Did you say Evolution doesn't teach man evolved from ape?

[michabo]

It was said on this board, many times.
In fact, every time I said I had problems with the idea of man descending from Ape, a LARGE number of evolutionists would scream, "That isn't even PART of the evolution."

I think you're exadgerating, but I do see what you're talking about. For some reason, there are people that accept evolution but either aren't versed in the terms, or aren't versed in the specific conclusions wrt human ancestry. Whatever it is, there are people who accept evolution, but will say things like "we didn't evolve from apes, but shared a common ancestor" or other such things.

What they should say is that we share a common ancestor with modern apes.

Anyway. I hardly see how an article which talks about a new discovery in evolution can possibly be used to attack evolution. But it seems like that's what you're trying to do.

 

[Edx]

Actually,

It was said on this board, many times.
In fact, every time I said I had problems with the idea of man descending from Ape, a LARGE number of evolutionists would scream, "That isn't even PART of the evolution." IN fact, I was flat out MOCKED on this board for saying that was taught. Told I didn't have any idea what WAS taught about evolution if I thought that was.

Go on. Find any occasion.

Dont forget sometimes someone that agrees with evolution will say something silly about it. But your point was that this is what Evolution IS, not what uneducated people on a forum think.

That said, every other time youve tried to claim Evolution says something it doesnt and tried to back it up, you have failed miserably.

 

[Adriac]

Actually,

It was said on this board, many times.
In fact, every time I said I had problems with the idea of man descending from Ape, a LARGE number of evolutionists would scream, "That isn't even PART of the evolution." IN fact, I was flat out MOCKED on this board for saying that was taught. Told I didn't have any idea what WAS taught about evolution if I thought that was.

We ARE NOT descended from monkeys.
We ARE NOT descended from chimpanzees.
We ARE NOT descended from gorillas, orang-utans, or any other current species of ape.

We ARE descended from apes, being as we ARE apes.

I suspect that any example you choose to give derives from a misunderstanding of the above.

 

[Asimov]

Actually,

It was said on this board, many times.
In fact, every time I said I had problems with the idea of man descending from Ape, a LARGE number of evolutionists would scream, "That isn't even PART of the evolution." IN fact, I was flat out MOCKED on this board for saying that was taught. Told I didn't have any idea what WAS taught about evolution if I thought that was.

 

[OdwinOddball]

What you have seen denied mutliple times is this, is the common creationist phrase:
"An ape gave birth to man" or some variation of such, more often Chimp or Monkey is used instead of ape, which just makes it worse.

The above is a misunderstanding of evolution, and shows your continued misunderstanding of evolution by your confusion as to the meaning.

The truth is, an ape gave birth to an ape, gave birth to an ape, repeat till humanity. The truth is that we are still apes, When your human mother gave birth to you, she(an ape), gave birth to an ape. You are an ape. I am an ape, and every human who has ever lived was also an ape.

Our common ancestor gave birth to a slightly more human ape than itself. Which gave birth to an even more human like ape. On down the line.

What has never happened, and never will happen is that an ape ever gave birth to something that was not an ape.


Again, a fundmental principle of Evolution that you dont seem to get is that Evolution is about the species as a whole, not as an individual. And that change from one species to another takes many generations to occur.

 

[Edx]

I refer you back again to my post on how ducks are still birds.

 

[michabo]

We ARE NOT descended from monkeys.

Thus making TexasSky's point. We are descended from monkeys, as we are monkeys. Old World monkeys, true, but still monkeys.

 

[Adriac]

Thus making TexasSky's point. We are descended from monkeys, as we are monkeys. Old World monkeys, true, but still monkeys.

Not sure exactly what you mean by that, but it should be said for the record that ape != monkey, and monkey != ape.

 

[Edx]

Not sure exactly what you mean by that, but it should be said for the record that ape != monkey, and monkey != ape.

Look, the confusion arises though the Creationists impression of what a "monkey" is. We are monkeys, Old World Monkeys. But calling yourself a monkey sounds funny, because you automatically think of these things:

http://sunsite.au.ac.th/education/abc/pic/cartoon/m.gif

 

[DJ_Ghost]

people who accept evolution, but will say things like "we didn't evolve from apes, but shared a common ancestor" or other such things.

Guilty as charged gov...

I’ve said that at least twice I can think of.

What they should say is that we share a common ancestor with modern apes..:

...and that's what I actually meant on both occasions. I shall endeavour to be more precise in future.

Ghost

 

[Baggins]

Actually,

It was said on this board, many times.
In fact, every time I said I had problems with the idea of man descending from Ape, a LARGE number of evolutionists would scream, "That isn't even PART of the evolution." IN fact, I was flat out MOCKED on this board for saying that was taught. Told I didn't have any idea what WAS taught about evolution if I thought that was.

You either have a poor memory or you are a flat out liar.

I prefer to believe you just remember what you think you read rather than what was actually written.

If you think a scientist said we didn't evolve from apes on this page post a link so I can apologise to you and catigate him instead.

