As for fossils of chimps, the point is about the origin of chimpanzees, and about the origin of human beings at the same time.
(You have no necessity of referring to, or a refutation of, the "spontaneous creation" of chimpanzees in this thread.)
Mr Stillwater wrote:Very, very odd thinking - we need a fossil chimp to disprove the 'spontaneous' creation of the chimpanzee?
I will reiterate what someone a lot smarter than me (and there are plenty of candidates) wrote recently. If there was a complete fossil record we would have no problem in verifying our origins. And, if there was NO fossil record the application of Darwin's theory (and the use of DNA testing these days) would STILL make it obvious.
Lucky us. We have both. Two paths leading straight to the same conclusion.
The DNA can tell us what the road looked like, but it can't tell us what the scenery was like along the way. Looking at the amount that humans have changed in the last few million years, you have to wonder what sort of critter chimps and gorillas and the like used to be.
Stilly. One of the dark secrets about the coincidence (or not) of the DNA "bigurcation" predictions and the fossil record is that both have inherent assumptions , some of which, may even be accurate.
As a geo guy, Im always scoffing at the marked error bars of stratigraphic age determinations. As we get closer to the present time, smaller units can predict larger error bars. To say that we can distinguish between +/- 25 or 27 million years ago, is just hooey. Its all done by multiple sampling statistics. Also DNA assumptions and back calculations are based on assumed mutation accumulation rates and are calibrated against known stratigraphic positions . In many cases its the blind leading the blind, but that doesnt mean that its mere finger waving. We are getting much better at DNA typology in humans and long lived species. Also, stratigraphic microsampling and added tricks in more sophisticated particle tracking are even now being developed.
And this is in the news.
'Life code' of chimps laid bare
The following is not a very new knowledge but it makes me wonder what makes me different from chimps, afresh.
Quote:A comparison shows chimps and humans to be almost 99% identical in the most important areas of their "life codes"
satt_fs wrote:And this is in the news.
'Life code' of chimps laid bare
The following is not a very new knowledge but it makes me wonder what makes me different from chimps, afresh.
Quote:A comparison shows chimps and humans to be almost 99% identical in the most important areas of their "life codes"
Apparently a little bit of genetic difference goes a long way.
Congrats on the Chimp Fossil News. It must be exciting to see progress in an area in which you have long been interested.
rosborne979 wrote:
Congrats on the Chimp Fossil News. It must be exciting to see progress in an area in which you have long been interested.
It may be a breakthrough. The date of 545,000 (years) BP belongs to the era of Homo erectus. I wish they could find more older fossils, which may clearly be different from those of human ancestors.
satt_fs wrote:rosborne979 wrote:
Congrats on the Chimp Fossil News. It must be exciting to see progress in an area in which you have long been interested.
It may be a breakthrough. The date of 545,000 (years) BP belongs to the era of Homo erectus. I wish they could find more older fossils, which may clearly be different from those of human ancestors.
Maybe they will find them already in Museum storage shelves (as the article suggests).
I wish they could.
The evidence for the date of bifurcation between humans and chimps is longed for.
satt_fs wrote:I wish they could.
The evidence for the date of bifurcation between humans and chimps is longed for.
What date is currently estimated for the common ancestor of Humans and Chimps?
rosborne979 wrote:What date is currently estimated for the common ancestor of Humans and Chimps?
According to
this page it is stated like this..
"Humans are a member of the family Hominidae which is believed to have diverged about 5 million years before the present (mybp) from the other members of the Old world monkeys. At least 20 mybp the Hominoids split off from the other old world monkeys. The dates are rough and get changed now and then."
It's very vague, and study needs fossil material.
Here is another
link about chimps genome, and a summary of gene differences of multiple animals.
Quote:DECODING THE LIVING WORLD
The genomes of more than 180 organisms have been sequenced since 1995
The genomes of mice and rats are 88 per cent similar to that of humans and have versions of nearly every human gene, hence the animals' extensive use in medical research
The dog genome is also 75 per cent similar to that of humans. One of the dogs sequenced in the dog genome project was a poodle named Shadow. Shadow belongs to Craig Venter, whose own genome was sequenced during the human genome project
The pufferfish genome was sequenced in 2004. It shares many genes with humans, but is eight times smaller. During the course of the pufferfish genome project 961 new human genes were discovered
Other organisms whose genomes have been sequenced are the chicken, sequenced in 2004, with a 60 per cent similarity to that of humans, the fruit fly (50 per cent) and the daffodil (35 per cent)
Chimps use tools! Chimps can communicate with symbols! Chimps even damn smoke if you let 'em! They're just little hairy people!!
Is there a way to determine how much of the divergence we see over a period of time (millions of years) is associated with mutation versus genetic drift, or accumulated variation?
Is there a term for "accumulated variation without mutation"? Is this called Genetic Drift, or am I misunderstanding the terms slightly?
Thanks,
In my understanding, genetic trifts are the collection of mutations on DNA that are not subject to the natural selection.
I've always thought about genetic drift as applying more to changes in frequency of alleles, rather than the generation of new alleles through mutation. In statistical models, an isolated and static population will always drift toward homozygosity at each locus. If the allelic distribution at a particular locus is 50/50 at the start of the process, it will still end up homozygous after a number of generation -- there's just no way to tell which way it will go. Thus, two new isolated populations that stem from a parent population may, through pure chance, end up with completely different alleles for a particular gene after a number of generations.
That's what I remember of genetic drift. Could be wrong. Or could be right, and explained much more clearly...
satt_fs wrote:In my understanding, genetic trifts are the collection of mutations on DNA that are not subject to the natural selection.
Sorry, this was a definition of neutral genes.
Genetic drift must be a random
process in frequencies of genes among the collection of genes, or gene pool if you would like to call.
rosborne979 wrote:Is there a term for "accumulated variation without mutation"?
Is accumulated variation without mutation recognized as a driving force in evolutionary theory?
And is accumulated variation looming larger as an evolutionary factor as the various genomes become more and more complex?
The evidence of the 'junk' DNA confirms evolution as the it is the evolutionary trails of of humans.
Its' very unlikely new species will occur, and even if they do, they wont derive very quickly...or at a normal speed at all. Mutation is probably the biggest cause for variation, evolution and divergence. Without it, life would definitely not be the same. I couldnt imagine living without mutations in our genes and DNA; it just wouldnt work.
But, i guess variation can derive from other sources such as the independant assortment of chromosomes in meiosis and the fact that in sexual reproduction, one half of the offspring's genes/DNA comes form the father and the other from the mother.
It's a hard topic, and i, myself have studied it thoroughly, but there is no right or wrong answer.
