sleepy jack

Do you know anything about evolution?

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Darkest Hour

no, that's why i asked the question.

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mr dave

well then...

unlike video games where an upgrade (read: evolution) takes place not everything gets auto-updated to the new tech. old video games depicted this more accurately where you could still have 1st tier units and final tier units on the same battlefield.

basically, just because something evolves from something else doesn't mean that the original species goes extinct or immediately adapts itself into the new species. we're talking about a process that theoretically spans thousands of years after all, it seems logical that the overlap would last for centuries, no?

i'm sure someone with a proper biological background (Tore..........) would be able to provide a more scientific explanation.

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i am the universe

Guybrush

It's about divergence and speciation. Not all higher apes became humans. Imagine millions of years back, there would be a common ancestor of orangutans, gorillas, humans, chimpanzees and bonobos ..



That common ancestor was at the very bottom. When it reached the first fork up the phylogenetic tree, that means that the species then became two species where one branched out and started evolving to what we know today as orangutans. Moving one more fork up on the tree, the species that would become gorillas diverged. This means that going back millions of years on that tree, f.ex to 6 million years ago, there were only 3 species on this chart - orangutans, gorillas and the common ancestor of humans and chimps/bonobos. Make a bigger tree and go back and you could find the common ancestor between humans and cats. Even further back, humans and birds - humans and fish and so on.

There are many factors in speciation. The most obvious and perhaps easiest way to imagine it happen is if you have one ancestor species and it spreads over a large area, then some of them become geographically isolated from others of it's species. Just imagine one population at one side of a chasm or a mountain and another population on the other side. The environmental conditions are not the same on both and the populations can't interbreed, so over time they both adapt to the conditions on their respective side and as a result, diverge and become two separate species.

In truth, there are many things that could add to speciation (doesn't have to be by isolation of populations which is called allopatric speciation) and it's a hot topic still being studied by evolutionary scientist.

Feel free to ask if there's anything else you'd like to know.

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Something Completely Different

Darkest Hour

that makes sense. Thanks.

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Scarlett O'Hara

Yeah I don't think this topic is even worth arguing, no one is going to change their mind (unless they actually realise which side they truely belong on, which is rare).

Go the teen bible! I have one from primary school that I still use. It's got random artwork in it that's a bit childish but the content itself is pretty standard.

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Zer0

I cant believe someone actually posted that

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SATCHMO

It's really sad that any of this has anything to do with religion.

Maybe we could talk about the scientific probability of the hand of God scooping up some dirt and fashioning a man out of it?

sleepy jack

Tell that Florida!

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Whatsitoosit

I think it's a valid question when pondering this sorta stuff.

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"It takes 43 muscles to frown and 17 to smile,
but it doesn't take any to just sit there with a dumb look on your face."