So what came first?

[RodeoX]

At the same time, evolution does not occur in the way you describe.  Cavemen were humans, and slowly evolved into what we are now.  There is no simple caveman/human line you can draw.  As RodeoX described (excellent insight btw, totally forgot about that), at some point in time, someone tried to describe the sun, and the wind, and the moon, and the stars, and thus, all were assigned gods--how else would they describe it?

It could be argued god/God is born from ignorance--which isn't an insult.  People back then really just didn't know, and it wasn't their fault.  It's only an insult nowadays because now we do know what the sun, and the wind, and the moon, and the stars are.  We know what causes floods and what causes lightning.  We know there's no tangible heaven or hell.  It was easy, in the time of early man, to believe such things, because it made more sense than "I dunno."  If nothing else, religion was a stepping stone, a product of man's imagination, the earliest of sciences.  But a couple thousand years later and it's like beating your head on the desk, screaming, "We already figured this stuff out!"

Well that's just part of the evolutionary theory which can easily be  blown full of holes, there' have been a nr of  "missing links" claims  for example turned out to be hoaxes. The evolutionary link between human beings and apelike creatures still has to be found one moment were dragging knuckles next thing were shaving. There's two different species, they draw in the missing bits to make it LOOk like we progressed from apes but truth is there is no evidence for two or three drawings which they show and which supposed to prove we stemmed from the apes. There's a huge evolutionary gap.

That is not as true today as it has been. We have a fairly good evolutionary tree for humans now. The thing that confuses people is that there have been so many dead end species in the human tree.  In the past we have lived with at least as many as five other humanoids at the same time. It was likely only in the past 13,000 years that we were the only humans on Earth.

[Rob E]

At the same time, evolution does not occur in the way you describe.  Cavemen were humans, and slowly evolved into what we are now.  There is no simple caveman/human line you can draw.  As RodeoX described (excellent insight btw, totally forgot about that), at some point in time, someone tried to describe the sun, and the wind, and the moon, and the stars, and thus, all were assigned gods--how else would they describe it?

It could be argued god/God is born from ignorance--which isn't an insult.  People back then really just didn't know, and it wasn't their fault.  It's only an insult nowadays because now we do know what the sun, and the wind, and the moon, and the stars are.  We know what causes floods and what causes lightning.  We know there's no tangible heaven or hell.  It was easy, in the time of early man, to believe such things, because it made more sense than "I dunno."  If nothing else, religion was a stepping stone, a product of man's imagination, the earliest of sciences.  But a couple thousand years later and it's like beating your head on the desk, screaming, "We already figured this stuff out!"

Well that's just part of the evolutionary theory which can easily be  blown full of holes, there' have been a nr of  "missing links" claims  for example turned out to be hoaxes. The evolutionary link between human beings and apelike creatures still has to be found one moment were dragging knuckles next thing were shaving. There's two different species, they draw in the missing bits to make it LOOk like we progressed from apes but truth is there is no evidence for two or three drawings which they show and which supposed to prove we stemmed from the apes. There's a huge evolutionary gap.

That is not as true today as it has been. We have a fairly good evolutionary tree for humans now. The thing that confuses people is that there have been so many dead end species in the human tree.  In the past we have lived with at least as many as five other humanoids at the same time. It was likely only in the past 13,000 years that we were the only humans on Earth.

No there's a huge evolutionary gap and they can't explain it.

[Rob E]

Yeh that 13000 or 12 thousand years something cataclysmic happened around that time. .

[Mike Christ]

Ahh I see what you mean; that's what wasn't clicking.  The popular image for the 'missing link' shows human beings evolving linearly.  However, it actually looks more like a tree, with many different versions of us side by side.

It could've been possible to have two versions of us existing today    Learn something new every day!

But Rob, it's not that they can't explain it, it's that they're still trying, and still researching.  Even if they have to scrap their previous theories, it doesn't mean they'll never figure it out.  The only way that would happen is if everyone accepted things as they are and never questioned why.  There will always be someone who says, "No, it's impossible, don't even bother."  But he's no wiser than the next guy for it.  At least the scientist can say he tried, and can confirm that is in, in fact, impossible--or better yet, prove that it isn't.

[Rob E]

Yeh but that's like saying we have a theory and if that doesn't work we'll have another theory. But what it is, all the way, is evolution. We just haven't found the right theory yet, we have no evidence, we just need to fill in the missing evidence with theory  . for which there is no evidence. . This is good.   What's wrong with a theory that we were Engineered by a civilization beyond the stars the sumerians seemed to think so, and they lay the blue print for civilization.. 

