Chimps Now to be Considered Humans

National Geographic ^ | 5/19/2003 | kkindt

[kkindt]

A new report argues that chimpanzees are so closely related to humans that they should be included in our branch of the tree of life. Chimpanzees and other apes have historically been separated from humans in classification schemes, with humans deemed the only living members of the hominid family of species

[Aric2000]

Is that the best response you can come up with.

You disapoint me Bondserv, I had come to expect better.

[ALS]

And now you are defending the rights of chimps to be HOMOs.

It never ends with you duzzit.

[Ichneumon]

I'm not dissing the intelligence of chimps, but they didn't develop sign language or smoking habits on their own. Of COURSE they can learn. My POINT was they didn't learn this stuff from each other.

For tens of thousands of years, early man (indistinguishable from modern man, biologically) didn't learn any new tricks either. The development of a complex language may have been what finally allowed early man to start building a "technology base" across generations. Chimps are handicapped in this regard because their vocal chords are far less intricate than ours, and they are physically unable to make any kind of complex sounds.

A wild chimp's only tool-using skill is to fish for insects with sticks.

That's not the only skill. Here's one example in the wild, and others self-taught in capitivity

[jwalsh07]

Not really but nice try.

The operable word is "person".

Of course I think academics who consider babies in the womb something other than human or persons are not worth listening to.

In fact, like the Professor who wouldn't issue recommendations to students who didn't toe the line on evolutionary theory, I wouldn't recommend those academics for toilet paper tester.

[A. Pole]

St. Augustine, who died in the 5th Century, was a man who loved science right to his death, and he wrote that the earth was round and that "the earth is probably inhabited on the other side".

Not only that. Educated people knew not only that the Earth is round much earlier, but they even knew the SIZE of the Earth. See the Eratosthenes (276-196 BC) experiment. The very reason why Catholic Spanish leaders were hesitant to pay for Columbus expedition is that they knew better than Columbus the size of the Earth and that India is too far.

[Aric2000]

LOL, well done, very well done...ROFLMAO

[Puddleglum]

Troy McClure: I hate every ape I see,
From chimpan-A to chimpanzee,
No, you'll never make a monkey out of me!

(Statue of Liberty rises)

O my! I was wrong!
It was Earth, all along!
You've finally made a monkey,

Apes: Yes we've finally made a monkey,

Troy: Yes you've finally made a monkey out of me!

(To borrow from someone's Simpson's webpage)

[bondserv]

Hello Aric2000 thanks for responding to my inane dribble,

Another idea occurred to me as I was sitting here. Some scientists believe an early fetus in the womb of a human female is not a human.

To this day I have never seen a woman give birth to anything but a human, but some scientists say it isn't human.

We need to stop overlooking the obvious when we take these things into consideration.

Sorry to disappoint, I will try better in the future.

bondserv

[A. Pole]

No one saw O.J. whack his wife, but the evidence most certainly points in that direction.

Especially the EDTA (laboratory preservative) in the blood stains.

[God luvs America]

let's see how long before one of those "human chimps" throws his hat into the ring of the democratic party for the right to have their a$$es kicked by our honorable President in 18 months!! I mean, all those clowns now running are chumps.

[ALS]

[rocky88]

Well, it'll be interesting to see the DNC's new "Get out the vote" campaign. They can start offering bananas to the chimps, instead of the usual $5 and free transportation...

[eeriegeno]

Have the politicians and scientists gone mad? A chimp is to be included in the human species BUT an unborn human baby will not be included???????????

[MattAMiller]

There is absolutely NO RELATION between a chimp and a human!If one were to have evolved from the other then we would be EITHER all chimps or all human.

It doesn't work that way. I don't know what misconception people have that leads them to believe this. But it seems to be very common.

[Ichneumon]

["Humans and chimps evolved from a common ancestor, splitting about 5 million years ago."]

Statements like this always make me chuckle. Like they know that an event occurred 5,000,000 years ago.

