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I didn't mention absolute truth. The point is that there were entire populations of creatures who by their form and their genetics show no barrier between human and ape.Believe in those extinct apes and diseased deformed humans as some in-between kind all you want, won't make it true.
It might if we had supporting evidence for that hypothesis; but that wouldn't be the case.We were speaking of conscious processes speeding things up.
If we didn't know about this it may appear that things have taken longer.
Please describe what you would accept as actual evidence.Still no 'actual' evidence of the missing link/s!
It might if we had supporting evidence for that hypothesis; but that wouldn't be the case.
You have a presupposition that evolution is blind and everything is random chance, if evolution is guided it certainly is worth pointing out the strange anomaly that evolution would unleash the potential for an enlightened havoc wreaking species to far exceed the destruction ability of just its natural prey, along with the potential to wreak havoc on the entire ecosystem. These issues are married to each other if teleology is written into nature.I don't know if questions of human evolution or questions of environmental protection are better. But since this thread is about human evolution, you might want to start another thread if questions about environmental protection are more important to you.
They were apes very similar to apes in the jungle? Or they were given increased cognitive abilities? Which one is it? There’s a big difference. So you are proposing incremental cognitive steps from ape to man? How many intermediate stages if so? Each intermediary step was a little smarter than apes yet still not as smart as homo sapiens is what you’re saying? I could be wrong but isn’t the dominant view today that Neanderthals and Humans were of equal intelligence?Uh, no, the first apes to come out of the jungle were not John Locke or Thomas Hobbes. They were apes very similar to the apes in the jungle. They were finding food on the edges of the jungle.
In this environment, evolution found that cognitive abilities were more important for them than keen senses. In these creatures, the proportion of the brain dedicated to cognitive functions increased.
My biggest brain teaser is the “If you don’t use it you lose it” factor. If a species is given creative thinking survival abilities that are adequate for their survival then their superior senses will go into decline. But they are doomed if their senses drop off before acquiring the cognitive boost of creative thinking. Becoming enlightened first, then having the senses drop off is what makes most sense to me.Understood, I was not trying to say that cognitive abilities are frivolous. Rather, I was saying that, for most apes, expansion of cognitive abilities can be frivolous if it comes at the expense of decreased brainpower dedicated to the senses.
I’m saying that once evolution gifted a species with the cognitive abilities it is written in the cards, no matter where you place them (IF they don’t die off of course). I’m not referring to factors that would have led to evolution going in another direction. I’m speaking of afterwards not beforehand.Nothing was written in the cards. Had Lucy and her kind inherited a sandy island with no rocks or predators, but plenty of bananas, evolution would have turned out much different.
Cognitive abilities, the design of our hands, and creative use of tools are all cut from the same cloth. This shows a brilliance in evolution, our cognitive abilities would be extremely hindered with cat paws! Give us these traits and we will start using tools on a beach, in the mountains, in a forest, etc.But our ancestors had hands that could use tools, had increased cognitive ability, had available stones to make tools, and had huge survival benefits from tools. The result is that our ancestors became good at using simple tools.
That’s what I’m saying. Your explanation credited us being removed from trees as a major reason behind our cognitive power. But other creatures changed environments in a whole host of scenarios, yet it was an irrelevant factor because no evolutionary spark took place for them that lead to them having our cognition as well. There is no magic chain of events, in fact each chain of events was probably repeated by a million different species a million times over (without resulting in our cognition). Evolution is guided to produce an enlightened species in a sea of non-enlightened species. The consequences to Mother Earth as a result of that is part of the teleological play book. The unanimity of our higher brain power ability speaks volumes about this purpose being written into the fabric of reality. If evolution was blind this cognitive trigger would have fired off way more often.Understood. Hippos never kept up with us in brainpower.
You are mixing up the effects of cognitive brain power with the cause. Evolution not only didn’t give the hippo our cognitive powers but it also would not have chosen to give it to the body type of a hippo because it would be rather useless. Human hands are not a blind mistake that luckily matched up with our other blind mistake of brain power. It gets very ad hoc when people try to deny teleology in nature, even to the point of scrambling up effects with a cause.Of all the creatures living in the African rift valley, only hominids developed high levels of cognitive brain power. There were a number of factors that all worked together to cause this, such as flexible hands that could use tools, available tools, food sources that required tools, and the ability for our ancestors' brain size to increase significantly after birth during a prolonged infancy. These were not all present in the hippo.