[Merralea]

If you believe in a diety, the diety.
If you don't, humans.
And, tangentially: the egg.

[Rob E]

well either something is true or it isn't, belief is not gonna change what is or isn't true.

[RodeoX]

At the same time, evolution does not occur in the way you describe.  Cavemen were humans, and slowly evolved into what we are now.  There is no simple caveman/human line you can draw.  As RodeoX described (excellent insight btw, totally forgot about that), at some point in time, someone tried to describe the sun, and the wind, and the moon, and the stars, and thus, all were assigned gods--how else would they describe it?

It could be argued god/God is born from ignorance--which isn't an insult.  People back then really just didn't know, and it wasn't their fault.  It's only an insult nowadays because now we do know what the sun, and the wind, and the moon, and the stars are.  We know what causes floods and what causes lightning.  We know there's no tangible heaven or hell.  It was easy, in the time of early man, to believe such things, because it made more sense than "I dunno."  If nothing else, religion was a stepping stone, a product of man's imagination, the earliest of sciences.  But a couple thousand years later and it's like beating your head on the desk, screaming, "We already figured this stuff out!"

Well that's just part of the evolutionary theory which can easily be  blown full of holes, there' have been a nr of  "missing links" claims  for example turned out to be hoaxes. The evolutionary link between human beings and apelike creatures still has to be found one moment were dragging knuckles next thing were shaving. There's two different species, they draw in the missing bits to make it LOOk like we progressed from apes but truth is there is no evidence for two or three drawings which they show and which supposed to prove we stemmed from the apes. There's a huge evolutionary gap.

That is not as true today as it has been. We have a fairly good evolutionary tree for humans now. The thing that confuses people is that there have been so many dead end species in the human tree.  In the past we have lived with at least as many as five other humanoids at the same time. It was likely only in the past 13,000 years that we were the only humans on Earth.

No there's a huge evolutionary gap and they can't explain it.

Really? I'm an evolutionary biologist and I'm unaware of any gaps. Of course we don't know all the species in the direct human line, but we do know that radiation of species started about 7 million years ago. Many species evolved and died out. Some, like homo erectus, spread out of Africa.
Then about ~120k years ago a new species evolved and a tiny group, perhaps only 100, left Africa and populated the Earth while killing off any remaining human relatives.
Everyone outside of Africa is descended from that tiny group.

[Rob E]

At the same time, evolution does not occur in the way you describe.  Cavemen were humans, and slowly evolved into what we are now.  There is no simple caveman/human line you can draw.  As RodeoX described (excellent insight btw, totally forgot about that), at some point in time, someone tried to describe the sun, and the wind, and the moon, and the stars, and thus, all were assigned gods--how else would they describe it?

It could be argued god/God is born from ignorance--which isn't an insult.  People back then really just didn't know, and it wasn't their fault.  It's only an insult nowadays because now we do know what the sun, and the wind, and the moon, and the stars are.  We know what causes floods and what causes lightning.  We know there's no tangible heaven or hell.  It was easy, in the time of early man, to believe such things, because it made more sense than "I dunno."  If nothing else, religion was a stepping stone, a product of man's imagination, the earliest of sciences.  But a couple thousand years later and it's like beating your head on the desk, screaming, "We already figured this stuff out!"

Well that's just part of the evolutionary theory which can easily be  blown full of holes, there' have been a nr of  "missing links" claims  for example turned out to be hoaxes. The evolutionary link between human beings and apelike creatures still has to be found one moment were dragging knuckles next thing were shaving. There's two different species, they draw in the missing bits to make it LOOk like we progressed from apes but truth is there is no evidence for two or three drawings which they show and which supposed to prove we stemmed from the apes. There's a huge evolutionary gap.

That is not as true today as it has been. We have a fairly good evolutionary tree for humans now. The thing that confuses people is that there have been so many dead end species in the human tree.  In the past we have lived with at least as many as five other humanoids at the same time. It was likely only in the past 13,000 years that we were the only humans on Earth.

No there's a huge evolutionary gap and they can't explain it.

Really? I'm an evolutionary biologist and I'm unaware of any gaps. Of course we don't know all the species in the direct human line, but we do know that radiation of species started about 7 million years ago. Many species evolved and died out. Some, like homo erectus, spread out of Africa.
Then about ~120k years ago a new species evolved and a tiny group, perhaps only 100, left Africa and populated the Earth while killing off any remaining human relatives.
Everyone outside of Africa is descended from that tiny group.

