Did humans descend from other primates?

[McCulloch]

Man did not descend from the primates.

Did humans descend from other primates?
Are humans primates or should there be special biological taxonomy for humanity?
Please cite evidence.

[Fisherking]

I'm glad to see that even you are willing to say that evolutionist professors do not seem to know what they are talking about.

I haven't been following along very closely, but I would like to point out that just because someone believes in evolution, or even studies evolution, doesn't mean they always actually know the details of more specific theories or hypotheses generated by the broader theory of evolution (if they even know the ins and outs of that). In many cases, even educated believers of evolution can get the details horribly wrong and "don't seem to know what they are talking about". This is to me very little different than believers in the Bible who haven't actually read most of it.

That does not, however, mean all evolutionists professors do not know what they are talking about.

Nor does in mean that all evolutionist professors do know anything about what they are talking about.

[Zeeby]

Certain, given enough time. Eventually the population of Earth would be forced to stabilise due to lack of resources, and then the process highlighted above takes over.

Really the question is whether the (insert estimate) number of years since mtEve lived is plausible for all other lines to be removed - as obviously it wouldn't back up the model if it took 20million generations or something crazy. Regarding that, I would have a hard time giving a probability, as it depends on largely unknowable factors such as
- fairly precise population history (size, distribution)
- particular diseases, natural disasters, etc
so the uncertainty on any result would be massive.

No, I'm not asking for how many years it would take for one female line to take over (though if you want to calculate that I wouldn't object).

Simply given the assumptions that you have already coded into your simulation, determine the odds of starting from 5000 females to drop to only 1 in 1000 generations. Basically all you have to do is run the simulation a bunch of times (the more the better). Then compare the total run counts to the number of runs where it drops down to one female line.

Such a question effectively is asking how long it would take - in this case you are asking whether 1000 generations is 'enough' for it to happen with any chance. As I discussed, such a request will give irrelevant results in light of limitations in the model.

In light of this, this paragraph should not carry any persuasive power at all: my model would almost never drop to 1 female line in 1000 generations. To drop to 50 generations from 5000 would take roughly the same time (perhaps less) as to drop from 50 to 1, due to the model population slowly increasing from 5000 females. So no, in my model, 1000 generations is statistically unreasonable to drop from 5000 to 1. In real life, I am unequipped to make a comment.

I didn't really anticipate getting caught up in the finer points of population modelling with this - my point was solely that the intuitive idea that 5000 females each have a good chance of producing unbroken female lines is false.

[ChaosBorders]

Certain, given enough time. Eventually the population of Earth would be forced to stabilise due to lack of resources, and then the process highlighted above takes over.

Really the question is whether the (insert estimate) number of years since mtEve lived is plausible for all other lines to be removed - as obviously it wouldn't back up the model if it took 20million generations or something crazy. Regarding that, I would have a hard time giving a probability, as it depends on largely unknowable factors such as
- fairly precise population history (size, distribution)
- particular diseases, natural disasters, etc
so the uncertainty on any result would be massive.

No, I'm not asking for how many years it would take for one female line to take over (though if you want to calculate that I wouldn't object).

Simply given the assumptions that you have already coded into your simulation, determine the odds of starting from 5000 females to drop to only 1 in 1000 generations. Basically all you have to do is run the simulation a bunch of times (the more the better). Then compare the total run counts to the number of runs where it drops down to one female line.

Such a question effectively is asking how long it would take - in this case you are asking whether 1000 generations is 'enough' for it to happen with any chance. As I discussed, such a request will give irrelevant results in light of limitations in the model.

In light of this, this paragraph should not carry any persuasive power at all: my model would almost never drop to 1 female line in 1000 generations. To drop to 50 generations from 5000 would take roughly the same time (perhaps less) as to drop from 50 to 1, due to the model population slowly increasing from 5000 females. So no, in my model, 1000 generations is statistically unreasonable to drop from 5000 to 1. In real life, I am unequipped to make a comment.

I didn't really anticipate getting caught up in the finer points of population modelling with this - my point was solely that the intuitive idea that 5000 females each have a good chance of producing unbroken female lines is false.

