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Author Topic:   How did Monkeys get to South America?
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 121 of 137 (499527)
02-19-2009 1:36 AM
Reply to: Message 115 by Engineer
02-18-2009 9:46 PM


Re: A Monkey On A Raft
Other sources say it takes more than once because there were natural competitors in south america at the time.
First of all, name these sources.
Second, how the heck would it help for it to happen "more than once". If monkeys turn up, are outcompeted, and die out, then this doesn't pave the way for them to make it a second time.
There are other threads on the internet that have already covered this debate. At 35 million years the separation between continents was about 1400 km.
Between which continents?
I posted how geologists reconstruct the distance between northwest Africa and northeast South America. I didn't figure out the distance, I just pointed out that the distance between the continents was smaller than it is today.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 122 of 137 (499528)
02-19-2009 1:47 AM
Reply to: Message 116 by Engineer
02-18-2009 9:49 PM


Re: A Monkey On A Raft
Some evolution experts think the raft from africa borders on ridiculous.
Quote them.
The so-called "millions of years of rafting opportunity" never existed unless monkeys found a time machine.
Substantiate your statement, or consider the possibility that primatologists know more about primatology than you do.
Here's an opening post from someone considerably more expert than you are:
Hello? How did you acertain his degree of expertise? This guy who calls himself "scmarlowe" posting on a cryptozoology forum?
How did this unknown person with no references to actual obseravations acquire his considerable expertise, in your eyes?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 116 by Engineer, posted 02-18-2009 9:49 PM Engineer has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 124 by Engineer, posted 02-19-2009 7:02 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 123 of 137 (499542)
02-19-2009 6:37 AM
Reply to: Message 118 by Engineer
02-18-2009 10:17 PM


Rafting certainly happens!
Engineer writes:
Here's a recent press release:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/...ases/2005/03/050329134437.htm
A lot of African animals came from North America. The raft went the other way. ;-)
You're presenting evidence against the point you seem to be trying to make. Of course the rafting can go both ways, and across any oceans. While mammals being washed out to sea and clinging to some kind of flotsam would be common, voyaging from one continent to another would be fairly rare. This is because it requires a combination of circumstances, each individual one being common or likely, but getting them all together statistically rare, but arguably almost inevitable at some time given the time scale.
Let's look at some likely requirements.
(a) The current being in the right direction.
(b) The prevailing winds being in the right direction.
(c) Two mammals of different sex being on the same raft.
(d) The raft/tree holding together for the duration or not sinking for the duration.
(e) Food available on the raft (leaves and possibly fruits).
(f) Enough rainfall during the voyage for our travellers to be able to lick water off their raft and keep from dehydrating.
Now, you can see that all these occurrences individually could be common, two mammals of opposite sex clinging to the raft being probably the least frequent event. So, as I said in an earlier post, it's like tossing a series of heads once you've got the two monkeys on a raft. It might only take several hundred pairs of monkeys on a raft off the coast of Africa to get the other 5 requirements at the same time.
I see no reason for incredulity at all. I'm sure that even less likely events have happened. And Dr. Adequate's green monkey rafting a greater distance seems to make it clear that it's probably the "two monkeys of different sex" requirement (and the establishment of a breeding population through a bottleneck) that limits the frequency of such historical events more than the actual rafting.
Edited by bluegenes, : spelling

This message is a reply to:
 Message 118 by Engineer, posted 02-18-2009 10:17 PM Engineer has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 125 by Engineer, posted 02-19-2009 7:13 AM bluegenes has replied
 Message 133 by Blue Jay, posted 02-19-2009 9:13 PM bluegenes has replied

  
Engineer
Member (Idle past 5516 days)
Posts: 65
From: KY, USA
Joined: 02-13-2009


Message 124 of 137 (499549)
02-19-2009 7:02 AM
Reply to: Message 122 by Dr Adequate
02-19-2009 1:47 AM


