Denial of evolution II

I believe we came from a homo-something or other predating apes that also evolved into apes. So technically we didn't evolve from apes. They probably evolved from us lol

 

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Right, okay, I see where my lack of knowledge has disabled me from asking the right question here. Thanks for clearing that one up Ophiolite. Forgive me if my questions are a bit clumsy. Looking at the evolution of humans and primates I understand we can trace that back to where chimpanzees and gorliias break off from humans on the evolutionary tree, is that right? So, then if we look at the evolution of both primates and humans they both share a common ancestor. Looking at this table I wondered what the common ancestor of all the hominoid species was.

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I hope that's not confused the issue more.

 

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Wow we only stood straight two species back. There are definitely better versions to come don't you think?

 

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That is much clearer, thank you. I thought that was probably what you were asking, but I wanted to be sure. Since I am interested in the origin of life the phrase 'common ancestor' often refers to the last ancestor from whom all life on the planet is thought to have arisen.

Primate palaeontology is also a field that interests me. I know enough about it to know that it is highly contentious with many competing theories and deeply invested passions. I do not know what the current most popular view is, but this article provides a possible example and an illustration of the politics that surrounds the science.

By the way, your family tree runs counter to current thinking, which is that we are all archaic Africans, migrating from there in the last 100,000 years.

 

I'm a little confused about why people are arguing over bones. I suppose it's money, or having their name stamped in the history books or something.

Thanks for your patience Ophiolite, and for pointing me in the right direction.

 

The new swine flu is a great example of evolution.
It is an organism that started in a pig was transfered to a human then changed and adapted to survive in humans.

 

If you have devoted most or all of your working life to developing an understanding of some aspect of nature, and have arrived at what you believe to be an improved knowledge of 'the truth', then you will find it difficult to be unemotional if someone else disputes your interpretation. If they are correct, you could think - incorrectly - that you life's work has been 'wasted'.

This link from the Smithsonian has a family tree that may be of help.

This Wikipedia article has some good snapshots of the route that the creationists like to disparagingly call, from goo to you.

Much of the work in clarifying our ancestry makes use of DNA analysis. This research paper discusses evidence for a split from proto-chimpanzees 2.7 million years ago. (Only the abstract is available without payment.)

 

I spend 30 odd years working to develop an understanding of God, I thought I had an improved knowledge of "the truth". I had no problem when someone with logic refuted it, my life's work wasn't wasted. I was just wrong. But I can understand why they might be upset, intelligent people often cling to their beliefs like barnacles to a rock. Oh well.

I'll have a good read of those links you gave me, thanks. I read The origin of species a few years ago and it's something that really interests me, but I'm still not entirely convinced that the theory of evolution is anything more than what Christians do. Which is point to a lot of inferential evidence and expect you to come to a logical conclusion. But maybe I'll read something convincing one day.

 

Part of what makes science so interesting is that science makes predictions. In the case of the common ancestor question people take evidence from a variety of sources and try to determine the relationship between species. The species are known from their remains, the fossils and in the case of man and the recent ancestors tools. These objects can be dated. As ophiolite mentioned, DNA comes into play. The DNA coming not from the fossils, but modern living specimens.

The bones offer incites into the method of locomotion, diet, and whatever. The fossil dates and DNA evidence come into play to allow a researcher to construct a phylogenetic tree. The exact connections are not always clear. This is not a game of connect 1 to 2 to 3 ...

So here come predictions. Researchers look at the data and suggest that a common ancestor for 2 or more species lived in a certain time range. The prediction includes the characteristics that the species should have.

As more evidence is accumulated competing theories can be weeded out.

There was a shown on PBS a while back in which Attenborough looked at fossil discoveries. What was fascinating about the show is that it looked at the history of fossil discoveries and how the understanding of the finds changed as more evidence was accumulated. Seeing the current (not final of course) thoughts on fossils does not show all of the thinking and hard work it took to get to this point in the research.

