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Well I'll Be A Monkey's Uncle
killproc writes "A new report suggests that interbreeding between humans and chimpanzees happened a lot more recently than was previously thought. The report, published in the most recent issue of the journal Nature, estimates that final break between the human and chimpanzee species did not come until 6.3 million years ago at the earliest, and probably less than 5.4 million years ago."
I know the headline was probably meant as a joke, but before the Creationists go, um, ape on us it should be noted that Chimpanzees, Gorillas, Bonobos, Orangutangs and Man are all "great apes", evolved from earlier species. Apes evolved from Old World Monkeys about 25 million years ago.
Apes are differentiated from monkeys by their larger brain size, versatile shoulder joints, and lack a tail.
Yes, the headlines saying "humans" are just dumb. They're probably talking about species like Australopithecus which are far from being humans. They evolved a pelvis that enabled them to walk upright, but their brains were 35% the size of a human brain.
John Hawks, a professor of anthropology, has a pretty sound and harsh refutation of the article. It looks like, if John is to be followed, that this is some pretty wishful thinking and sloppy work.
He has a follow-up post on his weblog as well.
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
Google "ring species" and you will see that this is well studied. There are salamanders, for example, that can interbreed with neighbors in a ring, but not with all other members of the ring.
Man, you really need that seminar!
And I don't think the point of evolution is to create humans. I simply ask the question. Given the two types of evolution we teach, how do they explain the differences in how humans forked from this common ancestor?
1) Only one type of evolution is taught. It's split into two for the convenience of explaining things on small or large timescales (just like macro and micro economics are both just aspects of economics)
2) There isn't a specific explanation of why human evolution took a different path. It's just random. Sorry.
And having said debate numerous times over the years, no one has ever come close to answering that question once.
Hmmmn, sounds like you're making an argument from incredulity
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
The blurb is very misleading. There was no "intercourse between humans and chimps" because THERE WERE NO humans or chimps back then. We did not evolve from chimps, humans and chimps simply had COMMON ancestry, a very long time ago. What this means is that the ancient ancestor of humans was able to, for a period of time, interbreed with the ancient ancestor of chimps. They were NOT that different back then. They may not have even looked very different. However, the genetic code was beginning to diverge because they had formed into two isolated populations, and then came back together briefly, before diverging forever into the lineages we can observe today. This "messy" split theory is still not entirely proven, but is an interesting analysis based on genetic sequence divergance data obtained from hundreds of specimens.
Other animals have language (not as advanced, obviously), have been known to engage in artistic activity, and appear to experience emotion. (Of course we can't say for sure - but then I can't say for sure whether you experience emotion either.) They also show culture, in the form of complex learned behaviors that differ from group to group.
Evolution produces all sorts of things that are not "needed" for survival, like peacock tails.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
No confirmed human/chimp hybrid has ever been found. Chuman/Humanzee/Manpanzee and Oliver would be good places to start if you want to find out more.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
You aren't understanding what I said at all, and I'm beginning to suspect that others have pointed out the same ideas to you before, and you didn't understand them then, either. Not understanding an answer is not the same thing as not getting an answer.
Let me try again. Fitness criteria do not apply across the board to all species equally. What makes a human fit for a human's niche is not what makes an ant fit for an ant's niche. Different niches, different criteria.
I'll ask you a question again, why don't humans have wings?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Well, the chaos thing doesn't work for a lot of people studying it. Evolution is not random. Mutations are random. The processes of evolution require that some mutations are more beneficial than others, and adaptation occurs when a population alters to the point of becoming better adapted to its environment. This may be morphologically or behaviorally. Evolution has a lot of genetic components (it wouldn't happen at all without genetic variation), but the environment is what the population has to adapt to. Remember, evolution acts on the level of species or populations, not at the level of genome, and it is anything but random.