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Macaque Monkey Goes Totally Bipedal
Freshly Exhumed writes "Add another bonus point for the Darwinians/evolutionists. A macaque at the Safari Park Zoo in Ramat Gan, Israel has recovered from a near-fatal illness in an unusual way: she has switched exclusively to walking on her hind legs. Given theories of human history that stress the effect of disease on events and changes, as in William H. McNeill's Plagues and Peoples, what if an illness was the cause of the shift to bipedal motion by our evolutionary ancestors, and rote imitation by offspring or another set of circumstances locked it in? No matter, this could be a fascinating study of the macaque's altered brain functions."
Judging from some of the people I've met, bipedalism does not imply higher brain functions are present in the individual.
--- Journals are boring; Go to my web page instead
Another possible theory is that a weakened stomach system might depend more on gravity than before. The macque's possibly-weakend stomach system may now have more discomfort when walking on all fours, forcing the macque to walk upright to avoid discomfort.
This theory may not be valid, but this could be worth investigating?
Poor animal, they monkey hasn't exhibited any other signs of evolution, walking upright is actually a defect in regards to survival, since she'd be easier to spot far away by more advanced predators. I'd chill on the wild evolutionary theories for now ;-)
Get this monkey a typewriter! I'm in the mood for some new Shakespeare.
Oh hells no. We need to stop this race of super-human monkeys at the source! If we wait much longer it'll be too late.
There are some pictures of the animal in question here.
although not the result of disease, this dog can also walk upright.
Seems like kind of an ad hoc hypothesis - perhaps bipedal walking became less uncomfortable on the ape's stomach? It nearly died of a stomach aliment, IIRC, so this could be an immediate response to the illness.
Somebody get Charleton Heston on the phone!
"Get your hands off me you damned dirty Macaque monkey!!!"
This would also support the theory that larger, more powerful brains came after bipedalism. And even today, some people still can't walk and chew gum at the same time.
...what remains to be seen, is if the macaque spreads the knowledge of how to walk on two legs permanently by teaching its young or other apes. If it doesn't, then the incident will be nothing more than a curiosity. If it does...we may have seen a major evolutionary breakthrough in a species.
Praise the Good Lord!! I'll tell you how that monkey was healed, and it was none of your voodoo which craft medicine! The Good Lord saw fit to grant that monkey a second chance, and He blessed that monkey with a miraculous gift! I prayed harder for that monkey than anything else in my good Christian life, and I prayed, and I prayed to the Good Lord that He would see fit to grant that little monkey the ability to overcome the darkness and the flu, and Praise the Almighty Lord Jesus Christ, He has come through for us and that little monkey! Praise the Lord, Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Where's Charlton Heston when you need him?
--- Journals are boring; Go to my web page instead
"A zoo veterinarian says he's not sure why she has altered her behaviour, speculating that the illness could have caused brain damage."
Great, now we finally know what monkeys think of most humans.I doubt this, as reasonable as it sounds.
My assumption is that monkeys brought up in human homes as pets would have attempted the same thing. My guess is whatever got one of the monkeys walking got them all walking, they didn't just play monkey see, monkey do.
Marques Johansson
Maybe some other /.er can come up with the name of the documentary. This can't be a new insight.
Letter To Iran
Without knowing too much about evolution theory, it would seem to me that intelligence would always be a selective factor in all species. :)
If that is so, then why aren't we mostly geniuses, (from the perspective of percent use of our brain capacities) and comparatively why aren't other species more intelligent?
It does not seem that the current run of oppossum could ever have been be much more stupid than they are already
Has anyone done a study on whether human bipedalism is due to the behavior learned from surrounding people or if there are practical reasons for why we hardly ever walk on all fours? That is, do we just walk on two legs most of the time because everybody else does?
I, for one, welcome our new bipedal primate overlords.
Of course, disease can not fully explain the switch from 4 legs to 2. I'm sure many other potential diseases are possible, a brain dehabilitation rendering the left side of the body useless might be one example. The key point to stress however, is that the "accidental" effects of this particular disease may have somehow been advantagious to the particular primates carrying the disease, therefore allowing natural selection to do its work.
Of course, from the other side of the pond, one could argue that the absence of any substantial population of bipedal primates today dillutes (but doesn't necessarily refute) Darwin's arguments for change over time. Of course, there are modern day evolutionists who propose that evolution is a more discrete, step-wise process, rather than the gradual process that Darwin proposed, therefore nullifying the other side's argument.
Nothing disturbs me more than blind loyalism towards some unrealistic and over-idealistic notion of one's nationality.
As a male of the species, I can say with certaintly that I would try to impress the opposite sex by showing off my ub3r l33t skills at bipedal motion if the other lam3r wannabes were still crawing along on 4 peds.
I'm definitely impressed by the geekiness of the female in question though.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Because Bush told me it aint true and I believe everything he tells us!
Repent! You demon-worshopping mongrels.
The monkey to correctly enunciate a single English word, and in the company of fellow monkeys slips into fits of screaming:
Its begun.
Quick, everybody hide in the statue of liberty!
Seriously, how freaky does that picture look. I don't know why but I didn't expect it to look quite so similar to ourselves - i envisaged "cheetah" from tarzan - doin a silly walkin dance, not in the slightest, I'm gonna see if I can find some video of this, I wonder if its a natural walking rythm?
liqbase
was that both of the monkey's front arms had to be amputated because of the illness. So...it's no real mystery why it walks on its hind legs! Geez...
John Kerry is a Joke!
When are people going to quit assuming evolution is a proven fact? Hello? theory? A stupid monkey walking upright becuase of a stomach problem or whatever does not make it a missing link.
Haha, at first I misread that as Chimpy McFlingshit
This is not QUITE as revolutionary as it first appears. As the article points out, monkeys normally alternate between walking upright and walking on all fours. This one has just chosen to no longer walk on all fours.
So it is not that this macaque has learned a new behavior, but discarded an old one.
This story reminds me of the time I discovered a single elbow macaroni in my plate of spaghetti.
where is he? we need him now!
-- Note: These Comments are Generated by ME! Not You! ME!
Maybe her back hurts, and standing just feels better.
Or maybe she just decided that standing up gives her a better view.
Or maybe she simply likes all the attention it's bringing her.
Read my mind not my key strokes!
Letter To Iran
I hardly think this important. There are some legitimate scientific objections to macroevolutionary theory, but how homo sapiens became bipedal surely isn't one of them. Walking on only two legs is great, but perhaps more effort should be spent on matters such as irreducible complexity.
Alphanos
there's no question among scientists as to whether evolution/darwinism/run-a-way sexual selection, or what-have-you actually exists or not.
Furthermore, I highly doubt scientists will discover anything 'fascinating' or even slightly out of the ordinary regarding the Macaques brain, simply because it walks on two legs instead of four. The change is comparable to losing your left hand or going blind. The brain will restructure itself in a way to support your new living habits that is both mundane and predictable (ie. in the case of someone going blind, auditory cortex will begin to take over parts of the visual cortex that are no longer being used... more so for someone who's still young and exhibits cortical plasticity, than for an adult, who's brain is less plastic).
http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa02280 0a.htm/
Maybe she hurt her back and can only move comfortably on two legs. Humans can hurt their back and only move comfortably using four limbs.
Disease causes spontaneous bipedalism? C'mon!
It implied one of the scientists believed brain damage from the illness caused her to walk like us bipeds. Figures - Leave it to brain damage to make an animal more human.
Nah, bipedalism developed because it frees the arms to manipulate tools. look at primates... some use plant stems to catch ants/insects, and others bash enemies with a nearby sticks and such. Thats a far more reasonable explanation than an illness that forced species to walk on their hindlegs. Or if you believe Genesis, evolution is junk and we're all heretics.
Ya, they are called Lawers with an attitude.
Idiots mod down because they don't get the reference...
I'm all for Science, but this mentality gives Scientists a bad name.
Look! That Monkey is doing something differnet! Lets cut it open and find out why!
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
Human = Brain damaged monkey.
At least this explains most social/political behavior.
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
There is also the possibility that walking with the use of its arms causes discomfort. Pain and discomfort is a strong convincer of learned behaviour.
For example, if you are unfortunate enough to break a bone, how long after the cast comes off do you still tentatively utilise that body part? If your hip gets broken, a limp occurs and only through extensive retraining through physotherapy is the muscles and learned knee jerk reaction to avoid pain unlearned.
Having a physiotherapist in the immediate family and spending lots of time around recovering individuals, I have noted that people who refuse to perform their physio properly inevitably take longer to heal and revert back to normal physical movement.
The fact that this animal refuses to, can not, or will not revert back to normal movement may just be an indication of its non-complete healing. I believe time will tell on this one.
flinging poop since 1969
I'd also be interested to see if the monkey's offspring became bipedal as well. Would raise more interesting questions.
Well,
Put a towel on it's head, call it Ahmed Muhuammed Aziz and oops it's an Arab!
"4 legs good, 2 legs bad"
Apparently, Lamarck is still alive and well. This monkey's bipedalism is most assuredly NOT an inheritable trait; it is the result of a non-mutation. If I had a mild stroke and started walking with a limp, that does not mean my future children will also walk in the same limp.
you see, the funny thing is that we didnt evolve. god made us prety much just as we are today, perhaps a little healthier
Nathan Friedly
I've been walking for, let's see... *counts fingers* years now! What's so impressive about that? Wannabe! :)
DJCC
Evolution is accepted by a great majority of life scientists; it is the basis of modern biology, so why shouldn't it be considered factual?
No data, no cry
...read it as "Macaque Monkey Goes Totally Postal"?
(ducks)
Humans HAD to learn to walk upright, to keep their hands free for important tasks, and the most important one to learn is how to get bras off....
"altered brain" ? More likely the ape got over the stomach virus / diahrrea and simply doesn't like having shit run from its ass to its belly.
Seems like a good enough incentive to stand upright to me.
What if you don't have any knees?
:)
Since some people do not have knees, then
not everybody will 'bow before him' so logically,
the statement is false.
Any deity without a sense of humor is already hell to be around anyways.
(Zeus doesn't invite him to parties anymore...)
But, you do know the gods have a sense of humor,
look at who gets elected for president!
Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Ford, Carter, Nixon...
Prediction: Jay Leno will be President 2008 !
I think if you'll do some research with an open mind you'll find the basis for evolutionary theory is questionable. It is riddled with mistakes, conjecture, and circular reasoning. I used to think evolution was a fact. I found out that it is not.
Yeah, like that "Theory of Gravity". Everyone's always treating that one like a proven fact, too...
Does anyone else think this sounds like a phrase from Red Dwarf? "If the captain sees this mess, he'll go totally bipedal, man!!!"
Guess what... its still a monkey! This might be big news if it decides to have offspring that are not monkeys.
Just another idiot trying to prove a theory that is bad and with no scientific credibility.
Maybe childhood trama is why lawyers walk upright?
This is the Zionist conspiracy as laid out in the Protocols!
Darwinism doesn't need to score points anymore. It's not just a theory. The evolution of new species can be observed in petri dishes and in some of the world's more polluted bodies of water, to name just a few. Besides, once you accept that species can change over time, Darwinism becomes an unavoidable consequence. The agricultural industry has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that organisms change over time, so Darwinism is at least as solid as ANY other piece of science out there.
Evolution, unlike gravity, has no proof. You have just made the first mistake - you approach it assuming that it is fact. Do some homework.
This strikes me as being an acquired characteristic. It would be interesting to see if she could pass this on to her children. If the children walk up right and are not simply trying to mimic their mother, then we are witnessing a mutation. A mutation is part of evolution.
"Ow, macaque!"
If a species of monkeys, for whatever reason, began walking on their hind legs, then they would have a greater chance of reproducing if that somehow provided a survival advantage. Soon, the monkeys that walked better than the others would have a higher survival rate, and so on and so on until the walking process was refined throughout the ages.
One definition of evolution is the process of retaining the characteristics that ensure a greater chance of survival and reproduction.
Well, how would you explain why I have an appendix?
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
Some monkey in a zoo gets sick, has lasting affects from it, has to change it's way of doing things... and that's a sign that illness caused us to evolve from monkeys? Wow... thank the powers that be our ancient ancestorial monkey brothers & sisters didn't develop a propensity for giant hemmorhoids and just stopped sitting down for the rest of eternity. Our feet would be big ol' elephant feet (and our butts would hurt everyday of our lives from birth). Maybe this monkey will develop a chronic limp. That'll explain why so many people evolved the "I can't work so I just live off welfare and limp around so I look like I can't work", limp. If we're "evolved" from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys? Wouldn't monkeys have evolved into humans then disappeared because they were now homosapeans? Oh, it's that there are different species of monkeys, some species didn't evolve... right? Yet this present day sick maqaque is a possible sign we did? Then we didn't evolve from monkeys at all, we evolved from something that was "monkey-like", but not monkeys... right? Then please explain the fact that fossils have been found of "monkeys" that are way, WAY older than our oldest human fossils found to date. Plus, we are the ONLY species that is "self aware". Explain that.
Perhaps we didn't evolve into homosapeans at all.
We've always been homosapeans. We may have evolved certain characteristics or lost some characteristscs (hair, heigth, girth, skin tone, eye socket shape, etc) due to ever changing climactic and topographical needs, but we were never monkeys. It stands to reason so.
"It is essential that justice be done
I personally believe it is far more likely and logical that this is a point for Creationism. After all look at the God that designed the monkey with the ability to adapt in such a manner to this illness. Evolution could only be given a point if this trait was passed down to offspring in such a manner that it improved their survivability and ability to breed themselves. Plague responsiveness on a small subset would typically lead to inbreeding if it was a genetic trait and we have all seen what happens when you inbreed monkeys
Bad Panda! No Bamboo for you! In matters of importance ACs will not be responded to. Want to say something critical,OK
In a highly-scientific study, two experimenters found that dogs could be taught to walk on two legs too. Demonstrating how this may happened in nature (e.g. large leaves) the experimenters tied a small bag to each of the dog's hind legs.
