What Makes Us Different?

Time ^ | 01 October 2006 | MICHAEL D. LEMONICK & ANDREA DORFMAN

[Junior]

Cite your source, please.

[Junior]

With that attitude we'd still be herding goats on some Middle Eastern hillside. Science has made progress despite people saying "there's no need to study that; everything you need to know is in the Bible."

Of course, those people also thought bats were birds, locusts had four legs and rabbits chewed their cud. But hey, it's in the Bible, so it must be right.

[Just mythoughts]

"What Makes Us Different?
Not very much, when you look at our DNA. But those few tiny changes made all the difference in the world"


The words under the art, wonderful design I might add.

So the obvious question to me is what cause "those few tiny changes" that "made all the difference in the world".

Could it be all about the act of reproduction, due to a hot steamy globe? It is a leap of faith to call commonality of design the road map of ancestry.

[samtheman]

Once again I have to thank you for your list of links. In my opinion it's the best on the web on this subject.

[samtheman]

Yes, we are related to mice and, yes, also tapeworms. And unless there are two (or more) completely separate lines of evolution from the earliest pre-Cambrian times, we're also related to algae and apricots. That is, after all, what evolution is all about.

[Tinman73]

I have... I feel closely related to clay....

[muir_redwoods]

"Try reading Genesis in the Holy Bible"

I have. It's not unlike a hundred other creation myths concocted by primitive tribes all over the globe and, like them, has little to do with what really happened.

[gotribe]

...everything on the planet shares about 25 percent of its DNA. This is just more confirmation of common descent

Might it just be confirmation that organisms evolve to accommodate their common physical environment?

[Junior]

Not really. One would not expect such a high number of genes to be identical in that case. For example, insects and birds fly; the genes for wing development are not the same in both groups.

[Just mythoughts]

I think the art work demonstrates the prime primitiveness before Moses penned Genesis.

[js1138]

You nailed it. #7. Post a science-related thread and the Luddites come out of the woodwork. No one can just discuss science anymore on this forum; to do so one must run the gauntlet of those who think any biological research is the devil's work.

I'm waiting for the guy who sat up all last night spamming threads with roast in hell threats. That was one of the funniest displays of arrogant ignorance I've seen in -- well actually, come to think of it -- several minutes.

[bboop]

hahahah, Uncle Ike, very funny. Thanks for the laugh.

[Hoplite]

So why are there still Queens ?

They fill an evolutionary niche known as the theater industry.

Do we share DNA with Queens?

Only by becoming Queens ourselves.

That last question wasn't mine! Quit putting words into my mouth!

If you didn't say it, why's it in italics?

< silence... >

Thought so.

[KeepUSfree]

I have... I feel closely related to clay....

I'm sure that's mostly in in the I.Q. department.....

[VadeRetro]

Can't wait for good nuclear neandethal genes to be sequenced. It should be very interesting to know for (more or less) sure whether they interbred with the Cro-magnon or were simply replaced.

[gotribe]

I'd like to see a line up of the common 25% of genes. Then I could determine if they developed due to the earth environment or due to some sharing of ancestry.

[VadeRetro]

25% is the pure chance level of the DNA code. 30% is just enough above that to indicate the common descent of all life.

[Unicorn]

Good one ike

[Wormwood]

As much as I love Queen Vicki, she had it backward -- what's frightful and painful and disagreeable isn't how human they are; it's how simian we are.

Quoted for Truth.

[stanz]

Junior,
You're wasting your breath. No use posting on threads like these. Better to just read the article and discuss it quietly with those who take it seriously.