re: Do you think Great Apes could eventually evolve enough to have their own Stone Age?

quote:

---

Because of the fact that humans did not evolve from apes

---

No, we didn’t. We evolved from a common ancestor with chimpanzees. We, gorillas, chimps and orangutans are all great apes.

This thread is fascinating, I just read the whole thing.

I wonder if a high percentage of Americans reject the theory of evolution or if this board just skews that direction. It’s something you hear about but don’t really see in the wild.

I’d also be curious to know the age of the people responding in this thread

quote:

---

Evolution isn’t real and there is not one single shred of evidence that proves anything about that theory.

---

All species of domesticated dogs today evolved through a process of selection, beginning with the gray wolf. Genetic variation gave humans time to select their favored variants and breed them for desirable traits that best fit human needs.

It took 20,000 to 40,000 years, but the best evidence we have is that it happened.

Breeding is a natural process of choice that favors desirable characteristics. If it happened with dogs when humans were around to influence selective breeding, why reject the premise that selective breeding also resulted in modern humans?

quote:

---

Unbelievably, nearly 40% of Americans deny evolution. To be the wealthiest and most powerful nation ever to exist, we sure have a lot of willfully ignorant citizens.

---

There’s an entire industry built around evolution denial. My grandmother would regularly drag us to "lectures" at her church, where an endless assortment of traveling hucksters would trot out the same nonsense arguments that evolution deniers are still using today in this thread. After which, they’d sell their books and tapes hand over fist to the congregation.

I’m intimately familiar with these arguments and ashamed to admit I bought into them for a while. I still cringe thinking about the time I raised my hand in class and smugly asked my science teacher, "If humans came from monkeys, then why are there still monkeys?", thinking I’d just shattered his entire belief system. At least I can take solace in the fact that I was only in the fifth grade.

quote:

---

Are you calling my cousins monkeys?

Wait, nevermind, they’re the humans and I’m the… oh, shite.

---

Joking aside, I'm actually anticipating this as a serious response from a few of these guys.

quote:

---

Adaptation example: dogs species varying, wolves, etc.

---

Were you dropped on your head as a baby?

quote:

---

Adaptation example: dogs species varying, wolves, etc.

---

Again, adaptations are a core part of evolution. In nature, adaptations arise through natural selection. In dog breeding, they arise through human-driven selection. The process is fundamentally the same. Only the selective force differs.

The reason dog breeding doesn't result in new species, despite being a highly accelerated example of evolution is in the name. These dogs are being bred to fill a specialized niche (human companions) and any mutation that takes away from that function is intentionally bred out. For a dog breed to be classified as a new species, it must meet a key criterion: reproductive isolation. This means the breed would need to be unable to produce fertile offspring with other dogs. This would be a highly illogical goal for a dog breeder.

Dog breeding shows selection in action. Humans replace the environment as the selective force, but the outcome: change in a population’s traits over generations, is the same as in natural selection. The speed and scale of changes in dog breeds highlight selection’s power. If artificial selection can create that much diversity in thousands of years, natural selection could achieve much more over millions. Calling breed traits "adaptations" doesn’t disconnect them from evolution. Adaptations are how evolution happens. Dog breeding is a controlled, accelerated version of the same process.

Not sure if I answered your question because I'm not even sure what your question actually was, but there you go.

Hop on your short bus & head home or follow facts

quote:

---

Nice, articulate response. Keep trying

---

I left what I feel like was a fairly articulate response to you directly above this one and you ignored it completely. It's ironic in the extreme that you're trying to give other people shite for responding to you in the exact same manner that you're responding to everyone else, even those who have attempted to engage you in good faith.

You haven't even attempted to back up your assertions, and your rebuttals are limited "wrong" or "keep trying" despite the fact that you've made positive claims like "there's zero evidence of evolution" which is your job to back up. It's obvious at this point that you're incapable of doing so.

It's like you brought a dildo to a gun fight.