The result: the dog walked on two feet. The study was then published on America's Funniest Home Videos.
The BBC has the story.
The notion that humans only use 10% of their brains is completely wrong. It stemmed from the book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie, that was published in 1936. On page 206 Carnegie quotes Professor William James, a psychologist at Harvard, as saying
"Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. We are making use of only a small part of our physical and mental resources. Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits. He possesses powers of various sorts which he habitually fails to use."
And furthermore, on page 11 of the foreward, Lowell Thomas misquotes Professor James where he says
"Professor William James of Harvard used to say that the average man develops only 10 percent of his latent mental ability."
So, maybe Professor James did actually say something like that, but he said it just as a motivator for people, not because it had any basis in scientific research. The only reason "everyone knows" that people only use 10% of their brains is because of Dale Carnegie's wildly popular book, which incidentally, was marketed to sales people, who are notoriously science-illiterate.
To put it into perspective, would you be as intelligent as you are now if you lost 90% of your brain? It's sad that American school teachers sometimes teach this crap in their classrooms, when it's only raison d'etre is a misquote in a 1930's book for salesmen.
Just because we can't explain something doesn't mean it isn't true. Just like the beginning of the universe. Can you explain either how God always existed or how the big bang happened?
I can't, nor could someone that espouses evolution as fact.
I, for one, welcome our new Macaque overlords.
Sorry.....
Of blankness, I know nothing.
So now, not only are we descended from monkeys, but rather crazy ones?
Talk about survival of the fittest!
Wait till my local preacher hears about this!
welcome our new bipedal overlords...
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
So many of these dumb theories are there to support some daft notion: man is superior to other animals; white folks are better than black folks...
Engineering is the art of compromise.
One made its way into Whitehouse nearly four years ago.
- Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
There could many reasons why the monkey is walking on hind legs.
But I think there is enough proof other than a monkey walking on two legs that still proves darwin is correct. We live in the 21st century know why Is evolution still being questioned.
Oh wait..... I know the man upstairs. Sainta Claus
The most revealing thing about this post and its follow-ups is that so few people, including the original poster, seem to realize the elementary point that this incident could NEVER be construed as evidence for Darwinism. Charles Darwin explicitly debunked the inheritance of acquired characteristics (Lamarkianism) which had also been promoted by his Grandfather. Of course for those who celebrate anything that sounds like evolution, it does not matter whether it is really supporting the scientific theory or not. It is all just part of the promotional bluster.
The ways in which people misunderstand evolutionary theory never cease to amaze me.
A walking monkey is not our biggest problem
(mirror)
Someone needs to photoshop a monolith in the background:-)
well of course its not a missing link. everyone clearly knows where it is.
Maybe the monkey decided to start walking like this after watching a Human do this.....?
Umm hate to brake this to you, but its not questionable at all. See here's the thing, with science you make a statement, and people go out an attempt to replicate your experiment. If you draw a conclusion from evidence then that evidence is open to review.
every thing else (like what you are spewing) is philosophy. Perhaps you need to have your belief system peer reviewed.
Imagine a beowulf troop of these
Mod parent up!
Instead of celebrating heathenism, praise the Lord you fools!
I'm not sure, but I think macaques are apes, not monkeys.
what monolith? We didn't see no black 1 x 4 x 9 monolith! Ook.
The problem with these people is that they cannot be convinced that they are wrong. To them the fact that their god (note: no capital) created it all exactly in this way is a fact upon which everything else is built. No proof of this fact is needed. Yet, if an evolutionist points to all the evidence for his theory, the creationists immediately yell that he has no proof and is creating facts out of the blue.
I used to not understand at all how we humans can have actively and conciously practiced evolution in dogs, cats, horses, pigeons, plants, ... for many hundreds or even thousands of years (yes, I'm talking about selectively breeding new races/species) all while the church was the recognised sole owner of the truth and proclaiming that god created everything exactly as-is. Along comes Darwin, and poof, suddenly evolution is declared a heresy and nobody makes the connection to facts from everyday life.
But using this kind of reasning is useless. If you can interbread a horse and a donkey to create a mule, that will be labeled god's will. If you can find two other species that can interbreed but that in addition generate non-sterile off-spring, that too will be labeled god's will: he created them such that this is possible. Not that it says so in the bible, but who cares: the bible is only to be cited when it fits the claim that needs to be made. Ergo, the creationists are always right and will not accept any criticism unless you can cite the bible in an attempt to support your claim. And even then they will not listen if they think they can cite a contradictory passage that can be explained in such a way that whatever you cited is not applicable to the argument at hand.
Hence, I now say: forget it and let evolution take care of it. On the longer run, creationists are a dying breed anyway.
Linux user since early January 1992.
you blew it all up! next thing you know these things willl be carrying AK47s and doing our dishes. Actually I am prone to believe that we are watching Evolution... we could not have come as far as we have without a few giant leaps, such as an entire tribe of apes getting a bad flu and changing their posture to make digestion easier, thus putting less demands on the body allowing energy to be spent in a more eficient manner...
[Quadrupeds walk] on either their feet or their toes. Humans can't do this due to the differences in proportion between our arms and legs.
Rabbits have long legs and comparatively short arms as well. So why don't naked apes hop like rabbits?
G Bush will start walking on all fours? http://www.bushorchimp.com/
Also sprach Zarathustra...
Evolution and gravity both have the same amount of proof, or lack thereof. Before accusing people of making mistakes and creating facts where there are none, you should do your own homework.
Linux user since early January 1992.
Neither "Darwinian" nor "Evolutionist" is in common usage as means of self-identification amongst us. "Evolutionary Biologist" is acceptable, though it does imply too much about qualifications.
Really, the idea of the environment being a sieve (i.e. evolution) is about as controversial as apple pie in scientific circles. Abstract debate is confined to the relative importance of gene flow vis-a-vis genetic drift vis-a-vis punctuated equilibrium et cetera.
Also, this single case is:
-not statistically valid
-only immediately relevant in the non-Mendelian Lamarckian Evolution
-not very relevant to genetic evolution
I haven't RAllTFArticles, but presumably the McNeil fellow argues that the learned meme of bipedalism introduced an environmental pressure that favoured pelvic and knee bones suited for bipedalism and thus caused an actual genetic change in the long run. That's a very tentative change of events and not one I have heard suggested before.
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
If however by evolution you mean that all living things share a common ancestor - then that has very little evidence and is far from being a fact. This has caused some to coin the terms micro and macro evolution. However, even these terms are deceptive and best avoided. It is beneficial for you to specify what use of the word evolution you refer to. Specifically, that all living things share a common ancestor is a claim that, as you say, is "riddled with mistakes, conjecture, and circular reasoning". That species are formed and adapt to their environment through natural selection, this use of the word evolution is beyond doubt and is a fact.
I always said he was a stand up guy, but the other monkeys say he walks like he has a stick up his A$$.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
That Giraffes necks are so long because they decided it would be in there best interest to eat leaves at the tops of trees and their offspring agreed? Trying to play this as a win for 'evolutionists' is idiotic, do you people really have nothing else to persuade people that you have to commit an old old fallacy? Shame shame, hopefully some real scientists will see this for what it is, a neat incident and not much more...
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
Let me explain, through an application of Occam's razor. Assume that God does not exist. What seems the most likely explanation of the origin of life and its consequent formation into what we see today? Undoubtedly, Darwinism.
Assume that God does exist. Assume that God does not exist. What seems the most likely explanation of the origin of life and its consequent formation into what we see today? Undoubtedly, special creation.
So the debate is far from scientific - it is a debate rooted in the question of whether God exists or not, and what His role in Creation is. I do not deny that natural selection occurs, species are formed and adapt, and that a change in allele frequencies occur. I deny the likelihood that all living things share a common ancestor. Knowing beyond doubt that God exists means that Occam's razor principle leads me to accept the simplest answer - God specially created all living things, including your appendix.
Add another bonus point for the Darwinians/evolutionists.
How is this a bonus point for Darwinians/evolutionists? Amazing to what dishonest lengths evolutionists will go to promote their religion.
Umm hate to brake this to you, but its not questionable at all.
Um, Mr. Scientist, if a supposed "scientific theory" is not questionable, doesn't that make it more of a philosophy/religion?
I thought we were *supposed* to question our working knowledge. Weren't we supposed to learn something from our previous scientific embarassments that they taught us about in school? You know, the whole "Earth is round, woops, we were wrong", and "Earth orbits the sun, not vice versa", etc? Perhaps I misunderstood.
Signed,
-Confused
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous...
Seen from the perspective of one with postdoc level training in related matters, this is silly. It is wrong as support for natural selection in the origin of species among primates for two reasons:
;-)
1) In dogs, a broken leg makes them walk on three legs. This is compensation, not evolution toward bipedal posture. The broken-legged puppy is LESS likely to survive and reproduce (its weaker bones mayhap?).
In monkeys, a broken or weak arm (eg. from illness) makes them prefer to walk on two legs, but again the arm problem makes them LESS likely to survive. And monkeys in general already know how to walk on two legs OR on all fours--they do not need a group behavioral culture to teach them to do so. (Humans don't need to be taught to crawl by someone who cannot walk because of a weak leg, for example.)
2) More importantly, this smacks of Lamark. Arm weakness after enterovirus polimyelitis may cause a monkey that orginally could walk on EITHER all fours (preferred) OR bipedally to change to PREFER bipedal walking. Lamark said giraffes had long necks from straining their necks upward--this is the concept of learned or acquired characteristics passed to offspring. This is not a DNA based theory! And, it was not Dawin's theory!
Bad evolutionist--know thy Darwin!
Instead of a win for Darwin, this would actually be a win for Lamarck (whom Darwin discredited). If the acquired behavior seen in these monkeys is passed on to their offspring, it would prove Lamarck's "Theory of Aquired Characteristics".
Here's a reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarck
See, this is the problem when the general layman starts throwing around terms like "theory" with no understanding of what exactly a scientific theory is. What a theory means to you and what a theory means to science are two VASTLY different things.
A theory, in the context of a scientific theory, is widely accepted as "true". The two highest truths in science are scientific theories and scientific laws. Scientific theories can never be proven to be absolutely true, so they are accepted as "the truth" until someone proves it wrong (which very, very, very rarely happens to established theories with centuries of evidence behind them, like natural selection). Everything that is a scientific "fact" is actually a theory. Theories are not "guesses" or "hypothesis", they are tested, provable explainations to a phenomenon.
So, yes, you can consider evolution as "truth" as we know it.
people dont have sex with monkeys (for the most part) It makes sense that there would be more monkey-like groups and less monkey-like groups, and they would each form breeding habits based upon general preferences. Thus creating an ever widening split between the more monkey people and the less monkey people, those groups being of course the Apes we know and love today and the humans we loathe and despise today.
Macaque is completely upright! How terribly exciting!
I totally agree. I should have been clear. My intent was to dispute "macro evolution" as fact. Adaptation occurs without question. Common ancestry has no basis in fact.
My boss has brain damage, but he's still walking on all fours.
id like to see those experiments that proved the earth was flat.
even the Book of Fairy Tales And Floating Axes
Fairy tales? Do you mean like when God struck down the fairies living in Sodom and Gomorrah?
say that no man has seen the face of gawd, right?
Even if you accept that no man still living has seen the face of the Christian God, we've come pretty blessed close to reconstructing what He could have looked like when He spawned on the "EARTH" map, got crucified, respawned on the third day, and rose to heaven.
While I agree that Darwinist evolution is certainly not a fact, it is often pointed out (rightly) that the term 'theory' does not indicate doubt about what is claimed. There are many problems with Darwinism, but the use of the word 'theory' is not an admittance of any weakness. For more details, the wikipedia has an entry on scientific theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory
THE EVERLASTING MAN
.
G.K. Chesterton
[ TABLE OF CONTENTS ]
PREFATORY NOTE
This book needs a preliminary note that its scope be not misunderstood The view suggested is historical rather than theological, and does not deal directly with a religious change which has been the chief event of my own life; and about which I am already writing a more purely controversial volume. It is impossible, I hope, for any Catholic to write any book on any subject, above all this subject, without showing that he is a Catholic; but this study is not specially concerned with the differences between a Catholic and a Protestant. Much of it is devoted to many sorts of Pagans rather than any sort of Christians; and its thesis is that those who say that Christ stands side by side with similar myths, and his religion side by side with similar religions, are only repeating a very stale formula contradicted by a very striking fact. To suggest this I have not needed to go much beyond matters known to us all; I make no claim to learning; and have to depend for some things, as has rather become the fashion, on those who are more learned. As I have more than once differed from Mr. H. G. Wells in his view of history, it is the more right that I should here congratulate him on the courage and constructive imagination which carried through his vast and varied and intensely interesting work; but still more on having asserted the reasonable right of the amateur to do what he can with the facts which the specialists provide.
* * *
INTRODUCTION
THE PLAN OF THIS BOOK
There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back to the same place; and I tried to trace such a journey in a story I once wrote. It is, however, a relief to turn from that topic to another story that I never wrote. Like every book I never wrote, it is by far the best book I have ever written. It is only too probable that I shall never write it, so I will use it symbolically here; for it was a symbol of the same truth. I conceived it as a romance of those vast valleys with sloping sides, like those along which the ancient White Horses of Wessex are scrawled along the flanks of the hills. It concerned some boy whose farm or cottage stood on such a slope, and who went on his travels to find something, such as the effigy and grave of some giant; and when he was far enough from home he looked back and saw that his own farm and kitchen-garden, shining flat on the hill-side like the colours and quarterings of a shield, were but parts of some such gigantic figure, on which he had always lived, but which was too large and too close to be seen. That, I think, is a true picture of the progress of any really independent intelligence today; and that is the point of this book . .