Ok well maybe you can explain the "cambrian explosion". .I find it very peculiar you do not find that there is a evolutionary gap.

[RodeoX]

Ok well maybe you can explain the "cambrian explosion". .I find it very peculiar you do not find that there is a evolutionary gap.

I was thinking of the Human line. The Cambrain explosion is another thing. You are right about a gap there. I don't know WTF happened to kick that off, lol.
My vote for the best theory about it is sex. Before sexual reproduction evolution moved very slowly. There were occasional changes due to mutation. but things weren't changing much.
Once sexual reproduction evolved genes were mixed, and as a result there was far more DNA diversity and speciation  taking place. This could have accounted for the "explosion" of new living things.  Of course these are just expressions of the same living thing. There has been only one living thing ever discovered. You, me and the trees are all the same DNA creature.

[Rob E]

At the same time, evolution does not occur in the way you describe.  Cavemen were humans, and slowly evolved into what we are now.  There is no simple caveman/human line you can draw.  As RodeoX described (excellent insight btw, totally forgot about that), at some point in time, someone tried to describe the sun, and the wind, and the moon, and the stars, and thus, all were assigned gods--how else would they describe it?

It could be argued god/God is born from ignorance--which isn't an insult.  People back then really just didn't know, and it wasn't their fault.  It's only an insult nowadays because now we do know what the sun, and the wind, and the moon, and the stars are.  We know what causes floods and what causes lightning.  We know there's no tangible heaven or hell.  It was easy, in the time of early man, to believe such things, because it made more sense than "I dunno."  If nothing else, religion was a stepping stone, a product of man's imagination, the earliest of sciences.  But a couple thousand years later and it's like beating your head on the desk, screaming, "We already figured this stuff out!"

Well that's just part of the evolutionary theory which can easily be  blown full of holes, there' have been a nr of  "missing links" claims  for example turned out to be hoaxes. The evolutionary link between human beings and apelike creatures still has to be found one moment were dragging knuckles next thing were shaving. There's two different species, they draw in the missing bits to make it LOOk like we progressed from apes but truth is there is no evidence for two or three drawings which they show and which supposed to prove we stemmed from the apes. There's a huge evolutionary gap.

That is not as true today as it has been. We have a fairly good evolutionary tree for humans now. The thing that confuses people is that there have been so many dead end species in the human tree.  In the past we have lived with at least as many as five other humanoids at the same time. It was likely only in the past 13,000 years that we were the only humans on Earth.

No there's a huge evolutionary gap and they can't explain it.

Really? I'm an evolutionary biologist and I'm unaware of any gaps. Of course we don't know all the species in the direct human line, but we do know that radiation of species started about 7 million years ago. Many species evolved and died out. Some, like homo erectus, spread out of Africa.
Then about ~120k years ago a new species evolved and a tiny group, perhaps only 100, left Africa and populated the Earth while killing off any remaining human relatives.
Everyone outside of Africa is descended from that tiny group.

Ok well maybe you can explain the "cambrian explosion". .I find it very peculiar you do not find that there is a evolutionary gap.

Well realistically it's more peculiar than that, we develop from apes along a given line . . time line .. and these all fit the ape like features and skull features. . then all off  a sudden "boom" there is man- totally different in "Bone" structure alone, as you would know the ape like bones are nothing like human  bones the ape like bones are much much heavier by design alone. The closest relative of man could literally rip us limb from limb. .

[Rob E]

Ok well maybe you can explain the "cambrian explosion". .I find it very peculiar you do not find that there is a evolutionary gap.

I was thinking of the Human line. The Cambrain explosion is another thing. You are right about a gap there. I don't know WTF happened to kick that off, lol.
My vote for the best theory about it is sex. Before sexual reproduction evolution moved very slowly. There were occasional changes due to mutation. but things weren't changing much.
Once sexual reproduction evolved genes were mixed, and as a result there was far more DNA diversity and speciation  taking place. This could have accounted for the "explosion" of new living things.  Of course these are just expressions of the same living thing. There has been only one living thing ever discovered. You, me and the trees are all the same DNA creature.

Yeh but it is with humans too. . That's why there were well know cases of "missing link" hoaxes. Because they needed to fill in the gap from ape like beings to Homo novis.
.

[Rob E]

An they still haven't found the missing link!!