Re: A Monkey On A Raft
"Some evolution experts think the raft from africa borders on ridiculous."
quote:
Quote them.
That will take some research but I'll give you a hint: Floating Islands on the ocean fall in the category of mythology:
Floating island - Wikipedia(fiction)
"The so-called "millions of years of rafting opportunity" never existed unless monkeys found a time machine."
quote:
Substantiate your statement, or consider the possibility that primatologists know more about primatology than you do.
And perhaps they know more than you as well. I provided the link to Dr. Boch's presentation in the science journal. Did you bother reading it? If not, then I can't help you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 122 by Dr Adequate, posted 02-19-2009 1:47 AM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 126 by Larni, posted 02-19-2009 8:16 AM Engineer has not replied
 Message 128 by kuresu, posted 02-19-2009 9:07 AM Engineer has not replied
 Message 129 by NosyNed, posted 02-19-2009 10:26 AM Engineer has not replied
 Message 131 by Dr Adequate, posted 02-19-2009 12:51 PM Engineer has not replied

  
Engineer
Member (Idle past 5516 days)
Posts: 65
From: KY, USA
Joined: 02-13-2009


Message 125 of 137 (499554)
02-19-2009 7:13 AM
Reply to: Message 123 by bluegenes
02-19-2009 6:37 AM


Re: Rafting certainly happens!
quote:
You're presenting evidence against the point you seem to be trying to make. Of course the rafting can go both ways, and across any oceans. While mammals being washed out to sea and clinging to some kind of flotsam would be common, voyaging from one continent to another would be fairly rare. This is because it requires a combination of circumstances, each individual one being common or likely, but getting them all together statistically rare, but arguably almost inevitable at some time given the time scale.
I think there is a better case for rodents than monkeys.
What time window do you propose?
Why is a parallel evolution of monkeys from creatures of similar origin so unacceptable in two different locations?
This is one of the issues I have against the theory of evolution in it's current form.
If an event can happen once then it can happen again. It should be repeatable. If monkeys can live quite well in both South America and Africa even today, then they should be able to evolve as such from a common ancestor.
You need more evidence to support that this is indeed happening, not just with monkeys but with other species as well including humans.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 123 by bluegenes, posted 02-19-2009 6:37 AM bluegenes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 127 by bluegenes, posted 02-19-2009 9:00 AM Engineer has not replied
 Message 130 by Theodoric, posted 02-19-2009 12:04 PM Engineer has not replied
 Message 132 by Dr Adequate, posted 02-19-2009 12:53 PM Engineer has not replied
 Message 134 by Blue Jay, posted 02-19-2009 9:53 PM Engineer has not replied

  
Larni
Member (Idle past 164 days)
Posts: 4000
From: Liverpool
Joined: 09-16-2005


Message 126 of 137 (499567)
02-19-2009 8:16 AM
Reply to: Message 124 by Engineer
02-19-2009 7:02 AM


Re: A Monkey On A Raft
Floating Islands on the ocean fall in the category of mythology
You do know that cars are mentioned in fiction too?
The artical on your wiki link is non-fiction. It seems you may be confused with this:
wiki says writes:
For floating islands in fiction, see Floating island (fiction).
This is referring the reader elsewhere.
I provided the link to Dr. Boch's presentation in the science journal. Did you bother reading it?
I may have misread the artical but I thought it was an unpublished piece of garaduate work, rather than by Boch.
Edited by Larni, : Added point about Boch.

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 Message 124 by Engineer, posted 02-19-2009 7:02 AM Engineer has not replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 127 of 137 (499577)
02-19-2009 9:00 AM
Reply to: Message 125 by Engineer
02-19-2009 7:13 AM


Re: Rafting certainly happens!
Engineer writes:
I think there is a better case for rodents than monkeys.
On the basis of numbers alone, they have an advantage, and we know that they raft easily on our ships.
What time window do you propose?
A big one. Are you talking about estimating a time for the actual monkey event?
Why is a parallel evolution of monkeys from creatures of similar origin so unacceptable in two different locations?
The genomes should give us an approximate time of divergence, and even allowing for maximum error, this would be long after the separation of the continents.
This is one of the issues I have against the theory of evolution in it's current form.
The things that we're talking about are details of natural history, not the theory of evolution, which would just indicate that all primates have common ancestry and have diverged by processes involving mutation, selection and genetic drift. ToE doesn't have an opinion on rafting.
If an event can happen once then it can happen again. It should be repeatable. If monkeys can live quite well in both South America and Africa even today, then they should be able to evolve as such from a common ancestor.
Those groups did have a common ancestral species. What you seem to be suggesting is that an early primate existed when the continents were conjoined, and then evolved separately into convergent monkey like species on both continents after the divide. Convergent (and parallel) evolution happens, but not to a very profound extent, and genetics and the fossil record would tell us if that was the case. The dates are wrong, hence the rafting hypothesis.
Think of convergent evolution like this. The USA could have another civil war, and you could call that history repeating itself. But the nature and details of the civil war would inevitably be profoundly different from the last one, as history cannot literally repeat itself in any complex way.
You need more evidence to support that this is indeed happening, not just with monkeys but with other species as well including humans.
To support that what is happening? Could you be more precise?

