Prove to me we "Evolved" from Apes!

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Profile Johnney Guinness
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Message 1100060 - Posted: 23 Apr 2011, 19:08:26 UTC
Last modified: 23 Apr 2011, 19:20:12 UTC

The question here is very simple;

Prove to me we "Evolved" from Apes!

Can anyone show me proof that Humans "Evolved" from Apes or some breed of Monkey right here on planet Earth.

Now i am specifically just asking about Human Beings. I'm not asking anyone to explain the complete evolutionary tree going the whole way back to the pond slime in the primordial soup. We are all reasonably familiar with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Just some "reasonable evidence" that can't be disputed.
--------------
My personal counter argument here is that WE, Human Beings specifically, did NOT evolve here on planet Earth. All my life i simply accepted the scientific argument that was presented to me about Human evolution. After all, why question it? Its sounds good if you take it at face value!

That was until i went and investigated Charles Darwin's theory of Human evolution. When i actually investigated this, i found the scientific evidence is badly lacking in any real or consistent proof.

Since the 29th December 2010, i changed my mind in light of new evidence. I now believe that thousands of years ago, intelligent people, you can call them whatever you want, came here to planet earth and either "created us" as suggested in the Bible. Or we are there direct descendants. My proof has been discussed in the Ancient Aliens message in the SETI science forum.

Somebody show me some reasonable scientific evidence human beings "evolved" from some breed of monkeys here on Earth!

And i'm not hard line in this. I am open minded to a reasonable theory if we did evolve!

John.
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Message 1100149 - Posted: 24 Apr 2011, 1:11:58 UTC - in response to Message 1100060.  
Last modified: 24 Apr 2011, 1:14:26 UTC

I don't think that the evidence is lacking. About 6 million years ago a gibbon-like ape came down from the trees and moved into the grassed savannah in Africa. That was us !!

The evidence is in the fossil record and in the genetic code. We differ from chimpanzees and bonobos by less than a few percent in the genetic sequence of our respective genomes. if that's nor evidence then I am a monkey's uncle ??

regards,

Daddio
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Message 1100229 - Posted: 24 Apr 2011, 13:06:37 UTC - in response to Message 1100149.  
Last modified: 24 Apr 2011, 13:07:04 UTC


if that's nor evidence then I am a monkey's uncle ??

regards,

Daddio

You know Bill, i was looking at a picture of you one day and i did see a distinct resemblance between you and our supposed cousins the apes!

Chris,
I agree. I think the jury is still out until either aliens land in a spaceship or we start bringing our ancient ancestors back from the dead using DNA in their fossilized bones. Then we could just ask them is they came from another planet!

I read an article recently that scientists in Japan are talking about bringing woolly mammoth back from extinction using DNA that was preserved in glacial ice sheets.

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Message 1100324 - Posted: 24 Apr 2011, 20:55:24 UTC

So do you like Bananas?

See.
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Message 1100329 - Posted: 24 Apr 2011, 21:15:50 UTC - in response to Message 1100229.  

I watched a wonderful show on PBS a few years ago. It took a look at the trial involving teaching "intelligent design" and evolution in a Dover Pennsylvania school

The trial was interesting not only that it brought out that indeed intelligent design is just a code word for GOD but that the judge presiding over the case was a firm believer in poof we are here theory. In the end he also had to concede that the preponderance of evidence can only lead to one conclusion. Man has been here for ages. Animals do evolve and groups(species) of animals can be determined to be genetically related.

To start biologists simply put animals that looked alike or had similar attributes into similar groups. After genetics testing Biologists had gotten their groupings pretty spot on. Of course, there were outliers and animals that didn't fit in the groups they were classified. Bacteria, for one, has seen massive rearrangements of its groupings. The reason is that bacteria is typically labeled by what it eats. As it turns out bacteria labeling was easily messed up and with millions of species to identify there is surely more relabeling come. Heck since I took Bateriology in School they've changed a good half of the names of common Bacteria. FYI names of genus' go to the name first used to describe the genus. If an already named bacteria is found to be related to another Genus the bacteria with the oldest pedigry gets to keep its name.

