did we evolve from apes?

[sooz]

Where do you stand on the old debate of 'humans and apes', did we evolve from apes, The law of physics says we do come from apes.

What do you think?

[mdkilmer]

We did not evolve from apes. Both we and apes evolved from a common ancestor.

[pilvikki]

i don't know... some people look an awful lot like our cousins...

i'm curious as to why it's important to know.

[Valleysailor]

I think I'm with kilmer on this one - I do not think we evolved from apes, but that both humans and apes perhaps share a common ancestry.
I have never thought it particularly important to know, but it has certainly been the source of much controversy over generations.

[pilvikki]

according to my favourite theory, we evolved via ocean living. this would explain why the missing link; the development of language and the hair on our heads.

some of the most intelligent mammals are/were ocean dwellers for some part of their history. this would include pigs, elephants, whales etc. unlike the latter, we moved back onto land and seemed to have lost several iq points....

[MargeC]

why why why why ????????????????????????
the four whyssssssssssssssss.

that's why it's important to know

He is well known for originating the four questions he believed should be asked of any animal behaviour, which were:

Proximate mechanisms:

1. Causation: what are the stimuli that elicit the response, and how has it been modified by recent learning? How do behaviour and psyche "function" on the molecular, physiological, neuro-ethological, cognitive and social level, and what do the relations between the levels look like? (compare: Nicolai Hartmann: "The laws about the levels of complexity")
2. Development (Ontogeny): how does the behaviour change with age, and what early experiences are necessary for the behaviour to be shown? Which developmental steps (the ontogenesis follows an "inner plan") and which environmental factors play when / which role? (compare: Recapitulation theory)
Ultimate mechanisms:

3. Evolution (Phylogeny): how does the behaviour compare with similar behaviour in related species, and how might it have arisen through the process of phylogeny? Why did structural associations (behaviour can be seen as a "time space structure") evolve in this manner and not otherwise?*
4. Function (Adaptation): how does the behaviour impact on the animal's chances of survival and reproduction?
In ethology and sociobiology causation and ontogeny are summarized as the "proximate mechanisms" and adaptation and phylogeny as the "ultimate mechanisms". They are still considered as the cornerstone of modern ethology, sociobiology and transdisciplinarity in Human Sciences.

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolaas_Tinbergen

humans and chimps, gorillas etc are all apes and evolved from common anscestors which were also apes.
the evidence for such an arrangement indisputable.

[MargeC]

I think I'm with kilmer on this one - I do not think we evolved from apes, but that both humans and apes perhaps share a common ancestry.
I have never thought it particularly important to know, but it has certainly been the source of much controversy over generations.

what common ancestor.......the donkey??? are you thick?

the anscestor of human beings, of which you (?) are one, and you don't think it's particularly important to establish what we came from....

if this is not pig ignorance, please, tell me what is.

[mdkilmer]

The common ancestor was an ape-like creature. To our human eyes, it was more ape. To an ape, it would appear more human.

From this creature both primates and apes evolved.

We humans evolved form the primate side of the branching.

If I remember correctly, orangutans are genetically our closest primate relatives, sharing more than 99% of our genes. Chimpanzees are next closest with about 99%. Other primates including gorillas and lemurs share varying lesser amounts.

Our Family Tree:
http://www.easytorecall.com/primates_family_tree.htm

[MargeC]

The common ancestor was an ape-like creature. To our human eyes, it was more ape. To an ape, it would appear more human.

From this creature both primates and apes evolved.

We humans evolved form the primate side of the branching.

If I remember correctly, orangutans are genetically our closest primate relatives, sharing more than 99% of our genes. Chimpanzees are next closest with about 99%. Other primates including gorillas and lemurs share varying lesser amounts.

Our Family Tree:
http://www.easytorecall.com/primates_family_tree.htm

sorry that's incorrect

[mdkilmer]

In what way is it incorrect? Are you arguing from a scientific view, or a religious one?

My post comprises the best-fit scenario of all known facts and takes no notice of religious creed or dogma. If religion is your argument base, then there can be no debate. If you have a new scientific fact that throws everything else out the window, I'd really like to see it.

[Silke]

the anscestor of human beings, of which you (?) are one, and you don't think it's particularly important to establish what we came from....

if this is not pig ignorance, please, tell me what is.