Might be worth noting Mitochondrial Eve is estimated to have lived 200,000 years ago. That's roughly 10,000 generations.

Might also be pertinent to note:

One of the misconceptions of mitochondrial Eve is that since all women alive today descended in a direct unbroken female line from her that she was the only woman alive at the time.[9][10] However nuclear DNA studies indicate that the size of the ancient human population never dropped below some tens of thousands;[9] there were many other women around at Eve's time with descendants alive today, but somewhere in all their lines of descent there is at least one man (and men do not pass on their mothers' mitochondrial DNA to their children). By contrast, Eve's lines of descent to each person alive today includes at least one line of descent to each person which is purely matrilineal.

[Grumpy]

otseng

Grumpy wrote:

Juan Luis Arsuaga does not seem to know what he is talking about, almost everything in the cite is wrong.

He is a professor in the Paleontology Department at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid who is an evolutionist.

I don't care what his title is, the cite you posted was completely false...

"We are unique and alone now in the world. There is no other animal species that truly resembles our own. A physical and mental chasm separates us from all other living creatures. There is no other bipedal mammal. No other mammal controls and uses fire, writes books, travels in space, paints portraits, or prays. This is not a question of degree. It is all or nothing[ 1 ]; there is no semi-pedal animal[ 2 ], none that makes only small fires[ 3 ], writes only short sentences[ 4 ], builds only rudimentary spaceships[ 5 ], draws just a little bit[ 6 ], or prays just occasionally[ 7 ]. "

1+2. Bobobos are about midway between chimps and man, it's in the structure of the hips.

1+3 Bonobos, again

1+4Bonobos, gorillas, chimps, orangutans and maybe even dolphins and whales show some ability to use language.

1+5 Ridiculous, neither could your great grandparents, but they could use tools. And many animals use tools, even crows.

1+6 Elephants turn out to be quite good at "drawing a little".

1+7 How would you know? Do you read animal minds?

Yes, Juan Luis Arsuaga is an evolutionist. You asked for a list of differences and I supplied one. Strangely that even though I quote from an evolutionist that there's an automatic disagreement with it. I submit that it's because it reveals a bias against any source that I present.

No, it is demonstrably wrong, as I show above. There are lots of people who have degrees but they are just factually wrong, Arsuaga is one of these judging solely by the cite you made.

Though I am glad to see you are finally admitting that the use of fire is an indication of being human. Man has used fire for over a million years and all creatures that use fire must be considered human. That's progress.

Where did I ever say that animals can control fire?

Didn't say you did. As I said, any creature which controlled fire was a Human, no matter what name his species is called(Neadertals controlled fire, therefore human). And fireplaces over a million years old exist where we have found various hominids, therefore humans(our ancestors or cousins)existed over a million years ago, even though modern humans(judged on brain size and vocal apparatus developement) only appear 200,000 years ago, with Homo Sapiens Sapiens(us) showing up ~75,000 years ago.

Your original statement is wrong, go far enough back in time and we were simply upright walking primates not so different from chimps or bonobos(brain size wise)and any division between us and them is arbitrary and artificial. And the fossil record shows a continuous line of morphological changes between the hominids of that time and now. We did descend from the primates that walked upright, who had a common ancestor with the other apes.

Grumpy

[McCulloch]

Mitochondrial DNA is only passed from mother to child.

If other lineages other than Eve bred and did not die out, it would not be possible for their mitochontrial DNA to trace to Eve. It would rather be an odd piece of the puzzle that would not be able to fit into the mtEve pattern.

Let's take an example of two females - Eve and Fran. Eve names her children Eve and Everest. Fran names her children Fran and Francis. All subsequent descendents of Eve continue to name their children Eve and Everest. Same from Fran. Fran has children with Everest, so their children would be Fran and Francis. Eve has children with Francis, so their children would be Eve and Everest. There would be an unbroken female line from the first Eve to all other Eves and Everests. Likewise for the Fran line.

What you would expect after many generations is that there would be a population of a bunch of Eve, Everest, Fran, and Francis. But if after many generations, all you have is Eve and Everest, then it would need to be explained how did the Fran line die out. For human evolutionary theory, it would have to also explain how did all the other female lines die out.

