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Chimps Belong in Human Genus?
Bradley Chapman writes "I found this interesting story from Discovery News about our ties with chimpanzees. Excerpts: 'Chimpanzees share 99.4 percent of functionally important DNA with humans and belong in our genus, Homo, according to a recent genetic study.
Scientists analyzed 97 human genes, along with comparable sequences from chimps, gorillas, orangutans and Old World monkeys (a group that includes baboons and macaques). The researchers then took the DNA data and estimated genetic evolution over time. They determined that humans and chimps shared a common ancestor between 4 and 7 million years ago. That ancestor diverged from gorillas 6 to 7 million years ago.'" Genus is the next step up from species, if you recall your taxonomy. Humans are the only living species in genus homo, currently.
Chimpanzees share 99.4 percent of functionally important DNA with humans and belong in our genus, Homo, according to a recent genetic study. Scientists analyzed 97 human genes, along with comparable sequences from chimps, gorillas, orangutans and Old World monkeys (a group that includes baboons and macaques).
We've only fully mapped the human genome so far. I bet if we fully mapped the chimp genome, we'd see many many more entries in the diff log than we thought.
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
Wolves are genetically identical to Dogs. You can't tell the difference (Hence the bizzarre laws used against wolf/dog hybrids). But I don't see anyone pushing to call a wolf a dog, do you?
This is just plain stupid. And so are the people who are backing it.
A new insult: "You're the other kind of homo."
(sorry, couldn't resist)
Developers: We can use your help.
The repulicans will like this... Another 50 million that pay taxes... Oh, "taxonomy" is something else... sorry!
There are already plenty on chumps in it already
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
I have no doubt...
- Arwen, I'm your father, Agent Smith.
- Well, you're just Smith, but my father is Aerosmith!
But that on the condition that i can downgrade some humans to monkey.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
People don't seem to realize that we didn't actually evolve from chimps, but we actually are related in the way that we split off in the evolutionary timeline from the same predecessor. Why not put them in the same Genus as us? They've had just as much time to evolve.
It is still amazing to me that the scientific community has such antiquated ideas about how unique and exceptional humans are. It seems obvious to anyone who understands evolution and genetic drift that we are simply another version of an already successful line of monkeys.
Fnord.sig
to see if they can make babies?
I think Senator Santorum needs to open an investigation into whether public tax money is being spent researching Homo chimps.
I've often wondered if some of the people I see driving on the freeway belong in the Human Genus, based purely on their lack of motor ability. If those people can make into that classification then surely our furry, feces-throwing relatives can make it. (I'm talking about the chimps, here.)
If you want to believe that you are almost a chimpanzee, that's fine, but I'm not believing. Note that the researchers ignored DNA that is not expressive. That may be a sensible idea, or it may be that the ignored DNA expresses itself in a way that has not been discovered.
Why does this come accross as a interesting idea when we only have so much materials based on the carbon existence that the puzzle of life just makes sense that we are simular to other species. More interesting if we had some alien dna to examine.
e ctures/ch em/chem.html
Link:
http://www.mrs.umn.edu/~goochv/CellBio/l
All over North America, greasy rednecks with pimpish moustaches and long mullets are saying "What 're them scientist-types saying? They're calling me "homo"? I'm gonna kick all their asses."
Trolling is a art,
Goodman added, "In terms of culture, social behavior, language and other factors, we share many things in common with chimpanzees."
There was a guy at a nursing home I worked at that would throw poop at the staff.
First they discover that fish can feel pain - and now this! Damn science! What am I supposed to eat?
Well, it may not be completely stinky, but it is close.
Our current system for categorizing the inhabitants of this is long outdated and is based largely on phsycal characteristics of the components on the creature, rather than the stuff it is actually made up of.
We find we've had to tweak this existing system to make new species fit. We've even had to add new kindoms! Many species bridge, these categories making them all the more harder to classify.
A better, more accurate, system needs to be devised based on current technologies that classify based on genetic code. The point of a classification system would be to allow us to draw similarities in creatures while studying them based on available data for ones in the same category. A genetic model would be very beneficial for this very reason.
IMHO.
For what it is worth, the raw similarity in the genome sequence doesn't need to indicate the same degree of similarity. Transcription is quite complex (much of it we still don't understand) and it is possible that small differences in regulatory regions can cause completely different parts of the sequence to be expressed.
A little of topic but a few days ago the result of Italian research project was published. The result of DNA comparisons between Neanderthals and Humans found that most likely no interbreeding have occured.
Help fight continental drift.
KWYJIBO (n.): a big, dumb, balding, North American ape with no chin.
Twenty three points, plus double word score, plus, sixty points for using all my letters. I win.
Where could I download this new patch ? I need an update.
The Antropomorphic principle is the name given by a tendency by us humans to believe that our situation is unique. It goes from believing in our divine origin, to the earth is the centre of the universe (Ptolomeic) to the sun is the centre of the universe (Copernicus), to the current incantation of the big bang (Gamow) with an ever expanding universe.
Placing humans in their own genus seems to fit right along those lines. We are unique, and no other animal deserves to be even close to us...
Original Submitter:
"Chimpanzees [...] belong in our genus, Homo"
Editor:
"Humans are the only living species in genus homo, currently."
Insert lamentation on the quality of Slashdot editorial review here.
My ass is so hairy!
Why worry? Each of us is wearing an unlicensed "nucular" accelerator on his back.
Sig changed for readability by G.W.
Keep your filthy hands off my genus, you damn dirty chimps.
I'm sure the creationists will pitch a fit if chimps are reclassified. I wonder if there would be any legal ramifications regarding the rights of chimps compared to other animals.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Humans are the only living species in genus homo, currently.
If we are the only species, that would make us "homo genus".
People who disagree with you are not automatically evil, greedy, or stupid.
So we're all a bunch of homos?
Chr0m0Dr0m!C
What I have always wondered -- if you can cross a Horse, zebra, or donkey -- couldn't you cross a human with a chimp? Has anyone ever tried this?
Is there some web page out there that has information on this?
I am curious.
Not that I am curious enough to try :)
I've heard in science classes from high school to college that there's barely a difference in a bacteria's DNA and ours. So 99.4% is the magic number?
Vote for global prefs bug
We're turning over lots of taxonomies based on some cladistics-minded genetics lately. National Geographic threw in a chart and a couple of pages about re-grouping mammals a while back.
The chimps percentage might be a bit higher than we usually hear, but that number's basically been around. (Question is, how could our definition of a genus be this open to debate?)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
This is just the White House doing damage control.
Kings Play Chess On Funny Glass Stairs.
(Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species)
That's the only damn thing I can remember from high school biology.
Bonus mnemonic -- the only thing I remember from high school history: "Divorced, Beheaded, She Died; Divorced, Beheaded, Survived." (How King Henry VIII's wives ended up)
No one said that we evolved from chimps. What was said is we came from a common ancestor. What most likely happened is that early chimps and our early ancestors lived in slightly different eviornments and thus evolved into different species.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
So sick of these pervasive idea in USian culture that humans are not animals. Now we don't even have our own genus!
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Humans are the only living species in genus homo, currently
No sir, I ain't no homo. Put me in with the chimps you gay freaks.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Based on this evidence, I'd say they've actually got a pretty good case.
Why not put them in the same Genus as us? They've had just as much time to evolve.
Clearly, we made better use of that time than they did. They slacked off instead of evolving, so they don't get to be in the same rank.
I don't get this desire to uplift losers with false titles designed to boost the self esteem of those who fell behind.
Of course now with Hollywood and TV causing humans to devolve, the Chimps will have a chance to catch up.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Interesting, but we don't know if probability applies to this situation.
