wormhole’s posterous

Species in Transition
 
Evolution is called a theory. It is sometimes confusing for non-scientists to credit science for postulating theory precisely because non-scientists do not understand that a scientific theory is often better than facts. It is a postulate which is testable. It is a tried and true position, much better than a hypothesis. A theory is the same as fact and facts change as do theories when a better theory comes along, or in the case of non-scientific facts, when a better witness comes along.
 
  "Humans are members of the genus Homo. Modern people are Homo sapiens click this icon to hear the preceding term pronounced. However, we are not the only species of humans who have ever lived. There were earlier species of our genus that are now extinct. In the past, it was incorrectly assumed that human evolution was a relatively straight forward sequence of one species evolving into another. We now understand that there were times when several species of humans and even other hominins were alive. This complex pattern of evolution emerging from the fossil record has been aptly described as a luxuriantly branching bush on which all but one twig has died off. Modern humans are that last living twig." (Anthro.Palomar.Edu)
 
Science is considered to be only 400 years old. Before it became science it was philosophy. And this is indeed an exciting time. Fifty years after the acceptance of radio and discovery of amplitude modulation, soon to somewhat co-exist with other more improved forms of modulation, but preceding any thought of solid state electronics, I discovered radio and became a ham operator. That was actually slightly above the cusp because radio really came into it's own during WWII. Most science is perfected during war. But it was still the most exciting time of my life to be involved with radio and computers when they were just starting. However today is almost terrifyingly advanced; to the point of even discussing the Singularity and what kind of future we will have, a great one, or Dystopian because our brains can't keep up with our technology.
 
Science now includes disciplines not even imagined when I was a youngster building radios and computers out of tubes and wires on breadboards. Today the microscopes; something I always wanted but never got, can see beyond the glare and blinding light from our sun. We can see in ranges beyond just the visible range we at one time thought was the only frequencies which mattered. Today we can calculate space and time. In this lifetime we perfected methodology for calculating the speed of expansion of our universe and the age. We have telescopes that are millions of miles apart connected by lasers which measure the beginnings of the universe and we know it all began (in this universe) 13.7 billion years ago.
 
We have new science, which is rapidly becoming old science, i.e. astronomy, biomedicine, genomics, and physiological psychology, among others. And incredibly we still have charlatans who are pushing silly pseudosciences and some who still believe in the supernatural and a flat earth.
 
It hasn't been so long that we have know evolution is not about survival but really all about reproduction; survival only being secondary to it but not essential for it. Evolution is specifically about reproduction.
 
Survival is evolutionary because it contributes to reproduction and fitness doesn't determine evolution but natural selection is the result of how fit something is; how successful organisms are at promoting their genes.
 
"...fitness leads to the important prediction that natural selection favoring a particular type should result in a larger proportion of that type in future populations. This prediction has been repeatedly tested and confirmed." (David Barash, Natural Selections, 2008)
We Are Human Apes
 
Scientist Matt Ridley suggests that "whatever the mechanism, we can guess that our ancestors were a small isolated band, while those of the chimpanzees were the main race. We can guess this because we know from the genes that human beings went through a much tighter geneitc bottleneck (i.e. a small population size) than chimpanzees ever did: there is much less random variability in the human genome than the chimp genome. (Also see A. Rogers and R.B. Jorde (95) Genetic Evidence and Modern Human Origins, Human Biology 67: 1-36). Matt Ridley's book is Genome, the Autobiography of a Species in 23 chapters (2000) - corresponding to 23 pairs of chromozomes.
 
He writes: "So let us picture this isolated group of animals on an island, real or virtual. Becoming inbred, flirting with extinction, exposed to the forces of the genetic founder effect (by which small populations can have large genetic changes thanks to chance), this little band of (not quiet yet human) apes shares a large mutation: two of their chromosomes have become fused. (Chimps have 24 pairs of chromosomes and Homo sapiens have 23. Ridley suggests that two of them fused to make the 23) Henceforth they can breed only with their own kind, even when the `island' rejoins the `mainland'. Huybrids between them and their mainland cousins are infertile.
 