What I believe to be the more parsimonious explanation is that there was no Fran (or any other females) to begin with and all originated from a single female.

You are looking at it backwards. At the time, there was nothing special about mtEve.
Consider all the humans alive today on Earth, call this set humans alive today. Next, consider the set of all those women who were the mothers of the all the humans alive today. This set, lets call it moms consists of only women. And the set of moms are not all in the set of humans alive today. Finally, the size of set of moms is never larger than the size of set humans alive today. This is because of the simple fact that each of us has only one mother. It is however overwhelmingly more likely that the size of set moms is much smaller than that of set humans alive today. This is because each woman usually has more than one child.
Now repeat these observations with the set of grandmothers. This set will consist of only women, and will be no larger (and very likely smaller) than the set of moms.
Continue this process. There will come a point when the set will consist of smaller and smaller number of women, until we finally come to a single woman who is related to all members in our original set via the transitive-closure of the mother-of relation. There is nothing special about her. Had we chosen to follow the father-of relation, we would have hit the Y-chromosome Adam (more on him later). Had we chosen to follow combinations of mother-of and father-of relations, we would have hit some other of our common ancestors. The only reason why the mother-of relationship seems special is because we can track it using the evidence of mitochondrial DNA.
Thus there must exist a single woman whose is the matrilineal most-recent common ancestor of everyone in set of humans alive today.

Also important to keep in mind is that while the final set of uber grandmother has only one member (the Mitochondrial Eve), she was by no means the only living woman on Earth during her lifetime. Some other women could have lived with her, but they either did not leave descendants or did not leave descendants via the matrilineal line, who are still alive today. The fact that none of those other women left descendants from their matrilineal line, then it is not an expression of a highly improbable event, but merely a mathematical necessity. If one of them had left matrilineal descendants, then that would not change the facts of the necessity of mEve, just require the calculation to be pushed back some generations.

The existence of the Mitochondrial Eve is no longer in any doubt. It is a mathematical necessity. What is still being discussed is the estimation of how long ago she lived. Determining her age requires an accurate calibration of the molecular clock and there is some disagreement here. Not quite so much disagreement as the creationists would have us believe, however.

[Goat]

Mitochondrial DNA is only passed from mother to child.

If other lineages other than Eve bred and did not die out, it would not be possible for their mitochontrial DNA to trace to Eve. It would rather be an odd piece of the puzzle that would not be able to fit into the mtEve pattern.

Let's take an example of two females - Eve and Fran. Eve names her children Eve and Everest. Fran names her children Fran and Francis. All subsequent descendents of Eve continue to name their children Eve and Everest. Same from Fran. Fran has children with Everest, so their children would be Fran and Francis. Eve has children with Francis, so their children would be Eve and Everest. There would be an unbroken female line from the first Eve to all other Eves and Everests. Likewise for the Fran line.

What you would expect after many generations is that there would be a population of a bunch of Eve, Everest, Fran, and Francis. But if after many generations, all you have is Eve and Everest, then it would need to be explained how did the Fran line die out. For human evolutionary theory, it would have to also explain how did all the other female lines die out.

What I believe to be the more parsimonious explanation is that there was no Fran (or any other females) to begin with and all originated from a single female.

You are looking at it backwards. At the time, there was nothing special about mtEve.
Consider all the humans alive today on Earth, call this set humans alive today. Next, consider the set of all those women who were the mothers of the all the humans alive today. This set, lets call it moms consists of only women. And the set of moms are not all in the set of humans alive today. Finally, the size of set of moms is never larger than the size of set humans alive today. This is because of the simple fact that each of us has only one mother. It is however overwhelmingly more likely that the size of set moms is much smaller than that of set humans alive today. This is because each woman usually has more than one child.
Now repeat these observations with the set of grandmothers. This set will consist of only women, and will be no larger (and very likely smaller) than the set of moms.
Continue this process. There will come a point when the set will consist of smaller and smaller number of women, until we finally come to a single woman who is related to all members in our original set via the transitive-closure of the mother-of relation. There is nothing special about her. Had we chosen to follow the father-of relation, we would have hit the Y-chromosome Adam (more on him later). Had we chosen to follow combinations of mother-of and father-of relations, we would have hit some other of our common ancestors. The only reason why the mother-of relationship seems special is because we can track it using the evidence of mitochondrial DNA.
Thus there must exist a single woman whose is the matrilineal most-recent common ancestor of everyone in set of humans alive today.

