Clearing up misconceptions and misunderstandings
Clearing up misconceptions and misunderstandings
Recently there was a thread calling out on the genetic similarity between chimps and humans.
Link :http://www.basilmarket.com/forum/2100750
But I felt it needed some cleaning up, unfortunately, it was closed so I'm dedicating this thread to clearing up for those mistakes, and as a FAQ for evolutionary biology, for all of you who are clueless as to how it works.
I'm not an expert myself, so I hope if any elite questions come up, that such intelligent people like Dimo or MaikuX3 will give a little clarification
I will start off, to the TS: Genetic similarity varies as to how you measure it, and what you count in. For example, just comparing similarity, will also show you great similarity on duplicants, even though one of them have that extra gene. Just so you don't think that this is THE number.
"So? We share 90% of our genetic information with bananas"
- Not true : http://genecuisine.blogspot.com/2011/03/human-dna-similarities-to-chimps-and.html
I even doubt that it is 50%, but it's just to give you an idea of how far off you are.
"This has nothing to do with evolution. I don't think you understand how little it means to have a certain percentage of genetic homology. If something works, why not use it across many species?"
- It's not just using the same gene again, it's using variations of the same gene to do the exact same thing, why do that? Why does homology and other evidences all show a nested hierachy of descent, rather than universal common design?
I can answer that, but only through evolution.
"You know, I don't think you know much about Darwin himself either. I respect him because he was a very conscientious man, admitting all sorts of flaws in his theories, not just overlooking them. In fact, he admitted at the end of his life that he believed in God because he saw the wonder and complexity of the things he studied. That happens if you are an honest person..."
- He didn't particularly mention any flaws. He mentioned things that might disprove his theory and things that might both indicated and vindicate it in the future.
Besides, he never recanted on his deathbed. Thats a creationist lie.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CG/CG001.html
Might not be the same story, but when stories have gone through so long, they often gets changed abit here and there.
"EDIT: by: to accept this as facts, i mean the fact that we evolved from Monkeys."
"lolwut, that is false according to BOTH religion and science"
"you are right, sorry. What i meant to say was, that humans and apes shared a common ancestor, and then they separated into 2 lineages..."
- Okay, first off, we did evolve from monkeys, and we ARE monkeys. Only if you follow the old classification system which doesn't make sense in light of evolution, will you get paraphyletic clades. But thats just stupid.
(Paraphyly means a clade(group of animals) which excludes some descendent's. For example, the term "reptile" includes lizards and crocodiles, but not birds. But birds evolved from reptiles. This makes a paraphyletic clade. Thats why only monophyletic clades makes sense, because it includes all the descendent's.)
Secondly, apes and monkeys are two different things.
Third we did evolve from apes are we are apes.
Some will probably misunderstand me and think I'm saying we evolved from any of the now living apes or monkeys.. but that's not the case. We evolved from extinct monkeys and apes, just like our ancestors was mammals, and so are we.
"if Evolution was also real...why hasn't a missing link shown up? Where's the monkey/human creature roaming the jungles?"
- We have found multiple links showing the connection to the other apes. Follow the line back through such species like ergaster, heidelbergensis, erectus, habilis, africanus, afarensis, ramidus and kadabba, and you'll be fairly close to the divergence from chimps. Going further back you're going to meet transitional fossils like Eosimias, proconsul, darwinius masillae and many others.
"I love how you completely edited out the rest of my argument. And what science? There is no science in evolution. Showing that we share genes with monkeys prove nothing. As I said, we also have 85% of our genes shared with mice, and 75% of our genes shared with yeast of all things. http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/faq/compgen.shtml"
- It's not the amount of similarity, but the PATTERN of similarity, along with many other lines of evidence which shows that evolution is not only the best, but the only explanation which can fully account for all the evidence we have.
Bridging the Gap between Micro and Macro evolution : http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=206630156050500
Transitional fossils :
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=197836943596488
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=197836476929868
8 Comments • Newest first
[quote=GeneticWonders]No need for assumptions when you got evidence [/quote]
*likes* xD Didn't think of that.
[quote=GeneticWonders]Genetics is at least supporting evolution [/quote]
Definitely.
[quote=ikappy]kitty cats are cuter than monkeys[/quote]
Depends on which. There certainly is some cats I think look horrible, however if we look at a cat like the adorable margay, then I'd definitely agree. On the other hand, monkeys also have some pwetty creatures such as the panamanian night monkey http://boquetesafaritours.typepad.com/.a/6a00e55208828a88340115710a2058970b-800wi
@ormirian
Not true, creationists are also evangelizing in other places, and Turkey has a higher rate of rejection of evolution than the US. Also I've become aware of some scientists who are creationists here in Denmark, I was made aware of those by a young preacher who's a primary/secondary teacher, who himself is a fundamentalist creationist.
[quote=chippy11]by saying all of this, you are assuming that science and evolution are the correct explanations for our time being here. To my knowledge, we know absolutely nothing about our origins, only what we have perceived within the boundaries of our own logic etc.
but i'm probably talking nonsense so yeah good analysis![/quote]
Science is not assumed to be correct, because with science we're not looking for absolute truth. We're looking for whats most likely to be true and what works. Now, science has shown itself to be the single most reliable method of distinguishing fact from fantasy because of its amazing results, thus I'd say its fair to put your bets on science, even though it will never find capital T - Truth.
But to say we know nothing of our origin is, in my opinion, an insult to the last centuries scientists who have uncovered mountains of data, which gives us a very good idea of our origin, at least in a biological sense.
We have tons of fossils showing a transition from fish to us, cetaceans, birds and many of the other groups of animals. We have mountains of genetic data, even though we've almost just begun and we have a lot of brilliant minds in the fields and labs giving constantly updated observable information to compile into the already large body of knowledge.
I wouldn't say you're talking nonsense, I'd say it's more a matter of perception, perspective and information at hand
[quote=fpsmuch]Ahh, some of the names brings back some old year 13 bio, hated the teacher, liked the subject.
Didn't we evolve from some kind of rat? I remember something like that in our textbook.[/quote]
Referring to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eomaia ? Because some of the most basal karyotypes of early mammals would be squirrel / mouse like.
[quote=mordecaide]Excellent. And good luck fitting this into a single thread. Evolution is a really extensive topic.[/quote]
Added a little extra for now. Would you mind pointing out which words are hard to understand?
[quote=mordecaide]This means absolutely nothing to the average person. If you're going to copy and paste something and argue about it, you need to explain your argument. Otherwise you're shouting out gibberish and failing to catch the attention of your audience.
I personally didn't take Latin or a college level evolutionary bio class, so I have no idea what a "paraphyletic clades" is. If you're making your audience google every other word, your argument isn't explaining near enough.
I'm not questioning the information here, I'm simply saying that it doesn't describe the description. <insert inception joke here>[/quote]
True, I'll add some definitions when I've done some cleaning
[quote=doodorz]Chimps are dumb.[/quote]
Indeed http://www.securewebdata.com/zippythechimp/