He says there are other changes now. The "shape of the skeleton has changed to allow an upright posture and a bipedal method of walking, which is well suited to long distances in even terrain; the knuckle-walking of other apes is better suited to shorter distances over roughter terrain. The skin has changed, too. It is becoming less hairy and, usually for an ape, it sweats profusely in the heat. These features, together with a mat of hair to shade the head and a radiator-shunt of veins in the scalp, suggest hat our ancestors were no longer in a cloudy and shaded forest; they were walking in the open, in the hot equatorial sun.
 
These changes occurred millions of years ago. "In due time, human beings would turn dramatically carnivorous. A whole new species of ape-man, indeed several species, would appear before that, descendants of laetoli-like creatures (We have Laetoli fossilised footprints which tell their own tale of our ancestors walking upright in the AFrican plains), but not ancestors of people, and propably dedicated vetetarians. They are called the robust australopithecines.
 
Australopithecines were dead ends. Their genes are of no help to us. But now that we have only recently learned to read our genes we know of our cousinship with our other ancestor, the chimpanzee and we are still evolving but as with 99% of all the rest of the species that ever lived have become extinct we may also become a dead end like the australopithecines and other relations which preceeded us. With an enlarged brain will we become smart enough to learn to live with our environment and with others? If the brain just keeps getting bigger and bigger is it any consolation that so many still believe in myths and so many are so selfish that they cannot understand there are limited resources and if we don't conserve there will be no future for those like us and those like our nearest cousins, the chimpanzees, who are only now estimated to be 120,000 in the wild because of their interaction with us? What right do we have to destroy everything we touch?
 
Charles Darwin acknowledged that species distinctions are not truly boundaries but merely categories of convenience. CHARLES DARWIN, ORIGIN OF SPECIES 98 (1859). Darwin wrote, "It is immaterial for us whether a multitude of doubtful forms be called species or sub-species or varieties....The mere existence of individual variability and of some few well-marked varieties, though a necessary foundation of the work, helps us but little in understanding how species arise in nature." Id. By 1872, Darwin had shown by detailed observations that the expression of emotions in nonhuman primates is closely analogous to that in human beings. See generally CHARLES DARWIN, THE EXPRESSION OF THE EMOTIONS IN MAN (sic) AND ANIMALS (3d ed. 1998).
 
Nonhuman apes meet the generally accepted criteria for personhood. Their enslavement is capricious and arbitrary under an enlightened and coherent reading of national and international law. GRASP's mission is to expand the modern legal understanding of fundamental rights to life, physical integrity, land and freedom, so that the concept of fundamental liberty rights will transcend human-racism.
 
Natural selection doesn't create. It is a negative process. Those not fit fail over time in preference to those who are more fit to reproduce.
 
In spite of a much debated assumption that human evolution has finished due to human ability to change the environment more efficiently than the evolutionary process of adapting to it, besides the greater amount of time it takes to change a phenotype. Descent with modification just doesn't work as well as human ingenuity. But we are indeed still evolving. We, like all other species are transitional. And, humans may actually be evolving faster than we scientists assumed according to a recent study which suggests that evolution has actually accelerated.
 
About 200,000 years ago humans were anatomically modern and the evidence is found in the fossil record.
 
"The origin of modern humans was a minor event compared to more recent evolutionary changes, wrote the authors of the research, in a presentation slated for Friday in Philadelphia at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists." (Gregory Cochran of the U of Utah and anthropologist John Hawks of the U of Wisc-Madison, Transitional Species: Radically Reappraised - March 26, 2007 - World Science Net - http://www.world-science.net)
 
"The proposal is truly fascinating, wrote University of Chicago geneticist Bruce Lahn in an email. He wasnt involved in the work, though he did conduct earlier research finding that evolution may still be ongoing in the brain." (ibid)
 
"Even before the Hawks-Cochran study and its immediate forerunners, Lahn wrote, scientists had already noted a trend of accelerating change in the evolutionary lineage leading to modern humans from ape-like ancestors. But that phenomenon seemed to have occurred over time spans measured in millions of years; it was far from clear that it has continued in the recent past or today, he added." (ibid)
 