Also important to keep in mind is that while the final set of uber grandmother has only one member (the Mitochondrial Eve), she was by no means the only living woman on Earth during her lifetime. Some other women could have lived with her, but they either did not leave descendants or did not leave descendants via the matrilineal line, who are still alive today. The fact that none of those other women left descendants from their matrilineal line, then it is not an expression of a highly improbable event, but merely a mathematical necessity. If one of them had left matrilineal descendants, then that would not change the facts of the necessity of mEve, just require the calculation to be pushed back some generations.

The existence of the Mitochondrial Eve is no longer in any doubt. It is a mathematical necessity. What is still being discussed is the estimation of how long ago she lived. Determining her age requires an accurate calibration of the molecular clock and there is some disagreement here. Not quite so much disagreement as the creationists would have us believe, however.

What is not being acknowledged is that in a group of individuals, one mt-dna set can replace another one, with the genetic material of the other 'family' of individuals still being passed on.

One item that is not being address is the fact , while there might be some disagreement about the speed of the genetic clock, the last common ancestor of the microcephalin, a gene that regulates brain growth, is 5 times older than the oldest Mt-dna ancestor. The last common ancestor for the Mt-dna gene, with the current best knowledge for the molecular clock is 200,000 years old. The last common ancestor for microcephalin gene is a MILLION years ago.

That does not fit the 'creation' model at all, and it falsifies it.

[Grumpy]

Goat

The last common ancestor for microcephalin gene is a MILLION years ago.

Hmmm, sometime around the time homo developed the control of fire. Coincidence? Hardly.

Grumpy

[Goat]

Goat

The last common ancestor for microcephalin gene is a MILLION years ago.

Hmmm, sometime around the time homo developed the control of fire. Coincidence? Hardly.

Grumpy

Maybe, or maybe not. The variation of the gene I am talking about made it into the modern human species about 35,000 years ago from breeding with an archaic form of humans (probably neanderthal)... and now 80% of the Asian/European population has that gene.

[otseng]

Sorry about the delay. The real world intruded for a bit.

No problem. It intrudes quite often on me too.

We cannot observe accumulations of genotypic/phenotypic variation which occur on super-human timescales. We can observe organisms with different morphologies over time (fossils) and a hierarchical pattern of genotypic similarity in living organisms. We can apply observable mechanisms – drift, mutation, and natural selection – to parsimoniously connect the dots between observations.

Most of the dots that needs to be connected are from fossils. Yet, there is a severe lack of genetic information from fossils to be able to connect the dots genetically. So, the processes that you mention (drift, mutation, natural selection) would not be applicable to the fossil record.

Note that I am proceeding under the assumption (which I haven't seen you dispute) that the most parsimonious (and therefore the best) method available for making inferences about the past (especially the prehistoric past) is to extrapolate backward from known, observed mechanisms.

I would say that parsimony would be one element in determining the best explanation, but not the only factor.

Further, I am not suggesting that a designer be dismissed because it cannot be observed. I am suggesting that it is a less parsimonious explanation because such designers have not been observed. Invoking a designer requires more unconfirmed mechanisms than evolution and is less therefore parsimonious.

The evidence for a designer spans many other areas, other than just this topic we are considering. So, in terms of parsimony, there is one common explanation that addresses many issues (eg origin of universe, anthropic coincidences, fine-tuning). Not only is it a parsimonious explanation when viewed across multiple disciplines, it has the most explanatory power.

I agree that a supernatural designer cannot and have not been observed. But, in neither case would it mean that it should be dismissed. As you've stated "we cannot observe accumulations of genotypic/phenotypic variation which occur on super-human timescales". And this conclusion is not automatically dismissed by you since it is unobservable. So, observability should not really come into play in determining the validity of an explanation.

You have brought up this macro/micro distinction without illustrating any mechanistic difference between the two.

