depending on how you define intelligence, other species of genius homo did develop intelligence. for whatever reason, they all died out, though some may have interbred with humans. (a quick look through Wikipedia shows that homo sapiens also had a sub-species in west Africa which died out.) homo florsiensis form the island of Flores near Indonesia, if it existed, died out within the last fifteen thousand years. if you believe local legends, even more recently.
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Hominid fossils, and Islam
- Thread starter Mr Spinkles
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depending on how you define intelligence, other species of genius homo did develop intelligence. for whatever reason, they all died out, though some may have interbred with humans. (a quick look through Wikipedia shows that homo sapiens also had a sub-species in west Africa which died out.) homo florsiensis form the island of Flores near Indonesia, if it existed, died out within the last fifteen thousand years. if you believe local legends, even more recently.
Mr Spinkles
Mr
LOL! Well, basically, starting in the century 1800 - 1900 scientists started finding lots of fossils. It was realized that IF humans shared a common ancestor with other primate species (chimpanzees, gorillas, etc.) then we should find a half-ape, half-man fossil. However, at first, no one found any fossils like that. So this was called the "missing link". If it was found, it would demonstrate an evolutionary "link" between the human species today, and other primates. It was called "missing link" because no one had found it. But then in the last century 1900 - 2000 many "missing links" were found, in other words, fossils of ancient species which had some characteristics like humans (walking upright, big brain, use of tools, etc.) and some characteristics like chimps and gorillas and other apes. By finding the age of the fossils you can organize them into a timeline, and a picture of human evolution emerges.You know what, my worst grades always been in biology during my high school, lol. I thought i can understand if you quoted some sources for me but ... Sheesh!
So, let's speak English now.i read somewhere that there is a missing link or something. What's your take on this issue? In english this time please.
Actually lots of "missing links" were found which show the evolutionary links between fish and amphibians, between birds and dinosaurs, and between aquatic mammals (whales, dolphins) and terrestrial mammals. There are so many strange plants and animals that emerged and went extinct long ago, the number and diversity of them is truly amazing.
OK, now i can understand you.
When i was reading Darwin's work, and the writings of those who either support or oppose him *scientifically*, i wasn't interested that much about how Darwin has changed the world, because i'm not a huge fan of biology, but i tried to find the most important point which was causing the controversy, and i found out it was the *missing link* dilemma.
Take for example the fossil Ida.
I figured out that the missing link is almost the most important thing now--of course for those who are interested in results, not just biology evolutionarily discoveries--so i focused a lot in the missing link issue, that's why i read a lot about it.
What do you think? do you still believe we have found THE missing link, or all what we found were just part of the chain of missing links?
paleontologists have spent just the last one hundred and fifty or so year sifting through millions of years of prehistoric fossil records to find the relatively small number of hominids spread across three whole continents. given those obstacles, do you see why they have gaps missing in the chain?
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Mr Spinkles
Mr
Oh I completely agree with you. We will never find "the missing link" because the whole concept is flawed. If humans and other primates share a common evolutionary ancestor, then we would not necessarily expect to find one "missing link". The reason the fossil Ida might have been overblown in the press is because the fossil Ida did not prove the evolution of humans. The evolution of humans was proved by many other fossils already, Ida just filled in some interesting details. The press talks about these things sometimes as if they prove human evolution, because the subject is still controversial among non-scientists. Among scientists, fossils like Ida are interesting because they fill in details.Tashan said:
(For example, was this fossil a *direct ancestor* of humans, like your grandfather, or was it a side-branch of the evolutionary tree, like your grandfather's brother who never had any children? Scientists actively debate those kinds of questions about human evolution.)
It's better to forget about "missing links". Just follow the logic: IF humans descended from primate ancestors, we would expect to find a variety of fossils with mixed human and ape-like characteristics. We would expect that when the fossils are arranged from oldest to the most recent, there should be a gradual change, with the most human characteristics appearing most recently. This is exactly what we find.
Also, the fossils should ALL be found in geographical locations and time periods which do not conflict with the evolutionary picture. For example, if we found fossils with all the modern human characteristics (the same species as us), and they were 1.8 million years old -- which is as old as Homo ergaster, one of our human-like ancestors -- then that would prove humans could not have evolved from Homo ergaster. No such fossils have been found.
In short, the fossil evidence clearly demonstrates the evolutionary link between modern humans and the other great apes (gorillas, chimps, etc.) The details about how this happened is a matter of active research, but the basic picture that this evolution of humans occurred is not a subject of debate among scientists. And fossils are just one form of evidence, now that we understand genetics we have the evidence of "molecular fossils", so to speak.
