Posted on 10/07/2006 9:08:18 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
I have no desire to try to persuade you to believe in biological science if do not wish to, but your statement is wildly inaccurate.
The theory of evolution does not state that humans "started off as a monkey". The evidence shows that humans share a common ancestor with apes, dating back about 8 million years ago.
Hope that helps.
Prime placemarker
"human started off as" - "humans share a common ancestor with"
Parsing words.
No sir, there is a very, very big difference between the two.
Consider it this way--you and your cousin 100 times removed both have a common ancestor at some point in your family history. You both descended from an ancestor, say, 1000 years ago. Simply because you share this common ancestor, however, does not imply that you "started off as" your cousin.
For the same reason you wouldn't consider your distant cousin an "ancestor", it is inaccurate to state that we "started off as" apes (or, as you put it, monkeys).
Okay, "came from". Is this more accurate.
No, it isn't. You didn't "come from" your distant cousin, did you?
The analogy of the "distant cousin" isn't remotely accurate in this dialogue. Distinctly different branches of the family tree. If humans "decended" from some ape like creature, then we had to have an original ancestor from which we sprang. It isn't possible for someone to "come from" a cousin, so that analogy doesn't wash.
That is exactly my point. Your original statement that evolution is the "belief that modern human started off as a monkey" is wrong for precisely that reason.
Apes (and more distantly, monkeys) are our evolutionary *cousins*, not our ancestors. That is a very important distinction that your statement mischarcterized.
"Mischarcterizing" something is a lot like "mischaracterizing" it.
I have cousins. Lots of them. If we trace our common ancestry we find that there is one source from which we all sprang on either our maternal or paternal sides. So, if humans are evolutionary "cousins" with apes, then there is "one" source from which we "sprang". Thus, the TOE postulates that we are decended from an ape (which means we came from . . .). Parse away.
Sorry, it's disqualified.
It's 200.
But, this is precisely what some who advocate the "truth" of ToE are claiming. Carry out the "cousin" analogy logically. My cousin and I are the offspring of parents related to one another (brothers or sisters) who are the offspring of two parents (using an intact family tree). Thus, while we are cousins, we come from a common "ancestor" If we are "cousins" to apes (monkey was just a general term, not literal), then there has to be a "common ancestor" from which we both sprang. We cannot be related to the ape without a common "ancestor" from which we branched from. Thus, as I decended from the ancestors of my grandparents, humans and apes must have "decended" from the ancestors which came before according to ToE. If those ancestors were not ape like, then I've been misinformed by those postulating the ToE. There is no other way that the ToE can be explained as it is being currently taught. Common Descent is the idea that humans and apes come from once source; thus the idea that we "descended" from ape like animals.
If humans come from monkeys, why are monkeys still around?
I don't think you're understanding the gist of our disagreement. The fact that the theory of evolution states that humans and monkeys and apes shared a common ancestor is not at issue.
What is at issue is your belief that the theory of evolution states that humans "came from" monkeys (or apes). You've since modified that position to "ape like" which is substantially closer to the truth.
The scientific theory of evolution states that humans and monkeys and apes all descended from a common ancestor. That you clearly understand a agree with. You continue to maintain, however, that if B and C both descended from A, it is accurate to state that B came from C. It is logically flawed, and does not accurately state the scientific theory.
Because humans didn't evolve from monkeys, that's why.
Read more. Seriously.
I really do not understand where you come up with "B" came from "C" as part of my comments. Nowhere have I made such claim. On the contrary, I've stated that the ToE postulates that "B" and "C" came from "A", nothing more.
Using the terms "monkey" or "ape" was nothing more than a parsimonious discriptor and not meant in it's literal transformation.
While I understand the tenents of ToE, that doesn't mean that I agree with all the claims of ToE.
That imprecise (and very inaccurate) use of terms is what I'm taking issue with. Your original statement that the theory of evolution is a "belief that modern human started off as a monkey, and then evolved into what we are today" is fundamentally flawed and badly misstates the truth.
Your parenthetical "if nature decided that modern man was superior to the monkey, then why are there still monkeys?" suggests to me that you misunderstand the basic nature of evolutionary ancestry.
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