"Hawks and Cochran, by contrast, argue that the trend is visible even in the last tens of thousands of years, Lahn wrote. It runs counter to the feeling in some quarters that the evolution of the human phenotype has slowed down or even stopped in our recent past." (ibid)
 
"Evolution occurs when an individual acquires a beneficial genetic mutation, and it spreads throughout the population because those with it thrive and reproduce more. Ceaseless repetitions of this can change species, or produce new ones. As beneficial genes spread, harmful ones are weeded out; the whole process, called natural selection, propels evolution." (ibid)
 
"...Hominids are a family of primates that includes humans and their extinct, more ape-like though upright-walking ancestors and relatives." (ibid)
 
"Anthropologist Jeffrey McKee of Ohio State University said the new findings of accelerated evolution bear out predictions he made in a 2000 book The Riddled Chain. Based on computer models, he argued that evolution should speed up as a population grows. This is because population growth creates more opportunities for new mutations; also, the expanded population occupies new environmental niches, which would drive evolution in new directions." (ibid)
 
They go on to write that the generation of genes which were selected, the positive genes have increased a hundred fold over the last 40,000 years. They say the most obvious physical change has been the size of the brain. Some of you may find these conclusions worrisome; perhaps enough to turn off MTV and other television programs that your kids are watching (grin) because we have known for some time now that brain size has actually been getting smaller - but not to worry about television (I was kidding). This reduction in size has been ongoing for the last 20-30,000 years. Neanderthals had bigger brains and we all know what happened to them. We just don't know how it happened to them.
 
It is also possible that some areas of the brain increased in size as the over-all size decreased in size and perhaps those areas which increased in size were for more advanced uses - or what made us more human; that is, what we are now. (is that good or bad?) Foreheads have gotten higher and there is some speculation that as the jaw and teeth changed so did brain size.
 
With the introduction of agriculture about 10,000-15,000 years ago, diet changed and consequently so did teeth and brain size and health. Agriculture decreased dietary diversity. When our ancestors were hunter gatherers and they scrounged for every bit of food they also had more diversity which meant a greater variety of vitamins, of nutrients. Remember some vitamins humans must obtain elsewhere; they cannot make them internally. With the advent of agriculture while food was more accessible, it was also more limited, and nutritional deficience increased. The result was a change in phenotype. Our ancestors lost on average 6 inches.
 
(Children subjected to nutritional deficiences will suffer physical deformities and stunted growth)
 
With agriculture also came more infectious diseases. These are not the diseases of aging. Those didn't change. People still were inflicted with genetic diseases in the same frequency, i.e. Down syndrome, degenerative genetic diseases, atherosclerosis, cancer, heart disease, cystic fibrosis, other gene related neurological disease, etc.
 
But other infectious type diseases increased and were responsible for early death. These were senescent diseases like smallpox, measles, tuberculosis, pneumonia, cholera, plagues, flu and other viruses; none of which are the diseases of aging. These diseases increased with agriculture and with development of permanent settlements; villages, towns and cities.
 
Until antibiotics became available in the 1940s, infectious diseases were the greatest cause of death. More people died from infectious diseases than die from cancer, heart attacks or stokes, which are the big killers today.
 
And because we change our environment this in itself can put more pressure on evolutionary change. There were already metabolic alterations due to agriculture and there is every reason to believe there will be physical changes due to changes we have made to our environment.
 
Though they may not be yet fast enough to save us from climate change. While climate changes naturally, human activity has speeded up the process it appears faster than we and other species can adapt to those changes.
 
