i was wondering why if evolution goes like:

ape - something similar to an ape - half ape/half human creature - something similar to a human - human

then howcome all we have today are apes and humans with no half monkey/half man type things?

In evolution, things evolve, hence the name.

If a monkey evolves to walk upright, and evolution sees it as an improvement, then it continues down the line. On the other hand if a monkey evolves arms 6 feet long, and evolution doesn't see it as an improvement, then that line dies out.

There were a million tangents that a thousand different branches divided off of, but the only thing that continued was the ape/monkey branch and the humanoid line. So many things died out just because it wasn't their time, but the improvements continued on.

The idea in evolution is that members of the species with favorable traits get to survive and breed while those with unfavorable traits die off. Therefor when evolution bring about a better trait the evolutionary step before it die out.

Can I point out a fallacy made by EVERYBODY?

We did not descend from monkeys, we have a common ancestor with them. They are not our fathers, they are our cousins, so to speak.

Modern humans co-existed with other humanoids such as neaderthals ad homo erectus. My theory? We killed them off.

Thank you lily, I had hoped somone would point that out. We are no more decended from todays apes than they are from us. New evidence suggests the scenario from quest for fire is quite likely, that is that humans and pre-humans existed at the same time until the adaptable nature of homo sapiens allowed us to fill the most habitable areas, dooming the pre humans to extinction. Or maybe we threw down and beat them into extinction, or even more likely they still exist, often posting questions about eating nutmeg and making LSD from chapstick and broccoli.

survival of the fittest. if one type advances faster than another, the other will either adapt, or die out. thats why we have no half-humans walking around.

there were alot of unfriendly animals back then that could kill the weaker ones very easily.

I thought I just said all that without having to blame our species for genocide.

i think the next step in human evolution has to be another liver, otherwise the human race is doomed.

quote:

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Originally posted by RAOVQ:
survival of the fittest. if one type advances faster than another, the other will either adapt, or die out. thats why we have no half-humans walking around.

there were alot of unfriendly animals back then that could kill the weaker ones very easily.

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So are we as humans gonna stop evolving? If we are to continue evolving we would see half human half whatever-we-are-gonna-become creatures for at least a while before they all die out. It would be interesting to see if that would actually happen. Maybe one day people will suddenly have kids that have 6 fingers or whatever improvements. I find that highly unlikely.

We will likely start directing our own evolution before any natural selection character traits become obvious. We probibly have evolved some over the last 5000 years or so, the priorities of women when the choose their mates has changed, I think that alone had probibly had an impact on the overall gene pool.

I dont think many of you understand how evolution actually works.

So explain, and I ask this without a trace of sarcasm, I just hate it when people show up and say something like that with the intent of making others feel foolish instead of in the spirit of sharing their point of view.

yeah, anyone can tell another person they are wrong. why dont you enlighten us hatred?

Weeeeelll, for a start Darwin never used the phrase "survival of the fittest" and it is this phrase which leads most people to misunderstand evolution.

Very true, "perpetuation of the most advantagious adaptative mutations"would be a little better, still vague tho', but you still have yet to tell us where we strayed from the path.

The reason that there are few, if any, fossil remains of intermediate evolutionary steps is because in small isolated groups evolve very rapidly. Humans have been more or less the same for the past 6 million with only minor refinements. Before that proto-humans probably evolved in the space of half a million years.

Large groups (and at 6 billion + members I would count us as a large group) are more or less static. The reason that small groups evolve rapidly is because small changes have greater consequences for the individuals, and those that are more sucessful propegate their genes through a small group faster.


Also our defination of sucess has changed from strength and health, to monetary. (Remember the golden rule, those with the gold make the rules.) Of course physical apearance is also a mesure of sucess, often reinforced by cash. Money isn't genetic, so genetic properties that result in the ability to make money will become more dominant. This is especialy true in the last 30 years with double-income familys making it more likely to inhert positive genes from both parents.

What genetic properties result in the ability to make money? Inteligence, though important is not enough alone to result in monetary sucess. Other factors include people skills, initative, creativity. In general the more sucessful flock together, and avoid the bottom of the barrel. It would apear that over time, even given our large population inteligence and other sucessful skills would become the norm. But that is not the case.

Ever heard the term, stupid people breed? Though not strictly true, there is some validity to it. In more industrialized countries such as the U.S., the more sucessful tend to be better at planning ahead when it comes to having familys, and thus have fewer children. In less industrialized countries, such as China and India, tend to have children which can help in farms and fields. Thus children lead to sucess, sucess does not lead to children. And the more sucessful of those who do not rely on their children for sucess tend to have access to and use birth control.