[ . . . ]
* * *
PART I. ON THE CREATURE CALLED MAN
* * *
I. THE MAN IN THE CAVE
Far away in some strange constellation in skies infinitely remote, there is a small star, which astronomers may some day discover. At least I could never observe in the faces or demeanour of most astronomers or men of science any evidence that they have discovered it; though as a matter of fact they were walking about on it all the time. It is a star that brings forth out of itself very strange plants and very strange animals; and none stranger than the men of science. That at least is the way in which I should begin a history of the world, if I had to follow the scientific custom of beginning with an account of the astronomical universe. I should try to see even this earth from the outside, not by the hackneyed insistence of its relative position to the sun, but by some imaginative effort to conceive its remote position for the dehumanised spectator. Only I do not believe in being dehumanised in order to study humanity. I do not believe in dwelling upon the distances that are supposed to dwarf the world; I think there is even someth
IC XC NIKA
Evolution overall is gradual. It can have sudden jumps, but only at conception of the new creature, not in the middle of its lifetime. And most of all, up until the moment when creatures with the mental capabilities of (prototype) humans were formed, evolution is solely built on the changes being hereditary. Nowadays, the latter no longer is true because we humans have found ways to adapt to hostile environments without having to fundamentally change ourselves. But back "bipededness" (is that a word?) for primates was invented, that did not yet aply.
Final note: Even today. the hereditary aspect remains. We can invent a new trick and teach it to our children with no biological evolution being involved, but only those that have the pfysical/mental ability to really exploit it will prosper because of. And that is called... evolution.
Linux user since early January 1992.
Say you have two species where the belief is one evolved from the other. The creationists cry "How can that happen? Where's the missing link?" So they dig up another set of bones that fit in the middle. Suddenly they cry out for the two missing links between the three species. Find another two sets of bones and they cry out they for the four missing links.
They don't want a missing link, they want a friggan family tree. I personally think they just like using the word "begat".
When the creationists come up with an explaination for the thousands of species of dogs and cats that didn't exist in "biblical" times. Also how drug resistant bacteria occur. You might also want to go tell farmers and horse breeders they're wasting their time too because nothing they do can change what God did six thousand years ago.Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
Monkey gets sick. Can't walk like other monkeys.
If you seriously gravity and evolution have the same amount of proof you have a long way to go in your understanding of either concept.
...because it was time for the AMIDAH!
Best Buy can have you arrested
the creation accounts, of which there are at least two accounts in the Hebrew Torah.
Much of what appears to conflict in English is an artifact of translation. Given this explanation of how the two accounts in the opening chapters of Genesis complement each other, with reference to the original Hebrew, what do you still find in conflict?
The simplest answer if god exists, is that he created a single cell capable of reproducing and evolving and then let everything ... evolve from there. If you really want god to be the great and allmighty creator, then at leaxt give him the credit of creating something as flexible and magnificent as evolution. (You might consider it his ensurance policy. :-)
Linux user since early January 1992.
One more thing: Occam's razor is often misunderstood. It says that if there are two equally valid explanations for an observation, we should accept the simplest one as the most likely one. It does NOT say that the simplest one by definition also is that one and only correct one.
Linux user since early January 1992.
The first thing that popped into my head was also Lamark (all I ever had was high school bio, so that might explain it).
Letter To Iran
I, for one, welcome our new walking monkey overlords. /you damn dirty apes!
Walking on only two legs is great, but perhaps more effort should be spent on matters such as irreducible complexity.
Complexity is not irreducible, as long as you don't fall too far into the "watch/Boeing 747" analogy. Unlike a watch or a 747, a biological system is flexible and components can interact with sub-optimal degrees of efficiency. Since evolution acts on all components of the system (all genes are subject to random mutation), the whole system can change slowly over time until it seems that if you yank out one component, it will cease to function. The trick is realizing that the components didn't (necessarily) appear "suddenly", but were adapted from other functions or modes of control, and we only see the results that worked, because the ones that didn't, were selected against and disappeared.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Faith can and does mean two separate things:
1. A belief in something when there is no proof. eg, "I have faith that my sister will return home one day because I have no proof that she will." Some people use this for belief in God: "I have faith that God exists because there is no proof - if I had proof then there would be no need for faith." This is a common usage of the word faith, but is utterly incorrect.
2. A belief in something when you have proof. eg, the famous tightrope walker. You see him walk across a chasm many times, with objects, wheelburrows, and even animals. Then he asks if you will let him carry you across in the wheelburrow. If you decide to, you are putting your faith in him. Not because you don't know if he can do it - you have faith in him precisely because he has demonstrated and proven himself worth trusting. This is the correct definition of Biblical faith. We have faith in God because He has proven Himself trustworthy, time after time after time.
Amazing to what dishonest lengths EVERYONE will go to promote their religion. At least evolutionists dont ask me for money.
Yeah but it's still not genetic, it's adapted behaviour. The new apes would walk on four legs until they got polio and then would walk on two. The walking on the hind legs is a redundant backup system but there's no environmental advantage to it.
Build your own website - full service homepage system your m
I didn't know CmrTaco was sick...
Knowing beyond doubt that God exists
Because why?
You had a nice rational post going there...and WHAM, some random assumption stated as undeniable fact.
Sigh : (
You can't take the sky from me...
Despite the above, I also say that both are theories that "live" the abstract world that we humans created in our collective conciousness. Evolution is a theory that describes how we (well, those who accept it) explain/model certain things in biology such as to explain the data that we have. Gravity is a mathemetical theory that describes how we explain/model certain things in physics such as to explain the data that we have. Both theories have evolved over time as our understanding changed (think of Einstein, amongst others), but the fact that there are people who refuse to accept any given theory (in casu evolution) does not make it untrue.
Another theory that we humans created in our collective conciousness is called god. It's the theory that we use to explain things that we do not know how else to explain. If evolution is not proven simply because there are people who do not accept it, then neither is the idea of god.
Note that the above does not deny anyone the right to believe in one ore more gods. I will not say that there is no god simply because there are people (like me) who think that there is none.
Linux user since early January 1992.
what if an illness was the cause of the shift to bipedal motion by our evolutionary ancestors
That seems questionable -- sounds an awful lot like Lamarckism to me.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
"Science and religion are in full accord but science and faith are in complete discord."
-taken from the slashdot autoquote generator in the footer
"Science is the religion of believing whatever is most believable."
-taken from a slashdot user's sig (forgive me for not recording whom, nor can i find seem to find out through google)
you really have some twisted forced interpretation of the evidence before you
your interpretation of occam's razor is completey unsound
"assume god exists"
you realize that with that statement, you've completely negated the use of occam's razor
logic is not forte
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
One of the things that bipedalism gave us was the ability to carry a larger brain. Rather than having to hold the head up, we just sortof balance it on the top of the spine.
Try crawling around for a while on all fours. Besides getting sore knees, you'll also get a sore neck from holding your head up. (Although the fact that our spine connects to the skull in a different place from that of quadrupeds may exacerbate the problem.)
But don't let this confuse you. Having a larger brain did not cause us to go bipedal just so we could hold our heads up. Evolution doesn't work that way (with quadrupeds, brains larger than what gives an immediate advantage are selected against). Instead, our ancestors developed bipedalism because it was a hunting advantage... you can see farther and not occupy your hands with the act of moving (as someone else in this forum already mentioned). But then that allowed us to develop larger brains (and thicker skulls *g*) which kinda got us cornered this way (that is, our larger brains are now a selection criterion against NOT being bipedal).
(BTW, the thicker skulls thing is serious, though, when you consider Neandertals.)
So, to answer your question, bipedalism is not a learned thing in modern humans. We evolved to be this way, we don't function well if we don't walk upright, and children pretty much figure it out on their own (although watching others may help a little).
Also, besides bipedalism, another way to be able to develop a larger brain is to be aquatic. (Floating is good.) Thus, we have dolphins.
Good thing /. put the link to the story here. I didn't really want the spies at IS at work to see me searching for the terms "Erect Monkey" to get the details...
Of course he has. We (well, not every single one of us, but...) have created him to be exactly that: trustworthy, time after time after time. That's exactly the same what people like the Greek, the Romans, the Vikings, the Sumerians, the ancient Egyptians, the Aztecs, the Maya's, and countless other tribes did. They created a god or multiple gods that was/were trustworthy. Untill, that is, (s)he/they proved not to be so trustworthy after all. Who says your current god is any better (read as: more worthy of faith)?
Linux user since early January 1992.
"A zoo veterinarian says he's not sure why she has altered her behaviour, speculating that the illness could have caused brain damage."
Great, so we are all just brain damaged monkeys
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
In Soviet Russia, you evolve into the monkey!
Can you explain to me the difference between "created" and "specially created?"
No data, no cry
only outlaws will have memories...
Yet they ignore Intelligent Design which seems far more rational than believing in the incredibly slim odds of evolution occuring as fast as (or at all) it is described.
Unfortunately, there is no theory of intelligent design. ID is little more than stealth creationism; instead of "god did it!", IDists claim that "something did something to something, for suitably broad definitions of 'something' and 'did.'" If you doubt this evaluation, one need only examine the writings of IDists like Phillip Johnson. How often does he support or even define ID? How often does he attempt to attack evolution or naturalism?
Geeze, did all the creationist trolls decide to wait until now to start posting?
We have faith in God because He has proven Himself trustworthy, time after time after time.
No, he hasn't.
You can't take the sky from me...
i know how this all ends. somebody needs to put a bullet into that thing
"I for one, welcome our new macaque overlords."
:)
I sincerely apologize, but I just had to say it
i saw this story on fark.com, and i saw it on aintitcoolnews.com
:-/
and now slashdot
wow, a walking monkey
to me, this weird obsession just seems to be people who are unfamiliar with monkeys... monkeys walk like this all the time, except this particular monkey has a stomachache, so its lessening its gastrointestinal malfeasance through orthostatic perambulation (read: it's struttin' 'round 'cause it tummy hurts)
it's not brain damage leading to an evolutionary insight, christ!
all i see is just a lot of folks unfamiliar with monkey physiology going "ooh! planet of the apes!"
what next? someone's going to discover a video of one of those lemurs that hops around in madagascar and proclaim discovery of the missing link?
come on! i expect better from the slashdot crowd than snopes.com-level gullability and impressionability
isn't this "news for nerds, stuff that matters."?
is slashdot turning into fark?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's not genetic evolution if a bunch of monkeys find a purely cutural reason to go bipedal, but Evolution will from then onward begin to alter their shape according to the pressures of bepedality. In this way, evolution could "lock in" what was originally a cultural change.
The Theory of Techtonic Plates is just that a theory but im pretty sure you believe in that one. Just because it is a theory doesent mean it isnt true. Just like the Theory of creationism. Now I dont hear that word tangled in with christian enough. I wonder why.
Clearly the churches tell the truth and worshipping there will make you safe from the wrath of god!
Its not like they are in denial or anything.
You can't take the sky from me...
At least evolutionists dont ask me for money.
It would have been better if they did. They have a better system. They take your money (grants, educational research funding, etc...) without asking. Evolutionists have monopolized the educational systems of the western world, meaning that they get all the money they need from the government. They essentially steal it.
God specially created all living things, including your appendix.
My appendix is not a living thing.
You can't take the sky from me...
Coincidentally, I woke up this morning with a headache and a strong urge to stoop and walk using my knuckles......Those damned 2-for-1 Midnight Burritos.
Table-ized A.I.
A little Correction.
"I have faith that God exists because there is no proof - if I had proof then there would be no need for faith. This is a common usage of the word faith, but is utterly incorrect."
Firstly this is not a common usage of Faith.I think most people would think this way."Im wondering how,why nature exists and how external forces influence us.Then there is a quest to seek in order to control the forces that control us".Therefore one does not negate some possibilty of External force {commonly called god}.Now here , you could either choose to shape your belief either to follow a religion to get closer to god and try to understand your existence or simply dont care abt it.
"Not because you don't know if he can do it - you have faith in him precisely because he has demonstrated and proven himself worth trusting. This is the correct definition of Biblical faith."
Interesting statement , did u make a record from every instant of time what god has done to you.Looks like you know exactly what god is doing every moment in your life."Confirmation bias" is the right word to describe your belief.
Hello , this is my way.
Which way is yours ?
btw there is no right way
this may be an obvious point, but whether or not this macaque has any effect on the evolution of its species would only become clear if this particular macaque were eventually judged a good mate by another viable macaque, bred with this other macaque and then had children that it brought up to walk in this otherwise odd way and then this went on long enough for a supporting mutation to occur and be more viable and the actual genetic makeup of the creature changed to reinforce or support the act of walking on hind limbs only, no? (or at least something along those lines...)
Please forgive the long sentence.
As far as the other point someone earlier tried to make about being able to run faster on two legs, it has generally been shown that possible speed is governed by a number of factors, but stride length and weight are major ones. You can get a much longer stride between front and rear limbs than you can just between the two rear limbs. For example the cheetah's great (short term) speed is based more on the length of its back than on the length of its legs.
that said, how long til Nike tries to sign it to an endorsement contract?
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
So it seems logical to me that if this could happen once, it could happen again, and therefore it could have happened in the past. Maybe this is how Bigfoot came to be...just an extremely rare set of coincidences.
Just a thought...
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Press F1 to continue.
The fact that you are an idiot does not, in any way, discredit the theory of evolution.
1. Individuals that can walk upright when needed, will have increased chances for survival, thus concentrating genes that contribute to being able to walk upright.
2. Being able to learn a behavior is also a genetic trait. Apes not able to learn an upright walking posture when needed (either due to disease or injury) will have diminished survival chances, even if physically capable of it.