Evolution has contributed to our shrinkage, both our stature and our brains, to physically becoming weaker and a reduction in tooth size. While some animals have domesticated themselves; dogs being the best example, humans also have domesticated themselves and have become weak; perhaps less fit? There have been changes to our species phenotype and there is nothing progressive about evolution. We are modified to adapt to our environment to survive to reproduce. Nothing more.
Binominal Nomenclature
 
Taxonomy is the systematic means for the hierarchical system for classifying and identifying life established by Swedish scientist Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778). It was Linnaeus who developed the binomial nomenclature, the 2-part naming scheme - a generic and a specific name in Latin. An example is Homo sapiens or for the domestic dog it is Canis familiaris. The first name is the Genus and the second name is the Species which is within that Genus. Working back there is the Order. There are different Families in the order. As examples Cats is in the family Felidae and Dogs are in the family Canidae and both are in the order Carnivora. Carnivora includes 10 families of living mammals. There are nearly 5000 mammal species.
 
All of the mammals share three characteristics which are not found in other animals. They are three middle ear bones, hair, and lactation; the production of milk by modified sweat glands called mammary glands.
 
The middle ear bones in mammals are the malleus, incus (evolved from bones in lower jaw of ancestors of mammals), and stapes - (commonly referred to as the hammer, anvil, and the stirrup) and they function in the transmission of vibrations from the tympanic membrane (the eardrum) to the inner ear.
 
Ten families of the Order Carnivora:
 
  * Canidae (dogs, wolves, jackals, and foxes),
  * Ursidae (bears),
  * Procyonidae (raccoons),
  * Mustelidae (skunks, mink, weasels, badgers, and otters),
  * Viverridae (civets and mongooses),
  * Hyaenidae (hyenas),
  * Felidae (cats),
  * Otariidae (eared seals),
  * Odobenidae (walrus), and
  * Phocidae (earless seals)
 
And the Carnivora are in their turn members of the Class Mammalia. The Class Mammalia includes about 5000 species placed in 26 orders. Mammals comes under the Phylum Chordata in the Sub-Phylum Vertebrata, which in turn is part of the Kingdom Animalia.
 
Note: There are Sub-phyla and Sub-Species, etc.
 
The species is the basic unit of evolution - It is a population and evolution takes place in populations, not individuals. Lemarck advanced the mistaken view that evolution takes place in individuals and character traits were a product of inheritance. Lemarchian logic was wrong. It is the species (population) which is the BASIC unit of evolution, within which there is a gene pool which is subjected to random mutation and intentional natural selection. Natural selection is determined; that is, it is DESIGNED not by a supernatural designer, but by a criteria of "fitness" for reproduction.
 
The evolutionary history of the species is phylogeny. Phylogenies based on molecular evidence is revising the understanding of many groups.
The Reptilian Brain
 
The brain stem or ganglia, the nerve center of the brain (located at the base of the skull emerging from the spinal column) is often compared to a reptilian brain. It is the oldest and it is the smallest section in the brain and it evolved hundreds of millions of years ago. The brain stem is very much like the ENTIRE brain in modern day reptiles.
 
About 200 million years ago it was all there was and it controls various life function, i.e. autonomic brain activity such as breathing and heart rate. It's impulses are said to be instinctual. It is basic and it provided for basic fundamental needs to-wit: survival functions, i.e., physical maintenance, hoarding, preening, dominance, mating. It is also found in lower life forms such as lizards, crocodiles and birds.
 
"Let others rhapsodize about the elegant design and astounding complexity of the human brain the most complicated, most sophisticated entity in the known universe, as they say. David Linden, a professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, doesn't see it that way. To him, the brain is a "cobbled-together mess." Impressive in function, sure. But in its design the brain is "quirky, inefficient and bizarre ... a weird agglomeration of ad hoc solutions that have accumulated throughout millions of years of evolutionary history," he argues in his new book, "The Accidental Mind," from Harvard University Press. More than another salvo in the battle over whether biological structures are the products of supernatural design or biological evolution (though Linden has no doubt it's the latter), research on our brains primitive foundation is cracking such puzzles as why we cannot tickle ourselves, why we are driven to spin narratives even in our dreams and why reptilian traits persist in our gray matter. (Prof David Linden, In Our Messy, Reptilian Brains MSNBC - April 9, 2007)
 