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 Message 125 by Engineer, posted 02-19-2009 7:13 AM Engineer has not replied

  
kuresu
Member (Idle past 2513 days)
Posts: 2544
From: boulder, colorado
Joined: 03-24-2006


Message 128 of 137 (499579)
02-19-2009 9:07 AM
Reply to: Message 124 by Engineer
02-19-2009 7:02 AM


Re: A Monkey On A Raft
That will take some research but I'll give you a hint: Floating Islands on the ocean fall in the category of mythology:
Floating island - Wikipedia(fiction)
"The so-called "millions of years of rafting opportunity" never existed unless monkeys found a time machine."

You're kidding, right? This ranks up there with your claim that 12mm is .12cm.
Notice what the wiki says:
quote:
When they occur naturally they are sometimes referred to as tussocks, floatons, or sudds. Natural floating islands are composed of vegetation growing on a buoyant mat consisting of plant roots or other organic detritus.
They typically occur when growths of cattails, bulrush, sedge, and reeds extend outward from the shoreline of a wetland area. As the water gets deeper the roots no longer reach the bottom, so they use the oxygen in their root mass for buoyancy, and the surrounding vegetation for support to retain their top-side-up orientation[citation needed]. The area beneath these floating mats is exceptionally rich in aquatic lifeforms. Eventually, storm events tear whole sections free from the shore, and the islands thus formed migrate around a lake with changing winds, eventually either reattaching to a new area of the shore, or breaking up in heavy weather.
Natural floating islands may have been the source of many "disappearing island" legends, such as those surrounding the Isle of Avalon.
Explosive volcanic eruptions may create pumice rafts, that can float on the ocean for months or even years before becoming fully saturated and sinking. The larger rafts often wind up having grasses and palm trees growing on them.
Really now, you can do better than this.

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 Message 124 by Engineer, posted 02-19-2009 7:02 AM Engineer has not replied

  
NosyNed
Member
Posts: 8996
From: Canada
Joined: 04-04-2003


Message 129 of 137 (499595)
02-19-2009 10:26 AM
Reply to: Message 124 by Engineer
02-19-2009 7:02 AM


Floating Islands
I have walked on floating islands. Complete with small (couple of meters high) conifers growing in/on them.
They blew back and forth across the lake and (from the trees on them) had existed for at least a few years.
They are not myth.

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 Message 124 by Engineer, posted 02-19-2009 7:02 AM Engineer has not replied

  
Theodoric
Member
Posts: 9076
From: Northwest, WI, USA
Joined: 08-15-2005
Member Rating: 3.7


Message 130 of 137 (499607)
02-19-2009 12:04 PM
Reply to: Message 125 by Engineer
02-19-2009 7:13 AM


Re: Rafting certainly happens!
This is one of the issues I have against the theory of evolution in it's current form.
Finally we cut to the chase.
We have been asking for your hypothesis all along. Your whole purpose in this thread is to try to debunk evolution. But as ID'ers tend to do, since they have no science to back them up, they try to develop arguments as to why evolution cannot be true. Why not instead come up with evidence that proves something other than evolution? Oh wait, that would take science.
We have given you many solutions to the rafting monkey issue. If you refuse to accept them that is your issue. Every objection you have had has been given a solution.
Dr. Bloch does not strengthen your argument. His is another hypothesis, but it is not at all an indictment against evolution.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 125 by Engineer, posted 02-19-2009 7:13 AM Engineer has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 131 of 137 (499616)
02-19-2009 12:51 PM
Reply to: Message 124 by Engineer
02-19-2009 7:02 AM