Well, I'll never be able to watch this the same way again...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I think this would violate the (rather arbitrary) rules of the taxonomy. Primitive humans, like the (misspelled) Australopithecenes (Lucy and friends) are much closer physically, and presumably genetically, than chimps are.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
The /. troll HOWTO :)
/.ers. This section is dedicated to explaining how to use these in the course of your trolls. Remember though, a great troll can break any or all of these and still be successful...
/. typically repeats stories with small variations and runs lots of similar stories.
:)
/.ers are more likely to read your troll if it starts a large thread. You also want to remember that some people have set their comment thresholds to values higher than 0 - to get the attention of these you either want to get your post moderated up (see Style, below) or get a reply which gets moderated up to 4 or 5, in which case your troll becomes visible to all.
:)
/. and watch the karma roll in. And of course once you get the +1 bonus, the world is your oyster in terms of /. Posts made at a default of 2 hit even those people with the threshold of 2, are more likely to get moderated up even further if they are at all coherent, and people tend to lose their critical thinking abilities in the face of the +1 bonus. Milk it for all it's worth.
/. hero, like Linus Torveldes or Richard Strawlman (thanks dmg). Related to this is the use of the wrong word, explaining an acronym as being something it isn't or making a word into an acronym even when it isn't.
This is version 0.6 of a troll HOWTO, sort of a companion piece to jsm's excellent troll FAQ. As a draft, comments and criticism are always welcome, if not appreciated
Section 1 - Trolling techniques
There are techniques used by successful trolls to elicit the maximum amount of responses from unthinking
Timing
Because you're posting as an AC, your troll will generally be ignored in favour of posters using their accounts, and so getting in early is essential. A good guideline is to get into the first 20 posts, so that people reading the article will see the troll before it is swamped out. One way of increasing the speed with which you get your troll into play is to prepare them beforehand, and then quickly customise them for the current article. This is easier than it sounds since
Note that this is why Jon Katz stories are pretty worthless as trolling material - by the time you've found the article and prepared a troll there's already 50+ posts on it, most of them flaming Jon Katz anyway
Exposure
Once you've got your troll in, you need people to actually read it. You also want replies -
Accounts
An alternative to the time-honoured tradition of AC trolling is that of creating a "troll" account. This gives you the advantage of posting at 1 rather than 0, and slashbots are more likely to take you seriously, especially if you at least sound reasonable. If you do this, try to avoid posting stuff where it is obvious you're a troll under the account - post it anoymously instead - some slightly more canny readers actually check your user info before they reply. Not many though
The ultimate goal of the troll account is to secure the +1 bonus, which is currently received once you hit 26 points of Karma. To get there, employ the techniques of karma whoring that we see every day on
Layout
To get people reading it a troll needs to be easily readable. Make sure you break it down into easily digestible paragraphs, use HTML tags where appropriate (but always make sure you close them properly) and use whitespace appropriately.
Size
Generally a troll shouldn't be too short, otherwise it'll get lost in the crowd. A workable minimum is a couple of medium paragraphs. Conversely, it shouldn't be too long, or no-one will bother to read it. Keep it to a happy medium.
Spelling
Whilst spelling is important if you want the troll to be taken "seriously", key spelling mistakes can draw out the spelling zealots, especially if you mis-spell the name of a venerated
Subject
The subject line needs to draw attention to your post without maki
Puts the phrase Web-Monkey in a whole new light .. don't it ?
*thanks folks, i'm here all night.*
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
I think we need a few more years of genetic study before we should use genetics. If we tart classifing on just genetics before we have enough understanding to call it complete, we will still end up with species that bridge between classification.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Actually, it doesn't matter whether we use only Homo or Homo and Pan for the lineage of chimps&humans, since both genera include a monphyletic lineage. For phylogenetic taxonomy, it's matter of taste, mostly. MY taste is that there is no need to introduce changes.
Supergenus Gorilla
* Genus Gorilla
- Gorilla gorilla
Supergenus Homo
* Genus Homo
- Homo sapiens
- Homo neardenthalensisâ
- Homo habilisâ
- Homo erectusâ
[- Homo demens (e.g. Bush & al.)]
*Genus Pan
- Pan troglodytes
- Pan paniscus
[Caveat emptor: I did this from memory, there might be a mistake somewhere]
The fact is, it doesn't mean a thing to use genus, supergenus, or subgenus. What matters is that the lineage chimps&humans is monophyletic, that is, that chimps and bonobos are more closely related to us than to gorillas or orangutans.
``L'imagination au povoir.''
That depends on whether we are analyzing this question from an electrical prospective or an ethical one.
If it is electrical, then white to blue and brown to black sound much safer since white and black are typical colors for hot and neutral and brown and blue are the colors of hot and neutral in some power cords which I have seen.
If it is an ethical question, you don't connect them until you are sure. Your and your company's possible gain does not justify recklessly placing others at such serious risk.
Umm... What does this have to do with chimp DNA?
Chimpanzees share 99.4 percent of functionally important DNA with humans and belong in our genus, Homo, according to a recent genetic study.
Maybe you.... but definitely not me!
I'm glad someone pointed this out. You may remember the study published last September from a Caltech researcher that concluded that the match between humans and chimps was LOWER than previously thought -- not higher. All depends on which genes you want to consider in the counting.
GMD
watch this
Does anybody else find this repetitive and redundant?
It should have been edited to "Humans are the only living extant species in the genus Homo, currently at this time."
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
Any of you Homos touch me ... and I'll kill ya!
It worked for Ivory. ...I just made a soap joke on slashdot. Go me.
"America has done some terrible things. But I know that Americans don't cheer when innocents die." -Dave Barry
5 million years apart and we still fling our poo at eachother...
I think i see how we're 99.4% alike...
Wolves are not genetically identical to dogs, any more than beagles are genetically identical to rotweilers: the consistent phenotypic differences between dog breeds, and between dogs and wolves, are genetically determined.
If being genetically identical were the key, each human (or pair of twins) would be a species unto himself.
But what people mean by species is usually more determined by whether the animals interbreed and produce fertile offspring (this gets fuzzy with plants and is more or less irrelevant to bacteria, but still...).
Dogs and wolves are close enough to interbreed, successfully and often, and a lot of people would class dogs as a subspecies of wolf (Canis lupus latrans).
But classification by genus and higher levels is fairly arbitrary, based mostly on what people see as significant differences and similarities (e.g. people are different from apes, cats all kind of look alike). The only important thing is that the basic nesting is right, so that if species A and B have a common ancestor, and C and D are descended from B, then if A and C are in one class, B and D are also in that class.
It might be more rational to have a system that took each branching into account, but we don't have enough information for that, and it would be inconvenient to deal with.
To sum up: the argument that no one calls a wolf a dog is incorrect, but there's still no point in calling a chimp a Homo.
There was a guy at a nursing home I worked at that would throw poop at the staff.
What's less humorous is the fact that far too many nursing homes treat their residents like animals.
GMD
watch this
Forks in the tree.
If someone's parents and grandparents all had blonde hair, but they themselves were born with brown hair (due to a mutation, not due to a recessive gene or the milkman), then their children might then carry on that gene but it doesn't necessarily mean that their cousins kids will ever have brown hair.
Similarly, if closely related species are in direct competition with each other for scarce resources such as food and habitat then natural selection might cause one to survive at the expense of the other one becoming extinct. But if they are geographically separated, their different traits don't have any significant advantages, or if they find different (non-competitive or competitive but sustainable) ecological niches then there's nothing stopping them from co-existing.
My next sig will be ready soon, but friends can beat the rush!
So far
total human reads: 23 million
total chimp reads (Pan troglodytes): over 12 million
having worked on annotation of a few of the chimp BAC clones, I can assure you the two species range from about 97% to over 99.9% similar at the DNA sequence level.
