special, which is what Bible teaches.

Well, not to play with words, here, we obviously know what "more developed" means. I used those words on purpose, bearing in mind that with regards to the evolutional process, there's probably not "more or less", just change. However you're limiting yourself to anatomical developments, which of course wouldn't differentiate us much than the current chimpanzees or gorillas. Of course we are mammals but we also ARE special. Are you trying to say that humans are just another species living on this earth

[Kate]

spyretto, yes, humans are just another species living on this Earth, and we happen to have a well developed brain in order to survive. Unfortunately, besides knowledge this brain also produces gibberish like religion and so on. Personally, I have nothing against God. Believe in him/her/it if you want. Just accept the fact that God didn't create us. Cuz it doesn't make any sense.

OK, let's reverse this a little bit. Provide me with evidence, fossils or otherwise, that God created us. I gave you 5 pages of evidence that we evolved from cyanobacteria, and I failed to convince you. Let's see what makes you so convince that God created us. Everything except Bible will be fine, cuz Bible is written by control-freaks 2000 years ago and I have no interest in it. Give me scientific evidence.

[spyretto]

It's ironic that to name a hominid, they chose a name that essentially means monkey, don't you think?

why would I provide evidence that God created us? I'm just challenging some of the theories you provided as facts here, not supporting religion.

And lets face it, we have a brain that is a lot more developed than it takes to merely survive.

[haku]

Originally Posted by spyretto

That australopithecus creature - if that's our common ancestor. Is it more developed than a chipanzee, less developed or essentially a chimpanzee?

Australopithecus is the direct ancestor of all Hominids but it is NOT the ancestor of modern Apes (Australopithecus was already bipedal and had several typically human characteristics). Australopithecus was more intelligent than a modern Ape.

It's the ancestor of Australopithecus which is the commom ancestor of the Ape family and the Hominid family. This common ancestor is not well known (it may be the one mentioned by Kate), but it was a rather primitive Primate living in trees and less intelligent than modern Apes. Modern Apes have also evolved when compared to this common ancestor, but of course Hominids have evolved far more greatly.

What caused the shift between the Primates that would evolve into Apes and the Primates that would evolve into Hominids is the inhabitat. Primates were living in forests everywhere in Africa, but a dramatic change of climate accured In East Africa, the forests were replaced by savannas there. The primates who were living there were forced to live in open land, without forests, this forced them to stand on their rear legs. This group of Primates evolved into Australopithecus, then Hominids.
The Primates that were living in West Africa continued to live in forests, those Primates evolved into modern Apes.

[Kate]

spyretto, Hominid" means "human-like". And our brain is just the size required to survive. It just so happens that we can pass on knowledge, and that's something Nature didn't predict, and you can say we got lucky. But if a human baby is born, and is denied knowledge of speach for 3 years or more, then the chances are he won't be able to speak at all. (This actually happened before. Saw it on 20/20.)

There's two ways humans could have come to exist. One way is evolution, supported my numerous evidence of fossils and so on; and there's creation, supported by no facts. Which do you choose to believe?

[spyretto]

"We got lucky" is your answer to the human condition?

Anyway, evolution is not the answer as to how life came to exist. It only goes to indicate, in very controversial and disputable ways - how humans may have come into existence - in biological terms, I suppose. Creationism seeks to give an explanation on how life came into existence. Religion asks you to take a lot of things for granted and fundamentally seems like a human creation.

It could be a bit of both. And I still recall myself saying that "we don't know".

[Kate]

spyretto, I gave a few theories (in this case, doubtful predictions) of how life could have initiated on Earth. Go back a few posts.

And yeah, I think humans got lucky. We got our brain. It was like winning a giant lotto prize.

[goku]

Originally Posted by katbeidar

Everyone forms their own views. But one thing is indesputable, and that's that all life on Earth had a common ancestor (whether it formed here on Earth by accidental chemical reaction, or what it was brought by a meteorite from outer space) and that chimpanzees and gorillas and other primates (including us) are related, judging from fossil and genetic evidence. Stop ignorance starting today. I know that's it's nicer to think that we're something special, that we'll all go to Heaven cuz God forgives all our sins (then what's Hell for, anyway?) and so on, but that's just a made up story... we need to move on from that.

Kate kate kate I don't think this will ever be resolved. To me, no "fact" is indesputable. Are you staring at your monitor? Or is it a figment of your imagination? Sure, a persistant figment, as it keeps the same qualities each time, but it is possible. To me nothing is impossible. A reading is not going to change that (though I will read it since you are so persistant and haku was nice enough to do that for us). And I don't see myself as ignorant at all. In fact, you seem a little ignorant; you accept things as they are and cannot look outside of the box or question or allow for possibilities, especially on the most "factual facts".

And why do you bring God into this? When have I ever said anything about heaven or hell?