This statement combines two separate things as if talking about one thing, it doesn’t matter what our “Large brained ancestors” inherited if in your own statement they are already large brained to begin the statement with. Why do you end your statement with “evolutionary history would have been different” if the beginning of your statement already has them with big brains? The evolutionary process IS the process towards the big brains. Go ahead and put them on a beach after that, it won’t matter.Had our larger-brained ancestors inherited an island full of fruit trees and nuts, with no predators or prey, our evolutionary history would have been much different.
It absolutely was set in stone. We would have learned to cook as long as we had the material available. How many instances do we see throughout history of civilizations of large brained mammals that thrived in a similar fashion, yet who never bumped into each other? The fact that the world was not connected long ago, and that these civilizations didn’t bump into each other is very beneficial to see this pattern as independent of environment. They just needed the cognition first. These civilizations of those with evolved brain power happened all throughout history in all types of environments.We might have never learned to cook. The future of humanity was not cast in stone once our ancestors got larger brains.
I don’t know why you are fixating on long infancy periods. That is simply a trait of the species that the species must deal with. Every species is stuck with whatever they are.Uh, no, I am saying that big brains uses a lot of energy. So growing a bigger brain can be a detriment to animals if the bigger brain does not give the animal more food energy than what the animal would have gotten without the enlarged brain.
And bigger brains are a major issues for primates who never had developed the trick of continuing brain development after birth through a long infancy.
Catch up with us? If they evolved into having higher brain function and long infancy periods then they would be like us, they wouldn’t have done anything to get there. The only process involved is to just survive without dying off.For other primates to catch up with us, they would have needed to go through that process like our earlier ancestors did, or have evolution give them some other means of giving them larger brains in spite of the restrictions of the birth canal.
Well being more concerned with our local restaurant is the evolutionary default. Hippos & apes can care less beyond their local environment as well. What evolution has given us that’s novel and that extends beyond that default is the part where we can also care beyond our local restaurant.Evolution is blind. It has produced humans that find it far easier to fret about their local restaurant changing ownership then about the planet becoming uninhabitable for their descendents.
Humans can’t seem to stop sociopaths from ruling, we’re always underneath a system of greed, deception, destruction, etc. I think sociopaths naturally rule because it’s in their nature to plot non-stop on how to rule, and with whatever means necessary, whereas normal people are way more passive about it.But it has not prevented us from behaving wisely.
Perhaps you and I, and all others who are concerned about the environment, can prevail in keeping our planet a great place for humans to live.
If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes?
Short answer: Because apes have found a different method of survival.
Long answer: Because a rift valley opened up in Africa, allowing some apes* to move out of the forest into the new valley. Away from the trees, they found it helpful to stand erect. This gave them more efficient movement, the ability to use their hands for new functions, and the ability to see above the tall grass. Why didn't all creatures do this? Because there was also a good living to be made in the forest, which did not require this.
Some of these creatures lost some of their sense of sight and smell in order to develop cognitive brainpower. They were living in a new environment, and needed to figure out how to survive. Why didn't all creatures do this? Back in the forest, the sense of smell and sight were far too important for frivolous things like cognition.
Some of these creatures started to grow their brains larger after birth. This kept the head small enough to pass through the birth canal, but gave them cognitive advantages as adults. Why didn't all creatures do this? Brain development after birth slowed maturity. Other creatures did not have the net species brainpower needed to survive well while spending long periods caring for helpless infants.
Some of these creatures started to use simple tools in new, creative ways. Why didn't all creatures do this? They were not smart enough.
Some of these creatures saw sparks when they struck stones together, and learned how to harness them to make fires for warmth and protection. Why didn't all creatures do this? They did not have the brainpower, tools, or available hands.