But that doesn't explain WHY the Apes didn't evolve as much as humans. How different could our environments have been??
I'll tell you the REAL reason.
Apes, Chimps, they're all lazy. Always lounging around, never doing anything to better themselves, just lying around masturbating all day long.
And keep in mind, the environment does not cause certain characteristics to develop in a species. It only eliminates creatures who are not as fit as others. Those characteristics have to form first.
The fact that having opposable thumbs will result in a higher survival rate does not cause a species to develop opposable thumbs. What Natural Selection and Survival of the Fittest really means is that if a Species develops that has opposable thumbs, it will be more likely to survive.
The environment can't cause a species to become more intelligent, but it can weed out the dumb ones. If no sufficiently intelligent creatures arise, then the species will go extinct.
And no, I am not claiming that thumbs and IQ are the be all and end all. I'm just using them as examples.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
this topic is just going to provide more evidence that moderators on slashdot need a -5 Creationist selection.
That's not what the anthropomorphic principle is. It's the tendency for humns to attribute human qualities to things that aren't human. It has nothing ot do with genus egotism.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Chimps don't have long hairy tails, doofus :-p
-psy
Joey: If the Homosapiens were, in fact, "Homo-sapien", is that why they're extinct?
Ross: Joey, Homosapiens are people.
Joey: Hey, I'm not judging.
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OTOH, Bubbles feels violated.
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
Ah - the old Harvard man vs Yale man routine ...
I like it when monkeys throw poop.
Crisis is the rule, not the exception.
"If like me you have invested a good chunk of your life reading the Bible, you got to moderate me up. 99.4% is just too much, it's almost the purity of Ivory soap."
I think a good parallel would be programming. Say you have a 4000000000 line program (I think someone estimated that this is what the DNA translates to in terms of code but it is irrelevant). I can go in and change 100 lines and make that program not behave anything like the original. On the other hand you can change a half of it without making any substantial difference in the final result. The sheer amount of identical code is a good hint but by no means an accurate measurement of how closely related to chimps we are.
~I bet you went to Harvard didn't you. Give me a freaking break.
I think you miss the point. gorillas go to harvard. Chimps go to Yale (Think W)
"the difference between myself and a madman is that I am not mad" -Salvadore Dali
The last time I mentioned Lancelot Link, I was also modded off-topic. Must be CHUMPs at work...
riding round the world on an old motorcycle
OK, we're better at manipulating our environment than chimps. But that's just one evolutionary adaptation among many. All our non-slackerness has bought us is a few thousand years of population runnup (practically an eyeblink, on the evolutionary time scale), which will probably be followed by an even faster dieback, as we overrun our resource base and saturate our environment. Not the most impressive evolutionary accomplishment!
No, the genus of Lucy is Australopithecus , species afarensis. This was something like 3-4 million years ago. I think that genus Homo is only from the last million or two years.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
oooo oooeee eeeeoooo oooo
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
And in other news, the Chimpanzee World Spokesman, uu uu waaa uuu u, says they want no part of any "tree" that has humans in it, thank you very much, and, besides, it's against THEIR religion to believe that humans evolved from Chimps. Especially the ones with fake hair.
Does this make up Monkey v2.5beta? Or is that in violation with the linux naming system...
"Humans are the only living species in genus homo, currently."
...
The lawyers must be of a different genus then
From "Jocko Homo" off the Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! album:
"god made man
but he used the monkey to do it
apes in the plan
we're all here to prove it
i can walk like an ape
talk like an ape
i can do what a monkey can do
god made man
but a monkey supplied the glue"
Duty Now!
Zoid.com
...as proof that humans and chimpanzees are indeed from the same family. And you always knew three was something a little bit different about uncle George...
>White to Blue and Brown to Black, OR White to Black, and Brown to Blue??
White-Black, Brown-Blue. Everyone should know that... Just make sure you unplugged it first.
I'll believe it when chimps are calling radio stations and requesting Pete Shelley.
You bet that we may see differences? So what you are saying is that dispite the fact that you nor anyone else has any evidance one way or another to believe that there will be more 'diff' found in the future you still feel you should express you oppinion about it. You seem to really only be expressing what out come you dessire. Not what out come is likely.
Sex is what happens when people think no one else will ever find out
...the sum of humanity is just a support system for housecats.
7th grade Life Sciences, I think. Just one of those things you can't forget.
You want a sig? I can get you a sig... Hell, I can get you a sig by 3 o'clock this afternoon... with nail polish.
a) the purpose of the genes. We're finding out that many genes in many organisms seemingly do nothing.
b) the combination of genes. Most lower lifeforms have many single purpose genes. Higher order organisms like ourselves have many genes that can work with other genes in different combinations.
c) identity of genes. Not all genes are unique. A gene that regulates the processing of glucose is found in probably 99% of animals. A gene that creates insulin specifically to regulate body sugar is more unique. Those 97 genes may be genes that only occur in ourselves and primates. That's why they are so important. The other 34K may not be as unique.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Um, your little site is a (poorly supported) theory on how evolution could have happened with the help of God. It's for people that are too sentimental of the view that there's a creator God too throw it away, but too logical to ignore such fully-backed theories as evolution. Unfortunately, people like this screw science up. In science, nothing can be an infallible fact. If the existence of God was a proper scientific theory, it would have been thrown out many times by now. Instead, people have found ways to fit science in, starting with the catholic church accepting the earth revolving around the sun up to this nonsense.
"The absurd is clear reasoning recognizing its limits"
-Albert Camus
Has something to do with music.
Why don't I ever have mod points when I need them?!
REAL:..........MNEMONIC:
Phylum.........Please
Class...........Come
Order..........Over
Family..........For
Genus..........Gay
Species........Sex
Thanks to Robert Smigel (his cartoons) and Saturday Night Live!
Since homosapiens built unix, it is only logical that Linux also shares the same IP because IBM's team also had homosapeins in the development team.
Every man, woman, and child needs to pay your dues to SCO.
http://saveie6.com/
also has an interesting story. here
Aha, figured there had to be a correct name for it, just didn't know what it was ;)
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
From the article: "Imagine taking the hand of your grandmother, who was holding the hand of her grandmother and so on down the line. 155 miles out, one of the women would be holding the hand of a chimpanzee."
If you'd met my family you'd know that a line round the block would pretty much get you there.
because chimps might get put into that species.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Chimpanzees are inarguably more closely related to gorillas and other primates than to humans. Thus, they belong in those genus'.
In any regards, talk of anything other than species is highly subjective. Genus', Families, Phyla, Orders, and Kingdoms are all determined by phylogenetic trees -- and how far up we draw the limit as to what to say is within the same genus is pretty arbitrary. It would be more appropriate to say that -- of all the organisms alive today -- chimpanzees are those that share the nearest common ancestor with humans.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Chicken.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
wouldnt that make them Homo Panzies? I dunno if that would get more or less laughs than Homo Erectus
"Richard Dawkins perhaps provided the best visual for our link to chimps," Fouts told Discovery News. "Imagine taking the hand of your grandmother, who was holding the hand of her grandmother and so on down the line. 155 miles out, one of the women would be holding the hand of a chimpanzee."
Hrm. Now to me, this sounds likely to perpetuate the "we came from chimpanzees" style of (mis)interpretation not the idea that "we share a common ancestor with chimpanzees". So, to correct that...is the chain 155 miles long, with the common ancestor at 77.5 miles, and than it starts going daughter daughter daughter instead of mother mother mother, or is the 155 to the common ancestor, and then chimps are like 310 miles away instead?
I guess it would be useful to know what the assumptions are for generation length and armspan...
