Ask Me Help Desk - Is it true that humans are descendants of apes

ERV's ?

look at my post #51

if chimps are closer to humans than gorilla's for the ptERV why do chimps have 130 copies, gorillas 80 and humans zero?

Also viruses by definition are obligate intracellular organism - they are not even considered life [ can't independently reproduce, use atp... ] so how does evolution explain how viruses came to be in the first place?

They must have come from the pre- existing host in the first place.

Any theories? Any links?

At the very least a virus has nucleic acid and a protein coat - even that is very complex to come about by random chance and mixing chemicals even over 100s of millions of years. And if one happens to be it has to get into a host in order to reproduce?

However, there are also interesting facts against the endogenization theory. (1) Endogenization of modern exogenous retroviruses is rarely observed in nature. (2) Most modern ERVs are not actively transposing (moving around or duplicating) in the host cell genome. At least all human ERVs appear fixed in numbers and positions; although some mouse ERVs are capable of expanding in the host genome. Are the human ERVs older, therefore more degenerated and less active? If the human race is younger than the murine race, as evolutionist biologists believe, there is no reason to suppose that the human ERVs are older than those of the mouse. (3) Xenotropic ERVs reside in cells that have no receptor for them. Instead, envelope (env) proteins of these ERVs bind receptors on cells of other animals.8 How did these ERVs get into the cell, if they were not built inside?

How about bipedalism [ walking upright ]?

This is typical
http://scitizen.com/screens/blogPage...ntribution=658

We are taught that walking upright developed due to humans originating in savannahs - now informations indicates it might also have been among forests in which case there is no advantage.

At least this scientist is honest in saying what is not known - having to rethink theories as new information comes up - there is no strict dogma.

Here is another one
The origin of human bipedalism

They acknowledge that walking upright might have a advantage by being more energy efficient - they use words like "could have" and "theory"

One reason is because humans have longer legs. But if you are a prehuman primate millions of years ago - what is the advantage of having long legs when you are a tree dweller?

Here is another link as to the human ape question

http://www.whyevolution.com/chimps.html

I like the fact that we are studying the evidence and discovering new things. To me that makes more sense than an unseen being picked up dust, blew into it and made a man, then took a rib from that man and made a women, then all humans thereafter are products of incest. This from a 2000 year old book that we are not supposed to question.

Hello again:

It's simple. There are people who believe that book. They just do. Then there are people who DON'T believe that book. They just don't.

Those non believers aren't ever going to convince the believers, and the believers aren't ever going to convince the non believers.

Let's just leave it at that.

excon

Look back on all my posts-

I have discussed this all on a scientific level - even my links.

This is my point :
Evolution cannot stand up to scientific rigor.

Here is another example from today's headlines

Bloomberg.com: U.S.

So is gene mutation really good for the species ? Or for cancer?

Here is another

Gene Mutation Predicts Alzheimer's

So the question is - is gene mutuation a evolutionary / naturalistic method of advancing the species?

Of going from ape to human?

Looks like the actual science raises serious doubts as to the validity of evolution.

Let's look at the alternative:

Why does God put cancer in good people? Y'know, the ones that lead a bible-driven life and worship Him, why do they get cancer? Or Alzeimer's?

NK;

that's diversion from evolution as a implausible scientific theory.

besisdes - you don't believe in God or the validity of the Bible - so you blaming God for disease is a false argument. Interesting that I'm trying to keep this rational and scientific and you bring God and the Bible into it.

If there is no God and life is just reduced to chance and evolution, then cancer and disease are just that - facts of life - there is no judgement or moral value as to why or the cause - it just is and that is the cold hard fact.

But YOU believe on God and the Bible and that's your view on how man and all living things were created. That's why you argue so extensively against evolution. And cancer and disease are indeed facts of life, what else can it be?

Yes I do ,

But the op question at hand is evolution.

And I'm arguing against evolution purely from a scientific perspective, and a healthy skepticism is part and parcel of science - does that trouble you ?

So people who believe in evolution and not God should curse and blame evolution for cancer and disease etc...

