[LongElegantLegs]

Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found genetic evidence that seems to support a controversial hypothesis that humans and chimpanzees may be more closely related to each other than chimps are to the other two species of great apes – gorillas and orangutans. They also found that humans evolved at a slower rate than apes.

Are they saying that gorillas and orangutans are more highly evolved than humans are?

[narby]

Are they saying that gorillas and orangutans are more highly evolved than humans are?

Only that they are more "changed" from the ancient common ancestor of all these species. One of the great mistakes in many people's understanding of evolution is that it is designed to create "higher" life. It is not. Evolution's primary goal is to produce creatures that survive, by whatever means necessary.

Which means that future human culture will look middle eastern and worship Allah. Western Culture is on a downward spiral and Islamic on an upswing, merely because of who has babies and who does not.

[Sofa King]

No. Evolution is not a race to a goal. Species change to become more adapted to their environments, whatever that change may require. Something that evolves faster merely changes more over time; it is not at any point more or less highly evolved than it's ancestors, simply more suited to it's current environment. What is more "highly evolved" is a philosophical question, not a scientific one.

It is possible that Humans are evolvion more slowly because we can change our environments to suit ourselves, thus lessening the need for our species to change.

[muawiyah]

Yes, to the degree "evolved" means "genetic change" and "adaptation" ~ humans are least evolved ~ makes us the original critter and the others are mutants.

[b_sharp]

"Are they saying that gorillas and orangutans are more highly evolved than humans are?

No.

[Pharmboy]

Every time I see your screen name I forget what the thread's about.

[dmz]

Are they saying that gorillas and orangutans are more highly evolved than humans are?
____________

Just a thought, but here in Baltimore, we've had 27 murders in the first few weeks of this year. That's in a land area of approx. 80 square miles.

It would be interesting to know how many murders have happened in a densely populated 80 square miles of a given habitat of gorillas and/or orangutans.

[MeanWestTexan]

". . are more highly evolved than humans are?"

Scientifically speaking, there is no such thing as "more highly evolved."

You are either more "fit" for your environment or you are not. That is, you are more likely to live and have babies, or not.

For example, a cockroach is more "fit" than a human to live underneath a refrigerator and eat food the cat stuck under there --- that is, more likely to live and have babies.

Here, gorillas and orangutans can live, exposed, out in the jungle better than a naked homo sapien.

It's not a matter of being "more evolved." It's a matter of how one "fits" where one is.