Once humans and apes diverged, when did the apes stop evolving (compared to humans, an exact date will tell me nothing)? Did they evolve any human-like traits once parting ways? Did we evolve any ape-like traits once parting ways? Are those even two different things?
Also, I have my room a book called The Scars of Evolution. It was a very informative book, but it’s princple feature is summarizing a theory that at one point we were an aquatic ape. Now the author relates a very convincing argument. This book is also quite old, from the eighties, so I’m curious to find out where this theory has gone since then. Can anyone tell me?
Evolution of species, including apes has not stoped. It’s going on all around you right now. Some times the results can be dramatic and sometimes it is slow.
I’m sure some one more pedantic than myself will provide some dramatic examples of evolution taking place over a short time span.
Apes evolved from something that was not an ape. They got progressively more like apes, and less like what was not an ape over thousands of generations. During a period of time concurrent with a portion of that same period humans evolved from something that was not a human, nor an ape. Along the way, they got progressively more human and less like what was not an ape.
A long time before the humans, apes the thing that was not an ape evolved from an earlier thing that was not whatever the thing that wasn’t an ape was. Whatever it was, was the common ancestor of apes, humans, not to mention the thing that was not an ape. It died.
Individuals don’t evolve. They often procreate, and they always die. That is the role of individuals in the process of evolution. Modern apes are still evolving. They sometimes procreate, but they always die. So do humans. Someday in the very distant future there will be a new thing that is not an ape. Humans will have died. Some humans may still live. That won’t alter the fact that species evolve, as individuals procreate and die.
Tris
“It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.” ~ Henry Louis Mencken ~
I’m sure if I meant to phrase that differently or not. I guess I meshed a whole bunch of questions into half-conscious mish-mash.
When did the primate lineage stop branching? What was the most recent pair of ape-creatures that formed? I worry that I’m phrasing this incorrectly again.
I guess the second question I meant to ask was, are there any traits that humans and apes formed independantly of each other? Traits that they didn’t both possess when the lineage split?
And the information I’d like most of all is the current staus of the aquatic ape theory. The book was most compelling.
That’s a good question. Try the Leakey Foundation which studies homonid evolution.
Yes. Just look at the differences (anatomical & intelligence)…once we were the same, now we are different. But maybe you would argue that the anatomical differences are just variations of shared traits. But then there are new traits (such as new resistences to various diseases) which occurred in one species but not another.
I know this has been discussed a few times at the SDMB, but a quick search did not reveal a good link that I could give you. You could try seaching General Questions and Great Debates again & read through some of the past discussions. Or try a Google search which will turn up a ton of links (your task would to be cull through those & find a reputable source). Overall, my impression of this subject that it is a fringe idea with no significant evidence or support among the scientific mainstream. Not to say that it’s wrong…just that the current body of evidence points to a different direction. If you find any good links, post them here for us to check out.