I do not claim that there exists any natural mechanism to account for macroevolution. The distinction is that genetic changes/natural selection can only account for microevolutionary changes. It cannot account for macroevolutionary changes.

And if you do claim that it can account for it, then the burden is for you to show that it can produce such changes.

This seems like a category error, because the parsimony of an explanation does not require that anyone observe an unobservable (by definition) process. Rather, the parsimony of an explanation requires that the underlying mechanisms be observable.

I do not believe that I've stated anywhere that it is a requirement to be able to observe an unobservable process.

You seem to be saying that I am employing a double standard invoking an unobservable mechanism

That would be true.

Conversely, you haven’t described any mechanisms of the proposed designer (and to my knowledge we haven’t observed the designer in action).

I think we covered this before. It is not necessary to know how something was created to infer that it was created.

How does the designer provide a more parsimonious explanation with fewer unknowns? (What known mechanisms are you extrapolating from?)

If one looks across multiple disciplines, there are certainly fewer unknowns with a supernatural designer than natural processes.

What I have shown is that from human experience in the domestication of animals, there is not much significant change in morphological features in animals to account for common descent.

You've provided an example spanning a few millennia. The timespan in question is millions of years. Why should we expect to see the same degree (quantitative) of genotypic change (and corresponding phenotypic change) on human timescales? Again, unless you will describe a difference of mechanism for macroevolution (i.e., why you have reason to suspect observed mechanisms are incapable of accounting for the diversity among species), you aren't making much of a case against the validity of the evolutionary extrapolation. The whole purpose of this exercise is to extrapolate beyond historic timescales (many times the scope of all recorded human experience, which goes back only some thousands of years).

Here we can apply your principle of observable processes and extrapolation. If we apply what we observe to millions of years, the consistent position would be that the same result would occur - there would not be much significant change in morphological features. If you state that there would be significant morphological change, then it would be in conflict of what we observe.

I think that macro/micro is as arbitrary a categorical distinction as species.

On this, I would agree with you.

How does your micro/macro distinction help us understand anything?

Because if all life arose from a single cell, then it would somehow have to account for major novel morphological features found in all organisms since the first cell.

[otseng]

As I commented above, I think the best anyone can do is appeal to parsimony for model discrimination.

All things being equal, that would be reasonable. However, I've presented claims and predictions specifically for human origins. And there is no equivalent model from a naturalistic perspective other than presenting the general theory of evolution. Since no competing theory regarding human origins has been presented, all things are not equal and parsimony cannot be invoked.

Thus far you have been reluctant to discuss the designer’s tools (or we can call them mechanisms if you dislike ‘tools’).

To be clear, I do not know the "mechanism" or "tools" the designer used to create humans.

Trivially, if one posits a ‘designer that created all life such that it appears the way it appears,’ it is unfalsifiable (besides being tautological). This statement also has zero explanatory power.

And likewise, if one posits "life evolved so that those that exist had reproductive advantage over the others and those didn't exist did not have reproductive advantages" would be unfalsifiable and tautological.

And since nobody is claiming any of these things, this is not a valid point for discussion.

In a previous post, you state that your skepticism regarding the evolutionary explanation for diversity of species stems from the inability to differentiate analogous and homologous structures. I’m not saying that you’ve argued the following specifically, but one could claim all animals (or all primates, or just humans) were specially created with the observed patterns of genetic and morphological similarity and no one could never falsify this statement.

My claim would be easy to refute, just produce an objective method to differentiate analogous and homologous features.

Conversely, we have no reason to accept a model with zero explanatory power (and zero corresponding falsifiability). Sure, all organisms’ genes could be analogous creations of a designer (unfalsifiable).

Let's bring the discussion closer to home and avoid presenting strawman arguments. I've provided ways to falsify my model.

What reason do we have to think so? How parsimonious is this explanation in the absence of a known design mechanism for generating this pattern of analogous diversity?

You have yet to establish that evolution can generate analogous diversity.

The only way I can currently think of to falsify what I claim using molecular genetic evidence is what I stated earlier - "Genetic changes from one species to another and leading to humans are identified." For the purposes of this discussion, just the genetic steps from the common primate ancestor to humans would suffice to falsify the Human Creation Model. I would agree that modern genetics is not able to do this now. But, if it's ever done in the future, the model I proposed would be falsified.

