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Author | Topic: "If I descended from an ape, how come apes are still here?" | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
My reply usually goes something like this:
"If Iceland was colonized by Scandinavians, why are there still Scandinavians?" Obviously just because one branch of the primates started to occupy a new niche, that doesn't make the old niche uninhabitable any more than some Scandinavians moving to Iceland made Scandinavia uninhabitable. Why should it? --- Of course, one could always talk about the actual meaning of the word "ape" and about cladistics but I think there's a time and a place for everything and that probably isn't it.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
The flip responses given by Dr. Adequate, PaulK, and others in this thread ought to be sufficient to see that the question misses the mark. I didn't think it was flip. Short, yes. The other thing I'd maybe do is show them this ...
... and say: this is the diagram that Darwin drew when he first thought of evolution. The branching of species is what it's always been all about. Otherwise since all species have a common ancestor there would only be one species. But I agree with PaulK. It is necessary to go quite slowly and find out the specific misconceptions of the questioner and address them. Of course, it is possible, perhaps probable, that the questioner has not bothered to form any misconceptions, and has just learned to recite: "Why are there still monkeys?" as a Soooper-Dooper Knock-Down Creationist Argument. In that case it might be necessary to encourage him to formulate some misconceptions by asking him to give a good reason why there shouldn't be. --- Tangle's answer, I think, may well miss the mark completely. For the underlying misconception is most likely that evolution is normally linear rather than radiative, and that humans, which are "higher" than apes, should have entirely replaced them like the integrated circuit replaced the vacuum tube. Now Tangle presents a picture of this not happening, but doesn't explain why it did not in fact happen. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
I...Chuck...77...am not in favor of the "why are there still apes around if..." argument. [...] I don't think it's a good argument. * applies Chuckian hermeneutics * So, you're an evolutionist then? There's no need to conceal it, you're among friends here. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Here you go Tangle. Tell your Jewish friend this isn't an argument he should use anymore: "If Humans Evolved from Apes, Why Do Apes Exist Today?Arguments Christians Shouldn’t Use No, no, we need a list of arguments that Jews shouldn't use. Apart from that, good job. Apparently you stealth evolutionists have infiltrated AiG, and while I deplore your underhand tactics I have to admire your success.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Well in order to demonstrate that the existence of humans, the existence of other apes, and the theory of evolution are mutually consistent, it isn't necessary to have a complete set of intermediate forms, just to show that there's no inconsistency --- that the evolution of humans wouldn't somehow magically make all the other apes disappear.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
Completely agree - just in this particular case if fcuks up my story. (Which would have been a good one had it worked). Well in fact now I think about it displaying a complete set of intermediates wouldn't actually answer the "why" question any more than pointing out that chimpanzees etc are not actually extinct. Anyone who thought that that would be contrary to theory could go on thinking it.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined:
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I seem to remember that the horse has a pretty good fossil record - anyone know what its nearest living relative and common ancestor are? Horses go with rhinos and tapirs. One of these is an early tapir, the other is an early horse. As you can see, there's not much in it ...
... and there'd be even less difference if it was an even earlier horse, which would have had more toes. As this author states, in early perrisodactyls "species, genera, and even higher taxa differ little from each other". So in this case you do have ancestral forms pretty much holding hands. Or hooves, or whatever.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
The nearest living relatives of horses are zebras and asses. I was taking "the horse" to mean Equus.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
"if horses descended from Xs, why are Xs are still here?" Applications for best X, please. Perissodactyls. (Of course, horses are perissodactyls, but then humans are apes.)
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined:
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That's what the theory USED to say right? That we "turned into apes" or "became apes"? No.
NOW, we "share a common ancestor" No-one ever claimed that we were descended from modern apes. We have a common ancestor with modern apes. That common ancestor is an ape from which we descended.
If they would stick to one story we wouldn't all be so confused about the why are there still apes today, ya know? We aren't all confused. Creationists are confused. There's nothing we can do about that, because they're trying to be confused.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
How did you work your way thru all the lies (or maybe a better word-mistakes) and eventually come to accept it? Why do mistakes need "working through"? There have been mistakes (and indeed outright fraud) in the history of every field of study. But, for example, the fact that people once mistakenly believed in phlogiston does nothing to stop me from understanding valence. It is creationist lies or blunders such as those you quote that are evidently the real obstacle to understanding evolution, as evidenced by the fact that I do and you don't.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Im sorry, I only have a GED and im to lazy to google that. It refers to the science of chemistry. The fact that early chemists made some mistakes is no impediment to my understanding chemistry. I do not have to "work through" their mistakes. The fact that creationists seem to do nothing but make mistakes, on the other hand, is more problematic. You look at a mistake some scientist made 85 years ago and then corrected. I'm looking at mistakes creationists were still making yesterday despite having been set right a jillion times. And then you wonder how I "work through" scientific mistakes laid to rest by scientists fifty years before I was born. "Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined:
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Let's look at some creationist mistakes. I'll use the passage you quoted.
in addition to Java Man (which was later shown to be the combination of two bones from different species). This is not even possible, since the Java Man specimens consist of more than two bones. It has been suggested by some people that two species were mixed up in the specimens, but it has certainly not been "shown" that this is the case.