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Interesting... as I recall, whales eveloved from a wolfish creature, 'bout 50 million years back.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Creatures even more closely related to humans, actually our ancestors, are also classified in a seperate genus. The Australopithicines are our earliest ancestors following the divergence of chimps from our lineage. They, though closer, are in a seperate genus, so it makes little sense to classify chimps into the same genus as we are.
http://www.bushorchimp.com/
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
I got news for you... not only does the scientific community have those ideas about how unique and exceptional humans are ("how" unique?), so does
the literary community,
the artistic community,
the philosophical community,
the musical community,
the educational community,
the list goes on...
You shall know them by their works.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Planet of origin shouldn't change that unless a significant amount of evolution has happened since the break with the common planet of origin.
The introduction of a parasite/symbiot shouldn't matter eaither. We all have single celled organisms that act in a symbiotic or parasitic relationship. The only thing to call into question is the Jof'fas inability to live without their symbiots. I'm unclear as to if this is from birth or a dependance built up over time. If from birth considerations need to be made, if a dependance built over time, simular to a drug addiction, then no.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
'Chimpanzees share 99.4 percent of functionally important DNA with humans and belong in our genus
I might be mistaken about this, but I'm sure I've read/seen/heard somewhere that yes, chimps share 99.4% DNA with humans, but rats share about 75% and a banana shares about 50%
Can anyone confirm/deny this..?
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
We share 50% of our DNA with lettuce - that's how common much of our genetic code is on the planet.
Last time I checked, nobody was comparing the salad aisle of the supermarket for long-lost relatives.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Karma Points Come Only For Geeky Slashdotters
(Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species)
Does this mean I can eat a chimp and indulge in 99.4% cannibalism?
Having seen the lack of selectiveness in sexual matters exhibited by Bonobo chimps, calling them 'Homos' would seem to work on several levels.
Cheers, Paul
(Disclaimer: This isn't a phrase I like or normally use, just required for the purposes of this joke, until I had to qualify it, when the joke kind of died...)
This is kinda old news, it was covered in the book The Third Chimpanzee by Jared M. Diamond. He talks about the similiarities in the genome, plus the differences that do exist in other traits. He maintains that chimps, bonobos and humans belong in the genus Trogolodyte, but humans made the genus Homo because they didn't really want to think of themselves so close to the chimps. Really interesting book though.
That downgrade would be an upgrade for some...
There are no natural categories (a tree is a tree because we say it is a tree, not because it possesses some insubstantial and altogether imaginary quality of "treeness"*), so you're welcome to call a monkey whatever you'd like. You may as well use the kosher clean/unclean classification system, it's just as arbitrary.
Yes the biological classification system is supposedly more developed based on evolutionary trees and other measurable traits, but it's been rewritten so many times that it's not much more than a constructed schema.
So aside from consistent categorization rules, there's not much more than can be done. Given any amount of individuals to classify, there always exist an infinite number of mutually incompatible taxonomies that can do so. So like in the Pluto as a planet debate, we're left with the rule, as Supreme Court Justice William Brennan said on the definition of pornography, that "I know it when I see it."
* If you feel like arguing with this, please, I implore you, never take a course dealing with ontology (be it principles of philosophy or library cataloging), you'll just piss off everyone around you.
So I guess all chimp cages should now come equipped with the famous Eric Estrada "You're a Homo" poster...
"You want a toe? I can get you a toe by three o'clock... with nail polish."
Applied to the universe it is a very valid counter argument when playing around with fundamental constant numbers a la Martin Reese.
The idea is that is doesn't matter how umprobable somethng is because if it wasn't a certain way we would not be here to make the argument. Comes in Strong and Weak flavor, Google is your friend
Help fight continental drift.
Scientists then discovered that Apes have a 100% DNA match with Vin Diesel.
Vonal Declosion
that'll be fun. "you seem to be 96% human. you get 96% of a vote in the next elections."
Please no...how would the Florida elections turn out with that in the mix?
You mean like this?
And I'm not cleaning up all this feces!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
..how the hell do you think AIDS made the species jump?
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
i refuse to be placed in the same genus with those damned dirty apes!!!
I believe the current `consensus' (read ``the Prof. Bigshots said that & don't you dare disagree'' ;-) is that Neardenthals are diff enough from us to warrant their own species. This comes from genetic evidence (fossil DNA). On this point (and this point and only a few more ;) I agree with the Bigshots; modern humans and Neardenthals are different species. Of course, we could (I, Me, Myself, and the Bighshots ;) be wrong.
And this question is not a matter of taste; but a serious one: species are supposed to be real, unlike genera and higher categories that are taken as conveniences (I mean on which level to use for the lineage, like genus or subgenus or family). Anyway, traditional (pseudo)biologists have no clue what species are, much less how to reliably tell them apart. [Indeed, most `biologists' cannot even define life.]
Taxonomists fall into two groups (just like everybody else): "lumpers" and "splitters." The lumpers want to put everything into the same genus, while the splitters love subspeciation...
Not subspeciation, but subdivision. And I guess I myself could be called a splitter, most of the time---I passed several genera trough the lawnmower for my thesis.
``L'imagination au povoir.''
Possibly the best argument for giving chimpanzees a bit more credit in the taxonomic hierarchy is that we tend to waste our lives worrying about such things, whereas the chimps don't care.
Please donate your spare CPU cycles to help fight cancer and other diseases
"I hate every ape I see
From chimpan-a to chimpan-zee
No, you'll never make a monkey out of me
Oh my God, I was wrong
It was Earth all along
You've finally made a monkey
Yes, you've finally made a monkey out of me"
heh. see the thing you can learn when you only sleep 4 hours a night.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Or from the electronics geeks, for resistor values: Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls But Violet Gives Willingly. (Black 0, Brown 1, Red 2, Orange 3, Yellow 4, Green 5, Blue 6, Violet 7, Grey 8, White 9).
Boy did my HS Physics teacher get some weird looks for that mnemonic.
Get off my lawn.
this is just in comparison with the 'functionally important' part of the geneome which is the scientific way of saying 'the dinky bit of DNA that we actually understand'
of course chimps are going to be making similar protiens and amino acids as we are.
there's a lot of 'junk dna' out there that biochemists simply don't understand the function of yet. doesn't mean it's actually junk or not functionally important.
no less than 91 % of cucumber genome can also be found in humans :)
fart/faart/(coarse) (v.intr.): emit intestinal gas from the anus. (n.): emission of intestinal gas from the anus.
The title of the book is a reference to the idea that there are (or should be) 3 species of chimps: the normal ones, the bonobo or pygmy chimp, and us.
"The Island of Dr. Moreau" is the original title of the H. G. Wells book upon which "Island of Lost Souls" is based.
Hardly pseudo-historical though, as Wells admitted that it was based on pure fancy, and was was written as "A bit of youthful heresy."
And it had nothing to do with cross breeding humans and animals, but was about experiments in changing animals into humans through surgery and conditioning.
I wrote a paper on sci-fi the works of H. G. Wells in High School. "The First Men in the Moon" was fun. Jules Verne was very critical of Wells' work, claiming he played too fast and lose with science.
Is there any reference material on supposedly true tales of human - animal hybrids?
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Hah! Not only that but some humans have tails as well. It's not that big a difference between tail and no tail.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
One of TV Funhouse's best bits
Humans dress with clothes, speak with language, write poems, have travelled to the moon, invented computers and the internet, and many other things. They have developed a conciousness.
All the other species, and I mean all, don't do any of these: they continue to live the same life as their ancestors million years ago, hunting for food, reproducing and sleeping.
Aren't humans unique ? My opinion is that not only they are unique, but they are genetically manipulated in order to become humans. Because, according to evolution, there was no need for the monkey brain to evolve like this.
If you say that "nature drived some monkeys to evolve", I would reply "why not all the monkeys ? what was so special in those evolved monkeys ?".
It doesn't make sense.
...because your own DNA is 99.9% just like the person sitting next to you, and the person sitting next to them, and the person next to them, and so on and so forth. Human DNA is 99.9% like everyone else's and that takes into account race adn gender. I saw that on a Discovery special that used genetic diversification to show where the one true Eve was. southern Africa. That's right. According to genetic diversification we all originated from southern Africa. Interesting...
No offense, but you sound like most of the religious anti-evolution nuts out there, and like the parent poster. But why don't you actually read the link. I did, and I'm an atheist/agnostic.
The most pertinent question on the page, I believe, is how can purposeful useful biological mechanisms be created if the mechanisms are irreducible? How can a flagellum be made, if it requires a total of 40 proteins, and if any one of those proteins are changed the whole thing is useless?
I agree, Intelligent Design is mostly a ruse by creationists to get evolution out of the education system. Intelligent Design is also not a proper scientific theory, since it doesn't actually explain anything or specify any sort of detail.
But the questions are still compelling. And realize, "Intelligent Design" doesn't necessarily have anything to do with God. Maybe aliens designed and controlled life on Earth (when I say aliens, I'm basically talking about and including any natural (as opposed to supernatural) intelligent agent). Of course, there are so many problems with it, philosphically and scientifically, that's it's most likely not true. After all, even if aliens did design and direct life on Earth, where did the aliens come from? If we're only looking at natural explanations, we can't invoke God to explain where the aliens came from. And if we do say God created the aliens, then there's no reason to include aliens in the explanation at all; you're still relying on God so just say that God made life on Earth. And if you're going to say God created or directed life on Earth, relying on a supernatural (vs. natural) intelligent agent, then you're creating even bigger questions about "irreducible complexity". LIke, where did God come from? To me, that question is much bigger than any questions evolution might raise.
That would be the philosphical problem with the explanation. But from a practical point of view, how exactly would aliens "direct" the evolution of life? There is so much evidence for evolution, that evolution must have happened, and therefore ID is simply not required for the parts of evolution and biology that does NOT involve irreducible complexity. Irreducible complexity in biology is an unavoidable question, but it still doesn't negate the fact that there is so much evidence in favor of evolution. So an ID approach might say that evolution happened, but an intelligent agent stepped in for the parts that required irreducible complexity.
But if evolution actually happened, how, in a practical sense, would an intelligent agent "step in" and evolve life?
So, while the theory of evolution does have a serious question and problem with irreducible complexity, it doesn't suddenly negate anything and everything about evolution.
And of course we don't know for certain that there really is ANYTHING in biology that ever has irreducible complexity. We may not be clever enough to devise the actual mechanism by which flagella or eyes have developed into what it is now, but that doesn't mean it is irreducible. We simply may not know how it can be reduced, but it may in fact be reducible.
And finally, ID isn't really a scientific theory at all. It doesn't actually explain anything or provide any means to know the truth. It's not specific. This doesn't make it right or wrong, but it's more like philosophy, not science. ID definitely raises many valid questions to established scientific theory, but it is not a scientific theory in itself at all.
So, my point is don't just brush this site off as quickly as you have. You end up being as close minded as most of the anti-evolutionists are. So while I might have just debunked ID to some degree, and I disagree with it just like you do, don't just brush off this particular site, because the questions are pretty valid.
But what percentage of human genes are found in cucumbers? It's not really so valid to compare genomes that are very different in size. A Human vs. Chimp genome comparison is much more valid.
A species is just like any other category we humans create -- a human construct to make some order out of the universe. Yes, we define it in a way that can appear "real," but it's a human construct & as such, subject to whatever our current definitions of terms happen to be. But whether it's "really real" is a question for the philosophers. We could go metaphysical about this until the cows (genus Bos) come home. That said, I agree 100% that species is the only division that seems to have some measurable basis. The other taxa are purely heuristic.
Thanks for the update on Neandertals. I stand corrected :-)
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
At least YOURE family isnt in a big circle. Damned inbreeding.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe is a great book that advances a theory that microbial life is common and abundant, but the events that led to the evolution of higher life on Earth are incredibly rare.
It's a great read, especially if you, like me, have been out of school for a while: the past ten years have brought some very interesting advances in Biology, Geology, and evolutionary theory.
Since then, other systems have evolved, and have been tagged on. In consequence, the current "system" is really a complete mish-mash of differing systems, with no real agreement on what system applies under what circumstance.
To those who advocate DNA-based classification, I'd argue that that only works on still-living species. If we don't have the DNA, we can't do that. So, we'd end up using some other system for those, anyway, which means we'd still be using a hybrid.
The argument that chimps belong to the "homo" group seems valid enough. We're not talking about direct ancestors, but about a common ancestor who is already established as a part of the "homo" group. (Percent then becomes irrelevent. Once you can establish that common ancestor, and establish that said ancestor is already classed as being in the "homo" genus, the rest becomes moot.)
The only rational argument I can see against it is if it can be established that the chimp branch has diverged in some critical way that, even though the divergence is small, would still place it in a different genus. You'd probably want to alter the genus to the verb, rather than the noun, in this case, to show the relationship while acknowledging the difference.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Our current system for categorizing the inhabitants of this is long outdated and is based largely on phsycal characteristics of the components on the creature, rather than the stuff it is actually made up of.
We find we've had to tweak this existing system to make new species fit
I agree completely. In fact even the concept of species is not so well-defined any more, because there are examples of groups of animals where group A can mate with group B and group C, but groups B and C cannot mate with each other. Are they different species or the same?
A better, more accurate, system needs to be devised based on current technologies that classify based on genetic code. The point of a classification system would be to allow us to draw similarities in creatures while studying them based on available data for ones in the same category. A genetic model would be very beneficial for this very reason.
The answer to your question is called cladestics, where species are classifed not based on observed similarities, but rather based on common heritage.
Common heritage can be established either from genetics or from counting the number of significant traits that differ or are the same, and using sophisticated computer programs to calculate probable common starting points.
A few provocative results are that birds are dinosaurs (dinosaurs are defined by a common ancestor, and since birds come from dinosaurs that make them dinosaurs too). Furthermore dinosaurs (including birds) are reptilians.
Tor
Science has a great way of trying to promote it's present ideas through naming. For example, many types of dinosaur have latin names relating them to birds, and your average joe-public says 'dinosaurs must have changed to birds. Even the name says so!'
What we, the inventor and sole user of the classification system, decide at any point what falls in which category adds nought to the truth of a particular theory, but it goes a long way toward swaying those of no particular interest, and also those with a vested interest, to the ideas of those who make the classification.
Just my 2p.
Yes, but nobody expects rational thought from the rest of those groups. We SHOULD expect it from the educational community, but evidence would suggest that it would be unfounded.
...in a couple of his books, including the excellent "Genome" and "Nature via Nurture" (which I've just started to read). In fact, in the latter book he specifically compares the genetic differences between chimps and humans to that between horses and donkeys and speculates that chimps and humans might conceivably be able to produce viable, albeit infertile, offspring akin to mules. He hastens to add that such an experiment would be profoundly unethical -- but it certainly is an interesting theoretical question.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
I do seem to recall reading that there we a fair number of gay bonobos...
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
A little of topic but a few days ago the result of Italian research project was published. The result of DNA comparisons between Neanderthals and Humans found that most likely no interbreeding have occured.
No, the result is that there is no Neandertal genetic material left in modern humans.
The conclusion should be that interbreeding was not common enough for Neanderthal genes to prevail 1,000 odd generations later - not necessarily that interbreeding never happened at all.