"Just as the mouse brain is a lizard brain "with some extra stuff thrown on top," Linden writes, the human brain is essentially a mouse brain with extra toppings. That's how we wound up with two vision systems. In amphibians, signals from the eye are processed in a region called the midbrain, which, for instance, guides a frog's tongue to insects in midair and enables us to duck as an errant fastball bears down on us. Our kludgy brain retains this primitive visual structure even though most signals from the eye are processed in the visual cortex, a newer addition. If the latter is damaged, patients typically say they cannot see a thing. Yet if asked to reach for an object, many of them can grab it on the first try. And if asked to judge the emotional expression on a face, they get it right more often than chance would predict especially if that expression is anger." (ibid)
 
"Neurons have hardly changed from those of prehistoric jellyfish. "Slow, leaky, unreliable," as Linden calls them, they tend to drop the ball: at connections between neurons, signals have a 70 percent chance of sputtering out. To make sure enough signals do get through, the brain needs to be massively interconnected, its 100 billion neurons forming an estimated 500 trillion synapses. This interconnectedness is far too great for our paltry 23,000 or so genes to specify. The developing brain therefore finishes its wiring out in the world (if they didn't, a baby's head wouldn't fit through the birth canal)." (ibid)
How smart are animals?
 
OR, can we really know when we judge them anthromorphically?
 
In Vancouver a duck tugged at the pants of a policeman. She kept tugging at his pants then she waddled to a sewer drain. The cop followed her and much to his surprise trapped there below the street were her ducklings.
 
And in Scotland a park warden answered his phone. On the other end was heavy breathing of a chimpanzee. The chimp stole the phone and he punched the programmed numbers until someone answered. Not sure what he wanted other than to mimic others with cell phones, but the point is, he did know enough to make it work.
 
If you live with animals, as I do; not just including my wife and kids, you know there is intelligence behind their eyes. Animals are smart and they do think. Of course they don't think like us; they don't have language like we do, but they can tell us a lot if we just listen. My dogs can tell me when they want to go outside and when they want to go for a walk. They tell me when they want me to play with them. They're smart.
 
And in some ways they may be smarter than I am. They can certainly do better at hearing, at smelling, at seeing. And they know when they don't want to eat something and when they do. They know how to get the toys they like to play with and ignore the others. They can and do tell me when we leave one of them outside. They can also be jealous when we treat one differently than the rest.
 
They even have their favorite television programs. Some things they like to watch and other things they refuse to let us watch and when my wife leaves the house, one of our dogs will bark and scratch and make a fuss until we either let her go with my wife and she always wants to sleep in the same bed with my wife. One of our other dogs only sleeps with me and one of them sleeps in my son's bed. Our biggest (and youngest dog), who also happens to be the biggest is usually annoyed and shows it when the others have our attention and he gets segregated at night.
 
As for self-recognition, Bottlenose dolphins and chimpanzees do recognize themselves in mirrors. This would indicate an awareness of themselves as individuals. Zoologists will tell you that humans, apes and dolphins have that capability. Tell me that isn't intelligence.
 
And new research also shows that dogs do have descriptive language and can tell each other when there are predators near by. They can tell me when my wife is driving the care and is a few miles away and almost home, even when there is a lot of traffic on the road. How they do that is absolutely amazing.
 
Marc Houser, the Harvard ethologist wrote: "We share the planet with thinking animals." We can't use the standards by which we measure ourselves. Many animals have other skills which we can't even imagine having and these are attributes to them or to any of us if we were just half as smart as they are in those ways. They can solve problems for them we can't do for ourselves. These are skills they evolved to survive to reproduce. They can hear distance, see other wave lengths which we can't see and just because we can't doesn't mean we're stupid and they are just smarter. Or, does it? [grin]
 
We share 98% of our genes with chimps and between 70-80% with dogs. But what about emotions? We haven't even yet been able to figure out how to measure emotions. We don't know if they are more sensitive than we are. Perhaps they are?
Aging and Your Mitochondria
 
There are about 300 theories for aging. While no one of them appears to be definitive biologists have a pretty good idea what leads to the deterioration we call senescence. A one time mating and suicide, called semelparity is common to several animals species. Males live to copulate and as soon as they finish that prime directive for their species to reproduce they simply (or not so simply) die. It has been referred to as programmed aging because the view is a genetic plan regulates functions like a computer program with one inescapable genetically determined step by step process of birth through puberty through reproduction through death.
 