Thus disease may not only have selected for the ability to walk upright, but to being able to learn behaviors. Survival would have depended on both and most certainly would be evolution in action by weeding out inferior not-able-to-walk-upright and not-able-to-learn-new-behavior individuals.
In the case of our hypothetical ape acquiring a behavior, you argue this is not contributing to evolution because he would have had the same genome with no advantage with or without the disease. BUT, his cousin without the ability to walk upright may have similarly fell prey to a polio like disease and not lived to spread his genes because he could not or would not walk upright. Thus our first ape gets to distribute his better upright walking, better behavior learning genes with less competition.
You have 2 kidneys, when only one is needed. Why have 2 if redundancy doesn't contribute to survival or evolution? In this case upright walking is a redundancy for loosing an arm, and evolution could and probably did select for it.
Letter To Iran
(Couldn't help myself.)
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
sorry kids, but unless the disease changed the animal's DNA, even if this WAS an advantage, the animal would be unable to pass this disease induced "trait" onto the next generation. Lamarkian evolution was based along these lines, that "giraffes necks got longer because they reached for higher leaves", but it has been long abandoned for darwin's view (modified somewhat over time) which was more along the lines of "giraffes with longer necks naturally held an advantage when competing for food in their environment, which cause them to have more offspring, which caused their genes to proliferate".
of course, as always, your mileage may vary.
Good book on this, and fun to read: "The Blind Watchmaker", Richard Dawkins
Construction unions would take umbrage at the phrase for sure.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
For example gravity is similarly "a fact", but the fact that Newton's "Theory of Gravity" has been superceeded by Einstein's doesn't change the fact of gravity.
For a Christian a "Theory of Evolution by Divine Intervention" would be as good an explanation as any (albeit one totally lacking evidence). But it seems to me that if you say that natural selection exists, then you have accepted Darwin's explanation for evolution (and man's origins).
In mammals gestation period is linear with brain size, for most mammals anyway. Humans break that rule. If humans followed the pattern pregnancy would last about 20 months.
There is a reason that horses can run hours after birth, and even primates develop about a year faster (at first) than humans. Humans are born premature. About a year too soon. Why? The head won't fit later, and since we are bipedal, the hole in the pelvic bones can't get bigger. This is also why birth is so much harder on women than say cows. The pelvis is too small and puts more stress on the woman. As it is their hips come out of joint to make more room.
Theory #4 is questionable too, Why do we have hair on our heads and (mostly) nowhere else? #2 and #3 sound ok to me.
(these are not all my ideas, But I don't know the name or author of the book I got them from)
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
"Add another bonus point for the Darwinians/evolutionists
And how the heck is this evolution having to do with Darwin again? It's pretty common knowledge that when one ability is damaged or no longer useable that other abilities step in to fill the void. DOGS can do this. You know, the ones that lost both of their front legs and now balance exclusively on their backs?? "Look, Jed! Sparky's walkin' on two legs! FUCKING EVOLUTION AT WORK!!!"
Give it a rest already. There are no bonus points to be scored here. It's a well documented and well worn fact of life. Somebody is reaching way too hard for the monolith.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
http://www.abortiontv.com/AbortionPictures1.htm
HYPOCRASY.
Interesting: Given the fact that evolutionists are also usually the same people who seem to have no moral problem whatsoever in vacuum sucking up an unborn human, consider this:
- when it comes to explaining the universe they 'assume' graduallity, evolution
but
- when it comes to convenience (after of course having been fucked/having fucked unprotected, just for pleasure), they do *NOT* want to see graduality/evolution of life. No - the human only comes into existance 'when born'
Conclusion: they're willing to believe anything as long as it does not involve God, and - when necessary - they will sacrifice righteousness.
> I think if you'll do some research with an open mind you'll find the basis for evolutionary theory is questionable. It is riddled with mistakes, conjecture, and circular reasoning.
Then you should easily be able to post, say, the ten most claring mistakes, conjectures, and circular reasonings, if only to dispel any suspicion that you don't actually know what you're talking about.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
you missed the point of the demonstation, (it was richard leaky by the way, son of louis and mary leaky, who did a great deal of work in africa on human origins, particuarly Australopithecus)
.. all other mammals.
the fact that he was able to run down the gazelle, was not to do with how much energy the gazelle was using, rather it was to do with the differences in heat dissipation between humans and
obviously large amounts of heat are generated by the action of the muscles in running.
the only way other mammals have of dissipating this potentially fatal heat increase is to pant, losing heat through water evaporation from the tongue.
sweating is not an good heat loss solution for most mammals, as it takes very little heat from their bodies due to the dense covering of fur that is typical of mammals (except humans). Humans being largely hairless, are able to dissipate heat much more efficiently through sweating.
it is this ability to lose the heat generated by running that enables hummans to run down pretty much any other mammal, as the animal will have to stop (or else die of heat stroke) long before the human.
OMFG you're one of those batshit insane people aren't you? (read your homepage)
> If you seriously gravity and evolution have the same amount of proof you have a long way to go in your understanding of either concept.
Actually, you're really confused about science. You're talking about two bodies of observations that demand explanations, "gravity" and "evolution". The explanations are called 'theories', "the theory of gravity" and "the theory of evolution".
Relativity supplies our current best theory of gravity, though we're working on stuff like string theory and loop quantum gravity in hopes of addressing the difficulties of reconciling relativity and quantum mechanics (which both work excellently at their respective scales, but seem to miss each other where we'd like to drive the Golden Spike).
The neo-darwinian synthesis supplies our current best theory of evolution.
However much creationists rage against it, evolution isn't going to go away any more than gravity is.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Late last night I was delusional, near coma, experiencing hallucinations and walking on all fours.
And then *poof!*
This morning I was walking around on two legs!
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Actually evolution ignores a great many questions and is mostly preferred because people squirm at the thought of God. Man likes to think that he's the highest possible achievement. To believe that things evolved just isn't rational since there is a certain amount of complexity that is required initially. ;-)
To argue that a V8 came from a V6 might be reasonable. However, eventually you have a single cylinder engine that cannot be simplified further. How did that come about?
At a cellular level there is a minimum level of complexity that couldn't have happened by luck. The current evidence discredits evolution as a starting point for all life. However science has nothing better to offer so the "theory" persists.
You'll know for sure when you die
1800 thousand years ago just called they want their evolution back
This is a nice thought, but evolution works on genes, not traits acquired during a lifetime. This is like saying that our children will have a genetic adaptation to use computers because we learned how. The only way the premise of this post could be true is if the illness triggered the alteration of a gene that could then be passed on to offspring. Passing acquired characteristics (Lamarkianism?) was laughed off a long time ago.
> He or she will for sure say "Because God created you that way. It is meant to be a way to test the strength of your faith in the Lord."
> The problem with these people is that they cannot be convinced that they are wrong.
The reason that creationism doesn't have a theory, and never will, is that any observation is compatible with "because God wanted it that way". Theories are attempts to explain how some aspect of the universe works, and claims that are compatible with every possible (and impossible) observation aren't explanations of anything. You might as well publish a science textbook that has nothing but a wildcard for the text explaining why things work the way they do.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
So a monkey that changes it's behavior because it is sick is proof of "survival of the fittest"? I think this is evidence for reverse evolution because the monkey may be smarter than those leaving the posts.
You mean like Nell's accent?
My new
Stupid. There is no passing of traits to offspring in this story. Lamarck has nothing to do with this.
yes that would be very interesting because it would favour the Lemarckian view of evolution rather than the Darwinian one.
Darwin (and subsequent theorists) suggests that evolution is dependent on inheritance of genetic mutation
Lamarck suggested that evolution occured through passing on learned or developed traits
Interestingly Lamarck was dissmissed initially because his theory provided a scientific rational for revolution.And although his model does not describe biological evolution it does describe cultural evolution perfectly, culture evolves by the passing on of learned traits, indeed that is one of the definitions of culture.
so unless you are suggesting that bipedalism is cultural rather than biological, i would suggest you have the wrong end of the stick!
> If however by evolution you mean that all living things share a common ancestor - then that has very little evidence
Unfortunately for you, evolution is the best explanation for two big piles of evidence, morphology and genetic structure, known together as "the twin nested hierarchy".
If you have a better explanation for this stuff, you should get busy and submit a paper about it to a biology conference. However, you seem to be in denial about the factual existence of the evidence, which makes me doubt that you've got a good theory (or even a bad one) to rival evolution as the explanation for it.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Ugh, put away your high school biology text book and at least read the damned synopsis.
In social species, behaviours can be passed down through more than just genes. The idea is that the behaviour is *learned* by other community members via immitation. ie, adult monkey begins walking upright (for some reason). Young monkeys note behaviour and immitate.
The process continues (young immitating old, etc), and, assuming there is a selective advantage to bipedalism, individuals who are better adapted to this mode of transportation outcompete their quadrapedal counterparts. Given enough time, bipedalism ends up being the norm.
So you're arguement is it is more likely that lifeforms instantly appeared as a creation of God instead of evolving over the hundreds of millions or possibly billions of years they have existed? Can you fathom how long a million years is? How about a billion? Its a really long time, y'know.
Why haven't christian scientists provided us a "theory" to explain this? It is scientificly provable is it not?
theory - a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; "theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses"; "true in fact and theory"
We ask for data and experimentation to prove your hypothesis that your God, the one that has a son named Jesus, is The Creator. That's all we ask. Then Intelligent Design might be taken a little more seriously, but it is hardly being ignored. But what about Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism. They can't all be right can they?
That's why we have science. It at least tries to derive truth by observing reality and recording the facts in the most objective manner possible given our extremely subjective human perspectives. And then it gives up trying to insist its authority when it has been proven wrong. So its really quite simple. Prove it wrong. Use science against itself.
I won't pretend to know anything about stem cell research.
Intelligent Design
Evilution
We have observed and recorded the observations of both mutation and natural selection in our history. Yet we have no recorded evidence of the existence of this Intelligent Designer. Can you please explain this for lazy potheads like myself who probably don't have a freakin clue?
I might have a hypothesis to explain this intelligence in all these complex lifeforms. Actually I doubt its a real hypothesis, but anyway here it goes. The laws of physics describe the 4 known forces of nature and might appear intelligent to someone new to science. But as we learn more we find more mathematical complexity in the very fabric of our universe than is taught in our most prestigious universities. These "laws" of physics are highly dependant on our perspective within this universe. And our perspective is rather limitted compared to the whole of our macro/micro universe. So its highly unlikely that we will know-it-all anytime in the near future. And it will take even longer when we have religious and/or political groups insisting their new "science" is more accurate than those theories that have withstood hundreds of years of criticism. Propoganda and belief don't count as scientific evidence, sorry.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science says:
Whereas, ID proponents claim that contemporary evolutionary theory is incapable of explaining the origin of the diversity of living organisms;
Whereas, to date, the ID movement has failed to offer credible scientific evidence to support their claim that ID undermines the current scientifically accepted theory of evolution;
Whereas, the ID movement has not proposed a scientific means of testing its claims;
Therefore Be It Resolved, that the lack of scientific warrant for so-called "intelligent design theory" makes it improper to include as a part of science education;
Therefore Be Further It Resolved, that AAAS urges citizens across the nation to oppose the establishment of policies that would permit the teaching of "intelligent design theory" as a part of the science curricula of the public schools;
Therefore Be It Further Resolved, that AAAS calls upon its members to assist those engaged in overseeing science edu
Doesn't Darwin's evolution always involve a mutation? So it can only happen at birth. The monkey should have always walked upright for this to be evolution.
This looks like more to the pre-Darwin evolution theory of Lamarck. By this theory, the body of a living creature actually changes. And modifications get carried to the next generation. But this is an old theory which has been replaced by the Darwin's one. If you harm a leg, this harm isn't carried onto the next generation...
I imagine the fact that jogging is more efficient than alternatively sprinting and stopping helps too.
there is also some interesting experimental data on lemurs, particuarly the sifaka who live right on the very edge of their energy requirement... (i think several studies show they don't actually eat enough to live),
they tend to do much hanging round in trees, and then sort of "skip" across to the next clump of forest.
another of my favorite modes of locomotion is the "bottom shuffling" of the gelada baboon who spends much of its feeding time sat on its arse picking at grass seeds (in fact so much time on its arse that it has a red chest to indicate it's in estrus rather than the red backside of its cousins) shuffling to a new spot much the same way a human baby does before it can walk.
One of the key aspects of any energy requirements and locomotion study, needs to be how that animal aquires its food source, as lifestyle plays a big part in the larger picture.
Natural selection is a process by which more beneficial traits are selected for, and harmful ones are selected against.
Darwin's theory explained far more than selection. Creationists include natural selection in their model. Darwin hypothesised that all living things share a common ancestor. Creationists reject that. Natural selection can be (and is) true and demonstrated, while common ancestry is not a necessary consequence of natural selection. The teaching of common ancestry relies on natural selection, but natural selection does not rely on common ancestry.
In this case, the fact is natural selection. Natural selection does not have to mean a progression though. If we hypothesise that all creatures were created perfect, but have since been degenerating, then natural selection is not about improving the species. Instead, natural selection becomes a process by which the degeneration of a creature, or species, is slowed. For example, without natural selection we might reason that humans would be far inferior to what we are today, and that with natural selection we still degenerate, but at a much slower rate. Much like watering a plant. Without water the plant would quickly wither and die. With water it will still die one day, but the time is postponed. So, too, may natural selection fill the role of slowing degeneration.
Nevertheless, I'm just trying to show you how natural selection does not necessarily mean common ancestry.
That's usually a sign of a confused mind.
Anyway, to answer your question. Creationists already know what happened (and yes, for you: you may call it a theory) and you can find it in the Bible.
And you know what: the funny thing is that it is supported by geological evidence!
And also: just a question for you. Where o where is the missing link? Your heros have been digging for 150 years and they found zip nada nothing.
HAHAHHA sillyyyyyy
Given the intense level of debate, and the amount of heat as opposed to light from both sides of the evolution debate that ensued from the story, are we allowed to mod the whole article ;-)
-1 flamebait?
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World" 1 John 4:14
free bipedal monkeys and through creationists into zoos, life would be much better. I would even buy a bag of peanuts to feed the stupid creationists.
BTW I am not making the point that this bipedal monkey proves Darwinism. I just like picking on creationists. I'm sorry but *God made me do it*
Evidence?
Where are the hundreds of thousands of missing links that *MUST* have been found if the (haha) theory is correct?
Found: none. And it is driving evolutionists mad...
For this to have anything to do with evolution, the new trait (bipedalism, in this case), has to be passable to the descendants of the animal with the trait.
If this trait is a result of illness, it's hard to see how this can change the animal's genome, making it passable to future genrations.
Nice story, though...
Ubi dubium ibi libertas: Where there is doubt, there is freedom.
So the monkey adapted to an defect by doing something that it could aready do. Now put this monkey back into the wild and lets see if it survives as a ground dweller long enough to have offspring. Would the offspring walk exclusively on the ground on two legs? and survive long enough to proCREATE? You would think that our highly evolved minds would be able to make living organisms by now. Especially since it has happened randomly by chance so much in the universe already. Ofcourse if we did we would go around telling people that we created it.
"Four legs good, two legs better."
On the other hand, a monkey with a stomach ache or whatever walking upright is NOT evidence of evolution. This would have to provide some distinct advantage to the monkey that would mean that it would be much more likely to survive and reproduce than it's fellows, and, only a little bit less importantly, this trait would need to be passed on to it's offspring. Unless this illness is genetic, the latter would not occur. And unless this illness is epidemic among those monkeys, walking upright is unlikely to allow this monkey to reproduce more sucessfully than it's fellow monkeys. I'll pay some attention when 5 generations or so his/her 500+ and rapidly growing decendants are all walking upright, and the monkeys who don't are declining in number. Not until then.
The real reason most people do not accept evolution is that they have little understanding of science, less of evolutionary theory, and are mostly unaware of all the facts and details science and observation have revealed about our incredibly vast and complex universe, or even that there is so much that we have learned. (they don't know that it is known, let alone know it for themselvs)
note to mods: I am not sure that the parent is a troll. It may be, but many, if not most people in the US at least, would be of this opinion.
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
Well the only place to go from here is...w topic&p=2124&sid=5db0fbb083c979e8d8f531c25617ba78# 2124
you guessed it...
MONKEY BOXING!
Read here for more info on it:
http://tsgam.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=vie
that's as big as they come!
(oh oh)
So I have a scar on right hand (accident while changing oil of car) and if i have offspring they also will have the scar!!! and I was circumcised as well so now my offspring will be born that way!!
I thought darwin put all this shit in the garbage can years ago.
You have to change the genes first....changes in phenotype due to desease or injury do not change the genotype. The only thing close to this type of change was a group a fruit flies that unexpectantly became infected with a virus....the virus changed the fruit flies dna just enough so that they could no longer breed with otehr fruit flies...only with fruit flies that had been infected with the virus....notice that this change was due to genetic changes and not phenotype changes.
stendec@gmail.com
hahahadslakjd
> The foundation of common ancestry evolution is centred around God. [...] So the debate is far from scientific - it is a debate rooted in the question of whether God exists or not, and what His role in Creation is.
Your attempt at "debate" is certainly far from scientific, but that hardly means that what scientists are doing is scientific. In particular, biological scientists are in the business of explaining a huge pile of observations, and the theory of evolution is the best explanation any one has come up with. Your fifth-grader's logic is irrelevant to that adventure.
> I deny the likelihood that all living things share a common ancestor.
What has "likelihood" got to do with it? Have you got probability calculations you'd like to show us?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
umm, didn't UC San Diego discover genetic evidence of macro evolution in 2000/2001 (relating, IIRC, to leg pairs on insects or some such) when they demonstrated a protein which caused the organism to develop one less pair of legs.
Furthermore, there is no such thing as Scientific Fact. Everything, EVERYTHING, is a theory; even though many (gravity, thermodynamics) are discussed as fact. No theory stands longer than its disproof; dont yabber about it you fscking christian psycopath; disprove it and it will go away.
Just my $0.02
err!
jak
Disclaimer: My disparaging remark about christians should not lead you to conclude I am anti-christian. I spread my dislike of religion equally.
"Yet they ignore Intelligent Design which seems far more rational than believing in the incredibly slim odds of evolution occuring as fast as (or at all) it is described."
the problem with this theory is the same problem with the world on the turtles shell thoery...if the earth is on a turtle then what is under that anotehr turtle and what turtles all the way down??? Well if an intelligence made us then what made the intelligence? another intelligence? then another one and another, and another all the way to infinity?
of course the real argument isn't this at all...the real argument is why does an absence of an explination prove the existance of god?
yes we have a good thoery of evolution and experimantal proof in the feild that it works at least in a small scale. Why should we abondon the theory just becouse we don't have an exact detailed explination of how humans evolved from apes? how or why we stood up or talk with such complexity? These two examples are not really special in and of themselves..other animals stand on two legs and can comunicate with complexity (ostreg and ants) they are adaptations. Just becouse two scientists disagree about how those adaptations came about exactly does not in anyway threaten the theory of evolution.
stendec@gmail.com
so this means that poeple who like democrocies like europe and the americas will be extict while those under tyranies (who lately have been breeding faster) will dominate...perhapes someday there will be an anti-individualist genes that will propigate...i mean europe japan, and the americas all have stagnet or declining population growth....they are being out competed geneticly becouse of thier cultural afluancy for democracy....THIS IS ALL BULLSHIT!!!
.....genetics determine culture or the scope of what a culture of a species can be. there is not one example of culture infuancing genetics. There is no special gene that europeans have that made them take over much of the world from 1700 to the 1800's nor is there some special gene that prohibits arabs from having democratic governments....what you are saying is esentialy racist hogwash and it has nothing to do with science.
culture does not determine genetics
stendec@gmail.com
welcome our new Macaque monkey overlord.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics is on dodgy ground at best. See http://www.zoo.ufl.edu/gpryor/giraffe.evolution.ht ml
Will this anyway affect the monkey ability to scratch her arse??
Considering fore limb movement this might be a hinderance.
now its view has been ruined
I think David Attenborough once narrated in one of his exciting docu's on nature that the reason for mankind to become bipedal may well have been the floodig of most of the earth's surface as ice from the previous ice-age melted away. Sealevels near the penetrable coastlines rose dramatically, leaving most of the nutricious places flooded. In some area's our ancestors have been completely cut-off, and they were forced to wade up-right for long periods of time through the water. The water may even have helped them to learn how to do this, as you don't weigh so much.
Another theory, totally natural and imaginable..
With great power comes great electricity bills.
two: plz calculate for me the odds. i have never actually seen the numbers myself. while your at it, plz calculate the odds of an omnipresent, omniscient, being that could be responsible for same.
that is artificial selection, not evolution. as a tool, artificial selection can be used as a mechanism to show how genotypes can be selected for, but it's not really support for evolutionary theory per se, it is more support for mechanism, not general theory.
troll finished. plz continue.
Hah!! I knew it! Humans are nothing but a bunch of brain damaged monkeys!!!
Nobody can deny it!
People discover the meaning of life between getting piss drunk and the following hangover.
actually, it is; living biological tissue, with cells that reproduce, etc. it is not an entity in and of itself, perhaps, and may not have a current biological function. but, it is most certainly a living thing.
end technical troll
Going all the way back to the breeding of livestock, mankind has been one way or another 'designing' living beings. Go to gene splicing. Then go to attempts to create something living entirely from non-living. If you look at the earth, it seems as though it was someone else's experiment - where either they got better as they kept working, or intentionally fertalized the earth before setting man loose on it.
The strongest arguments for evolution are just as strong for ID. Common genetics between, say, man and chimp are as much evidence for a common designer template as they are for a common ancestor. And the statistical improbability of particles to people - if you do the actual math - is incredibly unlikely.
I don't like to speculate about the intentions of those who disagree with me, but since someone already started toward me I'll simply state in return that is almost seems as though many pro-evolutionists need evolution because otherwise they think they would have to believe in a god. Well, this is a bad basis the hold onto a theory and it's also an incorrect line of reasoning. It may also have arisen because they were not yet cognizant of, for lack of a better terms, the possible existence of extra terrestiral life.
Here's a thought though. If it's a new species, then who was the first one going to breed with? Wouldn't this mutation have to simultaneously occured to two of them in proximity so they could mate? Talk about long odds.
Or maybe it was already part of their genetic code and simply rare?
What makes it 'good?' What small scale proof is there? Don't confuse natural selection with evolution, if that is what you are thinking about
Who said anything about God?
Going all the way back to the breeding of livestock, mankind has been one way or another 'designing' living beings. Go to gene splicing. Then go to attempts to create something living entirely from non-living. If you look at the earth, it seems as though it was someone else's experiment - where either they got better as they kept working, or intentionally fertalized the earth before setting man loose on it.
The strongest arguments for evolution are just as strong for ID. Common genetics between, say, man and chimp are as much evidence for a common designer template as they are for a common ancestor. And the statistical improbability of particles to people - if you do the actual math - is incredibly unlikely.
I don't like to speculate about the intentions of those who disagree with me, but since someone already started toward me I'll simply state in return that is almost seems as though many pro-evolutionists need evolution because otherwise they think they would have to believe in a god. Well, this is a bad basis the hold onto a theory and it's also an incorrect line of reasoning. It may also have arisen because they were not yet cognizant of, for lack of a better terms, the possible existence of extra terrestiral life.
now that we have them using the right jargon, I even see a weak attempt to formulate a testable [sic] hypothesis...it is one more step to getting them to use proper logic to refute their own theories. come on everybody! PUSSSSSHHHHHH.
p.s. @tyreth: would you like me to show you how to refute your own hypothesis, or would you like to show me how smart you are by doing it yourself?
I've read some of Michael Behe's stuff etc., but the one thing I never understood about ID was this: Who designed the designer? I don't care if it's God, aliens, or whatever... where did the designer come from? Either he (or they, or whatever) was designed or he evolved, right? But if he was designed too, then you have this problem of infinite regress -- who designed the designer's designer? And if he evolved, well, then the source of life is evolution after all, though perhaps in a less proximate fashion than we usually assume.
And the statistical improbability of particles to people - if you do the actual math - is incredibly unlikely.
I'm distrustful of anyone who claims to be able to calculate these odds with any meaningful precision. To take one specific issue, probabilities can only be multiplied if the events are statistically independent, but I don't believe we know enough about potential modes of abiogenesis to know whether or not that's a reasonable assumption.
This may not be the evolutionary step that we took it for.
just because it's a monkey doesn't mean it's any more meaningful then if a A dog started doing it, and no-one suggests that we evolved from dogs, or that dogs are going to start walking around on two legs
Johns: Well, how does it look now? Riddick: Looks clear.
Evidence of an omnipresince responsible for the same? I don't know why it has to be an omnipresence.
Going all the way back to the breeding of livestock, mankind has been one way or another 'designing' living beings. Go to gene splicing. Then go to attempts to create something living entirely from non-living. If you look at the earth, it seems as though it was someone else's experiment - where either they got better as they kept working, or intentionally fertalized the earth before setting man loose on it.
The strongest arguments for evolution are just as strong for ID. Common genetics between, say, man and chimp are as much evidence for a common designer template as they are for a common ancestor. And the statistical improbability of particles to people - if you do the actual math - is incredibly unlikely.
I don't like to speculate about the intentions of those who disagree with me, but since someone already started toward me I'll simply state in return that is almost seems as though many pro-evolutionists need evolution because otherwise they think they would have to believe in a god. Well, this is a bad basis the hold onto a theory and it's also an incorrect line of reasoning. It may also have arisen because they were not yet cognizant of, for lack of a better terms, the possible existence of extra terrestiral life.
I don't know about you, but MY legs are LONGER than my arms.
Perhaps you've been walking on your hands all this time, and maybe talking out of your ass? (sorry, had to be said)
Does her offspring walk on their hind legs? And then still it's not evolution, just 'scientific development' from the ape's point of view. If you understand what I mean.
-- Cheers!
I think the original posters point is that the ape could have had the genetic mutation which pre-disposed him to walking upright. It took the external pressure of polio to force him to walk upright all of the time. Because he already has the genetic mutation, he could walk upright all the time quite easily. Other apes which did not have the same generic mutation and contracted polio would have been weak and died, leaving the ape with the genetic mutation and the ability to walk upright all the time in a strong position to pass his genes onto other apes (Who in turn could also have further genetic mutations and also can contract polio). Multiply over a few dozen generations and you begin to get apes that have the genetic predisposition to walk upright.
Nope. Not evolution. This is an effect brought about by an illness. It is my guess that the illness has resulted in residual discomfort in the animal's body that is eased if the animal adopts a more upright gait. It's basically a "limp".
For this to be an evolutionary step, one would expect to see the animal trying to stand from infancy as human babies do.
In addition, since the effect has come after the animal has developed, changes (whatever they actually are) will not be passed in the animal's germ line to it's offspring.
I wish at was Friday, but I dont want to wish my life away. So I wish it was last Friday.
I think you're focusing purely on the former, and completely ignoring the latter.
But a broken-legged puppy that can still manage to walk (on three legs, or however) is MORE likely to survive than a broken-legged puppy that can't manage to walk at all. But a broken-arm monkey that can still manage to walk (on two legs, or however) is MORE likely to survive than a broken-arm monkey that can't manage to walk at all.Just posted on this elsewhere. The idiocy, and power, of the Religious Right in America is going to be one of the prime reasons for the decline of the USA.