Some of these creatures lost their hair and developed strong sweat glands. This allowed them to chase prey for a long time in the hot sun until the prey collapsed in exhaustion. Why didn't all creatures do this? They did not have fire and animal skins to keep them warm at nights, so they needed their hair.
Some of these creatures began to use fires to cook, making their food safer and easier to digest. Why didn't all creatures do this? They didn't know how to make fires.
Some of these creatures spent many hours talking about things around the campfire while their food cooked. They developed complex brains to understand complex communications. Why didn't all creatures do this? Their brains were too small to understand language.
Some of these creatures used their brain power to get more protein, so they could grow bigger brains, so they could get more protein, so they could get bigger brains, etc. Why didn't all creatures do this? They had been left out of this arms race long ago.
Some of these creatures learned to gossip. Gossiping left everybody know who they could trust and who they could not trust. They learned to build complex relationships based on freely helping each other. Then they would talk about who responded with reciprocity and who did not. If they tried to cheat, somebody would tell on them. Why didn't all creatures gossip? Gossiping requires brainpower.
Some of these creatures developed complex math skills. For instance, they learned to calculate the tide schedule, so they would leave the safety of their caves only in that short period of time when the tide made it optimal to find shellfish on the beach. Why didn't all creatures do this? Math is not for dummys.
Some of these creatures dominated the available resources, leaving intermediates and other competitors to die out for lack of resources. Why didn't all the competitors do this? They would have if they could have.
These surviving creatures became modern humans.
Meanwhile, the great apes stayed in the forest, remaining quite adept at a totally different lifestyle.
And that is why there are humans, and there are still apes.
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* Yes, I know, we did not evolve from modern apes. But we evolved from creatures that, if they were alive today, would be classified as apes.
Better still, show me the missing link?
By golly, I think you are starting to understand what evolution is all about.So you are proposing incremental cognitive steps from ape to man? How many intermediate stages if so? Each intermediary step was a little smarter than apes yet still not as smart as homo sapiens is what you’re saying?
It wasn't all black and white. There would have been gray area between the dense jungle and the grassland. If the grassland offered a great source of food, some would have been drawn to the perimeter to seek food. As that area got crowded, some would have gotten adventuresome.It's one thing to climb down out of a tree and go exploring in a grassy field, where you have to stand erect for awhile.
But to pack up and migrate out of the trees into that area, where you'll have to stand 24/7 or get eaten, that's just plain off the chart.
Uh, if a couple was living near the jungle, it would not have been hard to run back into the woods now and then to have some fun.Wouldn't that constitute a mini bottleneck?
"Hey! We're lost! We've been cut off by a natural disaster, and there are predators all around us!
Quick! Let's start procreating!"
Faith? I got better than that. I got evidence.And you have more faith in this than in God?
And how did they run back into the woods, since they were cut off by a natural disaster?Uh, if a couple was living near the jungle, it would not have been hard to run back into the woods now and then to have some fun.
Faith? I got better than that. I got evidence.
For instance, we have evidence that the early apes to walk upright out in the grassland had brain development after birth similar to human brain development. See Our ancient ancestor 'Lucy' had an ape-like brain that grew over time | Daily Mail Online.
Faith? I got better than that. I got evidence.
I have read conflicting things, that Neanderthals were just as intelligent as Homo Sapiens, and that it was a progression. Can’t be both. There’s not much to go on reaching back that far to distinguish between intelligence levels anyway, what we most concretely have to go on is that there is us and that’s all, and we dominate the world with our cognition.By golly, I think you are starting to understand what evolution is all about.
What is homo erectus? Is it a diseased human or an extinct ape? How do you know?
Uh, birds and fish (and people) are animals.
What kind of flesh did homo erectus have? Did it have people flesh or animal flesh?
I didn't mention absolute truth. The point is that there were entire populations of creatures who by their form and their genetics show no barrier between human and ape.
Creationism could well be true... no evidence can ever disprove the will of an omnipotent God. But that assertion that the evidence for the existence transitionals is false.
Anything over the internet isn't evidence to me,.. it's hearsay.
Animals have a soul but no spirit and as the Bible says a different type of flesh.
Faith = evidence of gullibility
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