Quote:

Originally Posted by inthebox

So people who believe in evolution and not God should curse and blame evolution for cancer and disease etc...

No cursing and blaming, it's rogue cell reproduction, I hope we find a cure eventually as we have for other illnesses. Praying ain't going to do the trick. :)

I do love it "in the box" when they can't defend their position, they change the subject. They can not win on evolution they start with why bad things happen to good people.

I will say start a new thread on that and you will learn that being saved does not mean a perfect life, none of Jesus followers retired to the ocean front with carts pulled by 6 white horses, they had their battles,

Since to believe in God is to know satan is alive and on earth and everyday is a fight with him.

debunking evolution

exposing lies in evolution

refuting the lies

greatest hoax of the century

No we are not related to apes.
Genesis 1
24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all[b] the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Why would one be able to reason, love, think, create (man) and not the other (ape) unless God designed it so?

Quote:

Originally Posted by inthebox

This is my point :
evolution cannot stand up to scientific rigor.

It does stand up. You ask lots of good questions. But there are answers to all of them if you take the time to listen to the answers and to read. (I recommend "One Long Argument," a book by Ernst Mayr, for example.) But whenever someone answers your question, it seems like you just come up with another one. There are practically an infinite number of questions you can ask about biology. Some of them people don't know the answers to yet. Many of them we do have answers for. But just asking a question doesn't prove evolution wrong. It just means that you have asked a question.

Quote:

so is gene mutation really good for the species ? Or for cancer?

Of course not. No biologist thinks mutations are all good. That would be silly. A mutation is just a change in the information in the DNA. Its effects can be good or bad depending on lots of things, including the environment of the organism. So not only can a mutation be really bad, or really good, it can be bad in one situation but good in another. Some people think they can even be neutral, neither good nor bad. What happens in evolution is that the environment changes and mutations that were slightly bad or neutral suddenly can become useful and spread through a population. Then evolutionary change has occurred. (With lots of change you see species become very different fromone another and actually become different species--especially if they can no longer interbreed.)

Mutations themselves are random. But natural selection, the process that determines whether a mutation spreads through a population or not, is not random. This is an important distinction.

Quote:

So the question is - is gene mutuation a evolutionary / naturalistic method of advancing the species?

No! Natural selection changes species by acting on both new mutations AND preexisting variants. Furthermore, there is no such thing as "advancing" a species. They change, they adapt. But what's good for one particular environment may not be good in another. There is no progress. This is another important idea that is sometimes hard to grasp if you haven't studied evolutionary biology. (But you ask great questions.)

Quote:

Of going from ape to human?

This isn't a complete sentence, so I don't know what your question is this time. It's not a good idea for me to try to guess. But I will say that humans evolved from ape like ancestors who were the ancestors of both modern apes and modern humans. We share great, great, great, great... grandparents. The australopiths who lived 2.8 million years ago were bipedal, they walked on two legs like us. In fact, their descendents, probably evolved to be runners--as their legs got longer and longer, their toes got shorter (they way horses' toes got smaller) and they developed other adaptations to long distancer running (but not sprinting).

Then about 2.5 million years ago ancient humans started using stone tools and butchering scavenged animals that they probably stole from leopards, lions, and hyenas, and saber toothed cats! Then their brains doubled and then tripled in size, and they seem to have gotten smart enough to hunt, even though we have no sharp teeth or claws (like most predators). All the while, they were still eating lots of fruits, nuts, and roots (like yams and carrots). Humans cannot eat more than about 50% meat in our diet because we evolved from fruit eating apes. So too much meat and protein is toxic to us and can make us sick and even kill us.

Quote:

Looks like the actual science raises serious doubts as to the validity of evolution.

Just the opposite. All of biology supports the theory of evolution, and specifically also the idea that humans evolved from "lower" animals. Evolution is universally accepted by all practicing biologists. There are some high school teachers who teach creationism and there is one biochemistry college professor (to my knowledge), but all other biologists -- thousands upon thousands of them, and, importantly, ALL of the ones who actually do biology -- all accept evolution. Virtually any scientist who objects to the idea turns out to not be a biologist and hasn't actually ever studied evolution or biology. The "scientists who are creationists" are nearly all engineers, physicists, or chemists who know no more biology than the checker at your local grocery store. They may be good people, but they don't know about biology, let alone evolution.

