Proteins, Apes & Us (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, April 09, 2012, 16:45 (4612 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: A final species has to start somewhere, and have some directionality. If you have my viewpoint of pre-planning, it all makes sense.-How do we know that any species is "final"? What would you expect the Earth and humans to be like in, say, 3 million years' time? But if you mean the species we have now, including ourselves, your God must also have pre-planned chimps, sparrows, ants, the duck-billed platypus, and every other species in existence. How does this prove that humans are the "chosen" species? In this context, your previous arguments concerning the uniqueness of human consciousness and achievements strike a very real chord in me, but I cannot see any relevance to your beliefs in Filler's extraordinary thesis that bipedal apes = "humans" = humans, and therefore humans evolved into modern apes. See below.-DAVID: Your problem is your allegiance to Darwin.-No, my problem is Filler's use of language. On 06 April at 16.18 you wrote: "Monkeys first, then a vertebrae change to indicate a hominin line, from which a gorilla line and a chimp line branches off. Of course Darwin was correct. Filler's discovery supports this."-Filler's "discovery" (not theory?) supports Darwin if you classify the hominins as hominins (which you do) or as apes (which Filler does), but it brings in a sensational new dimension if you classify them as humans (which Filler does). You have hit the nail on the head when you say Filler is locating what we both used to call "the missing link". If we replace his "ape" and "human" with "common ancestors", his four bipedal fossils fit in perfectly with Darwin's theory of common descent. Then instead of his sensational "existing apes have a human ancestor" and Amazon's even more explicit "apes descended from humans and not the other way round", we have "humans and modern apes have common ancestors". But that means goodbye to the self-proclaimed "revolutionary" dimension of Filler's theory. -*******
David: Nobel scientist, Dr Phillips, and his thoughts:-http://uip.edu/en/articles-en/ordinary-science-ordinary-faith-Thank you for this wonderful article, which I'm sure Tony and Casey will love too. Beautifully written and argued, and a tonic in this day and age of strident irrationality. I'm particularly struck by his absolute honesty ... he makes no pretence at knowing the answers to the mysteries that we've all been puzzling over. Even if he is a practising Christian, David, you may well be blood brothers! Although I can't share his faith, he made me immensely proud to be human, and my seat on the fence is all the warmer and softer for reading his thoughts.