Tor
Slightly off-topic, but it reminded me of this and it's pretty funny (or I think so at least). Point your browser here to witness the glory that is Flame Warriors!
This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is just a tribute.
I think it's about time we realize that the difference is not in our genes, that our lives are not fully determined by them (except some diseases that might drastically alter your life).
We are responsible of what we are, and we should stop trying to blame it on something else (genes, God, aliens, my mama, etc.). Its our intelect is what allows us to change our environment (for good or for bad), against our most primal instincts.
The difference is that we can intellegere, from latin:
inter- between +legere to read
Or in plain english: to read between lines
It's just a little hypocritical to sneer at the rest of the world because they can't keep their population down. Our own high-energy lifestyle wouldn't be possible without all that cheap labor. And when I talk about "overruning our resources" I do not mean overpopulation! Or not just OP. Yeah, 2 or 3 billion peasants use up a lot of resources. But not as much as the 1 billion or so SUV-loving steak-munching superconsumers in the developed world! In fact, I believe the depredation ratio is about 10 to 1.
i'm gonna...
99.4 could be a bit of a low estimate if you ask me. IMOX, in recent years, evolution has gone into full-speed reverse ..... the evidence is all around us .....
Of course, the chrimbos are going to be annoyed about this. They're generally offended by any suggestion that human beings are descended from the same ancestors as other animals, and particularly sensitive about being reminded that superstitious / religious behaviour doesn't put us that far above pigeons.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
then the chimps would be analyzing our DNA.
Standard Creationist bullshit. Let me ask you a question -- if English evolved from German, why is the German language still around?
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
I got news for you... not only does the scientific community have those ideas about how unique and exceptional humans are ("how" unique?), so does...
:)
Hmm... all humans. Not exactly an unbiased audience, are they?
"One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place."
- Mick Travis, "If..."
"Yeah.. When monkeys fly out of my butt!"
well, if i was to decide what is functionally important. I would first ignore all the dna we share with lettuce, because obviously that isn't the part that makes us human.
I would start by ignoring all the DNA chimps and humans share with other animals, and compare genes that only exist in those species. But that's just me, with no biology or genetic training. I'm sure someone how knows what they're doing can be a bit more precise.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
A pack of man-eating killer-chihuahuas! Runaway!
Ceterum censeo Microsoftem esse delendam
It is more technically defined as "if two animals can interbreed and produce viable (ie fertile) offspring, they are the same species".
No, they're not... humans are a disease, a virus... a cancer on this planet. ;-)
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
The fact that we share such a high percentage of DNA with chimpanzees is really bad news for the multi-racial advocates out there, that base their argument that all human races are the same, and even that human races "don't exist(!)", on the similarly high percentage of DNA shared between the human races.
I guess now they'll have to start fighting to end "the racist IQ test bias against chimps!"
Don't you mean HULAGHUGLAHULAGHGLUH my god how do you suck 10 cocks at once??!?!
Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
The codes are not that arbitrary, and knowing the logic it's easy to remember. The bulk of the code is formed by the colors of a rainbow, red to violet. The remaining colors are quite easy to align, after all brown is quite close to red and black is close to brown. After that you only have grey and white left, and their arrangement is quite logical as well (for instance, white at the opposite end to black)
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
That should have been Vulpes not Vulpex.
It was a joke. It reminded me of all that crap about genetic engineering. Suddenly everyone flames it like I didn't read what was written. Damn. Didn't the mention of South Park suggest I was being tongue in cheek?
I think you've missed the point. Jpellino was pointing out that the fact that humans have a literary community, artistic community, philosophical community, etc, indicates the significance of the difference between humans and chimpanzees.
Ack. Exactly:
If two animals can and do interbreed and produce viable offspring, they are the same species.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
When you realize that humans and field mice share 93%+ of their genes, the percentages don't seem that impressive. Also, while the a large percentage of the genes are held in common, they are not in sequences in the same order. Moreover, these studies don't take into account the new breakthroughs in "junk" DNA studies, which seem to indicate that the "junk" DNA actually serves purposes. See http://www.newswise.com/articles/2003/5/BORIS.UCD. html
Chimps ain't humans by a long shot.
--Slashdot: News for Turds. Stuff that Splatters.
From the Transhumanist perspective, you're all fucking domesticated primates (to use the Tim Leary/Robert Anton Wilson phrase)...
The real issue is not whether chimps are human, but whether humans are chimps...
And that's now been answered...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I think you've missed the point. Jpellino was pointing out that the fact that humans have a literary community, artistic community, philosophical community, etc, indicates the significance of the difference between humans and chimpanzees.
No, I got that. I was only pointing out the limitations on self referntial systems. Humans are special and unique, but we're also the only ones (we know of) defining the ideas "special" and "unique."
"One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place."
- Mick Travis, "If..."
more like isinstance(chimps, homoSapiens.__class__) == 1 (or whatever the syntax is in your favourite OO language). we're cousins to chimps, and we've pretty much always known that; this study is about whether we're first or second cousins.
IMHO Chimps belong in our Genus, when they can come up with a classification system for us humans. Until then, they don't have the reasoning power to be in our Genus, how does that sound?
...in bed
God's an advanced organic chemist
and
the chemistry itself.
-- thinkyhead software and media
I had to scroll halfway down the first page before I hit the first "homo" joke, and it wasn't even related to buttsex.
Good work guys!
The question is, if the creator of humans used 99.4% of the code lifted straight from the apes... is it a large enough difference so it would not be considered violation of Intellectual Property rights?
Does SCO own the rights, and is it just a plan to lure IBM into buying humanity for a huge profit for the current SCO owners?
Or is this a Microsoft plot to buy the rights to the humans, copyright the genome and send pirate hunters to track license violators.
- Will they insert a product activation code into all new humans created, where the child stops functioning if not registered.
- Will they include new bugs and get the new humans bloated (wait...)
- Will we be equipped with a Start button? (:
- Will the newborns cry "bling BLING bling BLINGGG" instead of "WAAAAH!" with their first breath?
- Will the new children make secret phonecalls to Microsoft telling on their parents?
- How will copy protection work? Chastity belts?
And will the open source movement provide an alternative with fresh code not depending on any components of the human genome?
You know, I'm not sure I want to share our nice, roomy Genus with anyone or anything. We were here first. Maybe we could charge the other species a use tax or something. While it's not clear whether or not this is a move up for the other species, we DO have control of such concepts as fast food and premium coastal vacation spots.
We all get along together like tornadoes and trailer parks.
Damn! You use a 50% margin of error as an argument against "couple quadzillion"??
If you didn't have a "5" already, I'd rate you "+1: Funny"!
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
I have an uncle who stroked out. He's a vegetable!
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
At the Primate Research Center, an interviewer asked Washoe Jr. (daughter of the famous chimp taught sign language) about the news that chimps might be included under Genus homo.
She went to her computer, and with a few deft mouseclicks brought up a famous discussion sight called Slashdot. She quickly set her "threshold" to -1.
Gesturing to the screen, she then signed "Thanks, but no thanks."
www.eFax.com are spammers
Recalling basic biology, species are capable of interbreeding (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=species) . A little chimp-changa won't produce much of anything (HIV?)
I appreciate it may not be a necessary feature of belonging to the same genus, but I also note that horses and donkeys are in the same genus at least partly because they are capable of producing infertile offspring (mules). Is the rest not simple binomial taxonomy? The apparent physical differences are minor, and the mental? A little readinng will show chimps have a sense of 'self' (will recognize their appearance has been changed in a mirror), knowledge of others beliefs (they engage in teaching), and even a capacity for commerce! (SCIAM had a wonderful anecdote about chimps that were given vending machine tokens, learned to stockpile, trade, and even counterfeit them!)
if we kill chimps for experiments, it's now homicide?