There is one other person who is a creationist who went to UC Berkeley specifically to get a degree in biology because, he said, he wanted to "destroy evolution." He got a PhD in biology and was apparently a very good student there--I asked his professors! He did not attack evolution itself, but he did attack the way it was being presented in some textbooks--somewhat badly--so now the textbooks are better. So he actually made evolution stronger in the sense of improving the way it's being taught, which I think was a good thing. I don't know what he's up to anymore. He's a very smart guy. But he had no effect on research biology, real evolutionary biologists who study the intricacies of evolution every day in the real world.

By the way, medical researchers often do not understand evolution very well, as they are taught other things in medical school. It depends on the doctor, but don't assume that because they can't answer one of your excellent questions that there isn't an answer. They just may not have studied much evolution, if any.

If it is true that humans are descendants of apes,why are apes still around?

Quote:

Originally Posted by cromptondot

If it is true that humans are decendants of apes,why are apes still around?

The same reason that your cousins are still be alive even though you are descended from the same grandparents. Your cousins don't have to die out in order for you to live!

Evolution involves lineages splitting into two, four, or even dozens of branches. You can have all kinds of cousins. And the apes are our cousins going back about 5 million years or so. Likewise, all the mammals are descended from a common ancestor that split off from the reptiles even longer ago. So your dog or cat is also a VERY distant cousin in evolutionary terms.

Over time, evolution allows more and more species to form. So if some cataclysm caused 90% of the species on Earth to go extinct tomorrow, new species would begin forming and we would have just as many species again in about 5 million years.

Just as individuals can make more and more people by reproducing, and forming more and more big families, lineages of species can split and actually form more and more new species. (They can also go extinct. So for example, there used to be several species of humans all living at the same time and now there's only one species left.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by cromptondot

If it is true that humans are decendants of apes,why are apes still around?

You and your first cousin share a common ancestor, your grandparent. You are not descended from your cousin, and your cousin is not descended from you. You are both descendants of your grandparent.

Humans and apes share a common ancestor. Humans did not evolve from apes and apes did not evolve from humans. They are both descendants of an earlier hominid.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ordinaryguy

You and your first cousin share a common ancestor, your grandparent. You are not descended from your cousin, and your cousin is not descended from you. You are both descendants of your grandparent.

Humans and apes share a common ancestor. Humans did not evolve from apes and apes did not evolve from humans. They are both descendants of an earlier hominid.

Sort of. Hominds are everything on the human side of the split from the rest of the apes, so technically, the other great apes (gorillas, chimps, orangutans) are not descended from a hominid. They and we are all "hominoids" however. But I don't think that word helps the average person understand anything. Technically, you are right that the ancestor wasn't an ape either, for the same reason. The apes are everything on the ape side of the split.

Humans and modern apes have a common ancestor. We can't really call it a hominid, because it probably wasn't bipedal--it didn't walk upright on two legs like we do. It was a biggish primate adapted to living in trees, with no tail, and a pretty big brain (though nothing like ours). I think if most people today saw one, they would see that it was not a modern chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, or orangutan, not any modern ape we would recognize.

But I think most of us would still think it looked more like an ape than anything else we've ever seen. If I personally saw one at the zoo, I'd call it an "ape." But this is a semantic question about words, not really a question about evolution.

What would you call the common ancestor of wolves and dogs? Some people call it a wolf. . . . That doesn't seem to bother many people. I guess I don't understand why calling the common ancestor of humans and apes an "ape" is a problem. It looked like an ape and walked like an ape. What's the problem with calling it an ape?

Asking

That makes lots of sense. I had never thought of it that way.

But according to evolution, does not all birds, fish, man, animals, reptiles and even plants, trees and flowers all have some common ancestor ?

Since they would claim all life, of all kinds and types came from the same start of life?

So even just on the animal side, the claim woujld be that dogs, cats, man, rats, and elephants all had a common ancestor?