We Evolved From the Monkey, huh?

Well guys I have to say the jury is still out for me. The major issue I have with us evolving from monkeys is why are there still monkeys and humans? Why have some monkeys over time evolved and the others have not? I've heard it explained, usually by people who are smarter than me, that some select primates evolved leaving the others behind. The problem for me with that, and i'm only an engineer not a scientist, is that all monkeys are genetically the same. Sure they vary from sub group to sub group, but fundamentally the same. If you look at humans, we have our differances but we are all anotomically the same. Who knows? Maybe their right. Explains why I loved my tree house as a kid. 61

reply to post by XyZeR

Seriously before you make thread like these inform yourself, then you wouldn't look so silly.

As if that matters to him. As if evidence matters to him. As if reason matters to him. You think he should inform himself? Why bother wasting his time when he's already decided on his position? When he embraces a concept with devote conviction, and insulates his convictions by projecting false concepts of beliefs and ideological reasons for acceptance or rejection of a hypothesis or theory onto everyone who may reply.

He may read the words of your argument, but he will not dare honestly engage the evidence you link and provide, regardless of it's veracity - nor correct his misconceptions when highlighted.

He truly is from the 3rd density (thickness)... the first "density" being agnostic (without knowledge)... the second "density" being the avoidance of knowledge... and the third "density" - the outright rejection of knowledge by entrenching his precious preconceptions based on personal favor, rather than by weight of evidence.

--------------------------------

That being said: Here's a few of my favorite videos on the subject of the evolution of the human ape.

Standard ERV explanation.


AronRa's primer to cladistic phylogenetics.


AronRa's use of phylogeny to demonstrate that we are not just descended from monkeys, but that we ARE MONKEYS by definition. (as well as apes and hominids as well)


The Indelible Stamp of our Lowly Origin (not a structured argument, but a striking display of resemblance in behaviors and capacities)


This Is Why Every Scientist Accepts Evolution, by DonExodus.


C0nc0rdance's Challenge to Proponents of Intelligent Design (God, Alien, Human... whatever... the challenge applies across the board. Find a single gene in the human genome which is designed)

From what I've learned so far, the Yahweh consciousness wants us to be followers. The Lucifer consciousness wants us to be individuals with Free Will. The Christ consciousness? I'm guessing it wants us to help others and think of everyone as one(the one most will probably choose.)

If seems like each represents a philosophy, and they, along with us are acting them out to see which one works the best. My opinion is that if the idea is to experience as many things as possible, then the Lucifer consciousness is the path to follow.

Originally posted by impaired
But seriously, if we came from the apes and the monkeys, then how come the apes and the monkeys are still here in their present form and how come THEY haven't evolved?

This is an incorrect statement.

We did not come from monkeys. In fact, we're not even more evolved than monkeys or apes. To assume that other primates are less evolved assumes that the process of natural selection has a goal in mind. It doesn't.

A monkey is as evolved as a duck is as evolved as a human. We are all the result of a never-ending process of adaptation to our environment.

When people say we evolved from apes, what they are really saying is that apes and humans shared a common ancestor....the descendants of this ancestor evolved into the the species of apes you see in the historical record all the way up to the present.

If you are up for it, you should check out The Ancestor's Tale. It is a really heavy buy very interesting read.

reply to post by np6888


I follow you, and that view is reasonable. However, there is that very real view that there is "nothing new under the Sun." We tend to be in orbit, afraid of self-definition. There comes a point at which one has experienced enough to extrapolate all trajectories in the human drama. That is when we seek love, centered in a Christ-like view. When we are at war, our experience is wasted seeking and maintaining territory. When we are at peace, not fearing an invasion, we are free to explore the most possibilities of all, as everything does not come crashing back into the ground as soon as it is built. Plus, it is usually only the master who views the experience of the slave as something wonderful. When the roles are reversed, so too does his or her tune. Also, they are both slaves to the master/slave dynamic, and this necessarily places a lid on both of their experiences.

