Where do you draw the line between human and ape?

evolution still does not invalidate intelligent design..
and if you cannot invalidate intelligent design, then the evolution theory is incomplete..
I think that biblical creationism may just be incredibly misunderstood..

reply to post by pccat

evolution still does not invalidate intelligent design..

True. No theory invalidates another theory. Only evidence can do that.

and if you cannot invalidate intelligent design, then the evolution theory is incomplete..

A theory must be falsifiable. In order to be falsifiable, it must make predictions. Which predictions does intelligent design make that are distinct from the theory of evolution? The reason I say distinct is because of Occam's Razor - any explanation requiring a "designer" (aka God) requires objective evidence for that designer.

Interestingly, another user posted a link to an intelligent design website not long ago. Four predictions were made on that website about the features of intelligent design:

Table 2. Predictions of Intelligent Design
(1) High information content machine-like irreducibly complex structures will be found.
(2) Forms will be found in the fossil record that appear suddenly and without any precursors.
(3) Genes and functional parts will be re-used in different unrelated organisms.
(4) The genetic code will NOT contain much discarded genetic baggage code or functionless "junk DNA".

1. Irreducible complexity has been shown to be wrong, repeatedly.
2. We find transitional forms.
3. Common ancestry, a feature of the theory of evolution, explains this equally well and without the unnecessary complication of adding a designer to the mix, for which there is no objective evidence.
4. This is a post hoc rationalization made by creationists, not actually a prediction. No creationist made the claim that a function would be found for what was previously referred to as junk DNA.

So two out of the four predictions made by intelligent design are wrong, it shares the third with evolution, and the fourth isn't even a prediction and, ultimately, is meaningless.

I think that biblical creationism may just be incredibly misunderstood..

The degree to which it would need to be misunderstood to get from a literal interpretation of the Bible to anything even remotely supported by modern science is incredible.

reply to post by iterationzero


when I said that the theory of evolution is incomplete, I was meaning the larger picture of our origins..
where do I draw the line at Ape vs Man? I do not know if there is a line to be drawn..
but where did Hydrogen come from? how did it appear? was there a who? we do not know..
evolution in my understanding requires time.. but the whole in the beginning concept, seems only able to be understood by an alternate understanding of time.. is time real? is it linear? is it cyclical?
I think we are far from understanding the whole picture.. which is why I think that beliefs still have importance..

reply to post by pccat

when I said that the theory of evolution is incomplete, I was meaning the larger picture of our origins..
where do I draw the line at Ape vs Man? I do not know if there is a line to be drawn..
but where did Hydrogen come from? how did it appear? was there a who? we do not know..
evolution in my understanding requires time.. but the whole in the beginning concept, seems only able to be understood by an alternate understanding of time.. is time real? is it linear? is it cyclical?
I think we are far from understanding the whole picture.. which is why I think that beliefs still have importance..

I think what you're asking here is how did life first arise. The theory of evolution has nothing to say about the origin of life because it only deals with biodiversity or, another way, what life does once it already exists. It's a bit like saying that a car is an incomplete mode of transportation because it can't make transoceanic flights... it's not supposed to in the first place. The conflation of other types of "evolution" with modern evolutionary synthesis is a common mistake.

reply to post by iterationzero


yes you are right..
the origins thing always clouds my understanding of the arguments promoting evolution as fact..
as the whole argument is incomplete without the original origins..
adaptation is of course demonstrably true..
however, the impetus is not so clear..

reply to post by pccat


The impetus is very clear. Mutations accrue depending on selective pressures. That is evolution. It doesn't deal with origins. It doesn't have to deal with origins either. Just like we don't need to know the origin of stellar bodies for the theory of relativity to help us explain their motions. I don't need to know the origin of bullets to understand how F=ma applies to their action either.

Evolutionary theory, like anything in science, can always be considered incomplete...but not for the reason you said. Intelligent design doesn't need to be 100% objectively disproven, because that's not how science or critical thinking work. Intelligent design needs to prove itself, not the other way around. All of the supposed proof for intelligent design has been ripped to shreds so far.

My line is the feet and hands...

Any ancestor that had rigid feet as we do, and hands as we do. Opposed to apes who have basically a functional grip on all limbs.

Man is a jack of all trades, we can kinda run ok and kinda climb ok, but a master on neither.

Originally posted by pccat
yes you are right..
the origins thing always clouds my understanding of the arguments promoting evolution as fact..
as the whole argument is incomplete without the original origins..
adaptation is of course demonstrably true..
however, the impetus is not so clear..

TOE is not an attempt to explain the origin of life, but how first life diversified into everything we see around us today. It's a fact that this happened without any intelligent guidance. We have other theories that deal with the origins part, and none of them require any intelligent force behind them either. What's your problem?