 

i know! every person i talk to who doesn't get this i'm like "where were you during your education?!?". in australian public education, it is mandatory to teach natural selection in year 10 (age 15/16). this is the same time they're still teaching "what is a metaphor? what is compound interest?" you can't even legally leave school til you're 15, so even the dumbest person going through the education system is supposed to be able to understand it, its part of the final exams for the school certificate.

 

Thanks for the very interesting link and its sub links. I learned that there is not universal agreement on the details of the origin of modern man; however, there seems to be increasing hard evidence for:

" a small, relatively isolated population of early humans evolved into modern Homo sapiens, and that this population succeeded in spreading across Africa, Europe, and Asia -- displacing and eventually replacing all other early human populations as they spread. In this scenario the variation among modern populations is a recent phenomenon. Part of the evidence to support this theory comes from molecular biology, especially studies of the diversity and mutation rate of nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA in living human cells.From these studies an approximate time of divergence from the common ancestor of all modern human populations can be calculated. This research has typically yielded dates around 200,000 years ago, too young for the "Multiregional Hypothesis." Molecular methods have also tended to point to an African origin for all modern humans, implying that the ancestral population of all living people migrated from Africa to other parts of the world -- thus the name of this interpretation: the 'Out of Africa Hypothesis.'..."

Do you agree that this POV is more likely correct?

I like it because I can explain why "Out of Africa" would have occured in a small group and lead to the distruction of all other hominoids still living. (That small, probably inbreeding, group was first to evolve what I call the Reat Time Simulation, RTS, that allows preception of the world without the delays associated with neurotransmitter diffusion across synaptic gaps and the delay of neural impulse depolarization waves traveling down axons. - A great advantage in war if you can see a rock or spear thrown at you where it is now instead of where it was a small fraction of a second earlier.)

See my theory at: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=905778&postcount=66

But the conquest of the Neanderthals is only mentioned briefly there as one more reason supporting the strange POV advocated about how perception works.
The "Out of Africa" mystery and destruction of the Neanderthals is in short paragraph which begins with: 3)
To have much chance of understanding at least read the prior paragraph.

 

I am largely persauded by the 'Out of Africa' hypothesis. The breadth of interlocking evidence, some of which has been outlined by Fraggle, is difficult to align with the 'Multi Regional Hypothesis'. That said I would not be surprised if future research revealed the picture was more complex and contained some elements of both.

The 'Multi Regional Hypothesis' always seemed to me to be motivated by either patriotism (our country/continent contains the ancestral humans), egotism (I found the ancestral human over there), or a bizarre form of political correctness (we evolved independently, just like you).

 

for " Evolutionary Developmental Biologists " out of Africa " is shown to be the right direction

by the in depth analysis of genetics

 

Assuming Fraggle’s post 552 with two waves out of Africa is correct I have become interested to know it there is a observable difference in the processes of perception between the relative small number of “first wave” descendents and the majority of humans living now.

As some of you may know, I have a “crackpot” theory of perception which explains a few dozen seemly unrelated facts that the more accepted POV (Perception “emerges” following many stages of neural transformations/ calculation) cannot. Central to my POV is what I call the Real Time Simulation, RTS, which avoid the synaptic delays of the conventional POV.

According to post 552, the first wave was very likely due to the ice age, reduced rain fall, etc. I suggested long ago that the RTS happened in a small in breading group in Africa and gave them a great advantage in conflicts with all other humanoids that did still perceive by the “emergent mechanism.” I.e. ducking a thrown rock or spear is much more successful if your perception of it is in real time, rather than where it was ~0.2 seconds earlier, due to accumulated synaptic diffusion delays. (This also explains why our ancestors killed off the stronger, bigger-brained, Neanderthals etc.)