Lucifer might properly be called the creative principle, but if this creative principle is not exercised in love, then all that is created is destroyed. Cycles of war and destruction and slavery my friend. We gain the most experience, the most beauty, when we are centered in love, in my opinion, of course. The creative principle reconciled with the ever-present connection amongst all things, this seeks symbiosis, not war. It creates the most experience of all. I think Christ played a perfect "V," as in "V for Vendetta." Except Christ had no vendetta against an individual, merely destructive ideologies. When the dominoes fall, only Christ is left standing, the very core of our being. Know thyself. Of course, this is my opinion, but I have reflected much in search of truth.

[edit on 26-11-2009 by orwellianunenlightenment]

Actually, now that I think about it, the three consciousness represent the three political philosophies remarkably well. The Yahweh consciousness represents Marxism and communism(total control), the Lucifer consciousness represents freedom and capitalism, and the Christ consciousness represents socialism.

Another alien worshipper. You guys are a dime a dozen on ats. Who created the ET's?

BOOM case closed

[edit on 26-11-2009 by Jordan River]

Originally posted by impaired

But seriously, if we came from the apes and the monkeys, then how come the apes and the monkeys are still here in their present form and how come THEY haven't evolved?

Evolution happens out of necessity. Crocodiles haven't evolved much in 65 million years...because they haven't had to. Other species have changed more rapidly because the pressures of natural selection have been much tougher on them.

Take two teenagers. Send one off to war in Afghanistan and plunk the other down in front of an X-box with a trust fund. In five years, they will have "evolved" in very different ways. The young man who went off to war will likely have changed a great deal more than the young man who sat around doing nothing much. The same is true of species.

In one possible scenario, imagine a forest that burnt half-way to the ground. The monkeys who lived in the trees in the unburnt part can continue their lifestyle pretty much as usual. So no need for evolution. Now consider the few surviving monkeys from the burnt portion. Suddenly they are faced with a much harsher environment, and must survive on the ground. Most will be picked off by predators, but the strongest and canniest will survive, perhaps hopping from bush to bush or hiding in the burnt-out reminants of the trees. Over time, the survivors will be the strongest, the smartest, the quickest, and the most resourceful. They will breed with each other, producing offspring with similar traits. The harsher selective pressure will force great change at a very rapid pace. Meanwhile, the monkeys in the unburnt portion of the forest will not face the need to change much at all, and consequently will not.

Originally posted by impaired

But seriously, if we came from the apes and the monkeys, then how come the apes and the monkeys are still here in their present form and how come THEY haven't evolved?


[edit on 11/26/2009 by impaired]

[edit on 11/26/2009 by impaired]

We didn't come from monkey's or ape's at least not the ones we have today, we came from something like them. We evolved one direction on the line, they evolved another,

Originally posted by Lasheic
reply to post by XyZeR

 

Seriously before you make thread like these inform yourself, then you wouldn't look so silly.

As if that matters to him. As if evidence matters to him. As if reason matters to him. You think he should inform himself? Why bother wasting his time when he's already decided on his position? When he embraces a concept with devote conviction, and insulates his convictions by projecting false concepts of beliefs and ideological reasons for acceptance or rejection of a hypothesis or theory onto everyone who may reply.

Thank you for that fine analysis and referring to me in third person...

First of all I have acknowledged that I was wrong about us coming from the monkey. Forgive me for falling for a common misconception. My bad.

But what is the that common ancestor? Did we find it yet?

And then like I said before, what about the "God and Religion" phenomena? That's what I was really getting at. Too many religions that talk about the same thing with similar history lines. Very serious to most people, don't ya think? Extreme significance about it...

And about ET's. Is every sighting a hoax? Are the whistleblowers from government agencies hoaxes? The ancient astronaut theory and the drawings - especially of the one from about 10,000 BC in italy? > upload.wikimedia.org...

The fact that each star is a sun and there could be millions or billions of planets out there with life?

These are not made up facts. The information is out there. You apparently chose not to read my subsequent posts as well. All you did was bring out the flame thrower on me - which is fine. But I already explained what was behind the theory. Hopefully this clarifies that.

