Human/Ape Evidence for Common Ancestry

[aymanmikhail]

There is observational scientific evidence for the common ancestry of Humans and the Great Apes. Is there any doubt?

[cheesehead]

We already have a thread for this in the Science & Technology subforum:

"Evolution: The Scientific Evidence"

http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=6326

[CRGreathouse]

Originally Posted by aymanmikhail

There is observational scientific evidence for the common ancestry of Humans and the Great Apes. Is there any doubt?

Not really, no. The exact branching points are in some dispute, but the general timeline and relationships are accepted by all the experts in the field and it's strongly supported by evidence from other fields (genomics, genetics, etc.).

[Christenson]

Originally Posted by aymanmikhail

There is observational scientific evidence for the common ancestry of Humans and the Great Apes. Is there any doubt?

If you thump your bible sufficiently hard, there's doubt...but only if you don't understand that imbuing the creatures that become human with that special something can be a gradual process. You also have to be very careful not to prove that black is white (and other contradictions) in the process.

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by aymanmikhail

There is observational scientific evidence for the common ancestry of Humans and the Great Apes.

Were you talking about internet in general, or only about this forum? :P:P
Looking around, and looking in the mirror (not the real one, but the one in my mind that does not reflect my face, it only reflects my actions), I have do doubt...

[aymanmikhail]

http://www.gate.net/~rwms/hum_ape_chrom.html
"Creationists will be quick to point out that despite the similarities, there are differences in the chromosomal banding patterns and the number of chromosomes. Furthermore, they will claim that the similarities are due to a common designer rather than common ancestry."

"The common ancestry scenario presents two predictions. Since the chromosomes were apparently joined end to end, and the ends of chromosomes (called the telomere ) have a distinctive structure from the rest of the chromosome, there may be evidence of this structure in the middle of human chromosome 2 where the fusion apparently occurred. Also, since both of the chromosomes that hypothetically were fused had a centromere (the distinctive central part of the chromosome), we should see some evidence of two centromeres."

The first prediction (evidence of a telomere at the fusion point) is shown to be true in reference 3

The second prediction - remnants of the 2p and 2q centromeres is documented in reference 4.

[Christenson]

Originally Posted by aymanmikhail

http://www.gate.net/~rwms/hum_ape_chrom.html
"Creationists will be quick to point out that despite the similarities, there are differences in the chromosomal banding patterns and the number of chromosomes. Furthermore, they will claim that the similarities are due to a common designer rather than common ancestry."

Notice, you have thumped the bible here, therefore there is doubt.

Of course, if I were designing the universe, either we would all have popped into existence yesterday with all our memories and all the evidence of the day before, or I'd be lazy and just breed me my perfect humans....starting from the closest available candidate...a chimpanzee. Kind of like the Russians have been doing for the last half-century domesticating foxes.

Is there a designer? The question is actually orthogonal to the one of ancestry, pretty clearly we and apes share a common ancestor. It bothers some that we might not have simply popped into existence in the garden of eden, and therefore might be more like animals than we would like to admit. I would argue instead that the challenge is to rise above that nature.

[Christenson]

Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me! I got the theory all wrong...the great noodle designed us in the image of spaghetti!

That's why we have hair, and a meat-ball like head, and blood the color of sphaghetti sauce!