  * Pacific salmon are semelparious and soon die after mating. Atlantic salmon are not and can breed repeatedly. Plants are either semiannual or annual. The males of small marsupials die from an abrupt immune system failure soon after mating season.
 
At the cellular level, cells divide a number of times and then stop forever. This is referred to as the Hayflick Limit.
 
"Some recent research...suggests that limited cell division may inhibit healing in arterial regions that have been damaged by being bombarded with blood. Also our immune system needs rapid, plentiful cell division to operated effectively, so limited division potential may be involved in the reduced immunity of the elderly...." (Steven N. Austad, Why We Age 97)
 
There is the suggesting that mitochondria, the power plant where ATP is manufactured for organs and muscles is a "driving force in aging."
 
From Serge Jurasunas, Mitochondria and cancer - Townsend Letter: The Examiner of Alternative Medicine - August 1, 2006:
 
"The name mitochondrion comes from the Greek mitos (filaments) and kondros (grain). Mitochondria are small sub-cellular organelles of 0.5-20 [micro] in length, either filamentous or oval, found in all aerobic (eukaryotic) mammalian cells. (1) Mitochondria are often referred to as the powerhouse of the body, since cells have a vital need for energy and are dependent on mitochondria to utilize oxygen to generate high amounts of energy. In contrast, mitochondria of cancer cells are defective in their ability to utilize oxygen. (2) Moreover, recent evidence and experimental studies have defined new and unexpected functions of mitochondria in the regulation of the genome."
 
"Increasingly, researchers are focusing on the possibility that this tiny element of a cell may be a factor in failing memory, increasing weakness, thinning hair, and other symptoms of aging." (Alice Dembner - Boston Globe Staff, Nov 2, 2004 - "Aging: Is it a Power Failure? Researchers Explore the Role of Mitochondria)
 
Mitochondria is where cellular respiration takes place and during the photon pump process of turning oxygen to fuel there is free radical leakage. These free radicals are harmful and it is thought they may be causal for why there is an eventual breakdown in the body's machinery.
 
"Potentially harmful changes in mitochondria also have been discovered in age-related diseases, such as Alzheimer's, diabetes and the muscle-wasting condition called sarcopenia." (ibid)
 
"In addition, researchers are identifying natural changes in mitochondria that may promote longevity and protect against some diseases. For instance, scientists have discovered a particular mutation in mitochondrial DNA that occurs five times more frequently in centenarians than in younger individuals. Other researchers have identified segments of the world's population with mutations in their mitochondrial DNA that appear linked to both longer life and protection against Alzheimer's." (ibid)
 
"Mitochondria, present in every cell of the body except red blood cells, are believed to have derived from bacteria that invaded more complex cells billions of years ago, bringing their own genetic code. They transform fat, sugar and oxygen into energy that can be used by the body. As a byproduct, they create free radicals, destructive oxygen molecules that can damage the mitochondria genes as well as the surrounding cells." (ibid)
 
Scientists are increasingly finding linkages to aging and senescence by changes in mitochondria.
 
"For example, scientists at Yale University reported in Science magazine last month that they had found a mutation in mitochondrial DNA that caused high blood pressure, high cholesterol and low magnesium levels in four generations of an extended family. The work follows a study last year that linked a 40 percent decline in mitochondrial function in adults over 60 to insulin resistance, a major contributor to adult-onset diabetes. Since the symptoms of insulin resistance, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity often cluster in aging adults, researchers suggest there may be a common mitochondrial cause." (ibid)
 
"It is believed that defective tRNAs (transport RNAs) are the cause of about 60 percent of conditions traced to malfunctions in the mitochondria, like diabetes, hearing loss and a number of neurological disorders, depending on which kinds of cells are affected." (Hindustan Times, June 25, 2008 - "New role for mitochondria could lead to targeted therapies for various diseases")
 