He may read the words of your argument, but he will not dare honestly engage the evidence you link and provide, regardless of it's veracity - nor correct his misconceptions when highlighted.

A little offended, I see. I just will not get into religious circular logic. The theory that I believe is backup-up by the strong possibility of really probable (If not true) circumstances! There is most definitely other life out there. Given the size of this galaxy alone and age of the universe AS WE KNOW IT, there are many, many variables (could be infinite for all we know). And we don't know for a sure that the Universe is 14 billion years old or even that the big-bang even happened!. So there's much time for alot of variables.

It is egotistical and extremely improbable (the way it looks these days) to assume that we are the only game in town.

That being said, it strengthens the Ancient Astronaut theory - explains what the biblical gods and lower gods COULD HAVE BEEN (which would be logical), and explains the genesis stories (not to mention chariots of fire, flying spinning wheels, immaculate conceptions, miracle - the whole nine. You want proof or hard facts for that mattter? Read the bible from a NON RELIGIOUS point of view and tie that in with astronomy, basic physics, and you have your gods. You have an idea of our origins. So apparently the bible is right as far as Genesis is concerned. Use today's words and interpolate in-between the lines of the bible and what we are missing in science.

When the bible was written back then (OT and NT), people didn't know that there was anything beyond this Earth. They thought it was the center. The proper vernacular to explain beings that had space travel and technology (magic, "God's powers") didn't even exist back then. There's another fact. So if they were here back then and perhaps even created us, how would we view them? As "Gods"

I really really want to know HOW THIS SOUNDS CRAZY.

And once more: Where is this common ancestor and tell me about it.

He truly is from the 3rd density (thickness)... the first "density" being agnostic (without knowledge)... the second "density" being the avoidance of knowledge... and the third "density" - the outright rejection of knowledge by entrenching his precious preconceptions based on personal favor, rather than by weight of evidence.

This isn't about the monkey thing anymore, is it?

That being said: Here's a few of my favorite videos on the subject of the evolution of the human ape.

But thanks for the links to the videos. I'll check 'em out. Knowledge is power.

reply to post by np6888


Yes, but the Christ consciousness creates a willful socialism. Anything less than willful is not a true marriage, but rather a shotgun wedding. It reconciles all of its component parts, and it truly sees the humanity in others. It sees them as beings, and not as objects (capitalism) or subjects (dictatorship). We beings are more like a combination of the two, as we are all interconnected. But we are something different than the sum of its parts, a singularity of an infinity, if you will.

Edit: I just thought I might add that freedom is not really what people think. It is the right to freeDOM, a view in which all are free to ruthlessly dominate and exploit the other. Not quite what many picture.

[edit on 26-11-2009 by orwellianunenlightenment]

Originally posted by Jordan River


Another alien worshipper. You guys are a dime a dozen on ats. Who created the ET's?

BOOM case closed

[edit on 26-11-2009 by Jordan River]

Oops. Sorry I forgot to mention: I don't worship ANY Aliens or Gods or anything like that. I think we are all equal as living creatures - aliens, humans, bugs, and even plants.

Who made aliens? Like I inferred before (Please read my previous posts!) the universe has had much much time to develop intelligent life! We have only been around for (about) 200,000 years or so as we know it. Am I wrong about that one???

I said in previous posts that I believe in evolution, but it seems it happened quick for us as far as our intellectual capacities are concerned. Each version of the human progressively gets MUCH smarter. Big gaps in knowledge capacity between them.

Other creatures haven't gotten as much smarter as we have during each "crossover" from predecessor to predecessor. Yeah, they've adapted physically and a BIT intellectually.

But look at us. Typing on electronic machines that WE BUILT, connected by satellites and run on a power and communications grid that is spread around the globe. Technology is increasing at an exponential rate. Did we do all of this on our own? Did we grow THAT MANY more braincells in 200,000 years or so? And how do we go from learning how to farm 2-4 thousand years ago to discovering electricity in the 1700's to nukes in the 20th century to what we even have now?

