MISSING LINK between HUMANS and MONKEYS FOUND

MISSING LINK between HUMANS and MONKEYS FOUND

The one thing that separates humans from other animals is our ability to communicate past simple sounds, A.K.A. speech. With speech, we can communicate more clearly, and it probably helped our species survive early in our history.

Think about it. If you were in danger, I could yell out 'above you', then you would know there was danger above you. Where as if I could only grunt, you would know there is danger, but now know which direction. A split second could mean life or death.

Now we have gelada baboons, making human like sounds with their lips. WE now have a plausible explanation of how human speech evolved. Just one more nail in the coffin for 'god' and superstitions nonsense and one more point for Evolution.

 

Haven't we always known the first man....caveman.....was very ape-like? So, where's the part in the article about God....and how is this related?

 

The media didn't grasp and exploit this immediately why???

 

I think I have the missing link right here!

Where's my Nobel Prize?????

 

The one thing?

Do you always have to turn scientific discussions into partisan yelling matches about religion?

 

“The one thing” is a rhetorical device, so to speak. It's obviously not the only difference between our species and other primates – opposable thumbs come to mind – but the poster would still be typing if asked to list all the differences.

The article itself is extremely interesting and the poster's comment on the link between our species' ability to speak (and the associated cognitive functions) making us fit for survival (the ability to speak to one another improves cooperation and given that we are physically fairly puny when it comes to the other primates it may well be why we evolved so effectively).

If the critics don't think there is a struggle between religious fundamentalists and those who wish human knowledge to free itself from the fundamentalist worldview (think Creation museums and the like), then they haven't been paying attention.

Criticising the poster for making a valid point is just another ad hom. It would be more constructive to engage the point.

 

Let's see the genetic PROOF.

Imagined linguisitcs, "deciphered" by LOONS pretending to KNOW WHAT THE MONKEY NOISES "MEAN", DOES NOT COMPRISE "the missing link"; more LIES in the THREAD TITLE.

Can you get anymore desperately ridiculous? Can you EVER JUST POST SOMETHING TRUE?

It's becoming a PANDEMIC with the Forum Left, it seems...

 

Adult geladas are known to use diverse vocalisation methods such as contact, reassurance and defense as they sit around and chatter at each other and there is nothing unusual about their advanced communication skills. The real missing link could be the unknown species that lived two million years ago, which was recently discovered in Kenya by researchers studying fossils from northern Kenya, and at least three distinct species of humans co-existed in Africa.

 

Disagree with the article, it is not speech but brain size that is the missing link

God gave humans smaller Jaw bones, and that allowed for their brain sizes to grow bigger. The smaller jaws make the top part of the skull larger than the bottom part.

Monkeys have bigger jaws for biting and survival, so the bottom part of their skull is bigger, which makes the top part of their skull smaller for a smaller brain size.

 

I am a Roman Catholic, so we commonly adhere to the theory of evolution. Pope Benedict XVI wrote a book on the symbolic interpretation of Genesis; and it was Roman Catholic priest George Lemaître who developed the "hypothesis of the primeval atom" which was later known as the Big Bang Theory; and it was the Roman Catholic priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was instrumental in the investigation of Piltdown man. So please stop with this foolish ad hominem attack on religious/theological belief.

 

Roman Catholic and Evolution?

 

Rather than admonish, why not simply do what you did and make a point. It would be interesting to hear you on the way the Church treated Teilhard. It would also be interesting to hear you on those aspects of Vatican II under Blessed John XXIII and his work in Vatican II, especially as regards science.

I think that prior to Vatican II the Church wasn't that happy with the theory of evolution, but at least they got with it and marked themselves out from the fundamentalists.

 

Humans have speech because of our advanced cerebral cortex. An important part is Broca's Area - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broca's_area - an interesting part of the Wiki entry is Evolution of language.

 

Have a read - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution

 

From Wiki:

Which none of which is true, as we know mutations are purely random, and environmental conditions will dictate whether or not those mutations will be passed on. Nothings is 'planned'

A square peg in a round hole.

 

I expected to see a picture of Michelle Obama!!!

 

My aunt had a dog that said "I love you!" upon verbal command. That's way more advanced than mere lip smacking. He had lips too. We came from dogs based on the OP's reasoning.

 

What I was getting at is that it took the Church a while but it finally got around to seeing that the theory of evolution was not incompatible with the docrines and dogma of the Church. Why it took them so long is beyond me but I'm thinking that up until the time of Vatican II and in particular the papal reigns after Vatican II, the Church was hamstrung but its mediaevalist thinking. They were apparently locked into almost a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament and probably still mired in the philosophy of the scholastics. They can't chuck out God completely, they may as well pack up their stuff and go home if they do, but they have managed to weave science and in particular the theory of evolution into their contemporary theology. Contrast them with Ken Hamm and his mates - http://www.answersingenesis.org/

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I hope we aren't supposed to take that seriously.

 

Or would you like the Bush=Chimp photos?

Both are distasteful.