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newhope101
Active Member
Todays genetic research is speeding ahead. New information comes to light all the time. There is research done by Aida Gómez Robles explains that, from all the species of hominids currently known "none of them has a probability higher than 5% to be the common ancestor of Neardenthals and Homo sapiens. Therefore, the common ancestor of this lineage is likely to have not been discovered yet". The National Centre for research on human evolution used the teeth to study the DNA.
This research has pushed back the time of the neanderthal and human line split by 500,000 years. So it doesn't look like Homo erectus is our ancestor afterall. More info will come out from this reasearch in a few months.
Go to Macroevolution net and look up Homo florensienses. Scientists found skulls that were so similar they debated the find then classified Taung Child as Australopithecus africanus, that were before any Homo sub species. The other similar skulls remained Homo florensiensis, just above homo sapiens.
Another finding, detailed in the Aug. 23 issue of the journal Nature, suggests humans and gorillas last shared a common ancestor at least 10 million years ago. It could also push back the time when the lineages of humans and chimpanzees split. The dates change all the time.
Basically although the fossil evidence appears convincing I believe scientists are grasping at straws. I do not believe all the Homo species are different species at all. The Max Plunk institute has already genetically proven that neanderthal and another human species from Africa mated. So they were not that different at all.
Scientists debate every find then finally classify the bones and use this as evidence of ToE. Neanderthal were always pictured as a hairy ape like creature. Now Neanderthal is pictured as a human like us now. Evolutionary theory is a strange field of guesswork
Below is some info on how scientists come up with this so called 'evidence'.
How are Fossils Assigned a Species Name?
When new fossils are discovered, it is not always clear as to which species they belong. There are two different, opposing approaches to solving this problem. They are commonly known as the typological and the populationist viewpoints. Those who take the typological approach believe that if two fossils look even slightly different, they must be from two distinct species. This is an emphasis on minor differences. In contrast, those who use the populationist approach accept that individuals in all populations of organisms normally have at least minor differences. Therefore, when they encounter fossils that are similar, but not identical, they tend to lump them into the same species. They expect that separate species would exhibit major differences. The populationist approach to defining species has become the dominant one in the biological sciences today. For psychological reasons, however, some important discoverers of fossils have tended to take the typological viewpoint. It is ego boosting to say that you have discovered something new and unknown rather than just another specimen of an already well known species.
There probably always will be a heated debate regarding the species identification for new fossil specimens. This is largely due to the fact that we cannot use the criteria of reproduction to distinguish species when we only have skeletal remains. Therefore, paleoanthropologists often use the term paleospecies
. This is a group of similar fossils whose range of physical variation does not exceed the range of variation of a closely related living species. Eventually, we may be able to define ancient species more reliably on the basis of DNA samples extracted from fossil bones and other preserved tissues. At present, however, this work is just beginning and it is frustratingly hampered by the fact that DNA usually is very fragmentary in mineralized bone. The earliest human whose DNA has been studied was much less than 100,000 years old, while hominin
evolution goes back to at least 4,000,000 years.
This research has pushed back the time of the neanderthal and human line split by 500,000 years. So it doesn't look like Homo erectus is our ancestor afterall. More info will come out from this reasearch in a few months.
Go to Macroevolution net and look up Homo florensienses. Scientists found skulls that were so similar they debated the find then classified Taung Child as Australopithecus africanus, that were before any Homo sub species. The other similar skulls remained Homo florensiensis, just above homo sapiens.
Another finding, detailed in the Aug. 23 issue of the journal Nature, suggests humans and gorillas last shared a common ancestor at least 10 million years ago. It could also push back the time when the lineages of humans and chimpanzees split. The dates change all the time.
Basically although the fossil evidence appears convincing I believe scientists are grasping at straws. I do not believe all the Homo species are different species at all. The Max Plunk institute has already genetically proven that neanderthal and another human species from Africa mated. So they were not that different at all.
Scientists debate every find then finally classify the bones and use this as evidence of ToE. Neanderthal were always pictured as a hairy ape like creature. Now Neanderthal is pictured as a human like us now. Evolutionary theory is a strange field of guesswork
Below is some info on how scientists come up with this so called 'evidence'.
How are Fossils Assigned a Species Name?
When new fossils are discovered, it is not always clear as to which species they belong. There are two different, opposing approaches to solving this problem. They are commonly known as the typological and the populationist viewpoints. Those who take the typological approach believe that if two fossils look even slightly different, they must be from two distinct species. This is an emphasis on minor differences. In contrast, those who use the populationist approach accept that individuals in all populations of organisms normally have at least minor differences. Therefore, when they encounter fossils that are similar, but not identical, they tend to lump them into the same species. They expect that separate species would exhibit major differences. The populationist approach to defining species has become the dominant one in the biological sciences today. For psychological reasons, however, some important discoverers of fossils have tended to take the typological viewpoint. It is ego boosting to say that you have discovered something new and unknown rather than just another specimen of an already well known species.