"...Adenosine-5-triphosphate, or ATP, a compound associated with energy transport in cells, as essential for the process. The researchers showed ATP's role in the process using cells from a patient with a specific type of epilepsy called MERRF. This disease is characterized by a mitochondrial tRNA mutation leading to a drastic reduction in the mitochondria's ability to generate ATP, which in turn hinders the import of tRNAs into the mitochondria of people with this disease." (Hindustan Times)
 
We generally receive our mitochondria from our mothers but occasionally a few infrequently sneak in from our father's sperm. They have their own DNA and RNA; they don't reside in the nucleus. DNA is not wrapped in histone proteins as are DNA in the cell's nucleus. They are like bacteria; their chromosomes are circular like bacteria. Mitochondria were first discovered with microscopy as tiny granules and it has since been argued that these mitochondria are the fundamental particles of life (they have also been called bioplasts). Mitochondria are only found in more complex eukaryote organisms.
 
Nick Lane in Power, Sex, Suicide writes "They are "sine qua non of the eukaryotic condition...The acquisition of mitochondria was the pivotal moment in the history of life." (Lane)
The Sense of Biology is Evolution
 
Biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky put it best when he said, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."
 
The group of Haplorrhinae which we are identified with is the Catarrhines (Catarrhinae) which include our species and the Platyrrhine which are the American monkeys and both are usually grouped together in a common category; the anthropoids apes (Anthropoidea) - often referred to as anthropoids.
 
Both of these groups are diurnal - except the South American owl money (Aotus trivirgatus) which descended from diurnal ancestors but now appears to be nocturnal.
 
A prominent feature of anthropoids is their frontal positioning for their eyes which provides a wide field of vision which is stereoscopic (3-D).
 
Our three dimensional vision enables us to gauge distances, without which we would not have such good basketball players and nobody could catch a football very well and I couldn't get that wadded up paper into the trash can - the the alternative would be a very messy office. (more than it already is)
 
Anthropoids also have larger brains and in our case a newborn is born to a large degree undeveloped and must get through the pelvic bone before the brain grows to it's normal large size. Our olfactory lobes are reduced and we perceive the world essentially as images rather than odors. My dog has a big advantage over me in that regard. But while my vision is limited to light frequencies I do see better than they do during the day, but not better at night since the see things twice - entering their eye and as light reflected off their retina and back out (notice how dog and cat eyes seem to light up at night).
 
There is also an absence of the third molar in adult in Homo sapiens because there is less need for us to have this masticatory molar. Our species is classified with hominoids. Old World monkeys are a subgroup called Cercopithecidae. The hominoid group includes the primates referred to as apes. We're APES.
 
It isn't just theory that we're APES. Desmond Morris referred to us as the Naked Apes (in his book years ago) and the book which inspired me to keep current since we were really on the cusp of awareness back then in the 70s when I read the book to the great increase in understanding we have today.
 
There has been attempts to classify evolution as mere speculation, as was done in Cobb County in Georgia when they tried to put stickers on their high school biology textbooks which stated: "
 
"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a Fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."
 
It didn't pass the legal test and in a legal action, Selman v. Cobb County School District on January 13, 2005, the federal judge found the Cobb County policy to be unconstitutional.
 
Science uses the word theory for tested (challenged) facts whereas the popular use of the word refers to unsubstantiated information; even a guess. It is no guess that Evolution is fact based and supported by all variety of evidence. It is as well supported a fact as gravitation and other models explaining elements of physics and chemistry, etc. In biology there is no competing theory which does as good a job as the Theory of Evolution.
 
Hank Roth
Suggested Reading:
 
  1. Cavalier, Smith T. The origin of eukaryotic and archaebacterial cells.
  Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1987;503: 17.
  2. Warburg O. Metabolism of Tumors. London: Arnold Constable, 1939.
  3. GRASP - (Great Apes Survivor Partnership) - www.unep.org/grasp/
 
 
All quoting per the Fair Use Doctrine
for educational and discussion purposes pursuant to
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, Copyright Law.
 
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