Evolutionists desired to put evolution into the schools but were finding it very difficult. They decided to put on a ‘circus' type event in order to get attention to the theory. This event was called the ‘Scopes Trial' but was eventually referred to as The Monkey Trial. This is, of course, not true. The purpose of the trial was not to "get attention to the theory", but to challenge the law against teaching evolution. Duh.
It was more of a spectacle than a real trial. With all of the national attention that this event received, it was important that the evolutionists "made a splash". They certainly did that with a new \'ape-man\' dubbed The Nebraska Man. This \'ape-man\' was drawn with artistic license from one single tooth. The creationists felt like this was \'foul play\' because they were presented with this creature without having any chance for research. This is made up out of the whole cloth. We have trial transcripts for the Monkey Trial. "Nebraska Man" wasn't mentioned once. Not once. And yet here is this creationist telling us that it was, and even what the creationists thought about its introduction into the trial ... this is pure fantasy.
After the ‘smoke had cleared', the Darwinists walked away with an outright victory (technically they lost the ‘trial' but won the national approval by many). The huge amount of publicity had worked. This so called \'ape-man\' was very instrumental in putting Darwinism on the map and into the schools. Again, this so-called "so called ape-man" was not mentioned in the trial. Darwinism was, of course, already "on the map", and the result of the trial (which as the bozo admits in a rare moment of honesty the evolutionists lost) was certainly not to put evolution into schools but to keep it out. In Tennessee, for example, where the trial was held, the teaching of evolution would remain illegal until 1967.
Weeks later it was discovered that this tooth that had been used to draw The Nebraska Man had actually come from an extinct pig. Peccary. For Pete's sake. Creationists pour scorn on Osborn because he couldn't tell the difference between an ape and a peccary with nothing but a single tooth to go on, but they can't tell the difference between a peccary and a pig when all they have to do is observe the difference between the letters ig and eccary. OK, peccaries are similar to pigs and related to them, but then you could say the same of men and monkeys. As for "weeks later", the evidence suggests that Osborn discovered his mistake over "Nebraska Man" shortly before the trial.
The Nebraska Man, The Piltdown Man and the Java Man were the ‘ape-men' that had given credence to the idea of human evolution for the first few decades of the theory. Darwin published in 1859.
Today, the evolution ape man chart for Darwinism is no better than it was those 5 or 6 decades ago. Though we have been taught (and our schools are still teaching today) that the human evolution chart is based on fact, reality is the exact opposite. The reality is that it is based on actual, factual fossils.
Besides having to remove ‘ancestors' like the Piltdown Man and Nebraska Man, other flaws also exist with this chart. Every one of the \'ape-men\' have now turned out to be either one hundred percent ape or one hundred percent human. This is mere assertion, like a flat-Earther saying "The Earth has now turned out to be one hundred percent flat". Well, not according to people who aren't nuts it hasn't. Yer actual paleontologists say there are lots of intermediate forms. And one sign of this is that creationists, who are dogmatically committed to classifying everything as 100% one or the other, can't agree with one another as to what is which. If H. erectus is 100% human, why do some creationists assert that it's 100% ape? If it's 100% ape, why do some creationists assert that it's 100% human? Answer: because it is in fact intermediate.
Even the fossils labeled as Australopithicene (including \'Lucy\') are entirely ape (extinct). Except that some creationists class some australopithecines as human ...
There are no known fossils that tie apes to humans. The \'human evolution\' chart,if it was truly accurate should consist of nothing but 100% apes and 100% humans with just a very large blank spot between them. And again, creationists are unable to agree where this "very large blank spot" should go. If it's such a yawning gulf, why can't they locate it? Why, indeed, does this author not bother to tell us where it is instead of making up fatuous nonsense about the Monkey Trial? Because he's not telling the truth, that's why. There is no "very large blank spot". And if you think there is ... see if you can find it. --- Now, please note that in order to find an example of creationist blunders --- multiple creationist blunders --- I did not have to go back to 1925, nor did I have to content myself with pointing out a blunder which creationists themselves responsibly corrected. I just had to look at the slab of creationism you quoted in the very post in which you asked me how I work my way through the mistakes made by evolutionists! Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given. Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
And so on down the line of mothers through increasingly apelike creatures until at about 2.5 million years ago we reach an animal called the Southern African ape (Australopithecus africanis). At this point something amazing happens - you see that the right hand of a mother from the chimp line is holding the left hand of a mother from the human line. No ... australopithecines aren't ancestral to chimps. By then the split had already taken place.
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Dr Adequate Member Posts: 16113 Joined: |
The mainstream view among paleontologists can be found in this page and in the main "human evolution" page, but ... I'm surprised WP let this in. Now the quote given from Dawkins says "According to this theory", which does not mean that he actually endorses it, especially as Dawkins is very casual about using the word "theory" when he should say "hypothesis". I've just been looking at The Ancestor's Tale, and I don't think that he believes this. Mind you, I can't find the quote either, even with extensive use of the index for every key word that appears in it. Which is puzzling. Anyway, I should say that the suggestion that australopithecines are ancestral to humans, chimps, and gorillas is extremely speculative and should certainly not be stated as fact.
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