Proteins, Apes & Us (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, April 05, 2012, 14:55 (4593 days ago) @ David Turell

David has provided us with two posts concerning redundancy that is not redundant, and the theory that apes descended from humans, both of which he sees as supporting his belief in divine pre-planning. Many thanks for these intriguing posts.
 
I can see why the redundancy post favours your theory of advance planning, since one would have expected evolution to dispense with "junk DNA" rather than preserve it for future use. However, as regards Aaron Filler's theory, you have always argued that humans are God's chosen species, and you end your post by saying "I firmly believe in evolution with a purpose." What, then, do you believe to have been God's purpose behind the evolution of superior humans into inferior apes?-DAVID: Actually, the split began over 20 million years ago with a change in vertebrae preparing for the upright posture. [...] We did not leave the trees and then get upright in the savannah. We were upright in the trees and left when we found we could with our new posture. It took a little while to get rid of the longer arms. -I am puzzled by the reasoning here. A change in the vertebrae...longer arms...so the creature from which we descended lived in the trees, did not have an upright posture, and had longer arms. Sounds like an ape to me. So how does that make apes descendants of humans?