 

To the best of my knowledge, Pierre Teilhard was confronted for contesting the doctrine of original sin, not for his anthropological activities. My point was that not all religion is in conflict with science. I do not think it is fair to use all failures and mistakes of the Roman Catholic Church as a club to beat the with. Scientific-racism was all the rage back in the day from those espousing evolutionary theology, yet all we ask is that people learn from their mistakes. The Roman Catholic Church has learned from its mistake regarding evolution, and evolved (pun intended).

If the universe is a deterministic causal chain, and the universe is created by God, then the universe is planned. Nevertheless, I digress. I am something of a panentheist and think along the lines of G.W.F. Hegel, so for me it is a little difficult to separate the material world from God. I am also not convinced that Mind is merely an epiphenomenon of the physical brain. Therefore, if everything comes from Mind/Spirit, I find it likely that there some sort of natural process for Mind to arise within the world itself. These are just my humble hunches. I do not find it implausible that the deck is stacked, so to speak, so that higher forms of intelligent life are structured to arise.

 

Which really makes one wonder about the OP's article's agenda.

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I'd take it about as seriously as the article in the OP.

 

Good points on the RC Church and its response. Personally I find it much more interesting than the position the fundamentalists (of any religious persuasion) take.

And just on your response to rstones – I'm of the opinion (for what it's worth) that the mind is really the operation of the brain so I'm obviously in disagreement with you. From that it must follow, for me, that if there is no brain there is no mind. And then it gets murky and I'm out of my depth because all I can rely on now is my own views and they're worth squat. But it seems to me that there is evidence that mind is brain function, at least part of brain function, I am aware that the brain functions to do other than “mind” (I can't keep up with current brain theory, it keeps moving away from me at a rate of knots).

I suppose it's redundant to advise that I am not a believer in a God (however God is interpreted) which leaves me open to an accusation – which could be fair enough – that I am closed-minded on the matter. But it's not prejudice that takes me to that position, it's that I think relying on God (disclaimer inserted here re interpretation) is a bit too easy. God could well be First Cause, I hope I'm clear-minded enough to acknowledge that possibility. But again, it seems to me that assuming God gets in the way of knowledge. I could be giving a dim view of science and religion as they interact with each other but I get the impression, from reading the history, that religions (generally) will feel threatened by scientific inquiry where the results of inquiry tend to undermine the dogma of a religion.

The fundamentalists like Ken Hamm have absolutely no doubt about their faith, they have hermetically-sealed minds so I don't expect anything original to come from them, just reiteration of their fundamental beliefs along with pseudo-science and misinformation.

That's why I think the RC Church was smart in its re-thinking of dogma re evolution. A couple of minutes thought allows me to come up with the conclusion that the theory of evolution does nothing to contradict God. It does, however, call into question some of the literalist interpretations of sacred and revealed texts on the issue of how everything got to be as it is. Hamm and his ilk see science as trashing their interpretation of the Bible – and they're right, that is its effect. I have no idea if fundamentalists understand or practice exegesis but if they don't they might like to give it a try.

Final comment. You may, as you wander around the site, find a bit of spite traded between what I might call (respectfully) “believers” and “non-believers”. As in any discourse this is unfortunate. I would like my comments here to be placed under “non-spite”.

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1991 - but research moves on quite quickly, the new research is interesting.

 

Well, I also reject a Cartesian sort of dualism. In Hegelian philosophy, Mind is considered to be an all-pervasive principle, so I am not quite sure neuroscience can actually prove or disprove it. For Hegel the material world is kind of the instantiation or the negation of Mind. Mind and Nature are dialectally intertwined, and I am not sure if neuroscience could either prove or disprove that Mind is logically-prior to Nature. In other words, I believe the issue of Mind is a philosophical question, rather than a scientific question. I believe that philosophy has a vital role to play in human experience and should not just play second fiddle to science.

I understand completely, because I used to be an atheist agnostic. However, after studying philosophy I tend to reject scientism. I tend to believe scientists do not take the phenomenological human experience seriously enough. Science cannot tell me what love is, just because it discusses hormones. It was the German philosopher Edmund Husserl who made the foundation of knowledge to be human experience, and I tend to think that is a better way to approach reality.

I am more of the Kierkegaardian tradition, so I believe doubt is a vital aspect of faith. I am perfectly honest about it, many times I do doubt God's existence. Though, I do think it is improper to say God exists. I believe that God is more akin to Paul Tillich's power of being. God is more like Plato's form of the good that gives allows for being, for me.

This site does seem very polarized.

 

the link between humans and monkeys is not missing. It occurred more than a few million years ago with a common ancestor. We have been on a completely seperate evolutionary path from all monkeys and latterly all other great apes.

as to language, dolphins have names for each other along with what appears to be a fairly large vocabulary. and can think both abstractly and symbolically- they can recognize themselves in a mirror, and solve problems.

We humans merely sit on the top of the evolutionary pyramid. Virtually every aspect of our behaviour and abilities can be found in the rest of the animal kingdom to one degree or another. From rudimentary symbolic and abstract thinking, to complex communication, to problem solving,to tool making, to a rather comprehensive range of "emotions", even to war and murder.

 

MISSING LINK between HUMANS and MONKEYS FOUND: