Did humans descend from other primates?

Creationism, Evolution, and other science issues

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McCulloch
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Did humans descend from other primates?

Post #1

Post by McCulloch »

otseng wrote: 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.
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Post #171

Post by otseng »

Goat wrote: Uh, Where does the evolutionary theory not predict this, and how does the 'creationist theory' predict a male bottleneck 150,000 years away from the female bottle neck?
I've asked before (several times actually) for a list of what the evolutionary theory states, a list of predictions, and a list of ways to falsify it. So, show where in this thread that this has been predicted.

Grumpy however has presented some predictions, which I've already falsified.

I do not claim that the human creation model would predict the time difference, but simply that this difference would exist.
I think you are getting all hung up because the male line and the female line has all these religious connotations to you.
The table can also be turned around. Opponents are hung up because of the religious connotations.

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Post #172

Post by Goat »

otseng wrote:
Goat wrote: Uh, Where does the evolutionary theory not predict this, and how does the 'creationist theory' predict a male bottleneck 150,000 years away from the female bottle neck?
I've asked before (several times actually) for a list of what the evolutionary theory states, a list of predictions, and a list of ways to falsify it. So, show where in this thread that this has been predicted.

Grumpy however has presented some predictions, which I've already falsified.

I do not claim that the human creation model would predict the time difference, but simply that this difference would exist.
I think you are getting all hung up because the male line and the female line has all these religious connotations to you.
The table can also be turned around. Opponents are hung up because of the religious connotations.
Ok. I will give one that is not just for humans, but for any species.

As you find fossils , there will be small changes between species. These 'small changes' will increase as the age of the fossil increases.. the further distant in time, the more we see 'adaptations', so the fossils will be less and less similar the bigger the distance in time. This is indicitive of small changes adding up to larger changes.
“What do you think science is? There is nothing magical about science. It is simply a systematic way for carefully and thoroughly observing nature and using consistent logic to evaluate results. So which part of that exactly do you disagree with? Do you disagree with being thorough? Using careful observation? Being systematic? Or using consistent logic?�

Steven Novella

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Post #173

Post by otseng »

nygreenguy wrote:
otseng wrote:
nygreenguy wrote: 400,000 thousand year old sculpture

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3047383.stm
Here is a picture of it:

Image

It is dubious that this is a man made sculpture. The articles also states:
"[Mr Bednarik] has effectively presented all the information necessary to show this is a naturally weathered rock," Professor Ambrose told BBC News Online.

I like your selective reading of the article.
Writing in the journal Current Anthropology, Robert Bednarik, president of the International Federation of Rock Art Organisations (IFRAO), suggests that the overall shape of the Tan-Tan object was fashioned by natural processes.

But he argues that conspicuous grooves on the surface of the stone, which appear to emphasise its humanlike appearance, are partially man-made. Mr Bednarik claims that some of these grooves were made by repeated battering with a stone tool to connect up natural depressions in the rock.
So the outline was naturally formed, but the grooves were man-made? Upon closer inspection, I also see the face of Mary on it. (Sorry, couldn't resist)

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Re: human creation model

Post #174

Post by McCulloch »

McCulloch wrote: All humanity has in common one woman estimated to have lived around 200,000 years ago and one man who probably lived between 90,000 and 60,000 years ago.
Nuclear DNA studies indicate that the size of the ancient human population never dropped below some tens of thousands.
otseng wrote: Would you agree that mtEve was not the only female on the planet 200,000 years ago?
Yes, I agree. mtEve was not the only female when she lived.
otseng wrote: If there were others, then it would need to be explained how all other female lineages died out.
No, it does not need to be explained, because it did not happen. mtEve was an unremarkable person of her generation. She had children, more than likely a few more than the average number. Her contemporaries also had children. Her children had children and her contemporaries' children had children. Some of her children mated with the children that were not from her lineage. Eventually, over many generations, the descendants of this one person intermarried and traveled and exchanged so much that all of humanity could call her one of their ancestors. Of course, we all have other ancestors, but this one is statistically important because her genes are in everyone. The other female lineages did not die out, however.

To clear up some of your misunderstandings, read up on pedigree collapse and Most recent common ancestor.
McCulloch wrote: Thus if the flood model was correct, all of humanity would be descended from one man (Noah) and four women (Noah's sons wives and Noah's wife who passed on her genes to Noah's three sons).
otseng wrote: All humanity is from one pair - Adam and Eve. During the flood, only 8 people survived. So, mankind's genes would trace back to these 8 and ultimately to one couple.
Yes, but my point is that the most recent common male ancestor, according to the flood model, of all humanity is Noah. The most recent common female ancestor, according to the flood model could be Eve. There are only about ten generations between Eve and Noah. Genetics show that there should be about 100,000 years between the most recent common female ancestor and the most recent common male ancestor. Not a mere ten generations.
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Re: human creation model