(I know it's homo.... not homi.. but homocide sounds politically incorrect..)
The problem is that Homosapien should not be a species, but a genus.
The individual "races" of humans should be different species.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
You think we've seen tech jobs disappear off shore? Just wait 'til they start outsourcing jobs to the local zoo! I've heard these chimps will even work for peanuts.
"dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"
We just got some testing documentation back from one of our clients. Some of the questions asked
PROVE that humans and chimps are closely related.
Not only are they closely related, but the chimps have worked out how to type and use MS Word as well.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
Humans dress with clothes, speak with language, write poems, have travelled to the moon, invented computers and the internet, and many other things.
All the other species, and I mean all, don't do any of these: they continue to live the same life as their ancestors million years ago, hunting for food, reproducing and sleeping.
Wow. You sure have a fuzzy view of history. 65 million years ago, 85% of the species on earth were wiped out in a mass extinction event. Since then, mammals have thrived - in part because the predatory dinosaurs were wiped out. Our direct ancestors showed up about 8 million years ago. The fossil record does not lie.
Aren't humans unique ? My opinion is that not only they are unique, but they are genetically manipulated in order to become humans
huh? A cosmic conspiracy! Who's been manipulating my genes!?! btw, in the near future, we'll be manipulating our own genes. That'll be exciting.
Because, according to evolution, there was no need for the monkey brain to evolve like this.
Correct. More specifically, Chimpanzees have been successfully breeding and adapting to their changing environment for 4-5 million years. Their survival is testament that their current physiology and intelligence is quite successful for their environment.
If you say that "nature drived some monkeys to evolve", I would reply "why not all the monkeys ? what was so special in those evolved monkeys ?".
Differences in environments. For the past 4-5 million years, we have evolved in parallel to the Chimps, from a common ancestor. Overcrowding, changes in climate, and other factors created an environment for would-be-Humans that promoted intelligence over other characteristics. The dumb died. The smart lived to breed. At some point, physical isolation from would-be-Chimps allowed enough genetic diversification that prevented inter-breeding with the evolving chimps, at which point we found ourselves on a separate branch of the evolutional tree. In our case, high intelligence was key to survival in our environment. For the Chimps' environment, other characteristics proved more important to survival. The fossil record does not lie.
Fast forward to 50,000 years ago. By this time, Humans had achieved the physical and intellectual characteristics we have today. What we didn't have was an accumulation of knowledge. There was, therefore, not much difference between a day in the life of a Human, and a day in the life of a Chimp. We were more adept at tool-making, had mastered fire, and had conquered more diverse environments than the chimps, but we still lived day-to-day: hunting, reproducing, and sleeping (yes, I am quoting you).
8000 or so years ago some clever humans discovered the art of agriculture, allowing us to live in larger groups. Large groups allowed for cultural and religious growth, and provided a huge boost to our collective knowledge. Then some other clever humans invented writing. Writing allowed us to store a whole lot of knowledge. Just a few years ago, some other clever humans invented computers and the internet. Now we can store and access TONS of information. In fact, we now have enough information to bypass natural selection, and begin manipulating our genes ourselves. Woo hoo!
It doesn't make sense.
Here's the deal. Relative to flat worms, we are only slightly more intelligent than Chimps. It's our collective knowlege that makes the gulf between chimps and humans seem so wide. Genetically, we're not as different as you think. The DNA does not lie.
You know, Galileo was imprisoned by the Catholic Church for declaring that the earth went around the sun instead of the other way around. Church officials were more concerned with preserving the impression that the bible contained the absolute truth, than in the truth itself.
Science backs the theory of Evolution. Each new discovery in Geology, Archeology, Biology,
I'm sick of all these wrong evolution theories so I'm gonna tell what really happened.
Let's set up the scene with some background information (it'll be short, I promise).
So there was Adam and Eve and they chilled in Heaven just minding their own business. (We're skipping the whole "On the first day" story because you already know about that.) So the Lord told Adam, "Don't eat the fruit of this tree or you'll croak. And tell your wife."
So Adam goes and tells his wife, "See that tree over there? Don't eat its fruit. In fact, don't even go near the damn thing; Pappy said if you touch it, you'll croak."
So Eve is chillin' when this serpant comes around and says, "Pssst... See that tree over there? Eat its fruit! It's good!"
So Eve says, "But if I even touch that tree, I'll croak!"
So the serpant says, "Nuh uh! See, I'll touch it... Nothing happens!"
Seeing this, Eve gathers a little bit of courage, goes up and touches the tree... Nothing happened. So she grabs a big juicy naranja off the tree, peels it and takes a taste. Mmmmm! Then Adam comes over and sees what's going on... "What the fsck, Eve, I thought I told you not to touch that tree!"
And Eve says, "But you see, I did touch it and nothing happened!"
So Adam takes a taste. Then, the Lord's voice comes booming over the public address system, "I told you kids not to eat that damn fruit!!!" Adam and Eve grab a leaf or something to cover up their privates, see, because they suddenly realized they were naked, and the Lord drove them out of heaven in his red '64 Chevy II.
So here they are, on Earth now, and they have a couple of kids... One of 'em kills the other and is subsequently punished by being forced to forever roam the Earth with a Windows logo tatooed on his forehead.
Now just so you understand, the Lord created a bunch of animals, like fish and tigers and whatever, and then He created people. The people he created were special... Much more intelligent than animals by a far measure. Much more intelligent than any person alive today. They were "superhumans." Now this hermano with the Windows logo on his forehead walks around and screws every chimp and gorilla and baboon in sight. (Yeah, I know, that's gross.) His superhuman genes mixed with their animal genes and created some "middle-of-the-road" creature.
That's the human being of today... It's why many of our genes are similar to those of the animals. I know all of this for a fact and I have undeniable proof: On separate occasions, two different people, who do not know each other, both told me they heard this somewhere.
This is Slashdot. What do you think?
Species is, in practice, also arbitrary. It is not unheard of for subspecies A & B to interbreed, subspecies B & C to interbreed, but A & C to be unable to interbreed. This fuzziness is consistant with, and predicted by, neo-darwinism. Otherwise, multiple members of a new species would have to spontaneously appear in the same generation or die without reproducing.
Linux uses 100% the same hardware as Windows.
It's all in the software.
Kinda blows your theory out of the water, doesn't it?
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
Funny thing is, the chimpanzee was originally described as Homo troglodytes. Linneaus did it, blame him ;). And a hundred years before that overrated Darwin guy!
``L'imagination au povoir.''
Hmm, I think I've met a few of the humans in the 99.9% range...
Yes, but nobody expects rational thought from the rest of those groups.
Funny you should mention rational thought, as humans are the only species capable of it. So much for our non-uniqueness, eh?
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
Here's a helpful link, in case anyone else out there is also innumerate.
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
The genome is very much like a technical manual written in Word, if Word has all the versioning and autosave features turned on. You can look at either the functional part- the readable manual- or the raw data. If you read the raw data you have blocks of the current and readable manual interspersed within blocks of outdated but readable text, blocks of barely readable fragments, and blocks of Word code / framing data. Similarly, you can look at individual genes alone or at the raw genetic data: in the raw data you have blocks of current and readable instructions for genes (i.e. exons) surrounded by everything else, some almost readable, some not at all (introns).
If you wanted to compare two documents for a common source some types of comparisons such as overall size or number of chapters aren't that useful: whole paragraphs or pages could be duplicated, or chapters split or concatenated. Ditto for genetic comparisons: humans have 23 chromosomes, other apes have 24: this might seem like a big difference. But human chromosome 2 looks like chimp chromosomes 2P and 2Q fused / concatenated- not much of a difference at all. The analogy holds one more level: if you concatenated two chapters you might expect bits of remnant chapter heading code to sit where the two were joined: human C.2 has nonfunctional telomere code right at the spot where you'd expect if you fused chimp 2P and 2Q. Article with references for this Here.
