Clarification regarding common ancestry (missing link).

Kage said:
Well modern humans was just lucky in the fact that they were able to "out adapt" Neanderthal.
Life is about luck.
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I agree. Pure luck.
I heard somewhere before as well that homo sapiens killed off the neanderthal species... It makes sense and as porn$tar said, homo sapiens are inherently the more aggressive species.

But since this topic flared my interest, I did some research (ok internet research, I'm not a scientist!) and it's said that
neanderthals were a contemporary subspecies which incidentally bred with Homo sapiens and disappeared through absorption.
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Source

So now we have diseases, primitive warfare, cannibalism, cross-species dating and climate change. These are the possible causes of the neanderthal's extinction. Sounds very unlucky to me...
 
Dicebat said:
I agree. Pure luck.
I heard somewhere before as well that homo sapiens killed off the neanderthal species... It makes sense and as porn$tar said, homo sapiens are inherently the more aggressive species.

But since this topic flared my interest, I did some research (ok internet research, I'm not a scientist!) and it's said that Source

So now we have diseases, primitive warfare, cannibalism, cross-species dating and climate change. These are the possible causes of the neanderthal's extinction. Sounds very unlucky to me...
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I rather like the idea of them being absorbed into the Homo-Sapian gene pool......Make love not war....
 
Dicebat said:
True.

But evolution, in my opinion is nothing more than a mere contagious brain fart. I don't consider myself related to a monkey in any way. Here I am, typing strings of sentences on a plastic slab. It's filled with buttons with symbols on it. No primate today, regardless of how intelligent it is, will ever be able to learn and apply what I am busy doing.
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Chimps do use language and computers. Of course the chimp isn't a monkey either, but even some monkeys have been noted to use proto-tools.

My point is: As a cougar is to a lion, a hyena is to a wolf. You can't compare our furlessness and intellect to that of mere monkey.
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Um no, Hyena is a member of the Hyaenidae family, not canis.
 
Dicebat said:
* were apes.

We call ourselves human now, remember?
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You are still not getting it.
Did you read the OP at all?

...the whole point is that humans and monkeys descend of a common ancestor although humans and monkeys have taken different directions in their evolutionary paths at some point. Cousins not descendants.

I really do not know how else to put this... another language perhaps?
 
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SlinkyMike said:
You are still not getting it.
Did you read the OP at all?

...the whole point is that humans and apes descend of a common ancestor although humans and apes have taken different directions in their evolutionary paths at some point. Cousins not descendants.

I really do not know how else to put this... another language perhaps?
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I get it. But shouldn't we worry more about the future of HUMANITY rather than linger on the past? How is factual evidence on our monkey past (ok, ape "descendancy") going to help out with the survival of the human race?

It's awesome and all knowing where we come from, but where are we actually going?
 
Dicebat said:
I get it. But shouldn't we worry more about the future of HUMANITY rather than linger on the past? How is factual evidence on our monkey past (ok, ape "descendancy") going to help out with the survival of the human race?

It's awesome and all knowing where we come from, but where are we actually going?
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Are you sure you get it? Because that bolded comment makes me doubt...

Either way: your question is a valid one - I think it is adequately answered by the following quote: "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it." - Edmund Burke
 
SlinkyMike said:
Either way: your question is a valid one - I think it is adequately answered by the following quote: "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it." - Edmund Burke
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LOL Nice answer!

Yet there's a slight problem with it. This will mean that for those that don't know about our evolutionary history will repeat it.... Devolution? Or will we simply then repeat it by evolving further into super humans?
 
phaktza said:
'Tis true, its in the right section. This is not a discussion about whether evolution exists or not. The argument is that if evolution exists (in the scientific sense) then homo sapiens are not direct descendants of ape. Whether you believe in evolution of not is irrelevant in this instance.
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All homo-sapiens are direct descendants of apes, very direct as all homo-sapiens are apes.
 
Dicebat said:
I get it. But shouldn't we worry more about the future of HUMANITY rather than linger on the past? How is factual evidence on our monkey past (ok, ape "descendancy") going to help out with the survival of the human race?

It's awesome and all knowing where we come from, but where are we actually going?
Click to expand...

Given that some of our cousins are immune to their version of HIV, there are huge implications for medical research in knowing and understanding our ancestry, and our differences from our cousins.
 
alloytoo said:
All homo-sapiens are direct descendants of apes, very direct as all homo-sapiens are apes.
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It's semantics and taxonomy. What slinkymike is making reference to is the misguided belief that humans are directly descended from the knuckle-dragging primates in the zoo.
 
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