Yes, indeed they do. There is massive evidence for such a conclusion.

Until another scientist proves them wrong in the future they cling to this b.s.

Okay, I'll bite -- what's *your* evidence to the contrary "proving" them wrong? After all, you must have some in order to be able to denounce it as "b.s.". Or are you just mouthing off without support?

The agenda driven pseudo scientists are out in force when it comes to this issue.

Which issue would that be?

But they forget to tell you that human and cat DNA is about 90% similar.

They don't "forget" to say that at all -- you learned that from a scientist who measured it, son. Furthermore, cats and humans and all mammals (yes, humans are mammals) *are* very much more similar than not. We share enormous amounts of physical structure and body chemistry.

In tracing the origin of a life form, DNA can no more be used as the final word than a Democrat's lips can be used for telling the truth.

Ah, right, the old "let's just ignore the most detailed, voluminous evidence" trick.

Notice they don't dare use the word "proof" when they talk about human and chimp DNA, they use the word "evidence", which means nothing in true science. True science deals in proof, not "evidence",

This is a remarkably ignorant statement. Quite the contrary, science deals in evidence, not proofs. The only "proofs" are in mathematics, where the artificial nature of the field allows enough rigor to make "proofs" possible. Any other science has to get by on "what does the evidence seem to support, and how strongly?", because no matter how much you may kid yourself that you have "proven" something in the real world, there are always other conceivable explanations which may turn out to be more consistent with future discoveries. There are no "proofs" in science.

and they still cannot prove humans evolved from chimps

Humans *didn't* "evolve from chimps", although we do share a common ancestor. Were you sleeping through your science classes?

any better than they could when they placed human teeth in a gorilla skull and called it "Piltdown man".

That's even a grossly inaccurate description of the Piltdown hoax. You need to work on getting your facts straight. But if you think the massive amounts of evidence for the nature of human origins isn't "any better" than the *one* dishonest hoax in human paleontology in over a century (and do you really want me to start listing the many creationist hoaxes?), then you're hopelessly ignorant of this field. Not, I notice, that your lack of knowledge prevents you from stating your uninformed opinions anyway.

They need to stop presenting this theoretical crap as though it were fact.

It's hardly "theoretical crap", but your mind is obviously closed, I won't waste my time leading you to knowledge.

Enjoy your presumptions.

[Aric2000]

Whoa there, not at all what the article says.

The title of this thread needs to be changed so we don't get these kinds of responses from people that do not bother to read it.

[bondserv]

Lets try explaining what really happened.

A supercomputing, encryption coding, random mutating virus wormed its way into the human DNA molecule, remained dormant there (because he was tired) then his super solar triggering radiation mechanism set him to work on creating a host of systemic changes within the cranial cavity of an uberchimp.

The uberchimp was waylaid by a pit of tar, which he couldn't extract himself, thus delaying his mating (thus passing on his uberness) to his spouse. Fortunately as fate would have it the virus caught the uberbahn on the wings of a transitional bird/dinosaur/amphibian.

The transitional was not uber so the programming virus didn’t benefit it.

I have to stop here; my cousin the monkey just urinated on the keyboard, thus ending my eternal attempt to type Shakespeare.

bondserv

[Aric2000]

That's more like, now there's the bondserv we all know and love.....;)

[bondserv]

Thanks,

My cousin was able to clean the keyboard (still kind of stinks though).

Hope your having as much fun as I.

[bondserv]

How did my cousin clean the keyboard you ask?

Well I gave him a cue-tip and before my eyes it became a tool in his little monkey hand. I kept thinking, he could use that cue-tip to get termites out of a log.

Unfortunately he spilled the whole box of que-tips and couldn't get them back in by himself. Oh well, maybe when he turns 1,000,000 years old I could hire him as a house cleaner.

P.S. He drank the rubbing alcohol (that’s why the keyboard still stinks).