Classy, and so strait to the point, and it keeps to the case perfectly.

I happen to agree whole heartedly with VS. Why is it important to know? what may it teach us? It could be fun to know, but never important. It could give us a hint (but never more) of where we are headding, but we don´t have a say there anyway so why bother?

I understand why I should know how to cut bread, make bread and eat bread. I can understand why I should (to a limit) keep to the cutural codes. I know why it is important to learn how to swim, cook, clean and alot of other things. It let´s me survive. So tell me, why is it <b>important</b> for me to know what creature was my ancestor millions of years past?


PS: just so you know it by the way, the pig´s organs are so close to that of the humans that they can do research on it and know far more certain if we can use it on humans than they can with orangutans or chimpanzees. think about that before you call pigs ignorant.

[MargeC]

In what way is it incorrect? Are you arguing from a scientific view, or a religious one?

My post comprises the best-fit scenario of all known facts and takes no notice of religious creed or dogma. If religion is your argument base, then there can be no debate. If you have a new scientific fact that throws everything else out the window, I'd really like to see it.

an 'argument' consists of putting together a reasoned conclusion based on a synthesis of evidence, so given that religion is not based on reason, but largely on faith, I don't think one could be said to 'argue' from a religious perspective in this instance.

My 'argument' was that your post doesn't comprise the best-fit scenario of all known facts. The facts, which would surprise many people coming at this from a religious standpoint, are very detailed in terms of behavioural, paleontological, and genetic/biological evidence. But they don't match with what you say. Also, I'd point out that while I can *kind* of see a perspective that would allow for that chart you linked to, it's grossly misleading and most cladistic/taxonomic approaches would reject it. It certainly shouldn't be used as any kind of historical flow chart.

----
Silke, I am not normally so direct, I was still angry at the time with some ugly post made elsewhere by Valleysailor, which has since been removed.
I'm not sure how xenotransplanation from pigs to humans would exempt them from attack on intelligence grounds. Some of them can pull off 'Theory of Mind' tricks which no other non-human can, not even clever nh-apes, but they don't have personality, and personality goes a long way.

[MargeC]

ps, Silke, do you have kids? Are you going to have kids? I may have kids. They have a one in ten (ONE IN TEN!) chance of being born with a disorder of the autistic spectrum. This is a very disabling disorder which will impact all of their development and their personal, social, and occupational function. It is not really properly understood. To understand it, it is extremely important to know how our evolutionary history is comprised, in order to understand what specific components of our mental function are unique to us as humans, how and why they came to be, and how we can work around them if they are missing. If you hit that one in ten, and had an autistic kid, that function that should centrally differentiate your kid's mental function from that of a chimp, would be missing.
So try telling me then that you don't consider it important.

[sooz]

We did not evolve from apes. Both we and apes evolved from a common ancestor


What or who would you say is the common ancestor?

i don't know... some people look an awful lot like our cousins...

i'm curious as to why it's important to know.

I'm very curious to know where I came from it means a great deal to me to find out what I can.

I think I'm with kilmer on this one - I do not think we evolved from apes, but that both humans and apes perhaps share a common ancestry.
I have never thought it particularly important to know, but it has certainly been the source of much controversy over generations.

It certainly has been the source of much controversy over generations as it's an interesting and valuable part of our being. Don't you think?

according to my favourite theory, we evolved via ocean living. this would explain why the missing link; the development of language and the hair on our heads.

some of the most intelligent mammals are/were ocean dwellers for some part of their history. this would include pigs, elephants, whales etc. unlike the latter, we moved back onto land and seemed to have lost several iq points....

I've never heard of this theory, I'll have to run it by my lecturer tomorrow and get back to you on it.