This of course changes if something is very common. Candida Albicans which some may already know is the most common yeast involved in human infections. It was found to be related to the Torulopsis Genus. Topulopsis lost its name and became Candida since everyone knows Candida and very few recognized Torpulopsis

48 chromosomes vs 46. How can we only have 46 and our closest relatives have 48? that is and was a quandry. until someone discovered telomeres. Telomeres are found at the ends of the arms of chromosomes. Telomeres are interesting for many reasons including the fact that they are somehow involved in the aging process. As we age telomeres get shorter. Back on topic. Telomeres, why are they important in this discussion. It seems that on of our Human Genes is actually a spliced pair of great ape genes. Scientists were able to find evidence of telomeres insides IIRC Chromosome 1. Telomeres are never supposed to be found in a chromosome only on the ends. The logical conclusion is that some where a long time ago those genes changed or failed to separate. End of story.


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Message 1100331 - Posted: 24 Apr 2011, 21:20:27 UTC - in response to Message 1100229.  

I watched a wonderful show on PBS a few years ago. It took a look at the trial involving teaching "intelligent design" and evolution in a Dover Pennsylvania school

The trial was interesting not only that it brought out that indeed intelligent design is just a code word for GOD but that the judge presiding over the case was a firm believer in poof we are here theory. In the end he also had to concede that the preponderance of evidence can only lead to one conclusion. Man has been here for ages. Animals do evolve and groups(species) of animals can be determined to be genetically related.

To start biologists simply put animals that looked alike or had similar attributes into similar groups. After genetics testing Biologists had gotten their groupings pretty spot on. Of course, there were outliers and animals that didn't fit in the groups they were classified. Bacteria, for one, has seen massive rearrangements of its groupings. The reason is that bacteria is typically labeled by what it eats. As it turns out bacteria labeling was easily messed up and with millions of species to identify there is surely more relabeling come. Heck since I took Bateriology in School they've changed a good half of the names of common Bacteria. FYI names of genus' go to the name first used to describe the genus. If an already named bacteria is found to be related to another Genus the bacteria with the oldest pedigry gets to keep its name.

This of course changes if something is very common. Candida Albicans which some may already know is the most common yeast involved in human infections. It was found to be related to the Torulopsis Genus. Topulopsis lost its name and became Candida since everyone knows Candida and very few recognized Torpulopsis

48 chromosomes vs 46. How can we only have 46 and our closest relatives have 48? that is and was a quandry. until someone discovered telomeres. Telomeres are found at the ends of the arms of chromosomes. Telomeres are interesting for many reasons including the fact that they are somehow involved in the aging process. As we age telomeres get shorter. Back on topic. Telomeres, why are they important in this discussion. It seems that on of our Human Genes is actually a spliced pair of great ape genes. Scientists were able to find evidence of telomeres insides Chromosome 2. Telomeres are never supposed to be found in a chromosome only on the ends. The logical conclusion is that some where a long time ago those genes changed or failed to separate. End of story.


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Message 1100347 - Posted: 24 Apr 2011, 22:24:09 UTC

skildude,
I read about those telomere's before. I'm very curious about genetics and if time ever allows i might do some research on telomere degradation and cell replication. Its a fascinating topic.

I think i watched a BBC program about that intelligent design v evolution legal case in the united states. Its a very hotly debated topic. On this SETI forum, we are lucky in the sense that we don't have to stick to the written law. We can speculate here which you can't do in a court room. Yes, with the overwhelming majority of scientists in favor of evolution today, evolution will always win. This does not mean its true. It just means that today the science community cannot prove aliens exist.