[RodeoX]

The idea of a "missing link" is outmoded in biology. I think if you look at the latest work you will see a very complete record from tree dwelling apes to lots of upright hominids to Humans.
Humans didn't just appear. It's kinda about where you draw the line of human/pre-human. Even the skeletons of "modern Humans" from tens of thousands of years ago are noticeably different from skeletons today. Especially in the past 10k years, skeletons have become more delicate.  There are other changes likely related to cooking. Our guts are WAY to small to eat uncooked food and our appendix has stopped working all together.
We were just another one of the tool using apes until our genes won the arms race. Now we are the last of the group, and still evolving and changing.

[Rob E]

Ok well maybe you can explain the "cambrian explosion". .I find it very peculiar you do not find that there is a evolutionary gap.

I was thinking of the Human line. The Cambrain explosion is another thing. You are right about a gap there. I don't know WTF happened to kick that off, lol.
My vote for the best theory about it is sex. Before sexual reproduction evolution moved very slowly. There were occasional changes due to mutation. but things weren't changing much.
Once sexual reproduction evolved genes were mixed, and as a result there was far more DNA diversity and speciation  taking place. This could have accounted for the "explosion" of new living things.  Of course these are just expressions of the same living thing. There has been only one living thing ever discovered. You, me and the trees are all the same DNA creature.

Well here's the thing " They  "Just" evolved. . How did they know they had to reproduce in the first place? And do you also realize that both sexes had to start of on the same time?

[Rob E]

The idea of a "missing link" is outmoded in biology. I think if you look at the latest work you will see a very complete record from tree dwelling apes to lots of upright hominids to Humans.
Humans didn't just appear. It's kinda about where you draw the line of human/pre-human. Even the skeletons of "modern Humans" from tens of thousands of years ago are noticeably different from skeletons today. Especially in the past 10k years, skeletons have become more delicate.  There are other changes likely related to cooking. Our guts are WAY to small to eat uncooked food and our appendix has stopped working all together.
We were just another one of the tool using apes until our genes won the arms race. Now we are the last of the group, and still evolving and changing.

What i understand there still is this thing called the missing link they have not found it yet, they might have drawn it in, in the drawings progressing towards human beings but i can pretty much assure you that those are just drawings, there is a huge difference  between the human skull and that of our last known ancestors; the ape like creatures.

Outmoded? I just found an article 2010 from a well known news paper saying the missing link has been found.

Maybe this time

[Mike Christ]

Let's just all agree that religion was the original science and move on

[Rob E]

No but it's good to talk about these things. And maybe look at how we've been programmed to think, through our . educational systems.

[edd]

It's like the question, chicken or the egg?  The chicken, of course.  The egg didn't magically appear out of thin air.  "But what hatched the chicken?"  Whatever it evolved from.

Actually, you have it backwards. First came the egg. Within the egg was a slightly mutated version of the creature that laid it. The parents looked an awfully lot like chickens but weren't quite there yet - the offspring was.

The idea of a "missing link" is outmoded in biology. I think if you look at the latest work you will see a very complete record from tree dwelling apes to lots of upright hominids to Humans.
Humans didn't just appear. It's kinda about where you draw the line of human/pre-human. Even the skeletons of "modern Humans" from tens of thousands of years ago are noticeably different from skeletons today. Especially in the past 10k years, skeletons have become more delicate.  There are other changes likely related to cooking. Our guts are WAY to small to eat uncooked food and our appendix has stopped working all together.
We were just another one of the tool using apes until our genes won the arms race. Now we are the last of the group, and still evolving and changing.

What i understand there still is this thing called the missing link they have not found it yet, they might have drawn it in, in the drawings progressing towards human beings but i can pretty much assure you that those are just drawings, there is a huge difference  between the human skull and that of our last known ancestors; the ape like creatures.

Outmoded? I just found an article 2010 from a well known news paper saying the missing link has been found.

Maybe this time

The term "missing link" is the creationist's way of moving goalposts. Scientists use the term "transitional species", as in:

Because of the wide range of mosaic features exhibited in both cranial and post-cranial morphology, the authors suggest that A. sediba may be a transitional species between the southern African A. africanus (the Taung Child, Mrs. Ples) and either Homo habilis or even the later H. erectus (Turkana boy, Java man, Peking man).

Every time irrefutable evidence is discovered demonstrating the existence of species "linking" us to previous species, the creationist says, "But where is the link between them and us!?" ad infinitum.

[Rob E]

yeh but there is only "irrefutable" evidence in word not in actual evidence itself. And if you like to call them " transitional fossils " instead of missing links that doesn't really make a lot of difference we still know what we're talking about, actually transitional already expects that the fossil will be present which is misleading.