Humans are apes.......

and old world monkeys

and mammals


and chordates


and animals




unless you know better

 

[Cirbryn]

Look, the confusion arises though the Creationists impression of what a "monkey" is. We are monkeys, Old World Monkeys. But calling yourself a monkey sounds funny, because you automatically think of these things:

http://sunsite.au.ac.th/education/abc/pic/cartoon/m.gif

To be fair, the confusion arises because there are two ways of interpreting the term "monkey". The one you're applying is cladistic. By cladistic thinking all the descendants of a particular ancestor share the categorization of that ancestor. The advantage to this approach is it groups things according to their evolutionary relationship. Under a cladistic system, if six species are referred to as X, and two others as Y, we know right off that the Xs are going to be more closely related to each other than they are to the Ys.

The disadvantage of the cladistic system is it doesn't fit well with Linnaean nomenclature. Under the Linnaean system it is possible to evolve out of a taxonomic rank; under the cladistic system it isn't. The most obvious example of this is when a new species evolves from an old one. We don't claim the new species is still a member of the old species, because to do so would imply they are still interbreeding significantly. Similarly, the Linnaean Family Hominidae has evolved out of the Linnaean Family Cercopithicidae, and is no longer a member. By Linnaean thinking we are not monkeys, while by cladistic thinking we are.

Now some terms, such as "tetrapod" are clearly cladistic terms, and should be treated in a cladistic manner. So it is reasonable to claim that snakes are tetrapods even though they don't have any limbs. But other terms are pretty clearly Linnaean, and so should be treated in a Linnaean manner. I think the Cercopithicidae and Hominidae fall into that category. Accordingly, FWIW, I'd say we're apes (since we're in the ape family), but we aren't monkeys.

 

[BigToe]

my goodness some of you need to really lighten up. i was making a joke about monkeys and apes. calm down.

 

[Mocca]

Evolutionists have said many times humans did not evolve from chimps.

Chimp is not synonymous with ape.

Strawman alert!

 

[Mocca]

my goodness some of you need to really lighten up. i was making a joke about monkeys and apes. calm down.

Intense, isn't it?

 

[TheBear]

Is it supreme ego that makes some people refuse to believe than we are primates? What is this nonsense? Do superstitious beliefs trump tangible evidence, again?

 

[michabo]

my goodness some of you need to really lighten up. i was making a joke about monkeys and apes. calm down.

In a weird way, I like these sort of debates. Or rather, I like that we have them. But also not...

I think it is a good reminder that we tend to act as a group, not out of loyalty or some dogmatic defense of evolution (and everyone that supports it), but because, unlike theology, once you learn about evolution, there really is only one path that you can follow. We show that we can disagree in a civil fashion, that we can support our positions, and that we can (and do) back down gracefully when wrong.

I like that the people that come here have a large range of backgrounds, and they correct others who may not have as much experience.


What I don't like so much is the impression that a debate over terminology may be conflated to be a debate over some fundamental point in evolution, or a debate about evolution itself.

And I also think that debates about names can be really misleading. We as humans like to put names on things, to draw clear boundaries. This is from species A, this is from species B. This is a monkey, this is not. This is a human, this is not.

But life is much more complicated than this. Evolutionary history, and ring species today, show us that species change in a very smooth process. It's only because all of our ancestors have died off that we're able to say we are a clearly distinct species from, say, chimps. Imagine if all of the intermediate ancestors along the way were still alive and we were part of a ring species with chimps! When we put a human beside a chimp, we could see clearly that we were two different species, but as we walk along the ring and see interbreeding couples with barely perceptable differences which only slowly accumulate to end up at us, what then?

To make matters worse, taxonomic names like monkey and ape have colloquial meanings as well. Taxonomically we are a fish, but we have no scales and live on land. Taxonomically, whales are artiodactyls, closer related to hippos than hippos are to pigs. Even looking at the simpler case of, say, a Leafy Sea Dragon

Taxonomically, this is a fish, but it looks nothing like a cannonical fish.


So, when many members of the public come to read about evolution and encounter these taxonomical claims, they may be very shocked. YECs seem to freak out when you say that they are apes, but when you actually give a definition and list some characteristics (tend toward bipedalism, brachiating, finger nails, down-facing noses, etc.) then they will often say that, yes, they have all of those characteristics, but they still reject the label.

So when we start fighting over labels, it seems to encourage the belief that species are distinct instead of continuous, and that these labels are fundamental issues when really we just have different ways of talking about the same, commonly understood facts.

 

[Ryal Kane]

I'm starting to think, 'a monkey gave birth to a human' is the biggest and baddest of creationist strawmen.

Sadly TexasSky you've again demonstrated a misunderstanding of the very thing you claim is false.

 

[Edx]

Now some terms, such as "tetrapod" are clearly cladistic terms, and should be treated in a cladistic manner. So it is reasonable to claim that snakes are tetrapods even though they don't have any limbs. But other terms are pretty clearly Linnaean, and so should be treated in a Linnaean manner. I think the Cercopithicidae and Hominidae fall into that category. Accordingly, FWIW, I'd say we're apes (since we're in the ape family), but we aren't monkeys.

Well yes fair enough, but this is probably why Creationists get so confused (I think on purpose since many refuse to try and understand).

We are Old World Monkeys, theres nothing wrong with saying that unless you are using the common mans definition of monkey which is a small little tree climbing animal with a tail and that traditionally likes bananas.

Ed

 

[Edx]

my goodness some of you need to really lighten up. i was making a joke about monkeys and apes. calm down.

It might have been funny if it had been any way correct, sadly it contained too much incorrect information for me to find it funny.