Proteins, Apes & Us (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, April 06, 2012, 13:35 (4615 days ago) @ David Turell

David drew our attention to a sensational theory propounded by Aaron Filler: "there is now compelling evidence that apes descended from humans and not the other way around." David believes this supports his contention that humans are God's chosen species (so why would humans have evolved into apes?) and evolution has a purpose (to produce apes?). Howeverhw: 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?-DAVID: First were ancient ape-like creatures. All of us primates came from apeness. Long arms, stooped knuckle-dragging, tiny-brained. The only logical evolution from four-legged to upright. Split into three lines, hominin, gorilla, and chimp, after monkeys split off. Hominin kept changing, gorilla and chimpness did not. Hominin went to hominid to Homo.
 
So according to this, Darwin was right (common descent, four-legged to upright) and Filler is wrong (humans evolved into apes, upright to four-legged). Now I'm even more puzzled by Filler's reasoning and yours.