Proteins, Apes & Us (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Sunday, April 08, 2012, 04:23 (4591 days ago) @ David Turell

Agreed about C14. It doesn't go back very far accurately, but, there are 4-5 other isotopic methods that are said to be much more accurate, and they are actively used and agree with each other I believe within 10%. When they give a branch at 6 mya no one expects that to be on the dot.-10% @ 20my is +/-2my, a 4my spread. That is not insignificant.-> Not extreme. Chimps are over 20% different. 
> > -Over 20% different. My curiosity makes me wonder how much of that remaining 80% is covered by points that I mentioned, i.e. things that are the way they are because they have to be that way in order for creatures of similar physiology to deal with their environments. In other words, I want to be able to hash out mandatory life requirement coding DNA from more trivial DNA changes. -
> > My point is, commonalities in the genetic structure logically do not necessarily imply common decent.
> 
> We can only go by the fossils we find. By layer of Earth (see Grand Canyon pictues for guidance, and I know about the 750 million yr. great unconformity)) and by isotopic dating the dates of appearance are relatively close. Monkeys with tails precede apes and us. Our fossils with apes are all intermixed through time. We obviously descended together and initially from monkeys. We certainly didn't appear 4004 B.C.
> 
> Do you believe in descent by saltation?-I don't know what I believe, and in fact do not claim to know the truth of the matter. The part of me raised in a religious environment would love to say that we are special creations. The analytical side of me thinks that some degree of evolution is real. There are too many bits and pieces that do not make sense for me to buy it wholesale, however. Obviously, we did not just pop into existance 6k years ago, I have never believed that, and was never encouraged to believe it, even in my very religious upbrining. That sort of fundamentalist nonsense is as annoying to me as it likely is to persons such as Dawkins. -I have not seen enough evidence to convince me of speciation via evolution. I have not seen enough evidence to convince me that there has been enough TIME for all of the crap they expect us to swallow about evolution. Punctuated equilibrium and Epigenics make sense, but I still have not seen any evidence of speciation via these mechanisms, so I am stuck.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.