Originally posted by rhinoceros
TOE is not an attempt to explain the origin of life, but how first life diversified into everything we see around us today. It's a fact that this happened without any intelligent guidance. We have other theories that deal with the origins part, and none of them require any intelligent force behind them either. What's your problem?

I do not think that I have a problem..
diversification is whithout any intelligent guidance? really..
I would say that the intelligence is inherent in the individual organism..

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


the theory of intelligent design is also incomplete..
I do believe that ID and TOE can coexist..
intelligent design has no actual physical proof, we can agree on that..
but there is evidence for those that look..

I can surmise from your posts that you are a adamant opponent of creationism per say..
but evolution by itself does not offer a total refutation of the creation..
it only debunks SOME religeous teachings..

reply to post by pccat

yes you are right..
the origins thing always clouds my understanding of the arguments promoting evolution as fact..
as the whole argument is incomplete without the original origins..

How is a theory about biodiversity incomplete without abiogenesis, or some other hypothesis of the origin of life? Again, the theory of evolution only deals with life once it exists, not how it came into existence. Whether by abiogenesis, the hand of God, or the noodly appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (ramen...), the process of evolution is factual.

adaptation is of course demonstrably true..
however, the impetus is not so clear..

If by impetus you mean the forces that drive evolution, then I'd argue that we have a clear picture of the mechanisms the drive evolution. If you mean something else, then I'd ask you to clarify.

reply to post by pccat

I would say that the intelligence is inherent in the individual organism..

Even in bacteria, which are among the fastest evolving organisms?

reply to post by pccat

the theory of intelligent design is also incomplete..

It not so much that it's incomplete, but that the predictions made by it that aren't shared by evolution are demonstrably wrong.

I do believe that ID and TOE can coexist..

How so?

intelligent design has no actual physical proof, we can agree on that..
but there is evidence for those that look..

What evidence?

I can surmise from your posts that you are a adamant opponent of creationism per say..
but evolution by itself does not offer a total refutation of the creation..
it only debunks SOME religeous teachings..

That depends on what definition of "creation" you're using. If you're using "creation" as a catch all to describe the origin of the universe, then the theory of evolution has nothing to say about it. But if you're using "creation" to mean the origin of species in general and the origin of man in particular, then I have yet to see a creationist account that is compatible with the evidence we have that doesn't require some backbreaking feats of loose interpretation.

Originally posted by thedeadtruth
My line is the feet and hands...

Any ancestor that had rigid feet as we do, and hands as we do. Opposed to apes who have basically a functional grip on all limbs.

Man is a jack of all trades, we can kinda run ok and kinda climb ok, but a master on neither.

Our last common ancestor with the great apes also had tactile feet. Our branch came down from the trees and got rid of the dexterity in our feet. Our cousins who stayed in the trees did not.

That said humans are still a branch of apes, just specialized for bipedal movement.

Oh and humans are masters at running. We are the best endurance runners in the animal kingdom (physically fit humans can run over 100 miles without stopping). We had to learn to do that since we moved away from the lush jungles where trees were readily available to climb to avoid predators.

feet

Originally posted by Firepac
There is no line between humans and apes. Humans are apes.
It's like asking where do you draw the line between chihuahuas and dogs. The question doesn't even make any sense.

edit on 18-5-2011 by Firepac because: (no reason given)

or where do you draw the line between dogs and wolves, or monkeys and apes, or amphibeans and reptiles, birds and dinosaurs, squares and rectangles... Point is that none of these classifications seem to have any inherent meaning.

I feel like the underlying question here is... do you think we came from apes.

If your a conservative..then your obviously an ape.....small minds.....jks

I believe if we were descended from primates, there wouldn't be anymore primates left. Or, in other words, if we descended from apes, why are there still apes? No, of course we didn't descend from them. Language differentiates the species; prove me wrong.

reply to post by queenofsheba

I believe if we were descended from primates, there wouldn't be anymore primates left. Or, in other words, if we descended from apes, why are there still apes? No, of course we didn't descend from them. Language differentiates the species; prove me wrong.

I actually replied to you in another thread when you posted the exact same question. Guess you missed it. Here's the full text:

Originally posted by queenofsheba
If we descended from apes, why are there still apes?

Because we're not descended from apes. We share a common ancestor with them. That we are descended from apes or monkeys is probably one of the biggest misconceptions about the theory of evolution still being circulated today.

Your question is predicated on a linear model for evolution, which doesn't exist. The reality of it looks more like a genealogical tree. There is a species, we'll designate it species A, and for some reason two populations of that species become geographically, and therefore reproductively, isolated from one another. We'll designate those two species as A1 and A2. Those two populations experience different environmental pressures and, over time, those environmental pressures select for various mutations that occur in each population. Over enough time, as the mutations accumulate, A1 and A2 become species distinct from each other as well as from their common ancestor, species A.

reply to post by queenofsheba


We are apes. Ape is a family. Hominidae. The family we belong to. Primates? That's the order we're in.

Also, what iterationzero said.