The USA is now loosing heavily in stem cell and related areas of reseach. There's an increasing rate of migration of good life scientists out of the states and into Europe. Of course it's not absolute, but in this prime technology of the 21st century America is going to loose, and loose badly, in innovation to the EU.
And that's just at the top. Maybe more important the USA is loosing from below. With the spread of both the teaching of 'Creationism' and the lack of teaching of Evolution (where it's judged too controvesial to teach either) the USA is both loosing potential life scientists and producing a climate where life science research is regarded with suspicion and undervalued. Again of course it's not absolute, but it'll be enough to erode any advantage the US has and pass the torch to Europe.
Now who knows how important the biological sciences will eventually be in terms of society and economy? Maybe, as has been the case up to now, traditional engineering will continue to dominate and the relative decline of the USA will not be too great. On the other hand maybe the future is heavily dominated by molecular biology. Maybe we can treat aging, design babies to remove genetic defects and increase IQ, grow biological computers, use biological engineering rather than chemical engineering and much else.
Some of these may be desirable, other not, but one thing is certain - in Europe, when such innovations are researched and developed the decision to use them or not will be made on democratic, pragmatic, secular grounds. In the USA the decision will be made on the basis of a 2000+ year old text.
That poor little monkey was a brainf**k developer! I am sure that was the first attempt to outsource developer jobs into the animal kingdom.
No wonder it suffered permanent damage, after 12 continous hours of banging on the keyboard my hands and cerebellum are not much use either!
head-banging developers unite !
Fight Frist Psoting!
Browse Slashdot with 'Newest First'!
..so we can study its brain...
..then discover there's really nothing special inside...
..then throw it aside and sigh.
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
Darwinism and Lamarckism are only at odds when it comes to theory... not results. Evolutions happens at many levels, some of which happen to be, and you can quote me on this, "response to environment". When I say this I need to qualify it by saying that sharks don't have unlimited teeth generations by chance and Giraffes have a long neck because the most nutritious leaf food is near the top of the tree, where the sun hits....
My point is that if a Macaque can survive and better recreate using a known and documented behavior, then the children of said Macaque may mimic and enhance the 'viability' of said gene/behavior which will in turn increase the chance that beneficial genes for bipedism will be expressed more and more as a useful survival and procreative gene sequence.
The theory is only questionable if you discount life's endurability.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Reminds me of Oliver.. A chimpanse walking upright. Full story here..
Underholdning.info
Infectious disease by definition involves interspecies interaction. Makes you wonder whether *disease response* in survivors--changed DNA; changed bodily functioning; and changed individual behavior within social groups--is perhaps not far more important to influencing species' morphologies, and evolution generally, than *random mutation*.
Problem is now I can't decide whether epidemics are a good thing or a bad thing!
Ugh, put away your high school biology text book and at least read the damned synopsis.
Yes, I can read.
The problem is simply this. You are engaging in a form of circular reasoning. "Assuming there is a selective advantage" Well, yes, obviously. But in that case, no need for a sick macaque to start the ball rolling, bipedalism would already be the norm through natural selection. And if there isn't a selective advantage to bipedalism, then children imitating their bipedal parent would find themselves losing the evolutionary race. Throughout the animal kingdom there tends to be very strong avoidance instincts when it comes to picking a potential mate who even appears to be slightly sick. (What's your natural urge when you see someone who has been stricken with polio? Or MS? Is it to imitate them? To mate them?) So imitating a sick parent is an almost guaranteed losing strategy, evolutionarily speaking.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
I forget what it was called, but this was a method used by some traditional south africans. Find the fittest and fastest dear/gazelle (whatever i cant remember that too!) and chase it. After 10 to 20km it would just be exausted and just lie down at which stage it became dinner. Interestingly of the tribe/hunter group chasing it only one person would chase, the others would just lag behind until the prey was worn out. By chasing the fastest and strongest, they always ensured that each generation was slower and thus made it easier for the next...
Come now, don't pretend that there are no arguments against evolution.
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous...
which of gould's ideas were you thinking? i know a lot of the work on the burgess shale has been re-evaluated lately, but i can't off the top of my head think of anything else really contentious (apart from the whole progress thing he and dawkins differed on)...
as for Dawkin, its hard to fault the man who winds up marrying lala ward (romana II) after being introduced on the set of Dr Who, by one the writers, a certain Douglas Adams.
He is far more bracing than Gould's gentle style however, the man doesn't tolerate fools period. As such i would recommend gould's easy to tackle short essays, as an introduction, before tackling Dawkins no-holds-barred approach.
i think i'd recommend "A Devil's Chaplain:..." as the first of Dawkin's books to read, before "watchmaker"
that's humans three, gazelle nil, then :)
Um, you know that pesky "bible" thing? It kinda takes away the need for making up what God did, as He already bothered to tell us what He did at creation in it..
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous...
We are not losing out on stem cell research because of ideological debates, we are losing out on it because of our university structure. My wife worked with stem cells for a while as a lab assistant. She found that the doctors where too interested in proving themselves right and looking good to the scientific community rather than finding the truth. This resulted her in wasting time on repeated experiments that consistenly gave the same results which where contrary to the doctors' theories. Also, we lack software in many of our research institutions that could automate certain processes, such as cell counting by hand. This could easily be done with LabVIEW or other pattern recognition software.
I can't, nor could someone that espouses evolution as fact.
Interesting, since I've had it explained to me before: it's left-over from when we were evolving.
>Q. Do other animals have appendices and if so do they serve a purpose?
>A. Yes in some animals like the rabbit and other herbivores the appendix is a fully formed working organ. It stores vegetable cellulose until it has been broken down and is fully digested. link (The next Q&A from that link has another possible explanation, but IMHO it's less likely because people who have an appendectomy don't seem to be affected.)
It makes a lot more sense (to me) that it's left over from the evolutionary process than saying that God simply making a whole bunch of animals with appendixes because he 'forgot' to take them out of animals that don't need them (us).
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
yes I recall they concluded that they were coprophages, much like rabbits, although there were no actual observations of the re-ingesting of faeces, there was no other way the researchers could account for the missing energy, other than from a second go at digesting the plants.
IIRC "sikafa" means something like "lasts all week" in the indigious tongue, refering to the amount of meat you get off a dead one. Something like a turkey perhaps?
I'd much sooner believe in the bible, than sit around waiting for this trilogy of miracles to take place.
Need a Linux consultant in New Orleans?
Maybe the zoo should start piping the "Thus Spake Zarathustra" theme into the monkey's cage.
On a recent trip to Kenya, I stopped by the Sweetwaters preserve down by the equator. There was a chimp there who walked primarily upright, except when running. This behavior came about because the poachers he was rescued from kept him in a cage that was so restrictive that he physically could not bend over to put his hands on the ground. He was also quite hostile towards humans, and constantly flung mud and sticks toward the observation platform.
Obviously, brain damage isn't the only explanation for bipedalism.
So let me get this straight, Evoluition has to be proven.
Well then so does Creationism.
Where is the proof for creationism? There is lots of evidence for evolution. Where is the evidence of creationism? In the Bible? A BOOK written by humans is the evidence of something natural?
Please. If you think creationism is the best theory that fits the evidence (and don't get a theory and look for supporting evidence, that's backwards), present the evidence. If you can prove it, you will win a Nobel prize and convert a lot of Atheists to you cause. Evolution has been contiuously refined and proven to best explain the observations in the world around us for over 160 years.
And people flamed me in the 'Game with God' threads the other day because I accused Christians of being anti-intellectual. Sheesh, what more proof do I need than this guys posts?
You are entitled to your opinion and believe what you want, but that doesn't make them facts without evidence. And the Bible is only proof that human imagination flowed freely a few thousand years ago.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
Ok, going way out on a limb here.. Is it possible that the monkey, came to the realiziation that she was sick and/or expected to die? Then all of a sudden, these funny looking bipeds, used some form of magic and brought her back from certian death. Is it also possible, the monkey then could have very strong feelings of gratitude/overawe for those funny looking bipeds which did save her life. She could be walking around on 2 legs as some sort of tribute or form of gratitude to those that saved her from certian death. another possibility: Was the monkey in a community of other apes when she fell ill? Did the other monkeys in the community reject/eject her from the community when she fell ill? It could also be possible she felt like she was rejected from her ape community when the others noticed she was sick, (Kicked out because she was ill, and left for dead) And adopted by the biped community - who nursed her back to health. This could again explain the walking on 2 feet as she now feels a bond with the bipeds.
Despite all the theorizing (~flaming) going this way and that, I'm more inclined to think the interest of the article is more for its freak show value. The main purpose, in fact, was probably to boost popularity for the zoo, which it did. And I can definitively claim on my own behalf that if it were in my zoo I'd go see it because of this article.
We Are Familiar With Elephants By Virtue Of Their Size.
This would be proved as evolution if this ape could pass this on to her progeny. As it is, this is only a reaction to a change in her environment. While this is very interesting, it is NOT evolution. However, it does merit attention.
Let us not forget that Darwin actually aruged that acquired traits are not inherited.
Now if you continue to believe in Lamarck's theories of evolution than this is significant, but since his theories have been thoroughly discredited by the scientific community for the past 200 years, this is just a messed up ape that now walks on two legs and has absolutely no significance in the future evolution of apes.
There isn't any good evidence of MACRO evolution but there's plenty of evidence of MICRO evolution (Darwin's finches, etc.). We're always looking for some link between monkeys and humans and we can't find much between them. All you crack-pot backyard scientists make creation look logical.
...also stand up, to support their heavier head? I am unfamiliar with these superintelligent bipedal elephants of which you (impliedly) speak. Close, but no sig
First, let me make the recommendation that all creationist Christians read "The DaVinci Code", take some mushrooms and squeegee your third fuckin' eye.
The religion started by Jesus of Nazareth is currently not-at-all Christ-like. It has evolved (or was created, if you'd prefer) as nothing more than a power system which has influence with governments due to its large membership.
Christ was a teenage rebel who was assigned (by Jewish tradition) to marry. He chose a life of spirituality. He hitchhiked to India, learned Hindu philosophy, then returned to his homeland and began preaching to the masses.
The masses liked his message and began following him. When he had sufficient followers, the local gov't became aware of him. That continued until Rome became aware of him, Pontius did not like the fact he was amassing power and had him killed.
Long story short...Jesus modified Hindu philosophy and his teachings are now called Christianity. Do some comparative research between religions and you'll notice they all essentially teach the some lessons using different words.
There! That point has been handled.
The stories of "The Creation Of The Universe" are mostly modifications of older stories by the Catholic Church which were borrowed from earlier religions. (Hmmm...lessee, Judaism was born in the same area and is older... Good Guess.)
Jump forward two thousand years to Darwin noticing what are "evolutionary" changes in some species living on the Canary Islands in the South Pacific. Combine this with things like Mengelian genetics, etc. and a flap develops about the concept that we all came from monkeys. The monkeys who ran the newspapers had a field day about this.
Jump forward about a dozen decades and we now have a monkey in the Whitehouse. I think it is now proven that species can attain a higher position without evolving.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
ya, imagine artificially creating a huge abundance by taking advantage of vast energy stores in the earth.... we're so fucked.
They've been known to kidnap humans and raise them as their own.
What better way to subvert your enemy than raise their children, and instill your ideas into their heads?
Historically, disciples of evolution have had to suspend science to explain their beliefs. Example: resurrecting the thoroughly-disproven spontaneous generation theory to explain how life evolved from non-life. Now, having proven that evolution occurs exclusively as a result of beneficial mutations (of which not one has ever been documented), they are interpreting this story to support evolution based on inheritance of learned traits. This in spite of the article's statement, "Monkeys usually alternate between upright walking and moving on all fours": walking upright in itself is not new behaviour.
Yet this is a remarkable opportunity for the evolutionists to demonstrate how the theory of evolution stands the test of time. Let us take this upright-walking monkey and breed her, to see if she gives birth to another species (this is exactly what the evolutionists are conjecturing happened in our distant past). Let us see if evolution is truly based on empirical, verifiable science; or belief only, which would necessarily make it a religion.
: 2004-07-22 16:37:16 Monkey discovers how to walk upright! (Index,It's funny. Laugh.) (rejected)
I Put this thing in at 4:37 Yesterday, 5 hours before the Slow Poke Cowboy Neal saw it and they rejected it.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Hindwalking monkey
I was out by a year... best link I could find
0 20 7075601.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/02/02
alot of creatonist propaganda pops up when you search for this. I tend to assume the poarty making the most noise (creatonists in this case) is the one with the least facts.
err!
jak
"what if an illness was the cause of the shift to bipedal motion by our evolutionary ancestors, "
Aquired traits are not passed down genetically through evolution.
Horses, for example, are primarily designed to cover dozens of miles within a day at a moderate pace; some breeds have the additional ability to run extremely long distances at high speed. Humans have notably slower racing times for endurance running, despite not having the additional equivalent weight of bearing a rider or heavy gear.
Most humans in the habit of running long distances regularly (as we all were during the time we evolved) are capable of going dozens of miles within a day at moderate pace as well. Hell, I am 200 lbs (a hell of a lot more than most people were then), and I have run 26 miles in a day twice...
Also keep in mind that the times for the endurance running you are speaking of are the times for the best humans and the best horses. The better humans have to be able to catch the weakest horses, not the fastest ones...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
"Get your paws off me, DAMN, filthy ape!"
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Now the macaques will want bus passes, the right to vote, and their own churches!
One of the 187.
Flame what you will, but this sounds like an isolated case of adaptation...whether due to weakened stomach or weakened arms, etc.
To rush off and cry "evolution" and "darwinism" etc. seems premature IMHO. Granted, you could say a genetic disposition existed that enabled the subject to adapt as such in the presence of adversity, but to prove that definitively as the cause (as opposed to raw adaptation) would take deep amounts of work, if that were even the case to begin with.