What does all this mean? Basicly it means that until people take grasp of their own reproductive destiny and plan ahead, the majority of humanity will remain evolutionary static, while a small elite group will gain in inteligence and other sucess giving traits. These people will not even be aware of their difference to the rest of humanity and there should be enough interbreeding with the masses to keep these people from become much more advanced than the majority.

Of course this is purely hypothetical. Genetic technology will change all of this. How? The sucessful will take a noticable lead over the rest of us once people can geneticaly engineer their children. By no stretch of the imagination will such a procedure be inexpensive enough for the masses initaly. Those who chose to utilize this techology will have children with not only their own advantages, but ones that are lacking in the parents. By the time that genetic engineering is avaliable to the general public at afordable rates the previously engineered will have set a precident for the rest to follow. At that point everything will change. For my thorys on how, see my thread "The Future", coming soon to a monitor near you.

I look forward to it.
I think war and conflict have also affected our overall genotype, money or power meant you didnt have to go, intellegence and physical prowess meant you had a better chance of coming back. Modern warfare has mixed things up a bit, what you bring to the party by way of genetic characteristics has less to do with your chances of survival than at any other time in history, even being smart enough to stay in the rear with the gear cant save you, neither can being a civillian. In the long run this will probibly contribute to the homogenization you were speaking of.
One thing I have been wondering about is wisdom teeth, why do so many people have to have them removed? Are our jaws getting shorter?, possibly because we do not need as much leverage for the food we eat now?Somebody probibly would have noticed something by now if it was important, but I still wonder.
Cheers.

Prometheus is caught in the old (19th century) concept of social Darwinism. It is mostly speculative. Money has nothing to do with natural selection.
Does anyone remember Reverend Malthus and his dismal prediction about organisms multiplying until they absorb all the resources? If you were like me, your biology teacher left you hanging with the conclustion that we all die at that point. Actually that point happened 3.5 billion years ago. We (all earthly organisms) have been living on a Malthusian edge since then. All organisms tend to over-reproduce and if left unchecked would convert there entire environment into copies of themselves. But, long before Africa could become packed with pachyderms, some critical resource would become a bottle-neck to the viability of the offspring. Now, it becomes a matter of jockeying for some reproductive advantage.
No organism can replicate itself exactly through an infinite number of generations. We call this imperfect copying "variation". Over many generations (thousands) some of these variations within a population may increase, on average, the number of viable, fertile offspring produced by an organism. Even a tiny advantage will eventually spread through an entire population. The old version "disappears". Note this is not genocide.
To avoid being tedious, lets jump to East Africa about 3 million years ago. There is a fairly robust population of forest dwelling primates that pick fruit, scavange, and occasionally consume animal protein. Right in the middle of this environment the continent is slowly spliting (the rift valley). To the east the environment is slowly changing to high plains. To the west it is becoming lowland forest. The eastern population has few trees in its environment so the front appendages are no longer needed for climbing. Variants in the population that make these tree grippers into more flexible "fingers" are selected. Over the millenia similar variations occur and the eastern population becomes the bipedal homo. The western group splits and variation and natural selection lead to chimps and bonobos.
Hope this helps.

Social Darwinism, fuck thats great, just rolls off the tongue. We are in the meat of the matter now boys. Let's not forget entheogenic substances as an anjunct of post primate evolution. The urge to alter our perceptions of our surroundings and get that
endorphen kick is expressed in more and more complex ways throughout sapient evolution. From rotten fruit to redneck meth, we love to alter our states.
Bloody lovely first post, hal, wake me up when we get there.

[This message has been edited by culinaryoverlord (edited 10-11-2002).]

For those that think the human race has stagnated and is not evolving at a measurable rate anymore, I refer you to evolution of the mind.

Children in pre-school are working on computers, in kindergarten they are doing things I never got to until the 3rd grade. We may be at the limit of evolution as far as physically, but mentally we are still taking our baby steps across the room. In your lifetime you won't use 10% of the capacity of your brain, I believe its more like 3%. The untapped reserve of computing power is astounding, think of having a computer with 500 gigs of memory instead of 20, if someone ever taps into the brain and figures out how to make it work we will make a jump in evolution that will make the last 7 million years seem like a bad weekend.

haha sucker, i use 100% of my brain.

Yes.....it shows.

actually we all use 100% of our brains, yes even you global.

Check this out Mr. 100%


http://www.happychild.org.uk/acc/tpr/amz/0998prct.htm

At anytime we are using 100% of our brains, ive got info on this from the discovery channel, 3 teachers, and numerous sites. Not just one that you have no knowlage of.

The brain works by sending sinals thought differnat chemicals and electric impulses witch are going on all the time, the argument you are making has nothoin to do with the acually brain bu more along the lines of chi and other eastern arts.


CTR