No matter how unlikely it sounds, if spaceships land on the Whitehouse lawn tomorrow and Jesus gets out and says hello, then the intelligent design v evolution debate is over. It would mean all the worlds scientists who promoted evolution were wrong! Yes, i do admit the odds of all the professors and doctors of science around the world being wrong are slim. But history has a habit of repeating itself and the majority have been wrong before.

John.
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Message 1100353 - Posted: 24 Apr 2011, 22:50:25 UTC
Last modified: 24 Apr 2011, 23:03:54 UTC

skildude,
I found the movie i watched about intelligent design v evolution.

The movie is on Youtube, is called;
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed staring Ben Stein.

The movie is in 10, 10 minute parts on this Youtube channel;
http://www.youtube.com/user/AcademicFreedomism

Very educational film, really good stuff! Its about collages that dismiss their scientists and staff if they don't teach the Darwinian evolution theory in classes. Effectively they not allowed to express any belief in God or any religion or they will be fired from their job.

If anyone watches the film on youtube, pay attention to the final part 10 of the film. Ben Stein chats with Richard Dawkins. Richard Dawkins himself actually admits that there is a slim chance he might be wrong about evolution. Dawkins admits that there is a slim chance that intelligent aliens might have put us here on earth.


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Message 1100355 - Posted: 24 Apr 2011, 23:05:32 UTC - in response to Message 1100347.  

Have you ever considered a 'composite' argument? An argument in which, either both things are true, or both things are not wrong. You will appreciate, that there is a subtle difference between the two 'states'.


Don't take life too seriously, as you'll never come out of it alive!
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Message 1100359 - Posted: 24 Apr 2011, 23:46:32 UTC

You know, the two ideas are not mutually exclusive. You just have to acknowledge that the Bible is allegorical as opposed to factual. Evolution should not denied by any truly educated individual. You could still believe that "GOD" set all of it in motion. Since we have yet to produce life in the Laboratory then you can take solace in this type of thinking. Refusing to teach evolution is in fact an abrogation of scientific education: Teaching "creationism", as strictly defined in the bible, is beyond delusional. i would refuse to teach it in any science class that I might find myself teaching. That can be left to catechism class and Sunday school for those who wish to indoctrinate their children into this way of thinking.
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Message 1100378 - Posted: 25 Apr 2011, 2:26:23 UTC
Last modified: 25 Apr 2011, 2:34:38 UTC

Yes, science and religion are always in conflict!

Or are they in conflict????. Where exactly does the conflict exist i wonder??

Just for a few minutes, just pretend, it won't hurt anyone to pretend!

Pretend Evolution was wrong. And pretend God or Jesus or whoever, did actually come here to planet Earth and created human beings just like its suggested in the many different ancient text books like the Christian Bible.

Hay presto!!! All the conflict between science and religion would be gone in one fowl swoop! It would then mean that the Bible would simply be a history book about mankind's past. Then science and religion would no longer be in conflict and the two groups of people would have nothing to argue over anymore.

What would we be left with?? We would have a level playing field where scientists and religious leaders would be able to work together for common goals. We would have a reasonable set of moral guidelines from the religious books by which scientists could carry out their research unimpeded. But at the same time the moral guidelines would prevent scientists from going to far like the Nazis did during WW II trying to create a super-human race by killing off the sick and races of people that did not fit their criteria.

I think that's an interesting thought experiment. Seems to me the only conflict is evolution, which has never been proven beyond doubt. And most of the people who visit this SETI website seem to agree there might be other intelligent life on other planets. Lets do the maths and put 2 and 2 together. We didn't evolve, we were put here by intelligent people from another planet. And we have lots of old text book that recorded the event.