There probably always will be a heated debate regarding the species identification for new fossil specimens. This is largely due to the fact that we cannot use the criteria of reproduction to distinguish species when we only have skeletal remains. Therefore, paleoanthropologists often use the term paleospecies
. This is a group of similar fossils whose range of physical variation does not exceed the range of variation of a closely related living species. Eventually, we may be able to define ancient species more reliably on the basis of DNA samples extracted from fossil bones and other preserved tissues. At present, however, this work is just beginning and it is frustratingly hampered by the fact that DNA usually is very fragmentary in mineralized bone. The earliest human whose DNA has been studied was much less than 100,000 years old, while hominin
evolution goes back to at least 4,000,000 years.
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Mr Spinkles
Mr
No, I don't think it's the same. If you go to a crime scene and there is a body with gunshot wounds and a gun nearby, that proves someone was killed by a gun. But who did it? What was the motive? No matter who did it, or what their motive was, it won't change the fact that the person was killed by a gun.
It's the same case with evolution. Was Australopithicus a direct ancestor of modern humans, or was Australopithecus a separate branch of the evolutionary tree which went extinct? I think we actually know the answer to that particular question, but this is just an example of the type of question where the evidence still is not clear and scientists debate. But no matter what the answer to those questions turn out to be, it won't change the fact that there is a fossil record which demonstrates the evolution of humans.
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not at all. you know I once explained how evolution worked to a Christian Republican who just didn't know. blew his mind. he had never tried to learn or understand evolutionary theory. I will do the same for you now:
DNA replicates itself. it sometimes makes mistakes when it copies itself. those account for mutations. when the mutations get passed on to the children of the organism, the child will either express a physical change or have the gene for the change. if enough of the children reproduce you have a new phenotype. if the phenotype offers a survival advantage, more of the children will breed. over millions of years, organisms diverge from each other.
as far as the study of human evolution, consider the sheer volume of data that paleontologists have accumulated. they have evidence, just that interpretations of the evidence differ.
as I said above, one theory says that neanderthals bred into the ancestors of modern humans.
anyway, if the other species of homo didn't belong to separate species after all, I don't think that makes for a significant problem for the core idea that we humans and other primates evolved from a common ancestor in Africa however many millions years ago.
they had found the fossils of aged neanderthals who couldn't walk upright. it took them some time to realize their mistake.
How did these animals transformed to human beings? There should be something out there, something which prove the transformation occurred, like a fossil that is ape-human like for instance.
All what we have got are theories based on some findings. They have assumed how did human evolved, but they don't have a solid proof.
I don't think your analogy was right because that's like turning a stick into a rabbit after getting into the magician hat. You claim to know the tools (hat, stick) but you don't know how does a stick turn into a rabbit, but you just assume it happened for sure based on your findings of course.
But what if the appearance of the rabbit was nothing but a visual trick, and the truth is that rabbit don't come out of no where, and the stick is what we imagined it to be a rabbit.
So you are saying that the DNA of an ape might have changed after millions of years into a perfect human being?
I explained the process of evolution and natural selection above.
evolution happens all the time. how do you think that cockroaches develop an immunity to pesticides? the mutants who can survive the poison pass on those genes to their descendants. biologists have created mutant strains of fruitflies by bombarding them with radiation. et cetera.
selective breeding of domesticated animals happens in a similar way. breeders mate together carriers of a particular genotype so that they will express that phenotype. animal breeders, in effect, direct evolution in a limited way. so you have large dogs, small dogs, dogs with short legs, racing dogs, etc.
except that evolutionary biologists do know how the tricks work. they differ only on the particulars.
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I don't know what you mean by "an ape", though. as mentioned before in this thread, modern humans did not evolve from modern apes. apes and modern humans share a common ancestor. if by "an ape" you mean that common ancestor, then yes. if by "an ape" you mean modern day apes, you can think of them as cousins to us rather than ancestors.
to answer to your apparent disbelief humans and other great apes may seem very different to you, but we share around 99% of our genome in common with each other. predictably so, because, as I said, we share a common ancestor.
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Tashan, on page 2 of this thread, Mr Spinkles said as follows:
he also gave some suggestions of websites and books that you can read so that you can learn more. I don't know what I can add to these suggestions. you can repeat variants on the same questions again and again on this thread or you can read some of the source suggested above. if you can't find those books, you can find outlines of that information in any science dictionary or any encyclopedia or in the science section of any bookstore or at least they do here. (I wonder if in Saudi Arabia, they haven't banned the sale of books on evolution. you can tell me if they have.)
he also gave some suggestions of websites and books that you can read so that you can learn more. I don't know what I can add to these suggestions. you can repeat variants on the same questions again and again on this thread or you can read some of the source suggested above. if you can't find those books, you can find outlines of that information in any science dictionary or any encyclopedia or in the science section of any bookstore or at least they do here. (I wonder if in Saudi Arabia, they haven't banned the sale of books on evolution. you can tell me if they have.)