Post #175

Post by GrumpyMrGruff »

otseng wrote:
McCulloch wrote: All humanity has in common one woman estimated to have lived around 200,000 years ago and one man who probably lived between 90,000 and 60,000 years ago.
Nuclear DNA studies indicate that the size of the ancient human population never dropped below some tens of thousands.
Would you agree that mtEve was not the only female on the planet 200,000 years ago? If there were others, then it would need to be explained how all other female lineages died out. And only the same would need to be explained for yAdam.
McCulloch has already said it, but it is important to differentiate between genealogies of genes versus genealogies of people. Even within a healthy population not facing a population bottleneck, different alleles of certain genes (or variants of mtDNA) can go extinct by chance genetic drift- even when the various alleles are neutral and offer no relative survival advantage. mtEve may not always be our most recent common female ancestor - simply by genetic drift, another more recent woman could replace her. The same goes for yAdam.

For a good description of how drift affects mtDNA and the y-chromosome, I recommend reading this blog post.[1] I know the general policy is to repost relevant content, but the entire post is relevant to this discussion. See especially the figures regarding gene flow - the population stays approximately constant, but (by chance) one allele becomes the MRCA of the last population. This kind of gene genealogy is the focus of coalescent theory within population genetics.[2]
McCulloch wrote:Human origins seem to be from East Africa not the Middle East.
I addressed this here.
You only suggest that gene flow could be from the Mideast to Africa rather than vice versa. However, this conflicts with evidence. If you accept the premise that (in a world without global transit) there was little-to-no interbreeding among distant human migrants, it follows that a phylogeny of mitochondrial genes should reflect the migration pattern of humans. (This is because the isolated populations each accumulated their own mtDNA mutations and couldn't share them with other groups - leading to a hierarchy of mtDNA similarity that mirrors diverging migrant populations.)

This is a phylogeny of human mtDNA [3]:
Image
Figure 1: Observed human mtDNA phylogeny

Note that all the deepest divergences (according to molecular clocks) all take place within African populations. This suggests that the MRCA is within Africa. However, only one branch of the African population crosses into the Mideast (and subsequently diverges into the different migrant groups that populate the globe).

However, if mtEve was located in the Mideast rather than Africa, we would expect to see a pattern similar to this:
Image
Figure 2: A human mtDNA phylogeny consistent with Mideastern mtEve

In contrast with observation, this tree bifurcates into to distinct geographic groups very early on. The progenitor population of the L mtDNA lineages diverge from the rest of humanity and accumulate mutations independently in Africa. The remaining Mideastern population expands over the other continents.

You seem unduly skeptical about the ability of phylogeny to reconstruct species' lineages. (I haven't seen a counter argument save for 'a designer could've arranged gene sequences that way'.) How about phylogeny's ability to track lineages of non-interbreeding populations within a species? Does the logic hold? How do you account for this biogeographical pattern of similarity in mtDNA? This is basic population genetics applied to neutral mutations. All that is necessary to account for this pattern is mutation and reproductively isolated migrant human populations, and these data strongly suggest an African origin for those migrants.

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Post #176

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otseng
I've asked before (several times actually) for a list of what the evolutionary theory states, a list of predictions, and a list of ways to falsify it. So, show where in this thread that this has been predicted.

Grumpy however has presented some predictions, which I've already falsified.
You and I were speaking of two different ages of man's evolution, as I pointed out here. Prior to the rise of Homo Sapiens 200,000 years ago everything I said still applies. Of course, you claim man did not exist then, you are wrong.

Grumpy 8-)
Last edited by Grumpy on Tue Aug 24, 2010 1:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post #177

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Goat wrote: Just a few places.. a list of references on the wiki article for abiogensis.
[...]
Also 1n 2009:
This has been CONFIRMED in Dr. Jack Szostak's LAB. 2009 Nobel Laurette in medicine for his work on telomerase.

It's been 55 years since the Miller-Urey Experiment, and science has made enormous progress on solving the origin of life. This video summarizes one of the best leading models. Yes there are others. Science may never know exactly how life DID start, but we will know many ways how life COULD start. Don't be fooled by creationist arguments as even a minimal understanding of biology and chemistry is enough to realize they have no clue what they are talking about.

Note on how competition works. Water will flow across a membrane to try to equalize the ion concentration. If there is a lot of polymer in a vesicle it will be surrounded by many ions, thus causing water to flow into the vesicle, increasing the internal pressure and stretching the membrane. Fatty acids are in equilibrium between the vesicle and solution. If 2 vesicles are near one another they will gradually swap fatty acids. If one membrane is under tension, the fatty acid "on rate" will be greater than the "off rate" (move to a lower energy state by relaxing the pressure). It will suck up fatty acids from solution. The other vesicle will still give them off, but they will disappear (sucked up by neighbor) and not return. Therefore, the vesicle with high internal pressure will grow and the neighbor will shrink.
[center][youtube][/youtube][/center]

Bob

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Post #178

Post by SailingCyclops »

otseng wrote:
If we look at the evidence of cave drawings, the earliest they date back is to the tens of thousands of years.

