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Is there anything that is normal? Because to me what we think is normal is what majority has or is. Is there a set normality?
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how come if we have developed from apes, hence proving the evolution theory of survival of the fitest then why r there still apes? wouldnt they be the weaklings because we have developed from them?
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Depending on your perspective, up to and including everything.
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We have a common ancestor. If you haven’t heard this before (whether or not you accept it), I’m amazed you mashed the keyboard as well as you did.
picmr
actually, we care classified as part of the Great Apes. we are in a group with Orangutans and Gorillas and Chimps. A great ape is essentially a new world monkey or monkies without tails.
in response, we did not necessarily evolve FROM monkeys and gorillas but shared a common ancestor in the distant past. that ancestor was outcompeted. that ancestor was a weakling. (reproductive fitness 'ly speaking)
other primates are still about because we share distinct niches and are not in direct competition. although some would argue( myself included), that we are. sigh, they don’t stand a chance.
peppy
an old world monkey is tail-less. not the other way around.
so sorry
Tyler,
Your second question has already been answered here.
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board. One piece of advice I’d like to give you is that you read the articles written by Cecil Adams and his brilliant staff. Those articles are what brought the rest of us here. Reading those articles will educate you and answer many of your questions before you even think to post them here.
I thought about sending the OP to one of the 857,421 threads where evolution is already explained, but I think I run the fear of him being equally as influenced by the hogwash that passes for “creation science” that pollutes many of these threads, so I will once again explain it.
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We have these things called “genes.” We have these other things called “proteins.” Most of the important stuff in your body is made of proteins, and the rest is made by the stuff that is made of proteins. The genes are the little bits in your cells that tell your cells how to make proteins.
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Sometimes the code in your body gets changed. This is called a “mutation.” Some mutations cause proteins to be made a little differently, some mutations cause proteins NOT to be made at all, and some mutations cause completely new kinds of proteins to be made.
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If the mutation causes your children to be more likely to have children of their own that survive, and so on and so on, then there is a good chance that the mutation will live on. This can mean MORE children, or this can mean children that can live BETTER or any number of factors. However, any mutation that doesn’t kill you before you can have children will tend to get passed on. Its just that mutations that cause advantages tend to get passed on more often than others. This is known as “survival of the fittest.” Fittest means “most likely to be passed on.” and NOT “smartest, fastest, biggest, meanest” or anything else like that.
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Here’s where things get a little tougher. Some mutations can keep getting passed through a population of beings. Look around your town. You see blue eyed people, green eyed people, brown eyed people, etcetera. Eye color variation was something caused by mutations millenia ago. There isn’t any sort of “selection pressure” for any one particular eye color, so it just keeps getting passed around, and we see a fairly regular mix of eye colors. Sometimes, however, a population gets isolated. Imagine, if you will, that a few green-eyed people got stuck on an island for like 2000 years, and you went there later. Would you see the standard mix of eye color? Probably not, you’d more than likely see a whole bunch of green-eyed people. Hence, Ireland.
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Some mutations cause beings to survive better in a certain environment than another. Imagine you develop a mutation that allows you to eat a certain kind of poisonous berry. While everyone else is busy fighting over other food sources, you and your kids (and your kids kids; and so one) can sit back and relax and enjoy this berry, which is plentiful since no one else can eat it. Your kind will flourish. Now, if you remain in contact with the rest of the people around you, the trait will probably get passed on to everyone else. However, if you and your kind also become seperated from most of the other beings, everyone in your species doesn’t necessarily get that advantage.
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Repeat this events of mutation and seperation thousands of times over millions of years. Eventually, two groups of animals that become seperated begin to become so different that they no longer can be considered the same species. They don’t look alike, they don’t act alike, they don’t eat the same stuff, and they can no longer mate with each other, since there have been too many instances of mutations. Effectively, they are different species.
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This sort of thing happens A LOT and ALL THE TIME. However, there are also cases of species dying out. Lets say that you evolve to eat that poisonous berry. Lets also say that some crazy disease comes and wipes out that berry, and you are left with no other food source. Your former advantage is now a disadvantage, and with nothing left to eat, you and your kind die. This happens A LOT and ALL THE TIME too.
Steps 1-7 all together are what goes into making evolution. Evolution works through random mutations. If the mutations work to make a group of individuals better suited to living in their environment, those mutations tend live on. If the environment changes, traits that used to be useful can become very UNuseful. Evolution does not produce BETTER individuals, it works to produce groups of individuals who are well adapted to fill a “niche” in their environment. If no one else around flys, and you can, you are at a great advantage. If everyone else flys, then something else is needed to give you an advantage, since lots of other things are filling your “niche”. If a volcano comes and blows its top and changes everything around, lots of stuff changes, and former advantages become disadvantages and visa-versa.
Now, to answer the basic question: Man did not evolve from apes. Apes are not “less evolved” than man is. Apes and man shared at common ancestor, which has since died off. That ancestor was not “less evolved” than either man or apes, it only lost its advantages it used to have and perished. Evolution doesn’t move “forward” in any sense of the word, it just happens.
kudos jayron32 - it seems that this subject needs continual explanation.
Tyler - as everyone else has said so far…(1) humans did not evolve from apes…apes and humans evolved from a common ancestor (2) “survival of the fittest” is not the definition of evolution, that’s a generalization that describes just one aspect of evolution (3) we are not necessarily stronger than our ancestors, just perhaps better adapted to surviving in the current circumstances (environment, competition, etc.)
Do you mean “normal” for evolution? If so, evolution has no goal, it just goes with the flow.
oops, I meant to provide the following good link for more info…
http://www.talkorigins.org
Thanks Phobos. If our public schools took the time to teach a relatively simply concept like evolution (just as they take the time to teach other equally simple and vital science consepts like atoms and gravity and plate techtonics) then I wouldn’t have to so much. But I do my best.
Jay, you mention evolution in a school in Kansas, you get a Bible upside yo head. Welcome to the world of nonscience.