How come monkeys and every other creature out there is stuck in the pre-stone age?

So no. Don't worship aliens. Just want to know what the hell is going on here. Don't get it twisted.

[edit on 11/26/2009 by impaired]

reply to post by impaired


S+F. I believe you are real close to the truth!

I sort of think that Earth is an alien ant farm. The different races of people were brought to different parts of the planet, in what I believe is an intergalactic experiment.

They are trying to see if we can get along with each other, and if so alliances will be formed.

There have been many, many different types of life on this planet over the years.

There are trillions of other planets with humans. There are trillions of planets with huge insects that humans could never possibly co-exist with. In my opinon if you can imagine a kind of life form, it exists somewhere.

We are but dust in the wind.

Originally posted by impaired
But look at us. Typing on electronic machines that WE BUILT, connected by satellites and run on a power and communications grid that is spread around the globe. Technology is increasing at an exponential rate. Did we do all of this on our own? Did we grow THAT MANY more braincells in 200,000 years or so? And how do we go from learning how to farm 2-4 thousand years ago to discovering electricity in the 1700's to nukes in the 20th century to what we even have now?

Our capacity for development as a species has nothing to do with evolution. Our progression from nomadic hunter-gatherers to space-faring computer users has nothing to do with evolution. Our exponential progression from the industrial revolution to today has nothing to do with evolution. Our progression is based on the one ability humans acquired that all other animals on earth lack: written language.

The minute we learned to abstract our thoughts into carved shapes, we gained the ability to teach future generations without the teacher's presence. An individual's knowledge became available long after that individual's capacity to manually transfer it had been lost. The written word is far more robust than oral traditions, and being able to accurately pass on the knowledge of past generations to future ones allowed those that came later to learn that which those before them knew without the trial-and-error process inherent in discovering something from scratch. The effect this had on streamlining the learning process cannot possibly be overstated. Imagine each generation of humans having to re-discover engineering, or calculus, or even baking. Humans are fragile, but with the written word our knowledge became immortal.

This unique ability to transfer what we know to new generations is what has allowed us to advance as we have in "so little time".

Whether we did or did not originate from a common ancestor with apes, I am not really going to discuss. I guess I'm a thread derailer. However, I would just like to know how things like Notostraca, or tadpole shrimp, can live for roughly 300million years and be unchanged by evolution? Fossils from Triops, a type of Notostraca, are one of the oldest unchanged fossils and have survived an estimated 3 mass extinction events.

Are they at their "evolutionary peak"?

Originally posted by Agree2Disagree
Whether we did or did not originate from a common ancestor with apes, I am not really going to discuss. I guess I'm a thread derailer. However, I would just like to know how things like Notostraca, or tadpole shrimp, can live for roughly 300million years and be unchanged by evolution? Fossils from Triops, a type of Notostraca, are one of the oldest unchanged fossils and have survived an estimated 3 mass extinction events.

Are they at their "evolutionary peak"?

So, what are we getting at here? That some (just 1?) creature(s) can survive so long without evolving? That's interesting, but it is a moot point.

It's also a very remedial creature.

reply to post by Agree2Disagree


If I remember correctly Triops have evolved though albeit have not changed in appearance. They are an aquatic creature that have evolved the ability to survive extremely protracted dry spells.

reply to post by impaired


I don't have a point. I want to know WHY it hasn't evolved in 300million years. Surely 300million years is a substantial amount of "time" to allow for evolutionary change....

reply to post by Watcher-In-The-Shadows


So...basically you're saying that they involved in a manner that couldn't be portrayed in fossil records? Such as their chemical sense they use through the flagella to examine their food source? Or the diapause that triop embryos can maintain to survive for several years in dry pools?

OMG!

WE DIDNT COME FFROM APES OR MONKEYS!!! Who told you that? Your church?

Humans, apes, and monkeys share a COMMON ancestor!
Meaning we decended in the same tree then branched off into our own species.