New Link in Human Ancestry Chain - Polidicks

Really, some people don't know that the human ape distinction is scientifically arbitrary and based off of tradition rather than theory? ....auto merge? [editline]15th April 2013[/editline] Give me a good reason why humans aren't great apes. What are we then? Why? Why does that exception only apply to us?

Chimpanzee-like foot? I wish I had opposable toes so badly...

[QUOTE=Appellation;40285339]Humans are apes... [editline]14th April 2013[/editline] Which makes the title of the movie "The Planet of The Apes" seem rather silly.[/QUOTE] We're as much Apes as you are your great grandfather.

[QUOTE=Flyingman356;40287583]We're as much Apes as you are your great grandfather.[/QUOTE] No. We're apes. And even if I were wrong, that is a poor figurative choice. A better one would be "as you are your cousin." Or "as you are your brother."

[QUOTE=Appellation;40287682]No. We're apes. And even if I were wrong, that is a poor figurative choice. A better one would be "as you are your cousin." Or "as you are your brother."[/QUOTE] No, it's more like 5,000,000th cousin 50 times removed.

[QUOTE=Flyingman356;40287819]No, it's more like 5,000,000th cousin 50 times removed.[/QUOTE] Figuratively? Or are you confused? [editline]15th April 2013[/editline] [QUOTE]To try to resolve the hominine trichotomy, some authors proposed the division of the subfamily Homininae into the tribes Gorillini (African "apes") and Hominini (humans). However, DNA comparisons provide convincing evidence that within the subfamily Homininae, gorillas are the outgroup. This suggests that chimpanzees should be in Hominini along with humans. This classification was first proposed (though one rank lower) by M. Goodman et al. in 1990.[2] See Human evolutionary genetics for more information on the speciation of humans and "great apes".[/QUOTE] [editline]15th April 2013[/editline] [QUOTE]Until about 1960, the hominoids were usually divided into two families: humans and their extinct relatives in Hominidae, all other hominoids in Pongidae.[17][/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Flyingman356;40287819]No, it's more like 5,000,000th cousin 50 times removed.[/QUOTE] It's more like other unnecessarily silly numbers that make me look like a buffoon who doesn't know what the scientific definition of "ape" is. If you want to start disputing whether or not we're apes, you might as well start disputing whether or not we're mammals, or whether or not we're vertebrates.

[QUOTE]There has been a gradual demotion of humans from a special position in the taxonomy to being one branch among many. This history illustrates the growing influence of [B]cladistics[/B] (the science of classifying living things by strict descent) on taxonomy.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Scoooooby;40284979]doesn't this just like, prove evolution and everything is done and nobody can debate ever again.[/QUOTE] No, not at all, there's now [I]two[/I] missing links either side of this one, evolution is twice as wrong.

Note: This is from a different but similar argument [QUOTE]Accordingly, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in the first edition of his Manual of Natural History (1779), proposed that the primates be divided into the Quadrumana (four-handed, i.e. apes and monkeys) and Bimana (two-handed, i.e. humans). This distinction was taken up by other naturalists, most notably Georges Cuvier. Some elevated the distinction to the level of order. However, the many affinities between humans and other primates — and especially the "great apes" — made it clear that the distinction made no scientific sense. [B]Charles Darwin[/B] wrote, in The Descent of Man: The greater number of naturalists who have taken into consideration the whole structure of man, including his mental faculties, have followed Blumenbach and Cuvier, and have placed man in a separate Order, under the title of the Bimana, and therefore on an equality with the orders of the Quadrumana, Carnivora, etc. Recently many of our best naturalists have recurred to the view first propounded by Linnaeus, so remarkable for his sagacity, and have placed man in the same Order with the Quadrumana, under the title of the Primates. The justice of this conclusion will be admitted: for in the first place, we must bear in mind the comparative insignificance for classification of the great development of the brain in man, and that the strongly marked differences between the skulls of man and the Quadrumana (lately insisted upon by Bischoff, Aeby, and others) apparently follow from their differently developed brains. In the second place, we must remember that nearly all the other and more important differences between man and the Quadrumana are manifestly adaptive in their nature, and relate chiefly to the erect position of man; such as the structure of his hand, foot, and pelvis, the curvature of his spine, and the position of his head.[16][/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Meatpuppet;40285413]humans are not apes[/QUOTE] Humans are genetically modified apes.

[QUOTE=Appellation;40287829]Figuratively? Or are you confused? [editline]15th April 2013[/editline] [editline]15th April 2013[/editline][/QUOTE] Yeah figuratively.