[sooz]

Apes and humans differ from all of the other primates in that they lack external tails. They also are more intelligent and more dependent for survival on learned behavior patterns. The apes and humans are members of the same superfamily, the Hominoidea

Superfamily Hominoidea
- The oldest fossil closest to the stem group of the hominoidsmay be ?Aegyptopithecus zeuxis from Lower Oligocene of the Fayum basin west of Cairo (Egypt).
The earliest adequately known hominoid is Proconsul africanus, a baboon-sized species from Kenya (Carroll, 1988).
- None of the great apes ia a direct ancestors of humans.
- Pongidae (orang, Chimp and gorilla) & Hominidae (humans) are more similar than Pongidae & Cercopithecidae


- Human and Chimpanzee DNA sequences are 98.4 % the same.
- The 1.6 % difference is the product of separate evolutionary path for at least 6 million years (Stanford, 1999)
- Chimpanzees are closer to us than they are to gorillas.

http://www.uvm.edu/~jdecher/Lecture18.html

[pilvikki]

sooz: Descent of Woman - Elaine Morgan.

she bases her theory on the work of.... drat, i can't remember who the prof was! i read the book in the 70's-80's, so i'm using that for my excuse. everybody else ignored the concept, but to her [and me] it makes perfect sense.

why i don't really care about this ancestry bit any more is that nobody seems to have definitive proof any which way. did we comes from the stars? did we get created on a lazy sunday afternoon? are apes our ancestors? do we have a common ancestor with apes? was i really married to a descendant of T-rex, or did it just seem that way?

many people take it as a personal insult to be compared to apes or pigs or dogs or whatever. many people also get offended to having been put on equal footing with blacks, whites, orientals, jews, katkari. why? are we each so wonderful and so far above any other inhabitant on this tiny planet?

hogwash.

bring me definite proof, not theories! oh, but darn, you can't, for we are still missing the link, which may or may not be fishfood.

now, marge and VS, do you have a crush going or what???

[Silke]

MargeC: No, I don´t have kids, but I do have experience with autism. Diffrent autist are attacked on diffrent areas, and the common thing is that they are great on one area on the cost of others (i.e social abilities ol). I don´t belive we must go back to the apes to find the answer to that.

and as vikki say... we do have the missing link, and without it most other speculatives are futile. Ofcourse if I ever get one of those kids I will read up on it alittle more, but as for what I know now I know that there are no ways to medicine it away, or use theraphy to make it go away either. I know you need to accept the thing and adapt your life to the child, and not make it adapt it´s life to yours as you usually do with "normal" kids. I know many parents of autistic children never seem to grasp that tiny fact.

[sooz]

I asked the question and I've enjoyed the answers, I've also surfed the net and came across a few different opinions on the whole "evolve from apes" theory.........to be honest I don't know what to think, the whole topic is a very complexed issue and will probably be debatable for years to come. I do believe scientists will work it out one of these days.

Thanks everyone

[MargeC]

I asked the question and I've enjoyed the answers, I've also surfed the net and came across a few different opinions on the whole "evolve from apes" theory.........to be honest I don't know what to think, the whole topic is a very complexed issue and will probably be debatable for years to come. I do believe scientists will work it out one of these days.

Thanks everyone

It's worked out. The evidence is very clear. We evolved from apes. We share a common ancestor with the chimp and that anscestor shares a common anscestor with the gorilla. It's not a 'guess': it's the very very best conclusion to be reached from the ample evidence available. Evolutionary science has never had it so good. It's just that it hasn't trickled down to 'Hello' magazine yet.

=====
the link to autism is not blindingly obvious, but you begin to wonder when you see how many of hundreds of top evolutionary scientists have a massive finger in the autism/child development pie, and vice versa.

Autism is not well understood. The neural underpinnings (and the problem will have a neural substrate) are only being exposed in the last couple of years (probably mirror neurons). The way they interact with other parts of the brain to cause autism-spectrum social/development problems are not known. What IS known is that despite there being very few specific basic things that humans can do that chimps cannot do, the things that they CANNOT do, autistic children also cannot do. We do not really even understand what allows normal humans to do it. THEREFOR, given that chimps are our closest living nonhuman relatives, it seems more than reasonable to look at the intervening years of human evolutionary development, and see what changes happened to the brain that allowed us to develop these skills, missing in autistics. It could be social, technical, language, or action-matching.
Until you find the answer, a large proportion of children suffer badly from dark and empty lives, so until something else comes along I'm more than happy to look at the possibilities above.

[MargeC]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology

Autism may have some adaptive benefits. However, only a small proportoin of autistic people are 'idiots savants', with special skills. It's just that the latter get a lot of press attention.