John.
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Message 1100381 - Posted: 25 Apr 2011, 2:38:42 UTC

If you take away all present knowledge of science, and all knowedge of every religion there is, and start fresh, eventually you will rediscover all the science in at least the same detail as present day. Religion may or may not be invented, but it certainly wouldn't look like present day religion. It would depend on which problems were unsolved at the time. The more science that had been rediscovered, the less prominant religion would be. There are no checks and balances with religion. You could create a new one every day of the week, as no validity is required. Science self corrects, and even though a certain idea may not be correct, it guides the realization of a better theory. The self correction is what makes science the way forward. Think what religion would look like if we started with our present knowledge of science. Certainly vastly different that if we had started with little or no science. Stephen King had a very nice saying which I really liked. "The more you know, the less you believe."

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Message 1100385 - Posted: 25 Apr 2011, 2:56:04 UTC - in response to Message 1100381.  

If you take away all present knowledge of science, and all knowedge of every religion there is, and start fresh, eventually you will rediscover all the science in at least the same detail as present day. Religion may or may not be invented, but it certainly wouldn't look like present day religion. It would depend on which problems were unsolved at the time. The more science that had been rediscovered, the less prominant religion would be. There are no checks and balances with religion. You could create a new one every day of the week, as no validity is required. Science self corrects, and even though a certain idea may not be correct, it guides the realization of a better theory. The self correction is what makes science the way forward. Think what religion would look like if we started with our present knowledge of science. Certainly vastly different that if we had started with little or no science. Stephen King had a very nice saying which I really liked. "The more you know, the less you believe."

Steve

Hi Steve,
Ahhh.... But your generalizing without thinking about what your saying! As soon as you start from fresh doing science, you MUST record your research. Would you completely ignore archeology? The fact that there are thousands of hugh monuments spread all over the globe and we struggle to explain how they were built. And if we started from scratch, then we would go through a 1 or 2 thousand year period where we would have little or no science and stories and mythology would dominate everything. So history would just repeat itself again.

John.
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Message 1100391 - Posted: 25 Apr 2011, 3:05:40 UTC - in response to Message 1100385.  

That's why I suggested both scenarios. One with present day science, and one without.

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Message 1100392 - Posted: 25 Apr 2011, 3:06:34 UTC

I suggest everybody to read "The human phenomenon", by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ. I have the French edition by Seuil, 1955, and I don't know it there is an English translation. An English book of his I have is "The appearance of man", Collins, 1965.He died in New York on April 10 1955 (I think on Easter Day) and is buried there.
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Message 1100477 - Posted: 25 Apr 2011, 12:08:17 UTC
Last modified: 25 Apr 2011, 12:46:38 UTC

SciManStev asked a very valid question. What would happen if intelligent scientific people like ourselves started again???? Its an epic question Steve!

What did modern scientifically minded human beings do the very first time they left the orbit of our home planet Earth, and went onto orbit around another celestial body in the solar system, the Moon????

I will tell you what they did!!!

They read from the Book of Genesis as a message to all the people of planet earth!!

Apollo 8 'Genesis' broadcast 1968; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXUecnbcApo

Apollo 8 Genesis reading; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8_Genesis_reading

---Later on the Apollo 11 mission, Buzz Aldrin received holy communion (Body of Christ) on the lunar surface shortly after landing. Although he did not keep his actions secret, he only said a non-religious sentence on the intercom, and read from the scripture off-air.

Buzz Aldrin's Communion on the Moon; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zEZvPg1itw (Reenactment by actors of the event)

Science inspires religion and spirituality in the human mind! We can never get away from it, its part of us! When mankind got to the Moon, they read the bible and Buzz Aldrin received holy communion on the surface of the Moon. In essence, if they had time, they would have built a church! If they had found ET on the Moon, they would have tried to convert him to Christianity!

John.
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Message 1100508 - Posted: 25 Apr 2011, 15:18:32 UTC - in response to Message 1100353.  

skildude,
I found the movie i watched about intelligent design v evolution.

The movie is on Youtube, is called;
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed staring Ben Stein.

The movie is in 10, 10 minute parts on this Youtube channel;
http://www.youtube.com/user/AcademicFreedomism

Very educational film, really good stuff! Its about collages that dismiss their scientists and staff if they don't teach the Darwinian evolution theory in classes. Effectively they not allowed to express any belief in God or any religion or they will be fired from their job.