Does anyone have any information on the perceptual reaction time of the bushmen (the SANs), or the indigent natives of Australia? If it the same as other humans that fact is not destructive of my RTS model of perception but if they are slower to perceive rapid onset events that fact would be additional strong support for the RTS model of perception. The EEG signal called “P300” (or “the startle spike”) should also be reduced in the survivors of the first wave, if the RTS was perfected only by the second wave.

Among the many facts my RTS explains well that are in conflict with the standard “emergent perception” POV are the following eight facts:

(1) The visually perceived / experienced world in front of you is equally sharp and clear for more than 100degree field of perception despite the high resolution retinal data it could “emerge” from comes only from the fovea (less than 2 degrees wide). This experienced clear perception (without blur) does not mean you can read fine text 10 degrees off the point of fixation. (Perception is not the same thing as functional performance.)

(2) The number of neural fibers coming to the “visual cortex” (V1 & V2) from the parietal cortex (where the RTS is created) is actually greater than coming to V1 & V2 from the eyes (via the LGN) – an essential prediction of my RTS model and totally without any rational in the convential “emergent” POV.

(3a) Visual hallucinations completely in conflict with retinal images exist. – What did they “emerge” from?
(3b) Visual dreams and recallable mental images exist and are strongest when the eyes are closed. What did they “emerge” from?

(4a) Parietal strokes often make half the world cease to exist for their victims. Yet in the conventional “emergent” version of perception there is little if any visual processing activity in the parietal cortex.
For more on this, See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unilateral_neglect
(4b) The “startle spike” (EEG P300) is strongest over the parietal cortex. It occurs when something unexpected and significant occurs. I.e. in my RTS, model the extrapolation of neural signals to compensate for the synaptic delays is in conflict with suddenly changed external reality and the RTS must be very briefly paused to re set. The turn on of the RTS again produces the P300 EEG signal.
(4c) The location of the parietal cortex is such as to minimize neural connections (white matter) from and to all of the senses. (optimal neurological arrangement) Visual cortex is adjacent behind it, tactil sensory cortex is immediately in front of it, audio cortex is to the side, and memory, taste/smell are just below. To all these areas (and the LGN) there are “retrograde fibers” which the conventional POV cannot find any need for but I believe take the RTS data back to the earlier available input processing stages so the when revisions of the RTS are needed the conflict (between RTS data & the income sensed data) can be detected at an earlier stage.

(5) To the person with a “phantom limb” his perception of it is just as real and detailed as his perception of his corresponding physical limb. He knows it is not there, but when he is distracted or in a hurry without time to consciously over – rule this perception in his automatic behavior, he behaves as if it is real. For example, one phantom arm extended straight out from the body. When quickly going thru door way etc, he automatically twisted his torso to keep his, perceptually REAL TO HIM, phantom from hitting the door frame. Where did this detailed complex perception "emerge" from? - Smashed and damaged nerve ends? - I don't think so. It came from memory stored body image and was created in the RTS like everything else that is perceived.

Read more about the RTS (including how it can remove the conflict between “free will” and bio-chemistry controlling when every nerve in your brain discharges) at:

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=905778&postcount=66

PS, IMHO, the evolution of the RTS is one of the most important evolutionary advances.

 

oh dear...*facepalm x (number of antievolutionist posts)*

 

Goo gle "tenets of ecocosmology" and see that creationism and evolution are both rear view concepts that are not as valuable as forward looking science.

Survival of the fittest has gone cosmic. We need new physics to develop new space craft to insure a move to a new habitable planet before the Sun destroys the inner planets out to Mars.

Only the fittest planets will do this and continue on in the cosmos. Cosmic evolution is now the hot topic.

 

Don't you mean new technology? I hope we learn something in the next 4 or more billion years.

 

What about if I say neither evolution or creationism are the real truth. What you guys think about this....

 

I don't know about the rest, but I think that you are either spamming, or seeking for some attention. Otherwise, instead of putting this, you would just say what you think about the "real truth".

I would prefer working models instead of "real truths"...