"The oldest known cave is that of Chauvet, the paintings of which may be 32,000 years old according to radiocarbon dating."

"Cave paintings found at the "Apollo 11 caves" in Namibia may be among the earliest cave art. The estimated age of the images date from approximately 23,000 - 25,000 B.C."

In India, "The earliest paintings on the cave walls are believed to be of the Mesolithic period, dating to 12,000 years ago."

"The Padah-Lin Caves of Burma contain 11,000-year-old paintings and many rock tools."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_painting
[Cave or rock art] consists of engraved or painted works on open air rocks or on the floors, walls and ceilings of caves, some of them in deep and almost inaccessible crannies. They were created during the Upper Palaeolithic period (40,000 to 10,000 BC), and the best were done by what we call the Magdalenians (from the name of a site), peoples who flourished in Europe from 18,000 to 10,000 BC. Such works have a unity, and can be described as the Magdalenian art system, the first in human history. it was also the longest, lasting for more than two thirds of the total time when humans have produced art.
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/C/cave.html
The broader question is when did art itself become manifest? There is much evidence that it began between 300,000 and 700,000 years ago.
When Was Art First Created?
According to the latest paleo-archeological information, the oldest art was created by humans during the prehistoric Stone Age, between 300,000 and 700,000 years ago.
If one considers the artistic nature of early stone technology, then that has been shown to have existed about 1.6 million years ago:
From Cave Paintings to the Internet
Acheulean or Mode 2 Industries Circa 1,650,000 BCE – 100,000 BCE
Image
A flint biface, discovered in Saint-Acheul, France.
That's art in my book, and pre-dates any "tens of thousands of years" by an order of magnitude.

Bob

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Post #179

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otseng wrote:I believe that the entire world was flooded, so the human reset button was pressed at that time.
There is no evidence for this, so it must be relegated to "belief" and to myth.

Bob

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Post #180

Post by otseng »

nygreenguy wrote:
otseng wrote:If we are to only go by what has been observed, then we can also rule out macroevolution. Macroevolution would only be an extrapolation of microevolution, not something that we can observe.
Fossils are observation. Observation isnt just limited to guys in labs wearing white coats.
I didn't say fossils are unobservable. I said macroevolution is unobservable. Now, I understand that there are differing definitions for this term. What I mean by macroevolution is major novel morphological features between different species. "An example of macroevolution is the appearance of feathers during the evolution of birds from theropod dinosaurs."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution

As for speciation, as I've mentioned before, I have no problem with this. Some classify this as macroevolution, but I do not. And I'm not alone is this view.

"The process of speciation may fall within the purview of either, depending on the forces thought to drive it."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroevolution

Macroevolution is often explained as microevolution over a long period of time. And it typically involves scales of time much greater than what can be observed by man. This is what I mean by macroevolution being unobservable.
The reasons I would say that if a significant portion of ERVs are found to have beneficial functions would be an indicator of intentional design are two-fold. One is that neutral mutations would not be affected by natural selection, so there would be no mechanism to select them out. Another is that I do not see any evidence that harmful genetic mutations in humans are actually filtered out by any natural selection process.
We see it all the time in the lab and in the field. Have you seriously not seen it, or dont you agree with it? I could give you tons if you want.
There are two things I claimed:
1. Neutral mutations would not be affected by natural selection, so there would be no mechanism to select them out.
2. I do not see any evidence that harmful genetic mutations in humans are actually filtered out by any natural selection process.

Which one are you referring to?
Take for example sickle cell disease. There is no indication that it will eventually disappear by natural selection or any other genetically inherited diseases.
This is a bad example for a few reasons. One, we have modern medicine. Our medical techniques help save those who naturally would have died.
Even with modern medicine, is there an example that an inheritable genetic disease has been wiped out?
Then there is the fact it does offer some beneficial effect in malaria resistance. This also explains who the disease is more prevalent in people of african descent, than those of european or asian. Remember, in order to get rid of a harmful mutation, it must have an effect on fitness (ability to increase the proportion of your genes in the population). This is why diseases like huntingtons stick around. They really dont get bad until after breeding age.
In the US, malaria is not so common. And the few cases that do appear in the US are mostly a result of traveling from another country.
About 1,200 cases of malaria are diagnosed in the United States each year. Most are in persons entering the country for the first time or returning from foreign travel. A very small number of cases are the result of direct transmission involving mosquitoes that live in the United States. Most of these have occurred in Mexican farm workers living in California in poor conditions.
http://www.dhpe.org/infect/Malaria.html

So, there is not much benefit for Americans to have sickle cell disease.

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