Is Evolution Observable?

[BrokenQuill92]

Every time some reproduces it evolves duh! All evolution entails is mutation x reproduction= evolution

[Anomalocaris]

Every time some reproduces it evolves duh! All evolution entails is mutation x reproduction= evolution

Ah, no, Mutation makes evolution possible, but evolution is not just mutation.

Evolution is about changes in physical expression of genes in a way that makes a difference to how the animal lives.

For example, mutation and genetic drift has been accummulating for tens or even hundreds of millions of years in some species of living fossils like coelacanth. In fact the amount of mutation and genetic drift that has occurred to the coelacanth lineage since Cretaceous would be similar to the amount that has accummulated between the very first shrew like placental mammals and modern humans.

Yet with similar amount of accummulated mutations, coelacanth would not be considered to have evolved much from their cretaceous ancesters, humans would have been considered to have evolved a vast amount. This is because the same gross quantity of accummulated mutation has not expressed themselves in ways that made much difference to how coelacanth lived, while it made a vast difference in how the lineage of humans had lived since its tree shrew days.

[ManMachine]

Darwin never said humans were apes, he said we share the same common ancestor. That's not the same thing.

MM

But humans are apes.

In 'On the origin of species' Darwin never uses the word 'apes', not once.

Humans are primates of the genus homo. Apes; chimpanzee, bonobos, gorillas, orang-utans and gibbons (lesser apes) are also primates.

But humans are not apes.

MM

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But humans are apes.

Yes, but that could only be definitively and unambiguously said under a new overarching system of classification of organism developed in the late 20th century.

Prior to that it was recognized humans and apes shared a recent ancestor, but whether humans themselves ought to be considered apes remained an open question, without a universally accepted definition of "ape" to adjudicate the answer.

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So I guess he should have said it. We know now we are apes but did Darwin ever say that humans were apes?

Whether we are apes depends on how "apes" are defined. You'd be surprised how inexact an art animal group definition and classification had been until late 20th century.

We had a reasonably accurate picture of how different animals such as chimps and men might have been related long before we developed a theoretical framework for rigorously classifying different organisms based on ancestry. Prior to this classifications were based on comparative anatomy rather than ancestry, and it was largely subjective what anatomically distinctive traits were important enough to give an group of organisms a separate grouping of its own. Prior to modern cladistic classification, the combination of bipedalism, tool use, and large brains were considered by many to enough grounds to put hominids into a separate group from apes. In this system, hominids and apes were sister groups sharing an common ancestor. But hominids were not apes.

Darwin would have been familiar with classification by comparative anatomy, but would not have known cladistics. So he would have know calling humans apes would not only be controversial, it would not have received universal backing of all those who otherwise would agree with him on common human and ape ancestry.

Darwin never once uses the word ape or apes in his 'Origin of the Species'.

On the Origin of Species - Online

It's a redundant argument.

MM

[bennyboy]

Can you see the point on the rainbow where red "turns into" orange?

[Anomalocaris]

Humans are primates of the genus homo. Apes; chimpanzee, bonobos, gorillas, orang-utans and gibbons (lesser apes) are also primates.

But humans are not apes.

That would not be a modern taxonomicaly point of view. "Ape" in modern classification is generally regarded as being synonomous with family Hominidae. Hominidae includes the genera Homo (humans), Pongo (Orangutan), Gorilla (Gorilla), and Pan (Chimps).

The basis of this is not the subjective assessment of anatomical similarity. It is based on modern reconstruction of genetic lineage, and the commonly accepted modern definition of family as being a natural lineage grouping containing both the last common ancester, and all descendants of that common ancester. If the last common ancester possesses all the traits that would have been needed to classify it as an ape, then all of its descendants would also be apes. If the common ancester of humans and other great apes were alive today, it would have been called an ape because it would have all the attributes thought to distinguish the other member of the ape family. That fact alone, by modern cladistic classification criteria, is enough to, and would necessarily, make humans, a descendant of that ape ancester, also an ape.

[Clueless Morgan]

If it isn't a guppy giving birth to a Great Dane it isn't macro evolution. Just ask old 777 if you think I'm wrong.

Macro evolution in action bitches!





Give up your Darwinist ways and hail The Creator!!

[Rahul]

Humans are primates of the genus homo. Apes; chimpanzee, bonobos, gorillas, orang-utans and gibbons (lesser apes) are also primates.

But humans are not apes.

Humans and Chimps are much more closely related to each other than either species is related to the Gorilla. And all three of these species are much, much more closely related to one another than any of them are to the Orangutan.

So how, in any logical sense, can you group both the Chimps and Orangutans as apes but not Humans?

What the fuck do you think humans are? The children of Adam and Eve in some super special, exalted state of existence, divorced from all of our animal cousins?

[Ryantology]

I chuckle knowing that evolution-deniers sustain themselves every single day by eating food which has noticeably evolved from its wild state.

They use that same kind bullshit. I already addressed that argument in another post.

No, they don't use the same argument. My assertion is testable simply by taking a wild animal or plant and selectively breeding it and its offspring for several generations. If evolution is a lie, then outside of the variation of genetic expression, the result in hundred, a thousand, a million generations will be more or less identical to the one taken from the wild.

[Lemonvariable72]

Humans are primates of the genus homo. Apes; chimpanzee, bonobos, gorillas, orang-utans and gibbons (lesser apes) are also primates.

But humans are not apes.

Humans and Chimps are much more closely related to each other than either species is related to the Gorilla. And all three of these species are much, much more closely related to one another than any of them are to the Orangutan.

So how, in any logical sense, can you group both the Chimps and Orangutans as apes but not Humans?

What the fuck do you think humans are? The children of Adam and Eve in some super special, exalted state of existence, divorced from all of our animal cousins?

The reason they used to group chimps,gorillas, and orangutans as apes is because of how linean taxonomy works. It is done through comparative anatomony. When you look at it that way, bipedalism and the distorted skulls of humans are significant enough to class us has a different group.

[Rahul]

Still, that's pretty old school taxonomy. Humans haven't been caterogized in that manner in decades.