Granting for the sake of argument that a viable evolutionary trajectory between chimps and humans could be found, it would not falsify claims of special creation for the reason given above.

No, I would accept that my model would be falsified if it can be produced in the future.

Saying, for example, that mankind originated in the Mideast is at best a corollary to the premises of your model because it does not describe any new data we may collect (i.e., it’s not a prediction about the future).

The predictions are not necessarily predictions on data that we may collect, but simply logical steps from the claims of the model itself. Also, the data to support my model has only surfaced recently. The model would still be applicable before any of the data was found.

Describing (based on your model) what patterns of new data (archaeological, biological, anthropological) may yet be uncovered in the present day would constitute a prediction.

And what would be such predictions for human evolution?

You have yet to show that your model is even capable of providing similar predictions and falsification criteria.

I've produced my model quite clearly with predictions and falsifications. If your model with predictions has been produced, I've missed it.

Again, if you dislike ‘tools,’ how about mechanisms? I’m not talking about knowing the brand name of jackhammer used to carve Teddy’s nose, but rather the assortment of mechanisms available to fashion the sculpture.

If it was a supernatural agent, there'd be no way for me to know what tools or mechanism that the designer used.

Let’s extend your Rushmore example. Mount Rushmore is suddenly transported to a mountain range on a distant planet. It is the metaphorical watch on Paley’s now-cosmic beach. An alien flies by. It has never seen humans (or human faces) – heck, it doesn’t even have eyes. How can it determine that Rushmore is artificial? Minimally, it needs to know the potential mechanisms used to construct it (contra the natural processes of the planet that may’ve formed it). If you disagree, would you please explain?

My only point is that it is not necessary to know how something is created to posit that it was created. Going into the area of design will be a long road that is not really on topic with this thread.

If [identification of all intermediate genomes between species] is even impossible in principle, then there'd be no way to unequivocally prove common descent through genetic evidence.

The scientific method never proves anything. You know that.

Yes, I know that. But, often evolutionists (and those participating in this thread) will state that evolution is a fact.

I’ve already shown how it may be falsified.

I think the discussion on this has been placed on hold for now.

If this is true (and if it's impossible to know the genome of extinct organisms), then it'd be impossible to construct a tree of life diagram based on genetics.

This is incorrect. Phylogeny constructs trees based on the nested hierarch of genetic similarity in compared sequences.

I'm talking about extinct organisms. How can the tree of life be constructed based off the genome of extinct organisms?

I’d appreciate if you'd point out where you’ve offered “definitive proof,� because such proof is impossible within a scientific framework.

To me, these would show that human evolution occurred:
- A gradual transition is found from animals to humans in the fossil record.
- Genetic changes from one species to another and leading to humans are identified.

I’ve explained how known mechanisms can account for the genotypic (hence phenotypic) diversity of life and what new data can falsify this model.

I missed where you explained it. All I've seen is an extrapolation of microevolution.

But, if you say that [reconstructing the extinct genomes from known genomes] would be impossible even in principle in the future, then I'll defer to you to provide methods to prove common descent.

You’re being a bit careless with ‘proof’ again. I can see this going back and forth for a long time. Do you agree that mechanistic, falsifiable, parsimonious explanations are the best we can do?

Words can sometimes get in the way. We'll use your terminology of "conclusive evidence" instead of "prove".

If so, I think I’ve already made my case that evolution provides the most parsimonious explanation. I’m waiting for you to make yours.

I've made my case in this post and my previous post.

One might see [competing hominid phylogenies] as evidence of human evolution. I see it as evidence of the intractability of being able to coming to a consensus of arranging hominid evolution to man.

My purpose with this figure was to show that you are demanding too high a resolution from necessarily incomplete data.

This is the same explanation that Darwin gave when the fossil record did not show gradual changes. After more than 150 years, the problem still exists.

If one goes on the data alone, one cannot determine a consistent hominid phylogeny. One possible explanation is that the data is incomplete. However, another possibility is that there is no such relationship. So, another prediction of the human creation model is that no matter how many more hominid fossils are found in the future, it would not reveal one hominid phylogeny.