If anyone watches the film on youtube, pay attention to the final part 10 of the film. Ben Stein chats with Richard Dawkins. Richard Dawkins himself actually admits that there is a slim chance he might be wrong about evolution. Dawkins admits that there is a slim chance that intelligent aliens might have put us here on earth.


John.


As cutesy as the Ben Stein Piece is it glosses over how science works and that Creationism/Intelligent design and faith based and can not be tested nor proven scientifically.

The beauty of science is that it is repeatable.
the problem with creationism is that its not based in science. We end up comparing apples with oranges. Creationism isn't far off though. You'll recall that Pope JP II declared that evolution is compatible with the
Christian Faith.


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Message 1100626 - Posted: 25 Apr 2011, 21:32:34 UTC - in response to Message 1100477.  

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b010j64w/The_Gene_Code_The_Book_of_Life/

Check this out I found it interesting
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Message 1100650 - Posted: 25 Apr 2011, 23:07:39 UTC

It's an intresting Idea, but it has lacks itselve. If these people created us, where did they come? where do they live? did they had evolution, or where they created by others? That would be like an old view of the World, where Earth is an Turtle, carried by an other Turtle, carried by an other Turtle and so on...
This would be an endless path of creation, so thats nonsense.
So wouldn't it be more plausible, if the Human race evolved by an long evolution, than beeing crated by another intelligent race, that had an evolution itselve?
Think aubout it, the human race searches for its past just for an comparetively short time, we need time to find the Keys in this game. it's Like the SETI Project: We know ( OK, we believe in, but the propability is really high, so we can say know) there must be an other intelligente species out there, but we have to search for them. We improve our Technologies and, if we live as long as it's enough, we'll get an answer.
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Message 1100665 - Posted: 25 Apr 2011, 23:52:57 UTC
Last modified: 26 Apr 2011, 0:17:11 UTC

Wahnsinn Images,
They came from another planet that orbits one the stars you see in the sky at night, i don't know which one. Today, astronomers call them exoplanets and the Kepler telescope has found about 1250 so far in just a few months of data. We don't have any ancient text book that tells us who created them before they came here and created us. But we have bibles and Korans and tonnes of other books that recorded how we got here. We have very few SETI scientists, and the few we have, have no funding to build the telescopes they need to search properly. So really, ET could be transmitting night and day but our SETI scientists just don't have the money to check all the possible channels in the EM spectrum.

john3760,
Sorry buddy, only people living in the UK can view stuff on the BBC iplayer.

skildude,
I want you to go back and read your last post again and just think about what you just wrote my friend!! Your generalising the bible stories as creationism and saying that its not repeatable like science is!! But lets use the worlds most famous scientific case of creationism - The famous case of Dolly the Sheep. Dolly the sheep was cloned by scientists in Scotland from a single cell taken from the parent sheep.

This is modern science performing creationism right in front of your nose and you cant see it!! And since the time of Dolly the sheep, our scientists have gone much much further than just cloning sheep. Craig Venter, a bio scientist, created "Cynthia", a single celled bacteria just from 4 bottles of chemicals and a computer code of the DNA sequence of the bacteria. And that is just the stuff that got reported in the news. I bet there are bio scientists all over the world creating stuff you will never hear about, including humans! If it can be done with sheep, you can be sure someone has, and is, trying to clone human beings. It will hit the news headlines in the next few years. Some scientist will go public with his child that is an identicle copy of himself, the result of human cloning.

For thousands of years, the bible and other religious text book said it could be done and people never believed them. Today we are doing it, and people still don't believe it. When Craig Venter made his announcment about creating Cynthia last year, the public hardly batted an eyelid at the news. They were too busy hob-nobbing an Facebook, twitter and playing with their iPhones.

John.
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