I Believe We Were Created: Change My Mind

@newjaninev2 [quote]Yes, they’re both Great Apes. These two particular species have very recent Common Ancestry (around 6 million years ago), as do all Great Ape species as we go further back in time[/quote]

You can't know that.

"The early theories of human evolution are really very odd, if one stops to look at them. David Pilbeam has described the early theories as ‘fossil-free.’ That is, here were theories about human evolution that one would think would require some fossil evidence, but in fact there were either so few fossils that they exerted no influence on the theory, or there were no fossils at all. So between man’s supposed closest relatives and the early human fossils, there was only the imagination of nineteenth century scientists.... People wanted to believe in evolution, human evolution, and this affected the results of their work" - The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Fifty Years of Studies on Human Evolution,” by Sherwood Washburn, May1982, pp.37,41

"Those working in this field have so little evidence upon which to base their conclusions that it is necessary for them frequently to change their conclusions." - Richard Leakey; Spectator, The University of Iowa, April1973, p.4

"As we move farther along the path of evolution towards humans the going becomes distinctly uncertain, again owing to the paucity of fossil evidence." - Origins, by Richard E.Leakey and Roger Lewin, 1977, p.55.

"The primary scientific evidence is a pitifully small array of bones from which to construct man’s evolutionary history. One anthropologist has compared the task to that of reconstructing the plot of War and Peace with 13 randomly selected pages." - Science, “The Politics of Paleoanthropology,” by Constance Holden, August14, 1981, p.737.

"'You could put all the fossils on the top of a single desk,’ said Elwyn Simons of Duke University." - Newsweek, “Bones and Prima Donnas,” by Peter Gwynne, John Carey and Lea Donosky, February16, 1981, p.77.

"The known fossil remains of man’s ancestors would fit on a billiard table. That makes a poor platform from which to peer into the mists of the last few million years." - The New York Times, “How Old Is Man?” by Nicholas Wade, October4, 1982, p.A18.

"The remarkable fact is that all the physical evidence we have for human evolution can still be placed, with room to spare, inside a single coffin! ... Modern apes, for instance, seem to have sprung out of nowhere. They have no yesterday, no fossil record. And the true origin of modern humans—of upright, naked, toolmaking, big-brained beings—is, if we are to be honest with ourselves, an equally mysterious matter." - Science Digest, “The Water People,” by Lyall Watson, May1982, p.44.

@AkioTsukino Do you have anything post the late 1980s?

You know... the genetic evidence, for example?

[quote]You can't know that[/quote]

But I do. let’s look at why that is so

(we’ll need to move into the last 50 years to do that, so buckle up)

@newjaninev2 Ready for that genetic evidence yet? (just say the word)

@AkioTsukino [quote]authenticity of the Bible as the imperfect translation of Jehovah God's inspired word[/quote]

That begs the question.

You first need to establish the existence of your god before you claim authenticity for anything

@AkioTsukino [quote]When I study the Bible[/quote]

Then the same problem of begging the question also applies there

@newjaninev2 If all of the great apes came from a common ancestor, I wonder why humans are more advanced than all of the others since we are the same age? Is it possible that the other great apes are babies and humans are the grandparents?

Maybe if the other apes survive they will evolve into something that resemble humans?

@Diotrephes Two things to note:
1. The Great Ape species aren’t the same age... humans are very much recent arrivals.
2. Humans are not more advanced... they’re just different. When we compare species it’s tempting to assume that humans are somehow the standard against which all other species should be compared... but why should that be so?

The great apes have common ancestry, but to find an ancestor common to [i]all[/i] apes you need to go back 13 million years. Gibbons diverged around 12 million years ago, and gorillas diverged 8 million years ago, and chimpanzees diverged around 4 million years ago. Several hominid species diverged in more recent times, but all of those species except one [i]Homo sapiens[/i] (us) went extinct.

@newjaninev2 I know the standard model but what I am saying is that the primitive species should have also evolved since they existed in the same environment as the human line. And it is possible to see some evolution taking place in them right now. So, maybe the old theory is inaccurate?

@Diotrephes [quote]in the same environment as the human line[/quote]

In what way the same? We’re talking spans of millions of years. Even a few hundred thousand years gives. completely different world, let alone tens of thousands of millennia [i]e.g.[/i] chimpanzees diverged from our lineage six thousand millennia ago

Primitive? You’re again assuming that Homo sapiens is somehow an ideal towards which all other species should strive... but why would that be so? What’s so special about us, other than that we think we’re special?

Evolution isn’t teleological... [i]there’s no goal,[/i] no ideal anything that it’s trying to reach. Each replication doesn’t need to be the best... it just needs to be good enough.

What’s the ‘old theory’’? I’m confused as to what you mean by that... could you clarify that for me?

@newjaninev2 The old theory says that the great apes had a common ancestor and one branch evolved into humans while the other apes stayed tree swingers.

@Diotrephes As I say... the Great Apes have common ancestry at different times over the last 13 million years.

What’s the’ new theory’?