Re: A Monkey On A Raft
That will take some research but I'll give you a hint: Floating Islands on the ocean fall in the category of mythology:
Floating island - Wikipedia(fiction)
Hello? You stated that "Some evolution experts think the raft from africa borders on ridiculous."
Challenged to quote them, you refer me to a wikipedia article, presumably not written by an "evolution expert", which confirms that floating islands exist and does not mention monkeys in any way.
And perhaps they know more than you as well. I provided the link to Dr. Boch's presentation in the science journal. Did you bother reading it? If not, then I can't help you.
Hello?
You wrote that ""The so-called "millions of years of rafting opportunity" never existed unless monkeys found a time machine."
I ask you to substantiate that statement, and you refer me to Dr Boch, who says no such thing.
He does say that it is "at least possible" that primates originated in America.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 124 by Engineer, posted 02-19-2009 7:02 AM Engineer has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 132 of 137 (499619)
02-19-2009 12:53 PM
Reply to: Message 125 by Engineer
02-19-2009 7:13 AM


Re: Rafting certainly happens!
I think there is a better case for rodents than monkeys.
What time window do you propose?
Why is a parallel evolution of monkeys from creatures of similar origin so unacceptable in two different locations?
This is one of the issues I have against the theory of evolution in it's current form.
If an event can happen once then it can happen again. It should be repeatable. If monkeys can live quite well in both South America and Africa even today, then they should be able to evolve as such from a common ancestor.
You need more evidence to support that this is indeed happening, not just with monkeys but with other species as well including humans.
I'm not sure what you're getting at. New World and Old World monkeys did evolve from a common ancestor. This is exactly what is being claimed.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 125 by Engineer, posted 02-19-2009 7:13 AM Engineer has not replied

  
Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 133 of 137 (499702)
02-19-2009 9:13 PM
Reply to: Message 123 by bluegenes
02-19-2009 6:37 AM


Re: Rafting certainly happens!
Hi, Bluegenes.
bluegenes writes:
(c) Two mammals of different sex being on the same raft.
A pregnant female with a long enough gestation period might suffice.
If the mating season is timed with the monsoon, pregnancy and flooding may coincide regularly, presenting many opportunities for pregnant females to raft out to sea.

-Bluejay/Mantis/Thylacosmilus
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 123 by bluegenes, posted 02-19-2009 6:37 AM bluegenes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 135 by bluegenes, posted 02-19-2009 11:43 PM Blue Jay has not replied
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Blue Jay
Member (Idle past 2697 days)
Posts: 2843
From: You couldn't pronounce it with your mouthparts
Joined: 02-04-2008


Message 134 of 137 (499703)
02-19-2009 9:53 PM
Reply to: Message 125 by Engineer
02-19-2009 7:13 AM


Re: Rafting certainly happens!
Hi, Engineer.
Engineer writes:
Why is a parallel evolution of monkeys from creatures of similar origin so unacceptable in two different locations?
If monkeys can live quite well in both South America and Africa even today, then they should be able to evolve as such from a common ancestor.
It's really quite simple.
Ever since the break-up of Gondwana, South America was not connected to any other continent (not even North America) until about 3 million years ago. When the two Americas finally connected, it resulted in what is known as the Great American Interchange (Wiki link).
By the time of the Great American Interchange, all of North America's primates had apparently gone extinct, so that none were left to colonize South America 3 million years ago. Furthermore, when there were primates in North America (millions of years earlier), they were an outgroup to all modern primates. This means that lemurs are more closely related to South American monkeys than these extinct North American primates were, so proposing these North American primates as the ancestors of South America's primates is like proposing that tigers evolved from hyenas while the rest of the cats evolved from bears.
Fossil monkeys have been found in South America dating to much earlier than the Great American Interchange, which means that, either two very different groups of animals evolved to become more similar to one another genetically than either was to their respective closest relatives, or some monkeys crossed the ocean.
Basically, the options are like this:
  1. A Ukrainian couple gave birth to an Aztec baby.
  2. Some Aztecs migrated to Ukraine.
Both sound very bizarre, but one of them is actually marginally possible, while the other is not.

-Bluejay/Mantis/Thylacosmilus
Darwin loves you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 125 by Engineer, posted 02-19-2009 7:13 AM Engineer has not replied

  
bluegenes
Member (Idle past 2477 days)
Posts: 3119
From: U.K.
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 135 of 137 (499710)
02-19-2009 11:43 PM
Reply to: Message 133 by Blue Jay
02-19-2009 9:13 PM


Re: Rafting certainly happens!
Bluejay writes:
A pregnant female with a long enough gestation period might suffice.
It might, yes, but I was giving our travellers a bit more genetic diversity to kick start the population. Also, so far as evidence is concerned, I happened to know about the example I gave earlier in the thread of a healthy wild population of mammals starting from a pair.
Island sheep flock

This message is a reply to:
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