Where do you draw the line between human and ape?

This is an interesting question not just for the debate between scientists about what makes a human and what makes an ape but in the debate between those who accept evolution and those who choose to reject it for whatever reason.

I'm going to provide an image, taken from Talk Origins. You'll have to open it up in a new window or tab due to the wide nature or it.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/6d30208cce6c.jpg[/atsimg]

Here is a reference guide taken from the above link:

(A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
(B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
(C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
(D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
(E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
(F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
(G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My
(H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
(I) Homo heidelbergensis, "Rhodesia man," 300,000 - 125,000 y
(J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y
(K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y
(L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y
(M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y
(N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern

Again, more information can be found at the link provided.

Now, non-evolutionary people, what do you make of these skulls? Where do you draw the line there between ape and human? Also, doesn't this sort of dispel the 'no missing links' thing?

And for those of you who are more familiar, I know this is far from complete or modern. More skulls have been found and the data set has grown. This is far from the end-all on ape-human transition.

At N. Homo Sapiens

Click here for more information.

Well there is a definite line so I draw it, correctly, in between. We are two seperate species who share a common ancestor. Is there anything more that can be said about this thread?

Done

I don't fling my feces. (At least when I'm sober) lol

That's where I draw the line.

But seriously, I've seen this before and it does raise a lot of questions. I am looking forward to the day when the evidence will finally be so profound that it can not be ignored anymore.

I don't know what that will take as I believe there is enough as is. It just seems that you can't convince some people of anything because of a need to NOT have their preconceived notions de-railed.

Good Post!

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


I will not sleep with nor make love to an ape.
At least not on purpose. That is where I draw the line!

George W Bush.

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


Have you ever watch this video with Lloyd Pye on human origins? He does bring up interesting theories.

Has anyone else had trouble embedding videos today?

Lloyd Pye - Human Origins

reply to post by THEDUDE86


So Cro Magnon Homo Sapiens aren't humans? And why are you drawing the line there?

reply to post by Serizawa


Really? Because

"(D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
(E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
(F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
(G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My "

Are all considered to be in the "human" genus...yet all three of those are above the yellow line.

reply to post by Thundersmurf


I'm sorry...but what are you referring to? Which apes? I'm talking specifically about human ancestors.

Human / primate.

reply to post by TheLieWeLive


Um...I've heard of these ideas and not a single one of them relies on actual science. They're fringe ideas made by people who don't bother to participate in scientific discourse and instead go on tours giving talks to people who don't know much about science. Instead of bothering to publish in the scientific literature, they talk to the lay people.

And frankly, if there was evidence of genetic tampering then we would have found it in the human genome project.

reply to post by randyvs


Clever. I'm sorry, but humans are primates. We're in the order "Primates"

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Genus: Homo
Species: H. sapiens
Subspecies: H. s. sapiens

And I know that you've seen me post this in a thread before.

I believe that the line between man and ape is now the religious folks who still believe the bible over reality now in 2011, yes? Used to be cavemen, now its the religious folks.

Ape--Caveman/Religous--Man

Yes?

reply to post by newcovenant


Funny. I'm trying to make a serious point. I'm not talking abut any extant species, I'm talking about dead creatures.

The trick is, there's really no "line" between species in time. That's a religious / philosophical construct and not a scientific one. ("To each unto their kind" and, of course, Platonic essentialism)

Imagine that you have the ability to meet each of your immediate ancestors, one after another. You're at one end of the line and your most distant ancestor in the world is at the far end. You start walking down the line, intent on meeting that first ancestor.

Your parents, grandparents, and great grandparents of course don't look very different from you. But as you keep going down the line, the stranger the people in that line look, compared to you. Eventually you're going to meet an ancestor where you go "woah, wait, we've got to be a different species!"

Are you? because guaranteed, that ancestor could walk forward on the line, greeting all the people you just passed and accepted as human, and not see much difference.

That is, there's no "breaking point" between you and that ancestor. No point at which his kind stops and yours begins. If you decide that this guy is the "breaking point" for species... then what oes that make his descendants, the people in line just ahead of him? Did he just spawn a whole new species just like that? of course not, logically they're the same species as he is. And what of their children? Well, logically hte child is the same species as their parent... who is the same as their parent, so on down the line.

If you and Ancestor X lived at the same time, without considering any ancestral ties, you'd probably be counted as different species. But when put into the continuum of time and ancestry, there's no real way for that distinction to have meaning.

Well then...HAR1

DNA that showed the most changes between human and chimp genomes. The computers identified 49 such areas in the human genome, dubbed human accelerated regions (HAR). The most radical revolutionary, tagged as HAR1,

The DNA sequences of humans and chimpanzees are 98 percent identical. Yet that 2 percent difference represents at least 15 million changes in our genome since the time of our common ancestor roughly six million years ago. Now a new computational technique has identified 49 regions that have changed particularly quickly between humans and chimps, and may have revealed at least one gene critical to the development of our larger brains.

www.scientificamerican.com...

reply to post by madnessinmysoul


skull H or I looks like the line between ape and human to me

Originally posted by madnessinmysoul

Where do you draw the line there between ape and human? Also, doesn't this sort of dispel the 'no missing links' thing?

And for those of you who are more familiar, I know this is far from complete or modern. More skulls have been found and the data set has grown. This is far from the end-all on ape-human transition.

Hmmph!!! Show me the missing link between humans and crocoducks, and then I'll be impressed.

Actually there's an easy test to ascertain whether or not a group is human. If they belong in Homo Sapiens, they start wanting to know where they can draw sharp, straight lines of differentiation, and they need clearly labeled boxes to sort their environment into. At this stage it's comfortable common-sense to know that god made each type of creature, and each creature will always be born in the type of its original ancestor.

So if you're seeing a gradual progression of change, and sensing an interconnectedness between the various branches of Earth's tree of life, you've either not reached Homo Sapiens-ship yet, or you've transcended it.


By the way, did your opponent ever continue the Debate? Last I looked you were still waiting on an answer. It would be a shame when you'd argued so well to have won by default.