It's hard to tell the cool to chill, my favorite hotel room has a view to an ill.
Eventaully he caught up to the gazalle and was able to basically do wahtever he wanted to it.
What the hell kind of experiment was this ?!? People having their way with Gazelles...that's just wrong. Wrong!!
What ? I can't be the only one who read that and cracked up. There have to be other dirty minded Slashdotters.
--LordPixie
This is an easy one. Speciation is a continuum, and what we say are "species" are merely milestones that we construct. In all actuality, the form with fewer legs was probably about to breed and have viable offsprint with 97 - 98% of the other forms that were involved in the experiment. Continue the experiment long enough, however, and that number of suitable mates for the new form would drop as that form was exposed to selection pressures. When that number drops to 0% (or something arbitrarily close to it), then is when scientists would place a new milestone, as a way of saying "these two forms are different".
The reason we usually don't see the in-between forms in the fossil record is that selection pressures that apply differently to two slightly different forms would tend to drive those forms apart quite efficiently. There have been some interesting simulations performed that show that a gene that confers even a 0.01% advantage will spread through a population quite rapidly (i.e. in an eyeblink of geological time).
Also, there is the fact that scientists look to see what "bin" (i.e. species) a form could be put in before going out and proving that the form should have a new bin all to itself.
actually, it is; living biological tissue [...] it is most certainly a living thing.
My appendix is not living biological tissue.
My appendix is not a living thing.
You can't take the sky from me...
Christ and his true followers do not hate people. They hate sinful actions and sinful motivations.
Lamarck - behavioural variations produce enhanced survivability. These behaviours are not genetically propagable, and will not appear in the second generation.
Darwin - genetic variations produce enhanced survivability in some cases (decreased or non-viability in others). This enhanced survivability of the parent leads to enhanced survivability of offspring carrying that genetic variant, which leads to an increase in that genetic code in the gene pool, which then over time becomes a predominant trait.
BUT - and it's a big but - it supports Darwinism to the extent that IF there were a genetic mutation which produced the same effects as this dain bramage, AND this brain damage were biologically responsible for the bipedal locomotion (as opposed to it being a conscious choice of a wounded monkey that can't use its arms properly anymore), THEN such a genetic mutation would introduce exclusive bipedal locomotion into a previously-hybrid species.
The argument about whether bipedal is better than quadrupedal is left as an exercise for the reader. Of course, shoes are cheaper with only two feet.
-syrynxx
This paves the way for MONKEY BUTLERS!
Oh great, so human evolution is merely a result of brain damage. Go us.
There was a sect in Rome at the time of early christianity called Gnosticism which believed that the creator of the material universe (ie existence as we know it) was the "devil" and not "God", on the grounds that "God" was "perfect", and since matter is inherently "imperfect", "God" would never sully itself by creating anything "material". "God" created the "Devil" (Gnostic god, also called the "demiurge"), and the "Devil" created "reality" including us.
This kind of thinking is parallel to Descartes' "Evil Genius" concept, where Descartes questions the nature of existence thusly: "How can I be sure that my perceptions correspond to something which is 'real' and that all I sense with my senses is not in fact an elaborate deception by a being more powerful and intelligent than myself?" Descartes' solution was that the proof of existence is thought itself, and that's what he built his philosophy on ("i think therefore I am", cogito ergo sum). Gnositicim posits that the "evil genius" DOES exist and as such, we are mortals living in a universe which is inherently evil not good. I don't know anything about Gnostic morality, btw.
What's my point? Oh yeah, anyone can doubt anything. One difference between science and religion is that science doubts as it sees fit, and religion doubts when the clergy says to. It's like, at some point you pick one of religion, art, or science. the undifferentiated viewpoint is that of a toddler; useful for that stage of psychological development but not equipped to meet certain scenarios. Like, how would a toddler choose between letting mommy die painlessly today or painfully tomorrow? The toddler would be overwhelmed with the emotional impact of considering the loss of it's mother. An older child might be more likely to be capable of considering the question abstractly ("Well, I want mommy around as long as possible, but I also don't want her to suffer, so because ____ is more important than ____, I select ___").
>> If things aren't as they seem, scientists aren't the only ones who can't trust the ground they're standing on.
That's f***ing deep. This is the sh*t I'm into. We start nowhere and end somewhere before returning to nothing. blah blah blah, yak yak yak
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
Do a little reading and you will find that DNA is very easily added to a species genome.
Now, I will provide some evidence to back this up: Viral Transformation is a very common tool for genetic alterations of organisms. It is also a common occurance in non-intended genetic alterations, such as Cowpea mosaic comovirus which inserts its DNA into plants (please note that plants are considered higher organisms).
But wait! If plants are still not good enough for you, there is the GloFish which is a genetic alteration allowing it to fluoresce. Now, it would be highly unethical to do this to a human, but it is very possible.
In addition, there are many things in the human genome (LINEs, SINEs, etc) that frequently move. How do you think that everyone ends up with a different genome if nothing is able to change? Most changes and mutations don't do anything or cause harm, but with time good ones will arise. In fact, good mutations (at least in their terms) frequently occur in bacteria and viruses allowing them to become immune to antibiotics and to our specific T-cells (respectively).
As for why it's doing this, it could equally be behavioral (the macaque has associated its illness with being horizontal (?)), physiological (my arms hurt, gonna stand on my legs instead, or my tummy hurts less when vertical), or neurological (brain damage causing behavior).
Cause aside, the thing I'm curious about is, will this monkey express other behaviors as a result of its uprightness? Our speculative understanding of our own evolution includes several waypoints between tree-dweller and astronaut; one of them is the freeing of the hands that uprightness allows. If it starts doing things most monkeys dont do (eg expressing increased manual dexterity, or altered social behavior like making art) then I think it will imply that evolution is more like a coiled spring than a slow march. Maybe this monkey will start to think differently. Maybe it will develop skills most macaques never have a chance to develop, like greater vertical balance. Maybe a lot of things. Watch and see.
I would laugh my butt off if this thing starts making rope out of grass or chipping rocks to make a sharp edge. IIRC, chimps use sticks to get termites but that's about all the tech they can make. Chimps can count, learn sign language, etc. I want to see this monkey reach for that next rung on the ladder. To see the monkey do it in a single generation would add something to my worldview.
The problem is simply this. You are engaging in a form of circular reasoning. "Assuming there is a selective advantage" Well, yes, obviously. But in that case, no need for a sick macaque to start the ball rolling, bipedalism would already be the norm through natural selection.
Umm, there has to be some reason for an individual to begin engaing in a novel activity. They may come across the behaviour naturally through experimentation. Alternatively, there may be some external pressure (say, an illness) which causes them to engage in the behaviour. The point is, at some point, the new behaviour must enter the population. And once it does, the question is, how is it passed down? Through genes? Or socially? For social species, it's probably a combination of both.
And if there isn't a selective advantage to bipedalism,
Then humans wouldn't be bipedal. Clearly, in some circumstances, it is an advantage.
Throughout the animal kingdom there tends to be very strong avoidance instincts when it comes to picking a potential mate who even appears to be slightly sick
Yup, you may be right. Alternatively, once the animal has recovered, it may be that bipedalism provided it some sort of advantage, in which case it's behaviour would be immitated. The point, though, is that bipedalism could just as easily been passed down *socially*, rather than genetically. So your little snipe about lamarckism was just silly and narrow minded.
The point is, if one monkey is doing it, others may follow his lead. No, that's not evolution. But at this point, it may become such an advantage that future generations with slightly better bipedal walking ability will survive better. It could be the spark that changes the evolutionary path.
-- Senior Software Engineer, Attorney appearance services, locallawyerapp.com.
But the most versatile, and probably the most likely to reproduce, monkey is the one that can walk either way, depending on environmental demands. Physically, this setup is in many ways superior to the human one, except for running while holding tools--there humans are better set up :).
There is at least one documented case of an ape-walking upright due to polio, due to one arm being paralyzed.
I think polio is more highly varied in symptoms than you realize.
Disease may have been a very minor factor in evolutionary pressure towards upright walking, BUT it could just has easily been the Dominant factor in the presence of a polio like disease if the limb affected included arms a high percentage of the time. In fact the pressure could have been so severe that great leaps toward upright walking could have been made in a short time. When your only survival option is to walk upright, that weeds out non-upright walkers rather quickly.
Letter To Iran
Sexual orientation that are so innate (be it genetic, chemical, or uprbringing) that hating the sin is paramount to hating the sinner.
I see it more as a disease or disability to be treated. One does not hate people with multiple sclerosis; one treats the disease. Likewise people with autism, homosexuality, bulimia, or any other mental disorder.
Were the tables turned, and you were being called hate-filled slurs for your heterosexuality
That can't happen, even among the atheists, because a culture that despises heterosexuality despises the only natural way to make human offspring.
"Fairies" is hate speech.
OK, I confess that I was making a bad joke. I apologize for my own hypocrisy, and I won't do it again. I'll go back and try again:
Fairy tales? Abraham's family tried to help, but the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were just beyond help.
Jay: Holy hell, is that monkey waving at us? Oh shit. It understood us. Maybe it's some kind of super monkey. What if there's more supermonkeys up at that lab? WHAT IF THEY'RE CREATING AN ARMY OF THEM? Holy shit. It must be a conspiracy like in the X-Files... ROSWELL style. This little monkey could be the fuckin' damn dirty ape responsible for the fall of the human race. In this world gone mad, we won't spank the monkey- the monkey will spank us. And after the fall of man, these monkey fucks'll start wearing our clothes and rebuilding the world in their image. OH and only those as super smart as me will be left alive to bitterly cry - DAMN YOUS. Goddamn yous all to hell.
Self-referential sigs are rarely entertaining.
If acquiring polio resistant genes where easy, polio would have died out as a disease long ago without modern immunization programs.
Letter To Iran
However, if there was an emerging disease of this sort, it would act as a selection pressure to the monkey population, those that are more capable of standing on two legs (an inheritable trait) will survive the (for this argument) rampant infection?
I think this example is to show that selection pressure do not necessarily come from the physical environment but can be changes that result from diseases as well (physical traits evolve like the immune system has evolved to deal with disease).
I wonder if this affects its ability to toss poo at people?
As to specifics: Java Man was found with some other bones nearby, but the modern human bones also found by Dubois which are claimed to be in the 'same stratum' (the Wadjak skulls) were found 65 miles away in mountainous caves deposit, while Java man was found in river deposits. You also might want to consider Sangrian17, which was found on Java years later.
Piltdown man was indeed a hoax. This does not mean all such skeletons are, however.
The find of a tooth in Nebraska stimulated some art, but no one at the time claimed that the tooth made a complete Nebraska man. The picture which ran in the Illustrated London News had the following caption:
It was an artist's imagination and clearly labelled as such in a pop culture magazine.The discussion of Peking Man misses the point entirely. Even if they were killed in order to eat their brains(for which the evidence is sketchy) it does not rule out them being human ancestors... there have been human cannibals and there may have been hominid cannibals. It entirely ignores the physical characteristics of the skeletons, which is the interesting part- they aren't ape or monkey skeletons.
The bit about Lucy seems to have been invented out of whole cloth. There was no dramatic unveiling in 1982- I'm sure what event this might be a distorted account of. The actual bones are kept in the Paleoanthropology Laboratories of the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Casts of them have been available for some time, and they're definately bipedal... and certainly not those of a chimpanzee.
Your definition of 'shown false' does not agree with mine.
Think the same thing can go on in other scientific fields? Like evolutionary studies or Egyptology?
You can find this attitude dominant in many fields of acadamia throughout history that were later proved wrong and those that are still sustained in the midst of evidence to the contrary - like Egyptology.
Yours and other /.'ers intolerance for diversity of opinion is a far greater threat than some 'religious right' boogie man. All my posts here are being turned into -1 trolls (if my posts have no value, then why did 7 of you respond to it rather than ignore it?)
I know a little about human evolution and apes and I find the conclusions drawn from the article a little silly but since my wife studies primates and ape evolution I got her to reply....
While it is interesting that this monkeys began walking bipedally after a brain injury the assuptions drawn from it are somewhat suspect. Walking bipedally is a common occurance among many species of monkeys and apes, particulraly those exposed to humans. During my research with rehabilitant orangutans, many of whom had been raised by human caregivers, bipedal walking was something I saw everyday.....in animals who were not braindamaged.
In terms of human evolution it seems unlikely that imitation of a single individual could have driven an entire shift in a species physical make-up, rather than changes in enviromental demands.
Later
this sig is false
I saw that Star Trek: Voyager episode.
The pinnical of man's evolution is:
frogs.
I also saw a Animaniacs episode about it.
The pinnical of man's evolution is:
a giant thumb.
I saw it on television, so it must be true.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
If humans look like infant apes, wouldn't a more sophisticated version of humans look like human infants?
Now picture the common eyewitness description of "extraterrestrial beings".
Just an idea I considered a long time ago.
This is not my sig.
Next on Discovery Channel... When Black Macaques Attack!
The usual example of small scale proof is the Liverpool moths, but you can make an equally strong case for quite a few other organisms including viruses, which are not usually considered to be alive.
Evolution is just a big word for change; it offends some religions because they believe that they are made in the physical image of their deity and therefore must not ever have changed in physical form. Natural selection is believed to be one of the most common mechanisms provoking evolution - the principle cause of evolution in the so-called "higher animals", however, is generally assumed to be sexual selection.
It's interesting how so many posts assume you're a christian nutbag because you seem to believe in a creator or creators. I think your comments about the narrow-mindedness of many pro-evolutionists are apropos. I mean, why didn't they assume you were a pantheist, or a muslim?
"Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded -- here and there, now and then -- are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people slip back into abject poverty. This is known as 'bad luck' "
The religious right / creationists are the "right thinking people". If they are not resisted and argued against where necessary then people slip back into superstition and ignorance built on 'sacred' texts waved around by shamens, be they preachers, priests, rabbis, ayatollahs or whatever other brand of snake oil salesman offers an easy answer to difficult questions.
Maybe another Lazarus quote (Heinlein had a nice way with words ;-)
"History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it. "
As in, I'm thinking about LOOSING THE HOUNDS on you because I'm LOSING MY TEMPER with American-educated idiots who don't even know their own language.
Clearly, we need to BREED the "extremely small minority" only to each other, and we need to SUPRESS the others.
In fact, the Alphas should not have to live in the same squalor as the Gammas. They should get better food, too, to help them breed more strong offspring, and we needn't waste precious educational resources on the impoverished Gammas. And since the Alphas will have more developed aesthetic senses, they should be surrounded by beauty and exposed to art and entertainment - this will maximise their productivity.
It'd be for the benefit of the human race! Why, it's all completely logical given your Heinlein quotes... which I think I've heard before, somewhere; not sure if it was Ayn Rand or Plato.
Incidentally, I'm intrigued that Heinlein thought most people have dandruff.
One individual starts hobbling along on its back feet because the extra height gives her a better view of the surrounding area (better to spot predators and foodl). She is therefore more likely to survive, and her offspring copy this behaviour. BTW, the added height also makes the individual _taller_ (this is so obvious I shouldn't have to point it out, but you faithless Bible thumpers are notoriously dim), and as she is taller, she is higher in the local dominance hierarchy, which also increases chances to successfully reproduce. Other monkeys will notice this increased success and copy the behavior. Years spent hobbling around upright will change the tilt in the hip bones. Now, natural selection says those individuals with genes that already tilt the hips the right way will be "selected for" (that is they'll be more likely to reproduce offspring who grow to an age where they can reproduce themselves). My own personal hypothesis is that what individuals do can make changes in the body. Monkies who get used to walking upright will not find it uncomfortable, and their offspring will naturally be that way too within a short time. What evidence there is in the fossil record indicates changes happen in spurts in a line's development. Maybe the gods are tinkering, who knows? Who CARES, it happens. Burn your stupid bible.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
In your haste to sound smart, you ignored everything I said and, like a typical /.'er ("I can write scripts, ergo I am an expert on everything"), saw someone questioning Darwin's superstition and immediatly turned into a bigot, regardless of the fact that I'm the only one talking science here.
Evolutionary theory - from it's creation by a theologist, not a scientist (Darwin) to it's desperate attempt to stay relevant (punctuated equalibrium), to your knee jerk reaction makes it seem exactly like the 'religion' you ridicule in your own post. *You* are the 'right thinking' person here with the 'sacred texts.'
And you wonder why some folks believe in Creationism (which I do not)? It's because when someone seeks an answer, the Creationists get out their theories and present them, as crazy as they are (young earth, etc.). But when someone seeks an answer from people like you, the answer is 'Creationists are nuts. Only a fool would believe in God/religion. Here, read these quotes that I didn't write and be awed by the degrees on my wall.'
It's a behavior that is universal among Darwin's cultists. They *always* turn almost immediatly to personal attacks along the lines of 'you are stupid.'
If you ever stop projecting your personal insecurities and want to have a conversation about the evidence, say so.
Guess who wrote (and later repeatedly rewrote) that pesky thing...
Linux user since early January 1992.
The point, though, is that bipedalism could just as easily been passed down *socially*, rather than genetically. So your little snipe about lamarckism was just silly and narrow minded.
Since you seem hellbent on trading insults instead of ideas, there seems to be little point in continuing this, so I'll conclude by saying this: I very much doubt that a major anatomical trait such as bipedalism would be passed on by social effects as opposed to straightforward genetic mutation and natural selection. However, the idea is not completely without precedent, and I would not dismiss it out of hand. See the Baldwin Effect.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Well, actually I wrote my Ph.D. thesis on the evolution of bacterial species. Not some theoretical exercise either but an in-depth analysis of the molecular biology at protein and DNA/RNA levels. Somewhat oddly in the light of the above is what we were mainly focusing on at the time was partially disproving conventional evolutionary theory by looking for examples of lateral gene transfer (The group I was in was having a bit of an argument with Woese over ribosomal RNA trees).
The point is basically I suppose that evolutionary theory works. Indeed one of the reasons why it's so compelling because live is such as mess at the molecular level and you can see the stamp of natural selection all over it. Indeed if there was a god of some sort using "intelligent design" than all I could say that he has all the characteristics of being in the advanced stage of alzheimers and tripping on some particularly potent acid!
Ah, but it's been shown that primates tend to pass on behavior traits within their social groups, and also to other such groups.
:)
What if bipedal behavior gave an advantage to such a social group that enabled them to pass on both the behavior and their genes to their offspring, the former thru environmental factors, the latter thru reproduction? (an advantage such as others have discussed here regarding detecting predators)
Wouldn't the *ability* to 'learn' that behavior be a selection advantage in itself, by enabling those who had the innate intelligence to learn/copy that behavior to have more offspring and therefore alter the genetic pool?
I know I'm reaching somewhat, but it makes sense to me that group behavior, if it was *strongly* advantageous, and if it was passed on from generation to generation thru environmental factors ("copying behavior"), could have at least some impact on genetic selection, thru selection for intelligence. (Chicken and egg, there
I'd love to discuss this more...
Cheers!
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Deserves at least the score the GP post had.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Couldn't be any worse than the incumbent.......
Only boring people are ever bored.
You clearly don't know a lot about science. It's not about 'proving' things 'definitively'.
I agree that it's nothing to do with evolution, and could just be merely the result of brain damage. Or perhaps the monkey has muscle or bone damage that prevents it from using its hands in walking.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
This is such an interesting fact of this whole debate - so regularly I find people like yourself who are surprised that I support natural selection, or some other fact of life. Yet these things I say are nothing new for creationists. So there are one of two possible explanations that I can see:
1. Those that oppose creationists do so because they have failed to try and understand that alternative which is offered. Natural selection is such a fundamental part of the creationist theory, so much so that saying you did not realise creationists accept it indicates you don't even know the basics of that which you reject. Know your enemy.
2. Those that oppose creationists have encountered many creationists who claim ridiculous things such as "natural selection isn't true". I've heard rumors of these ignorant creationists, but never met them myself. I do not doubt their existence, I just wonder why I never see them.
I can't believe people on slashdot is discussing the evolution theory seriously ! http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s5 i4540&rating=5this website have a good point!
AND if you r christian or muslim , those relegions states out clearly that the begining of life was from adam and eve whom god created , and not from a MONKEY!!?
anyway if people want to believe that there ancestors where monkeys ,its there problem ,
don't count me in .I won't be happy if i was called a son of some brain-damaged monkey !
> So a monkey that changes it's behavior because it is sick is proof of "survival of the fittest"?
I doubt it. I'm just inviting the evolution deniers to put up or shut up.
BTW, I notice that nobody has offered the requested list...[cue crickets]...
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Yeah, I guess you're right, science isn't about proving things definitively. My bad. The whole "proving or disproving your hypothesis" part of the Scientific Method (TM) is just a suggestion. And the whole axiomatic method? That's just lore. Definitive repeatable results regardless of experimental reference frames? Bah. I guess calling them Kepler's 'Laws' was a misnomer...we should have just stuck with 'Theorems' if there was no reason to prove them as such.
I have no problem with you disputing my assertion Mr. Oswald, but if you want to leverage an ad hominen attack, please don't do so from a vacuum.
It's hard to tell the cool to chill, my favorite hotel room has a view to an ill.
Also, doesn't horizontal gene transfer disprove conventional evolutionary theory? I are you suggesting that when you 'suppose evolutionary theory works' you are using that as evidence of it? Obviously bacteria 'evolve' in that sense, that's how they become resistant to antibiotics.
However, the true theory suggests that the evolution occurs through mutation. It is the sheer mathematical impossibility of this happening that is my principal objection to the theory of evolution. I am not sure of the mathematical probability of evolution if you attribute it entirely to HZT.
"mathematical impossibility"? If that's your objection then you've fundementally misunderstood how mutation and natural selection works - there's no requirement to arrive at anything complex in one step at all, and hence no insurmountable probability mountain to climb. Anyway, reading Gould should clear that up for you - it's one of his favourite topics.
Horizontal gene transfer doesn't disprove conventional evolution. As I alluded to before the convincing thing about evolution is how much of a complete molecular mess life is - all sorts of competing mechanisms to drive variation end up producing biochemical spagetti. Beside simple classical point mutation there's neutral mutation, mutation of control genes, jumping genes, chromosome splits, introns doing odd things, possibly reverse transcription etc etc etc. A few cases of horizontal gene transfer just adds to the mix.
Besides 'species' as referred to bacteria is something of an a artificial construct. Personally I still have strong doubts whether the even really is such a thing, at least in anthing like the same sence as they exist for multicellular organisms.
Mutation combined with natural selection is problematic because of the math. HZT in bacteria isn't the same as mutation and it's a much faster process. Virii have something similar where they also 'evolve' but by using the genetic materials of their host.
However, in both cases, the genetic material is coming from somewhere else. Mutation is the creation of new material and is the real engine in the theory and, after all, something has to be created before it can be transfered.
I'm just looking at gene sequences and how evolutionary theorists propose make it seem pretty near impossible. If anything, the evolutionary theory seems to require a God that coaxes normally random occurances into just the right set of circumstances.
What got me started in questioning the theory was the fraud in the field (Haeckel's drawings were in my AP Bio text). The more I looked at the theory, the weaker it became. I also discerned an institutional and psychological need for the theory to be true. None of this disproves it, but it is why I started to question it and arrived at the opinion I have. For the record my Church fully supports/accepts evolutionary theory and was the probably the first to do so.
Also, look at the responses I keep getting to my original post, including some of yours. And that's what the response usually is when you question evolution. You are marked as a mystic racist hatemonger before you can even explain yourself.
If you want a good book on ID so that you can refute it (I normally refrain from putting 'read x book' into my arguments, but I will answer your recommendation of one with my own, I suggest No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased Without Intelligence.
Thanks for your post. As usual, whenever a discussion ensues re "evolution" or "creation", most folks have very little knowledge, but lots of opinions and passion. I was having a hard time simply perusing all this. Having once taught anthro and evolution and human evolution in the universities, it was driving me to complete frustration. I kept wanting to answer them, to "set them straight", and correct them, but really don't have the time, or real inclination, as almost none of these folks have any idea what evolution is (nor creationism, for that matter). They think they do, but ... at least you hit the high points.
.... Oh well, this could go on endlessly, which is exactly why I want to stay out of it... just want to give you a pat on the back for the best (and almost only correct) comment in the thread!
The example of the macaque walking bipedally as an adjustment to disease/injury has nothing to do with evolution. And the idea that an incident such as this is what led to our (H. sapiens) species...
I'm sorry, but if you stand a macaque (even in a bipedal stance) beside a human, you will notice very little in common, and stance/locomotion is among the least important issues. The differences, in anatomical, functional, developmental, mental and cultural traits between the two species are almost countless, and surely involve a few million genes, each of which had to mutate once, twice, or more times, survive the vagaries of chance and natural selection, and await all the others to come along and run the gamut and create the systematic integrated life form (phenotype) that is us, and the systematic form that is the modern macaque.
Bipedalism does play a part in what we are (or have become), but I doubt it was a necessary part, merely a helpful part. Tools, intellect, social and cultural behavior are our major advantages (and differences) that differentiate us, and all those are things we could possess at the same or higher capacity even if we were less than completely bipedal. Surely you can imagine a creature more resembling an ape (a movie series did!) with all those more interesting traits!
Full bipedalism is less a behavior than a very complex skeletal, anatomical, behavioral complex, and if one macaque took it up, and even led a group of others to do the same (though why they should want to is another big question since it is not a good fit in any way to how they are built, or the ecological niche they are already very well adapted into), that would hardly lead to "evolution" (THAT is Lamarkism at the extreme), because (1) the many genetic changes that would still have to come about are so unlikely (probably less than one chance in a trillion trillion), and (2) they rely on the mechanism of mutation, a totally chaotic, non-directional and happenstance process that cannot be influenced (for good or bad) by behavior or environment,
Alcaide's Cafe,
Well, strangly enough I don't have to guess at that either..
2 Timothy 3:16a -- All Scripture is given by inspiration of God
I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous...
That's a self-reference if I aver saw one. I hereby state that everything I ever wrote on /. was inspired by god.
Linux user since early January 1992.
And that includes all teh apparent typpos. For the lord has inspred my to hide a special message in my wrtitings, teh meainng of whoch is to be revealed only on judgement day, just a litttle over 4 months from now... (by the way: are Yu ready to be condamned?) As teh available communicatiuon mecahnisms on /. are so limited in terms of expressive power, I chose to use spelling erroirs to encode tehis holy mssage.
Linux user since early January 1992.
Hey, folks.
Nowhere in the article was the inheritance of an acquired characteristic implied.
Instead, the postulate was that a stressful environmental shift motivated a few individuals to go bipedal and then the extant primate capacity for imitation and, ultimately, culture encouraged widespread adoption of a behavior that they were *already* capable of!
Subsequent generations of selection could refine our ability to remain upright with less fatigue, like locking knee-caps and changes to the lower spine, pelvis and feet.
Here's the thing about evolution. You think you understand it, but you probably don't. The basic mechanisms of inheritance are understood, but the interactions of cultural/behavioral adaptations with inheritable characterisitics is not at all understood by even the wonkiest of wonks. Just say the words "group selection" to someone well-read in evolutionary theory, if you want an earful.
Sincerely, etc.
Damn you :)
I got this as a metamoderation (yes, it WAS funny) and felt instantly compelled to grab Erect Monkey and google it.
Fortunately there is no monkeyse.cx (yet)
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?