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maro
muslimah
This suggestion is rejected by muslims
We believe in the evolution of human beings from previous Human ancestors who might have looked more or less different...a hadith describing Adam (pbuh) was previously posted here ,if i am not mistaken..it affirms that Adam didn't physically resemble us
Those ancestors might have shared more physical characteristics with Apes than us ,the modern humans....but if they had a religious and moral life ,then they were 100% Humans from the islamic perspective as i clarified earlier
maro
muslimah
I don't see anything in this thread that suggests that *animals * were transformed into *human beings*
Why do you assume that those ancestors ,who might have shared more physical traits with apes ,than us were *animals * ?
Why not our human ancestors back to Adam (PBUH) ?
Islamically speaking ,what makes a distinction between an animal and a human being ?
Mr Spinkles
Mr
You're exactly right. Check out the fossilized skulls in the OP my friend.
Each one has a blend of human and ape characteristics. Some are more human, some are more ape-like. The older fossils are more ape-like. For example, the skull on the top right is a species of hominid called Homo erectus. It is a very recent ancestor. Here is another fossilized skull of this hominid:
(Wiki, Natural history museum, Michigan)
This hominid had a smaller brain than modern humans, but bigger than modern apes. It had brow ridges and a protruding face (not flat) like apes. There's also evidence that like apes, it could not produce sounds for speech like humans can. However, like modern humans, and very unlike apes, it primarily walked upright. It also used basic stone tools, maybe even fire, like humans.
Well, we actually understand very well how evolution works. The key concepts to understand are genetic variation, natural selection, very large time scales (millions of years), environmental changes, and speciation (that is, how two "breeds" or "races" of the same species eventually change enough so they can no longer interbreed, so they become two "species". Over time these two new species may become very different from each other). We have witnessed all of these principles in action, in the evolution of tiny things like bacteria and fruit flies (which reproduce so fast we can see them evolve into new species within a human lifetime). And we have witnessed the evolution of many races and breeds of domesticated plants and animals from their wild ancestors. This was done by human breeders, using the same principles of evolution which occur naturally.Tashan said:
I see what you're saying. But we do know how evolution happens. It's just like if you are constructing your family tree, you know how reproduction happens and how one generation gives rise to another, but maybe you don't know who your great-uncle was. We understand the principles of evolution so well now, that it is routine for scientists to evolve bacteria in the laboratory which have useful functions. At one conference I went to, I met a guy who had evolved a species of bacteria which glows when it is exposed to toxic chemicals. This has obvious applications, you can now use these bacteria on clothes and things as a warning system for hazardous materials.
If you follow this link, it should take you to a pop-up at Amazon.com where you can browse Biology, a standard college textbook which I cited earlier. In Chaper 1, it introduces the fundamental concepts of biology (cells, DNA, the inheretance of traits from parents, the classifications of living things). On page 9, it introduces evolution and the mechanisms of evolution. Later, starting in Unit 4, Chapter 22, the book goes into detail about evolution and its mechanisms. The book then goes into great detail on the evolution of single celled organisms, seedless and seed plants, fungi, invertebrates (spineless animals like squid, worms, insects, etc.), and vertebrates (animals with spines). Even if you weren't interested in evolution, I think these pages would be fascinating just because you learn about the survival strategies, growth and development, and body plans of so many strange and marvelous plants, fungi, insects, mammals, etc. If you read Chapter 1 and Chapters 22 - 34, I think you should be satisfied that we do understand how evolution works.
You don't have to read that of course I'm just providing it as a resource for you since you asked.
I'm not sure I follow you .... how would you explain the fossil evidence? I mean, one species of hominid, Homo erectus, has ape-like and human-like characteristics and appears in the fossil record between 1.8 million and 0.3 million years ago. If they didn't evolve into modern humans, then where did Homo erectus go? Why aren't they still around today? Why aren't there any modern human fossils older than about 0.3 million years? So there were all these hominids, and then they just disappeared for no reason, and humans with slightly bigger brains appeared for no reason?Tashan said:
Mr Spinkles
Mr
That's very interesting, because I think that philosophical view does not conflict with the scientific view and the evidence of human/hominid evolution.
In your opinion, would it necessarily conflict with the Islamic view if the ancient ape-like ancestors, before Adam, had primate ancestors, who were also the ancestors of modern chimps, gorillas, etc.?
DeitySlayer
President of Chindia
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the Qur'an states Adam to have been physically and mentally 'superior' to modern man. Archaic hominids are both smaller and less intellectually developed.