"Comparing only functional genes is like comparing only the current, readable parts of the Word document's raw data. Here they found over 99% similarity"
"Comparing only functional genes is like comparing only the curent, readable parts of the Word document's raw data. Here they found over 99% similarity"
The two previous paragraphs are 99% similar: if you saw both in two postings you'd suspect copying. If chapter after chapter in two manuals contained this level of similarity the suspicion would be corroborated. This similarity holds even if the compared chapters' instructions give different end results.
Would make a good bar story...
"That's a good one! But let me tell you about the time I fucked a gorilla..."
J
Any other triplet of creatures sharing so many characteristics- both non-genetic (morphology, biochemistry, behavior) and genetic- would've been lumped together years ago. It was one of those open secrets in college: "Of course they're all one group, but let's not freak out the laypersons by mentioning it. Now back to something interesting like arthropods and the verbal fistfights on polyphyly..."
if you recall your taxonomy
Here's the order of taxonomy:Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
Hard to remember on it's own, right? But if you take the first letter of each [P,C,O,F,G,S], you can make a handy mnemonic to remember it:
Please
Come
Over
For
Gay
Sex
Easy! Mnemonics: Our dear, dear, friend.
What type of dog self-segregates? Out in the countryside where dogs can spend time in packs I've seen packs where the largest dog is 10x the weight of the smallest, all hanging out together. If that pack was allowed to breed together for several generations you'd end up with a pack of medium-sized brown dogs: they revert back to the mean fairly quickly. Look up 'pariah dogs' for pictures.
As for humans- we have very little diversity. Sure, we have some variations in bone density, height, melatonin (you do know we all are exactly the same color? We just have different saturation, as an afternoon with Photoshop shows) and hair shape. But that's nothing more than adaptations to new climates occuring after the last population bottleneck 70,000 years ago. We wandered around too much to form sub-species, let alone a species.
The plural's "genera". Just for future reference, like.
Santorum Opposes Calling Chimps 'Homo'
(2003-05-19) -- Despite a scientist's claim that genetic similarities should place chimpanzees in the same taxonomic genus as humans, U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-PA, will introduce a bill this week making it illegal to call a chimp 'Homo'. MORE...
In Terry Pratchett's Science of the Discworld II, I believe it mentions the similarity, and says that humans belong in the Pans genus with the chimps.
(any errors above are due to failures in my memory).
bits and peace
Nicholas Daley
By adding chimps to the human genus will we be raising the status of chimps or lowering the status of humans? How long before we're forced to agree with the folks who say "we must treat chimps the same way we treat our hom. sap. relations"? Or will we decend further into the debate that humans are just another animal and therefore don't deserve the elevated status we give them (and enjoy)?
Funny you should mention rational thought, as humans are the only species capable of it. So much for our non-uniqueness, eh?
Agreed! It's worse than you might think. There is some fairly convincing evidence that Great Apes and Cetaceans are capable of rational thought. See The Neurological and Environmental Basis for Differing Intelligences: A Comparison of Primate and Cetacean Mentality.
Koko (a gorilla) tested at 5 year old human level on standardized tests in spite of a species/culture bias (she selected leaves instead of ice cream as something good to eat, and a tree rather than a bed as a good place to sleep for example).
It appears to me that science and technology are the primary differentiators between humans and other rational species. Interestingly, the same groups of humans who most strongly assert that humans bear no resemblance to other species generally tend to oppose science and technology as well!
The point with the scrabble tiles is this. Let's assume just 26 tiles in the bag, one of each letter, each tile returned to the bag after use. That keeps the maths simple.
..... yes, it looks pretty improbable at first sight that all this would happen by chance; but it has and, taking a step back to look at the wider picture, it wasn't all that improbable. {Also, bear in mind that this planet must have been much more radioactive in the past. We all know what effect certain kinds of radiation have on DNA .....}
The probability of making "FOURSCOREANDSEVENYEARSAGO" is 26 ** -25, or about 4.22344 E-36. Which sounds tiny. BUT this is ignoring the size of the universe, which is huge. And it's also ignoring the fact that, while there are many 25-letter sequences that do not make sense, there are more than one that do, particularly if we don't limit ourselves to English. After all, there could be many, many viable life-forms; we have just a tiny subset on this planet. DNA has a large (though finite) number of variations, but may not be the only self-replicating molecule. Other self-replicators may well exist; we just haven't found them yet. {It's impossible to prove that a person is a non-smoker - they might just be hiding their fags whenever you're looking.}
So, with one person on each planet in the universe pulling random scrabble tiles, and now many, many more valid combinations to choose from, the odds against getting a sensible sentence are starting to look shorter.
And that's pretty much what we've got
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Substitutions in non-coding mtDNA occur at an average rate of approximately one mutation per 20,000 years (corresponding to, say, 1,000 generations). In 4 million years, there ought to be some 200 mtDNA substitutions between a common ancestor and a modern descendant, and two present-day descendants on different branches would thus be 400 substitutions apart from each other.
(from "Planet of the Apes, the musical) Troy McClure: I hate every ape I see, From chimpan-A to chimpanzee, No, you'll never make a monkey out of me!
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
He's just an advanced organic chemist with some crazy OOP skillz.
Nope organic chemists have trouble with basic. They'd never understand polymorphisim. He must be the one and true GOD if he has the skills of OOP and the patience of Theorectical computational Organic chemistry.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
but since we are in our savage prehistory still, we dont know it yet.
John Wharfin: Home. Home is where you hang your hat, I feel so break up, I wanna go home!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
It's the latest of his books written together with some scientist. Their take on the subject is that we are not "Homo sapiens" put "Pan narrans", vs. "Pan paniscus" and "Pan troglodytes". Regards, Jurgen
It didn't evolve - there was some form of directing [group] intelligence (the users of the language) it developed by adoption of different words from different languages and by choice of new words. Clearly there would be some mutation but I don't see it being the main form of linguistic development. Oh, and of course no-one speaks (save freako nerds) medieval German anymore.
You could equally well say if the modern car evolved from the model-T how come everyone is still driving model-T's, doh!
Nice analogy but it doesn't _prove_ anything.
No I'm not a literal creationist, nor an evolutionist but a fence-sitter (ie not enough evidence either way to convince me).
Score of 1? You should get a score of a googleplex for that one, i think it's a very witty comment, as an old programmer/i.t. person it made my night! Thankyou :)
If only more people saw the insightful humour you displayed...I hope this reply gets to you somehow, so you can realise the praise you deserve, I wish I knew how to ensure this... BUT IF you do get to see this THEN GOSUB Thanks:) ELSE SET( you'll get good real-Karma anyway )
> > What most likely happened is that early chimps and our early ancestors lived in slightly different eviornments and thus evolved into different species.
> Ah - the old Harvard man vs Yale man routine
Except in this case it's the Harvard man vs. Party School man...
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Belief has a LOT to do with it. Good work is being done, but not much is known about genetic activity yet, in spite of the impression that is given on TV.
:-) noproblem. well, I have been thinking about this issue alot. If you think of the big picture (the whole universe). And the usuall 'are we alone in the universe' question. The fact that we weigh only 0.6% genetically more than such a dumb `animal', you might speculate that if we are not alone and other intelligent entities exist in the universe. We are most probably the most dumb. And we are simply `animals' to them. They might even watch us and say wow those poor animals make cute stuff !! And keep riddled about themselves and about how advanced their own brain is !